By Patrick Gunn:
The New York Yankees have officially opened camp. Spring Training has started, pitchers, catchers, and a lot of other position players are prepping for a new season of Yankees baseball. And the Yankees have a lot of new faces in camp, from non-roster invites like Jeter Downs and Oscar González to big-names acquired in trades like Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo, and even a free agent or two like Marcus Stroman.
The Yankees have tried to make changes so that 2024 will not be like 2023. E.J. and I talked about some possible storylines heading into camp earlier this week. Here’s where I stand going into camp right now:
It would have been nice for the Yankees to sign another starter this offseason - and hey, Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery are still available. I do respect the Yankees showing respect for Clarke Schmidt’s performance last season, but they will need him to pitch more like he did from May to September than he did in April. Still, a lot of this season relies on Carlos Rodón and Nestor Cortes Jr. staying healthy and pitching well. Even both of them throwing 5-6 innings a start with a modest ERA (3.50 ish?) would be enough.
E.J. brought up one potential position battle to watch out for this spring: catcher. The Yankees have five catchers on the 40-man roster right now. For the sake of argument, I’d say that Jose Trevino is the only one guaranteed a spot on the Yankees’ Opening Day roster given his closeness to the pitching staff and how well he played in 2022 when healthy. I think Austin Wells will join him; yes, he has concerns at catcher, but nothing he did in his 2023 September call-up looked awful. Also, he might be the Bombers’ best hitter amongst their catchers on the 40-man. If anything, he can be a solid platoon bat with Trevino, and Ben Rortvedt has never hit at the Major League level. The Yankees need to see what they have in Wells and I think he should be ready to try.
I do wonder what the Yankees’ infield depth will look like. They focused their offseason on changing the outfield beyond Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton - which they needed to do. Those two plus Soto, Verdugo, and Trent Grisham plus eventually Jasson Dominguez and Everson Pereira waiting in the wings is a stronger group than last year. But, was the infield unit strong enough to run it back? I can understand the theory - Gleyber Torres was one of the better-hitting second basemen in the American League last year, Anthony Volpe in a rough offensive season still hit 20 home runs and stole 20 bases as a rookie who barely played at AAA, D.J. LeMahieu improved in the second half (.803 OPS, although much of that came from a stellar August where he was at .898), and Anthony Rizzo raked before his concussion. Still, the Yankees have a lot of ifs at the corners in particular (I’m willing to give Torres and Volpe the benefit of the doubt), and behind them, you have Oswaldo Cabrera who hit very poorly last year and Oswald Peraza, a fantastic fielder who hasn’t hit in his limited playing time (namely because the Yankees haven’t given him many extended runs). Granted, I think Cabrera can be a better MLB hitter than what he showed last year and he can play everywhere, but I think the Yankees would be smart to look for more infielders, even a reunion with Gio Urshela (which I wrote about last week) could help in case LeMahieu or Rizzo get hurt or struggle. This is a win-now, all-in group, the Yankees need to have quality depth.
So this may be a good opportunity to look at the Montas deal. The Yankees got Lou Trivino (0.7 WAR) and Montas (-0.6), a net of 0.1 WAR. They gave up J.P. Sears (2.8 WAR), Ken Waldichuk (0.1), and Luis Medina (-0.1). So the Yankees lost 2.7 net WAR on the transaction, plus 5 more years of team control over Sears. I said at the time that I'd rather have Sears than Montas, and I think I was right.
Unfortunately, Jose Trevino has suffered a strained calf. They are saying he "should be ready by the end of camp". So that means Austin Wells is now going to see a lot more playing time as the Yankee catcher in Spring Training, so he now has an excellent chance now of earning the top spot as the Yankee catcher. So he definitely won't be overlooked now.
Oswald Peraza definitely should not be traded. He is extremely valuable because if DJ has to go on the Injured List, Peraza becomes the every day 3B. If Gleyber goes on the Injured List, Peraza becomes the every day 2B...or.....Volpe could move to 2B with Peraza going to SS (better defense that way!). …
I appreciate the article from Patrick and I for one an thankful that we're all talking about baseball today! It's hard to believe that Pitchers & Catchers are underway already. The offseason didn't exactly fly by. Every day from January on felt like a real, slow, frozen slog. I'm not in love with the roster as curretnly contstructed, but here are a few random thoughts.
Austin Wells may be the one player on the roster who is mostly being completely overlooked. If his bat continues to play, he may become more than a platoon catcher. Who knows what will happen with Stanton? If he's right, then cool - sign me up. But if Big G continues on like a cooked…
Several other things that are off-putting about Alan B's comments:
His continual use of "I and me..." Mr. B, you are a not-well-connected outside observer...using "I and me" is inappropriate...show some humility.
Mr. B is apparently the only one this side of Mars who believes Rodon's disrespect to his pitching coach for all to see is really the pitching coach's fault, a position which he has beaten the drum for in a rather large number of posts, often with little discernable relationship to what he was commenting on. Give it a rest, Mr. B.
It is a sign of both maturity and a willingness to treat others with respect to make the relatively minor effort to spell peoples' names correctly.…
Infield depth is fine with what they currently have on roster.