The Yankee Injury Bug (2021): Miguel Andujar (Hand)

SSTN Admin
Mar 17, 2021
3 min read

In what we hope doesn’t become a long-running series, the “Yankees Injury Bug (2021)” comes back at you with some updates on Miguel Andujar who is currently out while dealing with a muscle strain and a nerve issue in his hand.

Tweets:

Really, Andújar’s value to the Yankees heading into the season was in providing third base depth, though it would have been hard to find him a spot on the 26-man to start the season. Hand issue is a rough situation atop a rough situation for him, obviously. — Lindsey Adler (@lindseyadler) March 14, 2021

Miguel Andjuar is dealing w/ a muscle strain in his hand, a little bit of a nerve issue, too, Boone says. Going to continue treatment. #Yankees Robinson Chirinos (fractured wrist) will have surgery tomorrow and could miss 4-6 weeks. — Brendan Kuty (@BrendanKutyNJ) March 15, 2021

The Injury (and Playing) History of Miguel Andujar:

Since making a 5 game stint at the end of 2017, Miguel Andujar has played in 47.3% of MLB games (182 total) of which 81.8% (or 149) of those games came in 2018. Needless to say, there must be a reason for his missing so much time.

One of the big reasons is due to his 2019 right labrum tear that he experienced after sliding head-first into third base in an mid-May game against the Orioles. (Video Below) This sent him to the 60-Day IL and ultimately ended his season. (This also set the stage for Gio Urshela to have his breakout as Andujar’s replacement.) Andujar played just 12 games that season.

With his return being a main talking point going into 2020, the Yankees were also careful with his play, sending him between the MLB team and “Alternate Training Site” 4 different times with does not include sending him down to the minors in late-September and recalling him again in October. Andujar played just 21 games (18 starts) last season.

How Did We Get Here?

There is no clear play or moment to look at to diagnose when Andujar’s current muscle strain and nerve damage in his hand began. He is on record saying that he sustained some pain in the region during his time with the Toros del Este of the Caribbean League, where he played during the winter.

Trying my best to identify if there is anything we can point to, and when looking at his stats with the Toros del Este, we can see Andujar played 10 games while hitting to a .300/.333/.400 triple-slash. However, what I was interested in looking at in hit-by-pitches registered as 0. That means we can likely rule this out coming from an at-bat and was likely sustained in the field or during training.

All that aside, Marly Rivera posted an update on Andujar from earlier today where he indicated that he has resumed taking ground balls, but does not look scheduled to bat soon. (Tweet here with a hint at tomorrow’s post)

How Does This Effect the Yankees?

Luckily, it seems as though the immediate reports from and about Miguel Andujar point to this not being a super serious injury that will keep Andujar from the game long. While no timetable for batting may be a bit concerning, I don’t feel the same way.

The reasons why a that there was a low shot that Andujar, who has minor league options remaining, was going to break camp with the MLB team. He definitely could’ve used more time regardless of this injury to rebuild his game and rebuild value to the Yankees. On top of the “competition” with Gio Urshela for the third base spot, Andujar was also up “against” Giancarlo Stanton for DH reps, as well as Jay Bruce, Mike Tauchman, and Derek Dietrich for those remaining bench spots. He had the deck stacked against him from the start.

Hopefully, Andujar can get better and can regain his 2018 form where all he did was hit doubles. That was not only incredible to watch, but it could help the Yankees at the trade deadline use him to deal for a pitcher. (Isn’t that what we all want anyway?)

Article By: Ethan Semendinger

Date Published: March 17th, 2021