Gleyber Torres

New York Yankees: Andujar, Severino And The Youth Movement Continues

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New York Yankees, Miguel Andujar

The New York Yankees took three out of four from the Toronto Blue Jays over the weekend and won their first series since the beginning of the month against the Tampa Bay Rays.

The infield transformed into the infield fans were promised before spring training—Gleyber Torres made his major league debut at second base, finally joining fellow prospect and third baseman Miguel Andujar.

Luis Severino was the ace fans expected, negotiating trouble spots with ease, going seven innings and giving up three hits, one run, one home run (to Teoscar Hernandez) two walks and six strikeouts. He lowered his ERA to 2.32. Yankees manager Aaron Boone told MLB.com’s Danny Knobler:

“To get us through seven was huge,” Boone said. “That’s what an ace looks like.”

Severino is now tied with Patrick Corbin, Rick Porcello, and Max Scherzer for the American League lead in wins with four.

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The story of this game was Andujar’s four hit day against Marcus Stroman and the Jays bullpen—scoring a pair of doubles and two infield singles on the day.

Andujar told Knobler after Sunday’s game:

“To me, it’s about getting an opportunity and doing your job,” Andujar said through an interpreter. “I’m getting a great opportunity.”

Andujar is not only getting opportunities and making the most of them at the plate, he’s begun doing so on a consistent basis. In the last six games, Andujar is hitting .308. He has gone 13-25 with seven doubles, a triple and two home runs.

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While Torres went 0-4 on the day, he looked comfortable in the field and no doubt will relax at the plate and get the bat going soon.

It was a game in which every Yankee player was under 30:

with Austin Romine being the oldest player in the game at 29. Yankee fans can look forward to the energy, elite skills and enthusiasm that this young team brings to the game every night.

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What’s next up? The Yankees meet the Minnesota Twins at the Stadium. RHP Masahiro Tanaka (2-2, 6.45 ERA) takes the mound against RHP Jake Odorizzi (1-1, 3.38 ERA).

New York Yankees: Is Gleyber Torres Next Up?

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New York Yankees, Gleyber Torres

In spring training, the young New York Yankee players, Miguel Andujar, Gleyber Torres and Tyler Wade competed with veterans, Ronald Torreyes, Brandon Drury and Neil Walker for spots on the infield.

The Yankees had the kids, Torres and Andujar, at second base and third base respectively during spring training, and neither was able to win a starting role due to their underwhelming performances, particularly at the plate.

How did they perform?

Although Torres’ struggles at the plate may have been due to the long lay off from the elbow injury he suffered in June, followed by Tommy John surgery, service issues as well appeared to dictate that he begin the season at Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre. Wade and Walker were slated to platoon at second base.

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Andujar was sent down as well in favor of Drury and his experience at the hot corner.

Then came the spate of injuries—Greg Bird with bone spur surgery on his ankle and Drury with migraines and blurred vision—and the best laid plans of spring training for the infield were disrupted.

Instead of Wade and Walker platooning at second base, it is now Walker and Tyler Austin platooning at first base.

Wade has struggled in a full-time role and has hit .094/.171/.156 in 11 games at second base. He has struggled so much, that utility infielder Ronald Torreyes, currently batting .429/.429/.500, started at second base on Friday night in Detroit. Though one might note that Wade has been the victim of the flu in the past week or so, he has also not produced when healthy.

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With the Drury illness, Andujar has been recalled from Triple-A to hold down third base; however, in eight games with the Yankees this season, Andujar is hitting just .156/.176/.250.

With Neil Walker also struggling at the plate, batting .188/.264./208 and sharing first base duties with Austin, who is batting .265/.359/.500 in 10 games, the Yankee infield (including Didi Gregorius, who is having a stellar start to the season batting .311) is batting a collective .240.

Illness, injury and early season struggles for Drury, Wade, Walker and Andujar have left fans calling for the Yankees to bring up Gleyber Torres.

In eight games in Triple-A this season, Torres is scalding the ball, hitting .387/.412/.548 in 31 at-bats. In the field with Scranton, Torres has split time between second and third base. If the Yankees wait until after April 18 to call Torres up to the big leagues, then they get another year of control regarding free agency.

Will the Yankees tap into the minor league system to solve its major league problems? Boone told George A King III of the New York Post regarding Torres:

“He is off to a good start, getting a lot of hits. I don’€™t think he is swinging great, necessarily,” Boone said. “Eventually, we feel like he will come up here and help us. We want him to come here when he is in a good place and contribute to the long haul instead of a short-term knee-jerk need.”

The question is where are the Yankees now as far as the infield is concerned? Is it a short-term situation, as Boone suggests, in which Drury can be expected to return sooner rather than later, Wade can be expected to begin hitting, and Walker can once again be effective at the plate?

Or is Torres, the number one prospect in the Yankee organization, ready to bring his elite skills to the big leagues and solve one of the Yankees pressing needs at second or third base?

It will be interesting to see which path the Yankees take after April 18 when Torres is able to come up to the big club. Will Yankee fans see Torres in his big league debut in the near future?

3 Keys to Success for the 2018 New York Yankees

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New York Yankees, Aaron Judge

Started From the Bottom Now We’re Here:

Prior to the start of the 2017 season the New York Yankees were a young team in unfamiliar territory; they were supposed to be rebuilding. A team on the verge of competition but not quite yet ready to contend. However, how wrong those “experts” were, the 2017 New York Yankees came within one game of reaching the World Series.

So we turn the page to the 2018 season for the New York Yankees to continue their success from 2017, and go even further in the upcoming 2018 season.

These are the top 3 keys to that success:

  • Consistency

The key to any winning season in baseball does have an element of luck to it. There’s the old idiom that sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. And for the Yankees first baseman Greg Bird, he has been extremely unlucky during his brief Major League tenure.  If Bird can stay consistently healthy in 2018, he will have an opportunity to have a huge impact on the Yankees chance at a World Series win.

Gary Sanchez has done a wonderful job during Spring Training of providing consistent defense, namely blocking balls in the dirt. Blocking balls was the one part of Sanchez’ game that plagued him last season.

Sanchez put in work this off-season to become more flexible to assist him with this defensive lapse from last season. So, if Gary can continue to put the effort toward his journey to improvement, we could see a drastically different catcher behind the plate, defensively.

All rise the honorable Aaron Judge is now presiding over his court!

Aaron had an incredible and historic rookie campaign. He dealt with the peaks that allowed him to dine with Zeus in Olympus and the pits that saw him battle with Hades in Hell.

This season, Aaron looked more determined than before. In the Spring of 2017 Judge came in battling for a job with the inscription of his .179 batting average as motivation. This spring, Judge remains motivated by the six weeks that costed him the opportunity to be not only the unanimous selection for Rookie of the Year, but also MVP, along with his personal desire to not be a one hit wonder.

If Judge can find that happy medium from his highs and lows of 2017, there’s only one thing to say, quoting the retiring Yankees commentator Kenny Singleton “LOOKOUT.”

  • In Cashman We Trust

In following up the 2017 campaign, the Yankees will no longer be sneaking up on teams as a underdog story. The rest of the world is now aware of what the entire Yankee Universe already knew, and that’s that the New York Yankees do everything better than the rest of baseball.

The Yankees “rebuild” lasted all of 6 months (maybe). When the Yankees began to “sell off” players during the trade deadline of 2016, everyone thought that this would be the time the Bombers reset and journey through what the Chicago Cubs or the Houston Astros endured, a full tear down and reset. But the Yankees magical wizard of a General Manager Brian Cashman had other plans.

Cashman stock piled top echelon talent very quickly taking a farm system ranked 21st by Baseball Prospectus back in 2015. Now with having graduated talent to the Major Leagues, the Yankees are still the number six farm system according to MLB Pipeline.

Cashman has also been able to provide the Yankees with real talent for not a real devastating cost. Cash recently acquired Brandon Drury in a deal eerily similar to the deal that brought us Didi Gregorius several years back. Cashman and his lieutenants have been able to bring the organization to a level of real sustainability without overpaying for talent.

Which brings us to the final key point of the Yankees ability to be successful in 2018.

  • Dominance in Development

As previously stated, Cashman and his team have been able to draft and trade for some very high level talent. Talent that will ultimately help the team in one way or another.

There are three camps in the Yankees Universe, there are your “George-ian Candidates” who say trade every prospect to bring in high priced established veterans who can provide consistent year in and year out numbers.

There are the “Prospect Huggers” that don’t want to spend on any free agents that may block the kids. And lastly there are the “Cashman-ites” (credit to Mike Calendrillo of YGY for this name) who believes that the “Cream of the Crop” (using my best Macho Man Randy Savage voice) top prospects will stick and some of the others will be used in trade.

No matter what camp you fall into there’s no denying that the following prospects will have an impact on the Yankees World Series aspirations in 2018 and beyond. (The players below will be ranked based on their MLB Pipeline rankings).

  1. Gleyber Torres
  2. Estevan Florial
  3. Justus Sheffield
  4. Miguel Andújar
  5. Chance Adams (6th overall behind RHP Albert Abreu)

Another guy who is no longer a prospect but who’s development will determine his place on this team in 2018 and going forward is Clint Frazier. Frazier plays will a lot of fire and intensity, some of his behaviors/mannerisms rub people the wrong way, but I believe that if Frazier can stay hungry and humble he can be an incredible player in Pinstripes.