Quick Yankee Notes

ESPN: While it’s only seven games, it’s hard not to be a little excited by how the Yankees have started the 2024 season. Marquee acquisition Juan Soto has looked every bit the part of the bat the Yankees needed, and they’ve gotten good contributions from all over the field. Another piece of evidence that things have been pretty rosy thus far is ESPN moving the Bombers up to No. 3 in their MLB power rankings.

Yankees Mailbag: Closer concerns, infield shuffling, and Torres’ future
Picking through your immediate concerns from the first week of the season.
www.pinstripealley.com/2024/4/5/24121792/yankees-mailbag-clay-holmes-concerns-gil-hamilton-infield-debate-health-gleyber-torres-future

Shoducky asks: Can Gil be groomed/used as our closer? Let someone else be the fifth starter. I’m running out of Tums.

Not for a while, at least. Gil looked sharp in his first start of the year after earning the job out of spring, and with Gerrit Cole’s return still well off in the horizon the Yankees need Gil to hold down this roster spot first and foremost. Even when Cole does return and the rotation is overcrowded, I don’t think the closer gig is what they have in mind for Gil, as they’d likely keep him in a multi-inning fireman role to stay stretched out, if they even kept him up at all. There’s a very real possibility that in this scenario the team would want him getting starter reps and send him down to keep him in tune for a potential return if another member of the rotation goes down, and if someone else misses time before Cole even returns then his spot is practically guaranteed.

Now, as for the performance of the current closer, I agree that Clay Holmes has been a bit of a tightrope act to watch so far, but he does largely get the job done. Outside of a gaudy August last year, Holmes has had dominant stuff since coming over from Pittsburgh and more than earned his place at the top of the bullpen hierarchy. If you were desperate for a change of scenery though, keep an eye on Ian Hamilton — the slambio artist has had perhaps an even more meteoric rise since coming to New York than Holmes did and should be firmly in the circle of trust for Aaron Boone going forward. Experts and rankings were concerned about the Yankee ‘pen and the depth that they lost over the offseason, but when the organization consistently pulls out guys like these two practically from thin air they should be more than fine moving forward.

Hector H Hernandez asks: When (being optimistic!) DJLM, Cabrera, Peraza, and Berti are all healthy at the same time, who goes where?

This is a tough call, because it’s going to be a while before we could potentially see all of these guys healthy and ready to report for the team, which gives the guys currently on the roster a lot of leeway to solidify or lose their case to stay. LeMahieu is the only one of this quartet that has a guaranteed spot waiting for him, but the guys around him could look a lot different than originally intended when he went down. Oswaldo Cabrera has obviously gotten off to a great start with his performance in Houston, and with his positional flexibility I think Jon Berti was an underrated acquisition for the team. Neither one is a guarantee to stay, but given a few more weeks to put down roots I’d find it hard to cut either one.

There’s room on the roster to keep both of them if Jahmai Jones inevitably gets cut, and given he’s appeared for all of one at-bat so far I think that’s a given. That leaves Peraza as the odd man out, which is a brutal break for the former top prospect but also a dose of reality — he’s struggled to find any consistency outside of his 2022 cameo that couldn’t even buy him a postseason spot when that team’s offense was bordering ineptitude by that point in the season. The team just doesn’t seem to believe in his skills yet, and so I imagine he’ll be left to get starting time in Triple-A once he’s ready to go. That may mean that he once again becomes the subject of trade talks, and perhaps this time the team pulls the trigger there, but that would also be selling low on Peraza after holding out these past few seasons — as I said, a tough call to make, and one that they don’t have to push for a while. For now, getting healthy and establishing a rhythm is the only thing he’ll have to focus on.

OLDY MOLDY asks: If Volpe continues to shine, who inherits second base next year when Gleyber signs elsewhere?

I know that the majority of next offseason’s budget is going into the re-sign Juan Soto campaign, but it’s far from a foregone conclusion that Gleyber Torres will be gone, and Volpe’s success or failure this year shouldn’t have a significant impact on that. The team needs to maintain a deep lineup, and while Volpe growing out of his debut struggles would go a long way towards that that doesn’t automatically replace the offense that Torres has provided to this team over the years. Moreover, they don’t have an incumbent waiting in the wings, as we just discussed with Peraza’s uncertainty. Cabrera could slot in if he carries his hot start throughout the year, but it would take an enormous season to justify betting on a one-year sample size and we’re just over a week in. It may very well pass that this is Torres’ last year in pinstripes, but right now I’d say the Yankees aren’t hoping it is, because they don’t have the answer to replace him just yet.

Yankeesource: Watching Anthony Volpe hit so far has been the highlight of the Yankee season. Every swing has intent and the takes have been fantastic (he’s resisted chasing on pitches that great hitters would chase). The Yankees let Volpe run free last year and gave him the space to grow. He took that and brought it to the next tier.

We need to see a larger sample of success but this is a promising start.

Relevant in that he's been discussed as a potential trade target down the road - the Guardians Shane Bieber is to undergo Tommy John surgery.

Showing faith in a kid and letting him fail has been proven successful so many times, but the Yankees/Cashman rarely take that approach.

Yankeesource: Giancarlo Stanton struggled on the inner half last year. We’ve seen him make good contact on inside FB lately. Small sample but his success on the inside corner was non-existent in 2023