Adeiny Hechavarria Archives - Page 2 of 2

Even with rosters expanded, the Yankees lack a quality righty pinch-hitter on the bench

September 5, 2018 by Mike

Five days ago September call-ups arrived and the Yankees and every other team brought up extra player from the minors. The Yankees are carrying 31 players on the active roster (15 position players, 16 pitchers) and it’ll be 32 players once Didi Gregorius returns from the disabled list, which could be as soon as Friday. No more worrying about running out of relievers or playing guys out of position.

Once Gregorius returns the Yankees will have seven players on their bench, and, on any given night, these will be the seven players and their roles:

Backup Catcher: Austin Romine
Third Catcher: Kyle Higashioka
Utility Infielder: Ronald Torreyes
Defensive Specialist: Adeiny Hechavarria
Designated Speedster: Tyler Wade
Pinch-Hitter, Maybe?: Greg Bird
Neil Walker: Neil Walker

Walker has somewhat predictably cooled of late as his playing time has decreased, though at this point I think he remains the team’s top pinch-hitting option against right-handed batters. I know Bird almost hit that pinch-hit grand slam the other day, but his bat still looks frighteningly slow, and I’m not really sure how you can send him up to the plate in a big spot as your top pinch-hitting option.

Even if you consider Bird a good pinch-hitting option, the Yankees are still short a right-handed bat on the bench. Walker is a switch-hitter who is hitting .174/.237/.246 (30 wRC+) against lefties this year, and his struggles against southpaws date back several seasons (career 86 wRC+ vs. LHP), so it’s not small sample size noise. He’s a switch-hitter in name only. That leaves, uh, Romine or Torreyes as the top righty bench bat? Yikes.

This isn’t a minor detail either. It has come into play the last two nights. On Monday, with the Yankees down three and two runners on base in the seventh inning, Walker was sent up as a pinch-hitter against a righty, and the A’s countered with lefty Ryan Buchter. Buchter retired Walker and Brett Gardner, a .250/.321/.339 (83 wRC+) hitter against lefties this year, to snuff out the rally.

Last night Buchter was brought in to face Gardner with a runner on base in a one-run game and the Yankees had no countermove. That one actually worked out okay in a weird way. Buchter picked Gleyber Torres off first base to end the inning, then Gardner started the game-tying rally the next inning with an infield single into the 5.5 hole. That doesn’t seem like a sustainable strategy, Gardner beating out infield singles against lefties.

The right-handed pinch-hitter down the stretch was supposed to be Luke Voit, but instead he’s in the starting lineup because he’s mashing dingers (and Bird has been terrible). Having Walker to pinch-hit against righties and Voit to pinch-hit against lefties would be fine. Instead, the Yankees have Walker to pinch-hit against righties, no one obvious to pinch-hit against lefties, and Bird without a clear role.

The Yankees only have one seemingly viable right-handed pinch-hitting option in Triple-A: Ryan McBroom, a first baseman by trade who played some outfield this year, and hit .302/.348/.458 (125 wRC+) with 15 homers between Double-A Trenton and Triple-A Scranton this year. The Yankees got him from the Blue Jays in the Rob Refsnyder trade last year. They could bring McBroom up and let him take his hacks against lefties as a pinch-hitter.

Or maybe this isn’t a big deal at all. Aaron Judge started swinging a bat earlier this week and is inching closer to a return, and once he does get back, the Yankees will have five players (Gardner, Judge, Aaron Hicks, Andrew McCutchen, Giancarlo Stanton) for four lineup spots (three outfield plus DH). If Gardner is in the lineup, that means one of the other four guys will be on the bench and available to pinch-hit against a lefty.

Until Judge returns (if Judge returns?), the Yankees don’t have an obvious pinch-hitting option against a lefty pitcher, and it burned them two nights ago. It nearly burned them last night. Maybe bringing up McBroom as a short-term bench bat until Judge returns makes sense, just to have that power righty bat on the bench. Otherwise the best option is probably sending Torreyes up there, and hoping he contact bombs the pitcher and finds outfield grass.

Defense alone makes Adeiny Hechavarria a sneaky good late season pickup

September 4, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

The Yankees made two trades prior to the August 31st postseason eligibility deadline last week. The first brought Andrew McCutchen to New York in a three-player trade with the Giants. The deal had been reported a day earlier, so it wasn’t a surprise when it went down. It always seemed likely the Yankees would add an outfielder for September. They got a pretty good one.

The second trade came out of nowhere. The Yankees landed shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria from the Pirates for a player to be named later or cash. Bryan Hoch reports the Rays and Pirates are paying pretty much his entire $5.9M salary this season. The Yankees are only responsible for the pro-rated portion of the league minimum, or roughly $88,000. A cheap pickup in every way.

It was easy to wonder what the Yankees would do with Hechavarria after the trade went down. My first thought was Didi Gregorius would miss more time than expected. Thankfully that does not appear to be the case. But, even with Gregorius out, the team still had Tyler Wade and Ronald Torreyes as reserve middle infielders behind Gleyber Torres and Neil Walker. There’s always room for another infielder, sure, but it didn’t seem completely necessary.

Hechavarria is 1-for-5 with a single with the Yankees but already we’ve seen his value. He’s a fantastic defensive shortstop. A clear defensive upgrade over the error-prone Torres and a better all-around player than Wade or Torreyes. Neither Hechavarria nor Torreyes will hit much. Hechavarria will at least play the heck out of shortstop. We’ve seen it already.

Adding Hechavarria was one of those “improve the margins of the roster” moves that tends to raise some eyebrows at the time it is made before coming into focus. He serves two purposes for the Yankees. One, with Gregorius out, he improves the defense considerably. Gleyber is going to be on the field either way. It’s either Hechavarria’s great defense or Walker’s good bat or Torreyes’ okay all-around play. Hechavarria it is.

Secondly, when Gregorius does return, Hechavarria gives the Yankees a great defensive replacement for Miguel Andujar. Andujar has to come out for defense late in close games — I love the kid, but it has to happen — and, previously, the Yankees were playing Walker at third base, which is fine. Now it’ll be Hechavarria. It’s been a while since Hechavarria has played third (2012), but the defensive tools are all there, and I think he’ll be able to shift back there with no problems at all.

It would be silly to expect much offense from Hechavarria. He’s a career .255/.291/.344 (72 wRC+) hitter with a .253/.286/.340 (68 wRC+) line in 2018. The best thing you can say about him offensively is that he won’t strike out excessively (16.2%). Maybe Hechavarria will go into a BABIP fueled hot streak at some point this month. That’d be cool. Otherwise, the Yankees picked him up to help an infield defense that has been underwhelming this year, and so far he’s done exactly that.

“Just a premium defender at shortstop,” said Aaron Boone following the trade. “I just feel like we really add to our strength up the middle. We just really like his defensive capabilities and that element that he gives us while Didi’s down and even after that, potentially just having some defensive flexibility, even late in games.”

Yankees activate Sanchez; call up Cessa, Wade, and Tarpley

September 1, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

September 1st has arrived and that means rosters have expanded. Teams can carry up to 40 players through the end of the season rather than the usual 25. Most teams will wind up carrying 30-35 players this month. Every team will have extra relievers and bench players starting today.

The Yankees announced a series of call-ups and roster moves today. A recap:

Andrew McCutchen and Adeiny Hechavarria added to the active roster.
Gary Sanchez activated off the 10-day DL.
Tyler Wade and Luis Cessa recalled from Triple-A Scranton.
Stephen Tarpley added to 40-man roster and promoted to MLB.

Andrew McCutchen! The Yankees acquired McCutchen from the Giants yesterday and he spent the day traveling to New York. He wasn’t put on the active roster yesterday because there was no reason to do so. He wasn’t going to be available and there’s no sense in playing with a 24-man roster. McCutchen is in today’s lineup. Hooray. I’m not sure whether Hechavarria, who came over in a trade late last night, is with the team yet. No harm in adding him to the roster now that rosters have expanded though.

The big news is Sanchez returning from the disabled list. For all intents and purposes, he’s missed the last two months with a groin injury. He went on the disabled list June 25th, returned July 19th, played three games, then returned to the disabled list after reaggravating the groin injury. All told, Gary has missed 54 games with the groin injury and reaggravation of the groin injury.

While Sanchez was out the Austin Romine/Kyle Higashioka catching tandem hit .201/.258/.350 in 231 plate appearances and opponents went 43-for-56 (77%) stealing bases. The overall team ERA also went from 3.43 to 3.72 during Sanchez’s absence. It has not been pretty behind the plate the last few weeks. I’m looking forward to Gary being back and him getting back to being the player he was last year.

The other big news today is Tarpley’s call-up. The left-hander came over as one of the two players to be named later in the Ivan Nova trade with the Pirates, and thanks to a new pitch and a new role, he posted a 1.94 ERA (3.23 FIP) with 25.6% strikeouts, 9.4% walks, and 68.1% grounders in 69.2 innings between Double-A and Triple-A this year. That 68.1% ground ball rate is the highest among the 1,011 minor leagues with at least 65 innings pitched in 2018.

Tarpley will be making his big league debut, and, like most first time September call-ups, I expect him to work in mop-up duty, at least at first. He held left-handed batters to a .148/.219/.193 batting line in the minors this year and could always get the call in low-to-mid-leverage left-on-left spots. Phil Coke quickly worked his way into the Circle of Trust™ in September 2008. Maybe Tarpley can do the same in September 2018. That’d be cool.

The Yankees have not yet announced a 40-man roster move for Tarpley. I wonder if it’ll be Shane Robinson now that McCutchen is with the team and Wade, who can also play the outfield, has been added to the roster. The Yankees might be waiting to make sure no one gets hurt during batting practice today before announcing Robinson has been designated for assignment, assuming he is the move. That’s a fairly common practice.

Update: Yep, Robinson has been designated for assignment, the Yankees announced. That’s the 40-man move for Tarpley.

Cessa and Wade have been up and down a bunch this season and are just extra bodies now that rosters have expanded. Wade is a speedy utility guy who can play pretty much anywhere. With Quintin Berry not being called up (not yet, anyway), I assume Wade takes over as the designated pinch-runner. Cessa is stretched out as a long man, so now the Yankees have him and Sonny Gray available for long relief work for whenever things go haywire.

Notably absent among today’s call-ups: Justus Sheffield. Aaron Boone said yesterday Sheffield would not be called up today, but could be later this month. I think it’ll happen fairly soon. Sheffield moved to the Triple-A bullpen last week in preparation for a call-up, but he missed a few games with an illness earlier this week, and fell behind a bit. I expect him to come up after one or two more relief appearances with the RailRiders.

As always, more call-ups will take place throughout September. Sheffield will be up at some point and I assume Chance Adams will as well. Probably once Triple-A Scranton’s season ends, which could be as soon as Monday. Berry is another call-up candidate. Domingo German and Jonathan Loaisiga will likely return later this month, plus Aroldis Chapman and Didi Gregorius will eventually be activated off the disabled list, hopefully soon.