Didi Gregorious will miss a large part of next season due to his need for Tommy John surgery. Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs looks at the history of middle infielders undergoing the surgery and down plays the chance of the Yankees signing Manny Machado as a replacement.
Gregorius’ half-season absence, though, has seemingly half of the Twittersphere dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on Machado’s contract with the Yankees, but it’s not as though replacing the incumbent requires investing the $200 million or $300 million or whatever it’s going to take to ink Machado. Second baseman Gleyber Torres is a natural shortstop himself, one who filled in adequately during Gregorius’ heel injury; the Yankees could slide him over and go the stopgap route at second base. Prospect-turned-suspect Tyler Wade hasn’t hit much in his sporadic opportunities (.161/.218/.250 in 133 PA spread over two seasons), but the Yankees do believe he has a big-league future and pairing him with next year’s edition of Brandon Drury (who was traded to Toronto) or Neil Walker (who will be a free agent) is an option to weather Gregorius’s absence. Other relevant pending free agents who could fit the bill as temporary solutions include shortstops Adeiny Hechavarria (whom the Yankees acquired in August and used as Andujar’s caddy) and Jose Iglesias — and second basemen such as Daniel Descalso, Ian Kinsler, DJ LeMahieu, and Jed Lowrie.
The Yankees have plenty of money to spend, but the Yankees are not the buy everyone team of George Steinbrenner. I think they will spend where it will improve the team the most, not to make a splash.
from baseballmusings.com https://ift.tt/2A8Xn8m
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