Yankees spring training report on Florial, Andujar, Torres and others

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(Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images) /

The Yankees are getting a look at several promising farm hands during the early stages of Spring Training. We’ve been looking, too, and this is how these baby bombers have done so far.

Yankees youngsters are getting their chances to shine.

That’s how it works this early in spring training. Established position players do not need as many games to get ready as the pitchers do, so they take few reps in the first week or so of camp.

Normally that makes first few days the least interesting. But not when you have as deep a system and as talented a roster as the Yankees do. And not when you have several promising players pushing hard to make an impression.

The most prominent of these are CF Estevan Florial, 3B Miguel Andujar and 2B Gleyber Torres.

All three come in with pedigrees and histories that make them worth watching. But while the latter two have a chance to break camp with the team, Florial is at least one year away.

But that hasn’t stopped the 44th ranked Estevan from making perhaps the best impression.

And for His Next Impression: Jesse Owens

He is hitting a healthy .308/.400/.769 while his OPS is an astounding 1.169. OPS is an excellent bench mark statistic as it combines how often a player gets on base with his slugging, or how much damage he inflicts when he makes contact.

Florial’s puts him solidly between Giancarlo Stanton (1.155) and Gary Sanchez (1.250); that is nice company to be in. Especially for a player who spent his 2017 in A ball.

What is driving his high OPS is something that never shows up in the box score, though: Speed.

Estevan has three triples already, easily leading the team. He probably leads all of spring training in the category. And his presence on first seems to already be unnerving some pitchers. Right now he looks like Jorge Mateo with much better plate discipline.

He has even cut down on his strikeouts; he has five in seven games, which projects to 100 in 140 games. Last year he struck out 148 times in 110 games. Again, this is in such limited action so far that every stat must be taken with a grain of salt, but it is all we have to work with.

He has also left another column blank, that of errors. Esteven is playing a well-rounded game at a high level in these first few days. Nevertheless, he is still a year away and this is just one week of camp.

But in his limited opportunities, Florial has continued to blossom and done nothing but increase the excitement about what this still-developing player can become.

Miguel Andujar has shot way past promising already, though, to delivering.

Taking the Bag by Force

Andujar’s abilities have been well-documented here and other places; this link will bring you up to speed.

He has, however, been even better than advertised. His slash of .421/.421/1.100 and OPS of 1.579 make that clear enough. Only Austin Romine has better numbers but he has only had three at-bats.

And whereas Florial has been putting on a speed show, the 65th-ranked Andujar has been displaying his prodigious power: Miguel has not only swatted four home runs in these first nine days of camp, including a ninth inning game winner, but also hit two doubles.

It was, however, his single in the eighth inning of Saturday’s game against the Red Sox that might have been his most impressive. Pitchers had been challenging Andujar with fastballs early on, allowing him to swing freely.

I cannot say he has overly reminded me of Vladimer Guerrero but there has been something reminiscent in his swings. He was hunting fastballs anywhere in the zone and using his full extension to maximize results.

Not on Saturday.

In the top of the eighth with two men on, Andujar looked every bit the patient hitter. Smoking the third pitch he saw down the left field line for a single and an RBI concluded a professional AB, showing patience and plate discipline.

And something more than promise.

More Than Just a Numbers Game

And Miguel, like Florial, has committed no errors.

If you just look at the numbers, it might seem as if Andujar is ready for the Bronx right now. But it is doubtful the Yankees feel the same way.

There is still a tentativeness to the way Andujar plays defense, especially on tricky hops and plays that force him to charge the ball. The latter is possibly because he has such a strong arm that he has to really think before making an unexpectedly shorter throw to second.

As much as the Yankees would love to see his threatening bat in the lineup before April, they will probably let him start in Scranton.

It’s a familiar plan: Let Miguel start in the minors—let the daily grind take over—and then bring him up with the MLB season in medias res. Once up, he would be almost immediately inserted in the lineup so that he just continues to play defense, only now at the major league level, instead of thinking about playing it at the major league level.

This seems like the best plan right now, although it is still very early in camp. The same could be said of Gleyber Torres.

Not Yet Hitting His Stride, or Weight

Gleyber’s bat has not shown up yet; his line of .125/.176/.250 and OPS of .426 impresses no one.

But it doesn’t have to.

Torres has already earned enough trust in his offensive prowess that he has little to prove, as evidenced by his number five overall ranking. That, plus the likelihood that he will start hitting long before camp ends, make his offense of little concern.

There is such confidence in Torres that the talk coming into camp was not whether he would earn a spot, but whether he would be artificially kept down from his assumed position so that his service time would not accrue.

But, surprisingly, his defense will probably earn him the Miguel Andujar treatment, albeit of shorter length.

While he only has one official error, his play at second has been erratic. Clearly he has too much adrenaline from not playing since last June…and it shows. More than once he has tried to do the spectacular when the merely good would have more effective.

His over-anxiousness and abundant energy are causing him to rush the game, instead of letting it come to him. However, again, this is early in camp.

Torres is likely to take a breath and slow down. Then his natural talent will be on full display. The question is, have Boone and the Yankees seen enough to want him to get reps at Triple-A to make sure he’s relaxed? Especially with the service time issue as an extra incentive?

My guess is the comments section will vote not only yes, but also that the Yanks were going to do that even with stellar defense. They might be right. If so, Gleyber has been making it easy for them.

The same cannot be said of the early battle to be the back-up first basemen.

Much, Much Better Than Last Year

Greg Bird might have earned the starter’s spot, be he has also proven it prudent to retain at least two very good back-ups.

Enter Adam Lind. I cannot sum up his 2017 season any better than Randy Miller did for NJ.com, so here he is:

Playing for a 2017 division winner, Lind hit .303 with 14 homers in 59 RBIs in 267 at-bats as a first baseman/left fielder who played in 116 games and started 61. He hit .303 against righties, .310 against lefties and batted .356 in 45 pinch-hit at-bats. A Washington Nationals staffer added that Lind “was loved, loved, loved by his teammates.”

That provides a much-needed level of insurance, and better bet than last season’s Chris Carter experiment. But the idea is still to keep the youth movement going. There, at first base, is an already on-going battle between Yankees youngsters Tyler Austin and Billy McKinney.

Coming in to camp, both men had positives and negatives. The positives for Austin are that he has big league experience and almost as much talent as any young hitter. He has yet to show it at the big league level with any consistency, but it is there nonetheless.

His downfall is his health. He could have taken the job away from even Bird last year but he could not stay on the field, appearing in only 20 games.

An Open Door Policy

That opens the door for Billy McKinney.

McKinney came over two years ago in the Aroldis Chapman trade, the same one that brought Torres. Always suspected of being too streaky of a hitter, Billy has hit consistently enough to post appealing numbers for the last two seasons. Plus, he has missed little time.

He split his season between Double- and Triple-A last year, the best part being that he improved against better competition.

He played 55 games at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and posted a .306/.336/.541 to go with his 10 home runs and 13 doubles; all of those were slightly better than his showing at Trenton. That earned him a chance to play in the Arizona Fall League in order to work more at first base.

Now the 23-year old is battling to be higher on the depth chart than the 26-year old Austin. His biggest obstacle is his limited time above Double-A and at first overall. But at least his numbers so far are at least comparable.

Austin has an ERA of .154 and OPS of .968 with two home runs. However, one of those was a game winner. Mckinney, meanwhile, has a .167 ERA and OPS of 1.000, with two 2 home runs of his own. But one of those was off of Pat Neshek, a true MLB late inning reliever.

Right now it looks like a draw.

Billy McKinney (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /

And the Winner is…

If they had to decide today, the Yankees would probably make McKinney two on the depth chart for his age. Better to take the guy who will be there for the next three or four years over the one leaving in a year or two. And better to bank on the one less injury prone.

More from Call to the Pen

But the Yankees do not have to make any such decision today or anytime soon.

Camp is only ten days old and things can change rapidly. Obversely, the season starts in just over three weeks so these performances to date are still meaningful. So, this early in the process, it looks as if both Torres and Andujar would be better served starting the season in the minors.

And in an ironic twist, the winner of the first base battle might join them.

The Yankees might decide it wise to let the better of the two play every day in case of long-term need. That, for a variety of reasons, is likely to be Billy, at least based on the here and now.

Florial, meanwhile is and always was playing on borrowed time. But he seems certain to be under the same type of scrutiny at this time in next year’s camp. By then he might be trying to join established players Torres and Andujar.

But that projection can only be made right now because the performances by these three have imbued observers with cautious optimism.

Next: the Yankees Jacoby Ellsbury is Exhibit A for Why Free Agency Changed

It is still very early in Spring Training, but the Yankees youth movement seems right on track.

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