Yankees' battles for shortstop, leftfield begin Saturday
Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe takes batting practice during spring training at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla., on Monday. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
TAMPA, Fla. — There are few truly open competitions in this Yankees camp, but the battles for those positions officially will begin Saturday afternoon.
That’s when the Yankees open their Grapefruit League season against the Phillies in Clearwater, and the focal points will be those openings in leftfield and at shortstop.
Oswaldo Cabrera, who rose through the ranks of the organization as a standout infielder before making a seamless transition to the outfield when he was promoted to the majors last August, will start in left on Saturday.
Spoiler alert: Aaron Hicks, likely to start Sunday in the Yankees’ split-squad game at Steinbrenner Field against Atlanta (the other game is in Dunedin against the Blue Jays), remains the favorite to be the starter in left.
The Yankees have tried to trade the switch-hitting outfielder, who has three years and just over $30 million left on the seven-year, $70 million extension he signed in 2019, and thus far have not been successful. Hicks arrived in camp motivated to put a miserable 2022 behind him, and if he’s not dealt, he will be given every opportunity to do so in spring training.
Additionally, the Yankees see Cabrera as one of their most versatile — and potentially valuable — pieces in 2023 and aren’t keen on locking the 23-year-old into one position unless they absolutely have to do so.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa, meanwhile, will get a chance to make the first impression in the most wide-open of the competitions — the starting job at shortstop.
In many ways, Kiner-Falefa, 27, who had an up-and-down season at the plate and in the field, came into spring training as the underdog in the competition. Organizationally, the Yankees would like to see one of their top shortstop prospects — Anthony Volpe or Oswald Peraza — win the job outright. Cabrera will see some time at the position as well; he'll start against Atlanta at third base on Sunday).
Regardless of organizational preference, neither the 21-year-old Volpe, the club’s first-round draft pick in 2019, nor the 22-year-old Peraza, considered by Yankees scouts and rival scouts the more natural shortstop of the two, will be handed the position.
It will have to be won, and Aaron Boone said a variety of elements will go into determining a winner. And though spring training results are largely irrelevant and almost always mean next to nothing in predicting how a player’s regular season will pan out, one of the elements by necessity will be those results.
“It’s part of it, but it’s certainly not even close to a lot of it,” Boone said. “But you see a guy perform well, that matters.”
How much, however, can vary because of the vagaries of exhibition games.
“In spring training, you’re going to find yourself in different circumstances where you’re facing maybe a veteran guy that’s getting his work in, maybe you’re facing a guy that’s maybe a little further ahead in being ready for the season,” Boone said. “Maybe [it’s] who you’re facing on a given day, when you’re coming into the game. [Results are] something and it matters, but it’s just part of it.”
Boone’s overall message to those competing for jobs is not to get carried away with who starts the season on the roster.
“The point I always like to make is we always focus on Opening Day, understandably as it’s a big day, but it’s a long, long year of things playing out, things unfolding, performance continuing to matter,” Boone said. “So Opening Day may not be the same as what April 15 looks like. Trying to remind the team as a whole, but also certain individuals, we’re always playing the long game here.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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