Yankees outfielder Clint Frazier warms up his arm during spring training...

Yankees outfielder Clint Frazier warms up his arm during spring training at George Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla., on Feb. 24. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.

SARASOTA, Fla. — As Aaron Boone recalled it, Clint Frazier couldn’t wait to share the news.

"He blew us all up," Boone said with a laugh early Tuesday morning about the text message blast he, and others, were on the receiving end of late last October.

The occasion?

Frazier had just been named one of three finalists for the AL Gold Glove in rightfield.

Joey Gallo of the Rangers won it, but the significance of the moment wasn’t lost on the Yankees or Frazier, whose defense coming into 2020, as no fan of the club needs reminding, was a significant question mark.

"He sent me something that had to do with like a gold chain, and I think I sent him a bunch of like gold nuggets back, like I'm trying to get a Gold Glove," Frazier said, himself laughing, when relayed Boone’s comments after starting in left and going 1-for-3 in the Yankees’ 4-2 victory over the Orioles at Ed Smith Stadium.

"I knew the numbers that Gallo had put up, so I knew that the odds weren’t in my favor. But to just be named one of the three was really cool for me. It definitely gave me a lot of confidence coming into 2021."

Indeed, those defensive concerns for the most part dissipated last season when Frazier, whose overall nightmarish 2019 mostly found its origins in the defensive struggles the outfielder experienced, looked like a different fielder, committing just one error in 34 starts (he had three errors in 45 starts in 2019 but that doesn’t begin to cover the defensive issues Frazier had that season).

"Look, he’s had, I think at times unfairly, but certainly some famous [high-profile situations in the field] . . . I think back to the Red Sox game [a Sunday night in June 2019 vs. the Red Sox] where he had a couple blunders out there," Boone said. "So his defense has been something that's always been talked about or questioned. We've seen the work over the last couple of years suggest that he could become a very good defensive outfielder, and we saw that turn into results last year."

Frazier, whose first-inning single to left gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead Tuesday, had an overall quiet day in left, with just one ball hit his way.

He recorded the first out of the first, drifting back to the track to easily haul in a Trey Mancini drive (which resulted in a sac fly).

By all accounts Frazier, whose bat has never been questioned dating back to when the Cleveland made him the fifth overall pick in the 2013 draft, took fixing his defensive problems seriously entering 2020. And that’s continued this spring. Even as Frazier came in already named the starting leftfielder, he’s been seen during BP in left working on his defense.

"I had a talk with Reggie Willits in the offseason," Frazier said of the Yankees’ first base/outfield coach. "It was right after I got nominated as one of the finalists. The conversation was based mainly on the improvements I made in one year. It was more so him trying to tell me that ‘Hey, that's what you can do in one year. Imagine what you can do in two years and on top of that three . . . ’ "

The personable Frazier, who became a fan-favorite almost immediately after Cashman made him the cornerstone of the 2016 Andrew Miller trade deadline deal with Cleveland, acknowledged his confidence being shaken in ’19.

"Any time that your confidence is, in a sense, stunted, it makes anything in life hard, not just playing baseball but how you go about anything," Frazier said. "As I continued to have positive results in the outfield [it] continued to instill a lot of confidence in me every time I went out there and, ultimately, I think I made enough plays in a row for me to kind of have all the weight off my shoulders going forward and feeling comfortable and a part of the team out there."

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