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The Yankees played a form of Kabuki theater Sunday with Aaron Boone as the front man. He talked about Gio Urshela as a starting shortstop and that a roster once again brandishing Gary Sanchez as the frontline catcher would be good enough to do what the Yankees have not been good enough to do for a dozen years — win a title.
By Sunday evening, the Yankees had dealt out of their recent static look. Both Urshela and Sanchez were shipped to the Twins and the Yankees at least paid heed to defense by acquiring Isiah Kiner-Falefa as a stopgap shortstop and Ben Rortverdt to catch.
The headline was that they took on Josh Donaldson also. The third baseman is owed $50 million over the next two years and the Yankees absorbed every penny of it to gain access to the two glove-first players they wanted. Donaldson hardly comes with a reputation as a get-along teammate and now he will share a clubhouse with Gerrit Cole. Last June, Donaldson called out Cole over use of sticky substances while pitching.
Look, this stuff tends to get worked out. When Roger Clemens joined the Yankees in 1999, the hitters were predisposed to hate him for his chin-music ways. But a few jokes were made, a few conversations were had and Clemens helped the Yankees win championships. All will be better with Donaldson and the Yankees if he is still a top player. But that is in question.
Donaldson will play at 36 this year and his playing time has been spotty in recent years, mainly due to a series of leg injuries. He did appear in 135 games last year. He hit 26 homers. He had an .827 OPS. But his defensive game declined.
The Yankees were still trying to further upgrade their defense and lefty presence. They remained at least on the periphery of the Freddie Freeman derby, but the Braves and Dodgers continued to be perceived as the clear favorites. They also continued to be intrigued about trading with Oakland for Matt Olson. But the most likely outcome is to reunite with Anthony Rizzo.
If that were to occur, Rizzo would play first, Gleyber Torres second, Kiner-Falefa short and Donaldson third with DJ LeMahieu getting 500-plus plate appearances — if healthy — by moving among first, second and third. It is possible that Torres could be part of a trade elsewhere to better clarify the infield.
But until proven otherwise, the Yankees are looking like a team that is not going to spend big in a free-agent market highlighted by Carlos Correa and Freeman, players who manned positions of need.
The door was pretty much shut on Correa. The acquisition of Kiner-Falefa provides a contact-hitting strong defender at short. In the best plans, he holds the job for half a year until Oswald Peraza or Anthony Volpe prove they are truly worth ignoring Correa, Trevor Story and the rest of a star-studded shortstop free-agent class. It is more likely that Peraza and Volpe are more in the 2023 plans.
At the least, Kiner-Falefa gives the Yankees a player who can handle the position. They had kept trying the square peg in a round hole with Torres at short and were at least pantomiming that they would do the same in 2022 with Urshela.
On the not-a-good-fit subject, the Yankees also finally gave up that Sanchez could be their frontline championship catcher. His great promise upon his 2016 call-up was never fully realized. The more he needed to concentrate on his defense, the more his offense fell — and his defense never rose enough to make that worthwhile. It will be intriguing if, removed from The Bronx sauna, he relaxes and, at the least, his offensive game flowers again with the Twins.
Rortvedt has the reputation as a strong defender. But he has just 39 games in the majors and has never played more than 90 in any minor league season. Can he and Kyle Higashioka cover 162 games well? Can their receiving work be so stellar as to overcome the lack of hitting?
With Kiner-Falefa and Rortvedt, the Yankees made a sea change away from a bat-first mentality, which will put pressure on players such as LeMahieu, Torres, Joey Gallo and Aaron Hicks to be healthy and productive. The same is true for Donaldson, assuming the Yanks acquired him to keep him rather than, say, pay half his salary and spin him elsewhere in the way that Kiner-Falefa was redirected in the last week from Texas to Minnesota to New York.
The Yanks had simply reached the point in which they couldn’t line up again with a non-shortstop at short and a non-catcher catching. So they faked Sunday afternoon like they could live with it, and showed Sunday night that they no longer could.
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