By Jonah Haskell
The Yankees are at it again. On Jan. 16, the team officially brought infielder Stephen Drew back to the Bronx on a one year, 5 million dollar deal, a deal that I feel is a mistake. In 2014, New York acquired Drew at the trade deadline in their first trade with the Red Sox since 1997.
Drew theoretically provided much needed depth in the middle infield, behind a 39-year-old Derek Jeter at shortstop and a bunch of guys who were definitely not Robinson Cano at second. Instead, he hit .150 with an OPS below .500 in 46 games, compiling a WAR of -0.6. It baffles me how Brian Cashman and other Yankees executives could look at those stats and see in them the solution to the offensive wasteland that is their middle infield.
The acquisition of Didi Gregorius, a young, talented successor to Jeter at shortstop, was smart, but most of his value lies in his defense as he has yet to develop much of a bat in the big leagues. This means that the Yankees are going to need to add offensive value at second base if they hope to score more than the 633 runs that they scored in 2014, just 20th in the American League. Stephen Drew is not going to be able to provide that spark.
The most frustrating part of this signing is that the Yankees have a couple of potentially good options available to them within their own farm system. Jose Pirela is a 25-year-old Venezuelan utility man who plays the majority of his games at second base, but is also capable of playing shortstop or in the outfield. Last season in 130 games for the Yankees Triple-A affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes Barre, he hit .305 with an OPS of .792. He was also solid defensively, making only six errors in 60 games at second. While it is undertermined whether his strong minor league hitting will translate into the major leagues, it was encouaging that he got eight hits.
The Yankees’ second potential in-house solution is Rob Refsnyder. The 23-year-old second baseman spent 2014 splitting time between Double-A Trenton and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre, and he impressed at both levels. He started out by hitting .342 with a .933 OPS in 60 games at Trenton, and then continued to rake after his promotion to Scranton/Wilkes Barre, where he hit .300 with an OPS of .845. He also showed his ability to defend at an important position, posting a fielding percentage of .977 at second base (he also played some right field). He has never played a major league game, so he is more of a wild card than Pirela, but numbers like his are impossible to ignore for an offense starved team like the Yankees.
Both of these young players should be getting a real chance to compete for the second base job in spring training, but the signing of Stephen Drew provides a significant roadblock. Suddenly Refsnyder and Pirela are going to have to compete against an established veteran who the Yankees’ front office thinks is worth 5 million dollars and is two years removed from playing shortstop for a Boston team that won the World Series. It’s hard to envision a scenario where Drew doesn’t end up taking significant playing time away from both Pirela and Refsnyder, and that’s a shame.
