Last Minute Yankee Moves

Let's Talk About the Flurry of Last Minute Yankee Moves

by EJ Fagan

March 26, 2025

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NOTE: The following comes from EJ Fagan's substack page and is shared with permission.

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Spring Training is over. The Yankees are headed North. Thanks to a bunch of major and minor injuries, the Yankees had an unusually high number of roster spots to fill out. Let’s talk about those moves.

JC Escarra to Backup Catcher

If you haven’t watched the video of Escarra telling his mother that he made the Yankees, drop everything and go check it out. There’s something special about a player who overcame so much finally realizing their dream.

I think Escarra is likely to be a pretty solid MLB backup. He was average at Triple-A. He had a strong Spring. And the bar is low - Kyle Higashioka is a just-above replacement level .212/.255/.412 hitter for his career. Anything on top of that is gravy, especially since we’re no longer in a 1a/1b catcher situation.

Dominic Smith Not Added to the 40-Man Roster

This one could have been bad. Dominic Smith hit a little bit during Spring Training. He has a lot of major league credibility. It would have been easy for the Yankees to add him to the 40-man roster and give him way too much playing time. In past years, similar veterans like Willie Calhoun, Jake Bauers, Rougned Odor and Marwin Gonzalez all got 200+ plate appearances and posted awful numbers.

The difference in 2025 is that the Yankees are finally deep enough to forego the safe-but-bad veteran and bet on young guys. Ben Rice is a solid bet to be at least as good as Smith but has huge upside. Everson Pereira has a lower floor, but has equal upside. Peraza is a fine backup infielder. They don’t need dead-end filler this time.

Ryan Yarbrough Signed

I see a lot of comments along the lines of, “Why didn’t the Yankees sign X 5th starter/3rd baseman who was available in March?” The answer is usually pretty simple: depth guys looking to stick around in the majors want playing time. They might prefer a guaranteed spot on a terrible team to a reduced role on the Yankees.

But now that everyone is injured, the Yankees have playing time to spare to good-enough MLB pitchers. Here’s what Yarbrough did last year:

That’s a junkballer’s Statcast page if I’ve ever seen one. He throws an 86 mph sinker, gets a ton of soft contact, strikes absolutely no one out, and has started to lose his significant elite control. He was a combination of a long man and short reliever.

Yarbrough has massive splits: .387 OPS against lefties, .749 OPS against righties. He’s not completely useless against righty numbers, but clearly you want to find him a lefty lane. For that reason, I think Yarbrough is a bit miscast as a long reliever / garbage time guy. The Yankees might need someone to soak innings, but I’d love to see him in more of a Tim Hill-like role.

Pablo Reyes to the Bench?

During his Talkin’ Yanks pre-Opening Day interview, Aaron Boone seemed to indicate that Reyes made the team after hitting okay this Spring while playing all over the field.

He’s not the worst option in the world a righty bench bat. Reyes has a career .587 OPS vs righties (yikes!) but .775 vs lefties. It’s hard for most teams to carry a strict platooned righty bench bat, but the Yankees have a spot thanks to Cabrera’s versatility.

There are two problems. First, Reyes was bad against everyone in 2024. At 31, he might just be cooked. Second, Reyes is a below average runner and defender. It’s hard to justify him starting two or three times a week against lefty starters, even if the Yankees are pretty desperate for another righty bat.

I think that the Yankees can do better. Maybe they make a trade before the season starts. It wouldn’t shock me to see Peraza swapped elsewhere for a decent bat and Reyes as the emergency-only utility guy.

Clark Schmidt, Ian Hamilton to the IL

Schmidt lost a start to a shoulder scare after losing the early part of Spring to a minor injury. It sounds like he’ll miss only one start. Hamilton lost a lot of his Spring to an illness, so he might be a little longer.

The consequence of losing both pitchers is that the Yankees get to bring a few more guys to the Opening Day roster. We know that Will Warren will start before likely heading down. Fangraphs has them rostering Yoendrys Gomez and Yerry De Los Santos as well.

These guys are all basically placeholders. Along with Hamilton, the Yankees have Jonathan Loaisgia (who looked pretty far along three weeks ago), JT Brubaker and Jake Cousins set to return from injury sometime in May. The Yankees are going to have to make some room in the MLB bullpen soon enough, but it will be helpful to see what they have in Gomez and De Los Santos. The Yankees have a busier-than-usual April schedule, so it might be nice to have a few extra guys to eat innings.