By Paul Semendinger
March 2, 2025
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Jasson Dominguez has mostly played centerfield throughout his minor league days. As such, the Yankees are trying to make him... a left fielder.
The Yankees have this idea that players can simply be moved to other positions easily and seamlessly. They've tried this in recent years with Oswaldo Cabrera, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Oswald Peraza, Jazz Chisholm, and Ben Rice. It usually does not work out well.
This is so obvious on its face that I am continually amazed that the Yankees do not understand this simple fact. This isn't beer league softball where some guy can play multiple positions well enough. This is the Major Leagues where the bar is set extremely high. In almost every single case, a poor Major Leaguer at a position, the worst player there, is someone who has spent a lifetime, gazzions of innings and repetitions, honing his skills to understand the nuances of the position - and there are many. And every position is different. Again, this is obvious. The fact that this is not understood by so many boggles my mind.
A lifetime of experience cannot be replicated through one winter of training. Or one Spring Training... not if the goal is to have a Major League caliber player at that position. Not at all.
The few times this works out do not prove this rule incorrect. The few times this works out are the exceptions. They are the outliers. The fact that the Yankees continue to make this obvious error speaks to a very real problem within the organization. In short, too many decision-makers don't truly understand the game at its most basic level.
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One person that should understand that players simply cannot become regulars at positions other than the ones they played as the ascended to the big leagues is...
Aaron Boone.
At best, as a player, Aaron Boone was an average Major Leaguer. At best. For his career, he averaged 1.13 WAR per season. As a hitter, his lifetime OPS+ was 94. And yet, when he played, he wasn't moved all over the field. Boone played one position priomarily - third base.
If ever there was a player who should have been adept at moving all over the diamond, it should have been Boone, but that simply wasn't the case. He played third. Why was this so? Simple. That's where his skills lied. That's where his experience was. And short stop and second base and every other position are not third base.
Aaron Boone knows from experience, his own, that a third baseman and a shortstop need different skill sets. Aaron Boone knows, firsthand, that playing second base is vastly different than playing third base. He lived it.
And yet, as the manager, he keeps moving players all over the diamond hoping it works out.
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Clarke Schmidt made it to the big leagues, but he had a history of injuries on his way to the Major Leagues.
In 2022, Clarke Schmidt threw 57.2 MLB innings. (He also threw 33 minor league innings.)
In 2023, Clarke Schmidt threw 159.0 MLB innings.
In 2024, Clarke Schmidt spent a lot of time not pitching due to injury. He threw only 85.1 MLB innings that season.
In 2023, many people, including myself, said that Schmidt should be rested as his innings increased and increased. I warned that there was a big injury risk for 2024 because he was throwing so many innings. And, as it turned out, Schmidt spent a lot of time in 2024 on the shelf.
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Luis Gil made it to the big leagues, but he had a history of injuries.
In 2022, Luis Gil threw 4.0 MLB innings.
In 2023, Luis Gil threw no MLB innings.
In 2024, Luis Gil threw 151.2 MLB innings.
In Spring Training, 2025, Luis Gil isn't 100% and is being sent for an MRI.
The fact that Gil is hurt, or might be hurt, is something that any person could have seen from a million miles away.
In 2023, Schmidt was overused. The next season he was injured and missed a lot of time.
In 2024, Gil was overused. Let's see what 2025 bring. Hopefully he will be okay, but it's likely he'll miss a lot of time.
This wasn't hard to see coming. At all. This is another instance of the Yankees making decisions that defy logic and a simple understanding of the game.
If you push a pitcher way way way past his innings from the previous season(s), it is very likely that he'll be injured the next year. This is obvious on its face, yet the Yankees do this - even with their highly rated pitchers.
It is baffling, really.
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Hal Steinbrenner states, a lot, that the Yankees need to hold the line on payroll. I get what Steinbrenner is driving at, but when your team's philolosphy is to push young, cost-controlled young pitchers to the point where they get injured and cannot pitch, it forces the team to go out and spend $18 million on pitchers like Marcus Stroman.
The fact that the Yankees' payroll is where it is isn't just that they spend a lot on talent. A big part of the reason the payroll is so high is because of very bad decisions made with the way the team handles their players.
Again, this is obvious on its face.
And it's amazing that year-after-year the Yankees continue to make the same mistakes.
Generally speaking, players can move leftward on the defensive spectrum, so Dominguez going from CF to LF shouldn't be an issue. (That said, Cabrera was excellent in RF and not so much in LF, but that may be a function of the greater range needed to patrol LF in Yankee Stadium.)
Paul, I think some of your points here sound in having your cake and eating it, too. No matter who moved from 2B to 3B last year, someone would be playing "out of position." (And recall that Chisholm was playing CF for the Marlins at the time of the trade, not 2B.) While I agree that pandering to spoiled children like Torres is distasteful, it's entirely possible that …
Perhaps an exception, but Brett Garner came up as a CF and made the seamless switch to LF
Dominguez really had played a pretty good LF in AAA. Why he is having so many issues is beyond me. As for the Starting Pitchers issues, I have no idea where to begin. Medical personnel? Coaches? What I find almost comical is that Cashman has no problem moving guys around in the Majors, but outright refuse to play guys at even a secondary field position in the minors. Heck, let me go back to the catching tandem in the minors in 2008-09, of Jesus Montero and Austin Romine. One caught, the other was the DH. There was no 1B prospect at the time in Charleston or Tampa. Or if Volpe is the Yankees SS, why in wasting away i…
I agree with you fully on Schmidt. I mostly agree with you on Gil, though it would have been hard to scale him back during a pennant race. Glad I wasn't making that decision. As for Dominguez, I don't count him the same as IKF and Cabrera in the outfield, both moves made of desperation. I gotta think you can move a talented centerfielder to left field with a full spring training.
every MLB second baseman, every third baseman begins as a shortstop earlier in life
each was, earlier, the best infielder on their high school team and had to adjust as a result of competition
The Yankees have this idea that players can simply be moved to other positions easily and seamlessly.
this is not entirely correct. has anyone in the Yankee organization said that the change is simple and is easy or that change will always be seamless?
what IS correct is that change is often necessary and that teams are not simply, easily and seamlessly constructed. players are not always perfectly fitted to the needs of the team.
sometimes teams have two shortstops. sometimes two right fielders, two centerfielders.