Yanks to sign Neil Walker

chawson

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Aug 1, 2006
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Seeing this on Twitter, pending physical. No contract details yet.

Annoyed. He's a good player and it's probably cheap.
 

jon abbey

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Hmm, not thrilled about another guy blocking Torres/Andujar but hopefully this at least means the end of Torreyes?
 

jon abbey

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Right, but they have a good bit of depth already, with Wade/Drury/Andujar/Torres covering 2B/3B and Torreyes/Estrada also on the 40 man.

The first question is who gets bumped off the 40 man, and if that is Torreyes, I'm happy (although that would leave Didi and Wade as the only two of those guys who can cover SS except for Estrada who is still in limbo after being shot in the thigh).
 

jon abbey

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This might be wrong, but I am guessing Walker essentially takes the roster spot that would have gone to Austin or Lind, who may now both be part of a loaded Scranton team (if Lind agrees to go).

Sanchez
Bird
Walker
Didi
Andujar
Gardner
Hicks
Judge
Stanton

Wade
Drury
Romine
Ellsbury or McKinney

Torres and Austin and hopefully Lind to AAA, Torreyes DFAd.

Or if they want to send Andujar down also and start Drury at 3B, then Austin or Lind is back on the 25 man.
 

foulkehampshire

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This is an interesting pickup for NYY.

Against RHP as a LHH (2017), he pulled at a 45% clip, and 39% of his hits were fly balls. He could see a nice spike in power production playing in NYS with his batted ball tendencies.
 

jon abbey

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Wow, Walker had a better OPS last year against RHP (.854) than Arenado or Yelich. He is a switch-hitter, was bad against LHP last year (.611 OPS) but very good in 2016 (1.001 OPS), so maybe just SSS.
 

hbk72777

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"Look Ma, no holes" just sprang into my head

This team is solid from top to bottom now
 

jon abbey

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Espinosa was also let go, but he was never on the 40 man.

Cave surprises me a little, maybe they trust Wade to play CF competently if needed.
 

ThePrideofShiner

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Jul 16, 2005
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Hopefully Cave doesn't turn into a Ben Gamel type who becomes an every day player elsewhere, though I guess this is the problem for the Yankees right now. Too many people for too few positions.
 

jon abbey

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Ben Gamel was totally disposable, the guy put up a whopping 1.0 bWAR in 550 PAs for SEA last year. Plus they got two promising very young pitchers for him (DePaula and Orozco), I am happy to keep sending second-tier guys to SEA for pitching prospects (Pazos and Rumbelow also, three trades like this with SEA in the last year-plus).
 

hbk72777

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Yeah, I was surprised after I read about Gamel's second half last year. I didn't realize how far he fell off.