There’s a certain romanticism about Opening Day rosters. We spend all of spring training speculating on who will make the cut and who won’t, but the truth is that rosters are never finalized.
A player could make the team on Opening Day and be gone by the second game. Front offices are always tweaking.
The New York Yankees appear to be in need of a tweak or two before they get too deep into the season, and a pre-Opening Day trade could be in the works.
With DJ LeMahieu and Oswald Peraza beginning the year on the injured list, Oswaldo Cabrera will be their starting third baseman and they have no true backup infielder.
Cabrera is a switch-hitting Swiss Army knife who has played every position except pitcher and catcher in his first two years in MLB, but he isn’t much of a hitter.
In 330 plate appearances in 2023, he batted .211/.275/.299. His 58 OPS+ indicates he was 42% worse than a league-average batter.
The club might be okay with him in a bench role for the time being, and LeMahieu might not be out long-term, but his injury exposes their lack of depth in the infield.
Beyond Cabrera and the other starters—Anthony Rizzo, Gleyber Torres, and Anthony Volpe—they only have two other infielders on their 40-man roster.
26-year-old Jahmai Jones has played exclusively second base in 36 MLB games since 2020, though he has a lot of outfield experience in the minors.
