So who here can play the infield?

Goodbye Nunez

It came out in Newsday that Eduardo Nunez had asked for his release when he was informed that he did not make the team, the team obligated him and designated him for assignment to add Yangervis Solarte to the roster. However Mark Teixeira hurt his hamstring in the series against the Blue Jays and with the designation of Eduardo Nunez the Yankees have no real depth in their infield in fact every infielder they have is either on the 25 man roster or on the disabled list, so when Teixeira went down they had to call up a Austin Romine who has no experience at any position other than catcher. In fact of the three catchers on the roster right now only Francisco Cervelli has any experience at any position other than Catcher and he has eight total innings at third and second as a pro baseball player. That’s it, of all five catchers on the roster John Ryan Murphy played several games at third when they thought about moving him from catcher and Gary Sanchez has one inning at 1^st, every other game in their entire pro careers for all five catchers has been at Catcher or DH.

So what this means is that the Yankees are going to use Kelly Johnson as their everyday 1^st baseman and might use Francisco Cervelli there, they do currently have him taking ground balls at first, I doubt that they want to use him there but they probably do not want to use Kelly Johnson at first either. What irks me a little is how the Yankees knew that they had very little experience at first outside of mark Teixeira and they neglected to play any of their infielders at 1^st base, especially since they were trying get their young catchers into as many games as possible and evidently never thought to put any of them at 1^st during spring training.

Corban Joesph could help as he is playing at first in AAA Scranton and he played a game at first for the Yankees last season, but he is relatively new to the position as he has mostly played as a 2^nd baseman. He is also not on the 40 man roster right now as he was removed this offseason and so obviously the Yankees do not have a ton of belief in him and they would also need to remove someone from the 40 man and so unless another infielder or two go down then it seems unlikely he will be back with the team.

Obviously the depth situation will get better when Brendan Ryan gets back from the disable list but it’s not as though he will help with the current 1^st base issue and frankly we have no idea how long he will be out for, he may even be out longer than Teixeira will be. It’s still possible that the Yankees will acquire someone, I mean Stephen Drew is still out there and Eduardo Nunez can still be traded for someone by the 11^th. If you were wondering the Yankees could not add Nunez back to the 40 man unless he passed through waivers, which seems unlikely. These two early Infield injuries further emphasize how the Yankees have a real need in the infield, but so far they have not been able to make a move to bolster the infield. Until the Yankees make a move they may be grabbing players on the waiver wire to bolster their depth quite a bit until they have a more permanent solution. It’s still much too early to really find a team that might be willing to trade a piece and until then we are just going to have to hope that nobody else will get hurt.