New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman is gearing up for winter meetings and trying to pull together a club that can hopefully return to the World Series and come home with a ring. According to Cashman, one of the issues the Yankees are focusing on during the meetings is straight out of the middle ages: they’re too left-handed.
“I acknowledge that we are left-handed dominant throughout our lineup,” Cashman said (h/t MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch), “so to get more choices for our manager would be a great thing for us to do.”
Cashman has a point. Austin Wells, Ben Rice, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Ryan McMahon and Trent Grisham all hit left handed, giving the Pinstripes a whole host of options when it comes to lefties. While the team certainly has superstar right-handers like Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, other players like Jasson Dominguez lag a bit.
Yankees Offseason Needs
While the team certainly could use more right-handed hitters, Cashman went on to say he thinks the team the Yankees already have is solid and that they don’t have any massive gaps.
“First and foremost, let’s start with the premise that we have really good players on this roster,” Cashman said. “We are covered in most all areas that you need to be covered.”
That might be worrying to Yankees fans, who have been expecting the team to take some big offseason swings this year. The team should be pursuing a heavy hitter in the outfield (though both top candidates in Cody Bellinger and Kyle Tuckers are also lefties) and even another starting pitcher, with the Yankees rotation suffering from a bevy of injuries.
However, some analysts predict that the Yankees won’t make many offseason moves at all. With Trent Grisham accepting a one year, $22 million qualifying offer from the team and Carlos Rodón and Gerrit Cole on the mend, the Pinstripes could try to make it work with the pieces they have now. Fortunately for fans, Cashman also reflected on successful Decembers of years past, which hopefully points to more trades and free agency acquisitions this year.
“It’s that time of year. You hope you run into some things,” he said. “Last year, I know we were able to get a lot of things done from the Winter Meetings and beyond. I don’t think there’s as deep a need as there was last year, but there’s things I’m obviously trying to do.”
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