Bird and Voit duel admirably for the starting first-base gig<\/a>, their manager said Friday that the Yankees are contemplating such an iteration.<\/p>\n\u201cI can see a case where that\u2019s the case, yeah,\u201d Aaron Boone said at George M. Steinbrenner Field, before the Yankees faced the O\u2019s. \u201cBut I would say we\u2019re a long way from that. We\u2019ve got, what, four weeks? A lot can happen between now and then. <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously both guys look really well. Have had really good offseasons. Both guys are, no doubt in my mind, impact big-league players. So I don\u2019t know. We\u2019ll see. We\u2019ll see where we\u2019re at. We\u2019re not even close to making those kind of final decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m actually secretary\/treasurer of the \u201cDon\u2019t Get Ahead of Yourself by Creating Spring-Training Roster Questions That Ultimately Resolve Themselves\u201d club (the acronym is too long to print here). Yet there\u2019s no denying the early Grapefruit League returns have left an impression and dared the Yankees to dream.<\/p>\n
Bird, the first of the position-playing Baby Bombers to shine back in 2015, has showed off the stroke and power that first captivated Yankees fans before myriad injuries damaged his stock. He has five hits, including a homer and two doubles, in eight at-bats, plus a walk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just been enjoying it, to be honest,\u201d said Bird, who credited a normal offseason in which he didn\u2019t need to rehabilitate any injuries. \u201cThat\u2019s it. It\u2019s still early. We\u2019ve got a lot of camp left. Long season. I\u2019m excited. I\u2019m excited for the team we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Voit, the Yankees\u2019 Shane Spencer of 2018, went 0-for-3 Friday night, his first non-highlight game. Nevertheless, the 28-year-old has a homer, a single and walk on the young spring, continuing his threat to not be a fluke despite his underwhelming history before the Yankees acquired from the Cardinals last July.<\/p>\n
\u201c[I\u2019ve] kind of continued what I learned from last year, rolling into this year,\u201d Voit said. \u201cPut a lot of time on defense, which has worked out really well. Making good plays.\u201d<\/p>\n
So how about it? Throw both guys into the mix, with Voit getting regular at-bats at designated hitter. Start Giancarlo Stanton in the outfield more often, and start Brett Gardner less often, honoring the annually unfulfilled desire to not wear out Gardner by July. <\/p>\n
The roster room would come from one of two sources. The Yankees could go with 12 pitchers instead of 13, which could be viable as they enjoy four off days in the season\u2019s first 19 days. After that, however, they\u2019ll play 17 straight games, including the first two legs of a western trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere could be some play with some things, especially early in the year,\u201d Boone said. \u201cEspecially when we think CC [Sabathia] is coming back and those kind of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Sabathia\u2019s slow ramp-up, the byproduct of his offseason angioplasty, could aid the Bird-plus-Voit cause. Once Sabathia becomes active, he\u2019ll immediately serve his five-game suspension for drilling the Rays\u2019 Jesus Sucre last September, and that will force the Yankees to go a player short. If Sabathia starts the season on the injured list, the Yankees will compete with a full roster.)<\/p>\n
The second source is going without Tyler Wade, Clint Frazier or any other fifth outfielder while carrying 13 pitchers. This wouldn\u2019t give Boone as much in-game flexibility. It would provide him with some serious offense, though.<\/p>\n
How about the Yankees\u2019 first shot at a first-base platoon since Doug Mientkiewicz shared the gig with Josh Phelps, Andy Phillips and Miguel Cairo in 2007? OK, that doesn\u2019t exactly inspire a sequel. Yet Bird and Voit should inspire the Yankees to think creatively.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[ad_1] TAMPA \u2014 Could first base prove to be twice as nice for these Yankees? Maybe it\u2019s the excess sunscreen talking, but should the Yankees consider an Opening Day roster with both Greg Bird and Luke Voit? Understanding the vast distance between now and that March 28 opener against the Orioles at Yankee Stadium, the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113659,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tie-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}