When the Yankees told Oswald Peraza that he lost the team’s starting shortstop battle to Anthony Volpe at the end of spring training, the 22-year-old took the news — and his demotion to Triple-A — in stride.
Peraza, the team’s third-best prospect, entered camp with an experience advantage over Volpe, as he fared well over 18 major league games last season. But Volpe, ranked No. 1 in the Yankees’ system, outperformed Peraza and made himself the obvious choice by the end of spring training.
“It didn’t take long [to get over] at all,” Peraza said Thursday. “When I was informed that I was going to be sent down, I told them, ‘That’s fine. I’m going to Triple-A, but I’m going to be working very hard to wait for an opportunity.’”
Peraza saw the decision coming back in spring training. He understood that Volpe “took” the position, as general manager Brian Cashman put it, and chose to work on a scheduled off day after Aaron Boone had what he called a “difficult conversation” with the young infielder.
“We still think he’s gonna have a long big league career as a big league shortstop and that message needed to get relayed,” Boone said at the time. “But also, like, go handle your business down there and go work and get better each and every day, and the situation can change quickly.”
Quickly indeed.
Peraza played in just nine games at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre — where he hit .290 — before the Yankees promoted him on April 16, the same day Giancarlo Stanton landed on the injured list with a left hamstring strain. And with Josh Donaldson now out for a few more weeks thanks to his own hamstring woes, Peraza is playing third base for the first time Friday night against the Blue Jays.
With two games at second base and one as a pinch hitter already, Peraza has made an instant impact. He’s picked up two hits, two runs, two RBI, two walks and two strikeouts over 10 plate appearances entering Friday’s game, and he’s flashed the leather — and range — at second.
Both of Peraza’s ribbies came in the Yankees’ Thursday win over the Angels, in which he went 1-for-4 with a bases-loaded single and a bases-loaded walk. He also made two sharp plays in the game. The first saw him save a run by knocking a groundball down up the middle. He later dove for a ball to his left, rolled over in the first base hole, and made an off-balance throw to record an out.
“Very few people are getting that ball,” Boone said of the second play, but not a lot of defensively talented shortstops find themselves playing second base. In just a small amount of time, a middle infield consisting of Peraza and Volpe has shown it can cover a lot of ground.
“Second base is something that I worked on a lot last year,” Peraza said, “so I feel really good right now. I feel ready to play the position.”
The hot corner, however, is not a spot Peraza has had much prep time at. But with Donaldson delayed and the Yankees looking for full and half off days for DJ LeMahieu, who battled his own injuries last year, Peraza has a chance to expand his versatility.
“There’s no question he can play the position,” Boone said. “It’s just the newness of it, the rawness of it. Over time, he will be able to, but right now, there’s some opportunities, so we’ll just mix and match.”
As for shortstop, there’s never been a doubt that Peraza can play the position at a high level. But Volpe has shown that he can as well.
For the foreseeable future, the latter is the Yankees’ go-to at short despite the former’s reemergence.
“Anthony’s our shortstop right now,” Boone said. “We’ll let those things kind of play out. And right now, there’s an opening for Peraza to kind of get in there, and he’s done a really nice job, and it’s a couple of games and he’s earning more opportunities. It always remains kind of fluid, but we went with Anthony. But we also know what a talented player Oswald is.”
Peraza, meanwhile, isn’t worried about where he’s playing or what happened in spring training. He’s just looking to win, produce and prolong his second stint in the majors.
“Once you’re here, the focus is to help the team,” he said, “and it’s very exciting the way things are working out for us right now.”
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