Has Estevan Florial Finally Made a Case For a Future Roster Spot?

The Yankees won their seventh series in their last nine as they continued to put more lipstick on this pig of a season. I thought I’d spend the top part of the newsletter with some thoughts on Estevan Florial who might be setting himself up for a chance to finally win a full-time roster spot in 2024. Let’s get to it. 

There hasn’t been a whole lot to be interested in during this final month of the Yankees season, but one exception has been center fielder Estevan Florial who is finally getting a chance for some consistent playing time in what might be a last-ditch effort to salvage his career.

All the excitement that Jasson Dominguez generated over the past couple years when he began his journey through the Yankees minor league system? That’s how it was, at least several years ago, for Florial.

Before Dominguez came along, the Yankees signed Florial as an amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic as a 17-year-old in 2015, and right away the scouts forecast that he would eventually be the next great Yankees center fielder. He had speed, power as a lefty batter which was tailor-made for the short porch, and he could go get it in the outfield.

When he showed all of that at the lower levels, MLB Pipeline rated him as the No. 1 prospect in the Yankees system going into 2019, No. 57 in all of baseball. But the one question that plagued Florial was his rate of swing and miss which led to big strikeout totals, and unfortunately that began to become more of an issue and it prevented him from getting to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre until 2021 (to be fair, the 2020 minor league season was canceled due to COVID).

And this is when the shine really started to dull on Florial. In 2021 he hit just .218 and while he had 13 homers, he also struck out 112 times in 362 plate appearances, an unsustainable 31% clip. In 2022 he failed to make the Yankees roster in spring training, went back to Triple-A and was much better with a .283 average, an .850 OPS, 15 homers, 39 stolen bases, and Baseball America named him the best defensive outfielder in the International League, but again, there were 140 strikeouts.

This past spring Florial was designated for assignment one day into the regular season and everyone figures his days in the Yankees’ organization were done. On the open market, any team could claim him but in a nod to just how far his star had fallen, he passed through waivers and without a nibble, quite an indictment on what the rest of MLB thought of him.

Even though he was out of minor league options the Yankees re-signed him for S/WB as a non 40-man roster player, and that essentially locked him in down there for the year. Without options, if the Yankees wanted to call him up he’d have to pass through waivers again, and if he cleared, they would have to make room on the 40-man.

This is why when the Yankees needed injury replacements for Aaron Judge, or Harrison Bader, or Giancarlo Stanton, they called up guys like Franchy Cordero, Willie Calhoun, Jake Bauers and Billy McKinney. None of them were on the 40-man roster either but none were in danger of being claimed on waivers.

“Listen, I would be lying if I said I don’t think about being doubted, but I have no control over that,” Florial said in August. “All I can do is work hard. All the other guys that were called up, I watched all of them work hard from the beginning of the season and they deserved getting called up.”

Through it all, Florial persevered, and here’s where the story may have changed for him. Yes, he struck out a career-high 144 times this year which remained problematic, but otherwise he tore up the IL. His .945 OPS ranked fourth in the league and his 28 home runs were sixth. He batted .284, had a .380 on-base, drove in 79 runs, walked a career-best 66 times, and stole 25 bases. I saw some of this first-hand when Florial came to Rochester as he quite often had his way with Red Wings pitching at Innovative Field.

So when Dominguez blew out his elbow a couple weeks ago and was put on the 60-day injured list, the Yankees were able to add Florial to the 40-man and he didn’t have to pass through waivers so he finally got the call.

With only a few games left to play the results have been mixed, but what’s good is that he has been starting every day, he’s seeing more major league pitching, and he’s playing an excellent center field. By the end of the Toronto series he was slashing .255/.350/.353 for an OPS of .703 with seven RBI and three stole bases.

Maybe this was enough of a sample size to convince the Yankees to bring him back in 2024 and give him a legit chance to win the job while Dominguez is on the mend for probably the first three months of the season.

The new top prospect in the system, outfielder Spencer Jones, isn’t expected to be ready for MLB next year as he just reached Double-A. And the No. 3 prospect, Everson Pereira, is more of a corner outfielder who hasn’t shown much of anything at the plate since he was called up in August.

“I think he’s done a good job of seeing pitches here,” Boone said last week. “He’s been getting on base a little bit, which has been nice. The competitive at-bats have been more consistent than we’ve seen before at this level. He’s going to get an opportunity to play and play a lot. Hopefully he can take advantage and build off of what’s been a strong season, parlay that into some big-league success, really catapult him into the winter and put himself into a really good situation.”

Here are my observations on the three games against the Blue Jays.

Sept. 26: Yankees 2, Blue Jays 0

➤ The teams played eight scoreless innings before the Yankees won the game in the ninth when Gleyber Torres singled and Austin Wells hit a two-run opposite field homer off Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano.

➤ Michael King has been a revelation as a starting pitcher, one of the few true bright spots of this season. He was outstanding in this game going pitch for pitch with Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman. He threw six innings of shutout ball and allowed just one hit and struck out five. The only issue he had was walks, five of them, and they led to the only sweaty inning he had. That was in the third when he issued two-out freebies to George Springer and Bo Bichette, then fell behind Vlad Guerrero Jr. 3-0. Here, he rallied and whiffed the dough boy looking. His ERA is down to 2.50.

➤ For the umpteenth time this season the Yankees were being no-hit for five innings before Florial dumped one into center for a single to lead off the sixth, but of course he was quickly erased by a DJ LeMahieu double play grounder. How many times have I typed that this season?

➤ In the seventh, there was the gift that is Giancarlo Stanton. He ripped a double to left-center and then he should have scored on either of the next two things that happened. Of course, he scored on neither. First, Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a ground ball single to right, and it was slow enough where most players on the team would have scored from second. Stanton had to stop at third. Then, Oswaldo Cabrera hit a grounder to short and Stanton was running on contact but was thrown out even though Bichette bounced the throw home. Unless Stanton hits a home run, it’s just too much work to get him across the plate. It’s ridiculous.

➤ Jhony Brito relieved King and worked around a baserunner in each of his two innings, and after Wells put the Yankees ahead, Clay Holmes allowed a one-out single before getting the final two outs. The Yankees held the Jays to three singles, so a pretty good night on the mound.

BOX SCORE

Sept. 27: Yankees 6, Blue Jays 0

➤ Signed, sealed and soon to be delivered will be Gerrit Cole’s first AL Cy Young Award. What a way to cap his best season as a Yankee and one of the best pitching seasons for the team in the 21st century. Cole was brilliant as he spun a two-hit complete-game shutout with five strikeouts and no walks. He finishes the season 15-4 with an AL-best 2.63 ERA and an MLB-best 0.981 WHIP. He averaged 9.6 strikeouts per nine innings and his strikeout-to-walk ratio was 4.63.

➤ Going against a team that is still trying to lock up a playoff berth, Cole dominated the Blue Jays. Eight of them went 0-for with Brandon Belt managing the only two hits, a double leading off the second and a two-out single in the seventh. Otherwise, the Jays went 1-2-3 in seven innings.

➤ Aaron Judge, who had been scuffling most of the time since his return from injury, is closing with a flourish. He hit two more home runs, a pair of two-run shots in the fourth off Jose Berrios and in the seventh off Trevor Richards. And in the fifth he was intentionally walked and came around to score on Stanton’s bases-loaded two-run single. In his last seven games Judge has hit .478 with five homers and 12 RBI with an OPS of 1.861. He now has 37 homers in just 103 games.

➤ “It’s remarkable to see,” Aaron Boone said of Cole and Judge. “Kind of fitting that Aaron has that night on the night Gerrit probably locks up the Cy Young award. Pretty cool. Fun to watch two great players do their thing.”

BOX SCORE

Sept. 28: Blue Jays 2, Yankees 0

➤ A third straight shutout in this series, but this time the Boy Band came out on top as they avoided a sweep and pretty much locked up a playoff berth. Which, of course, sucks. The Rays and the Jays man, both are gonna make the playoffs and those are pretty much the two teams I loathe the most. Oh, and the Astros, too, and they’re gonna be in as well. And my favorite NL team, the Cubs, are undergoing an epic choke in the last two weeks and just got swept by the Braves, so they’ve probably cost themselves a wild-card chance. Just a shitty, shitty baseball season all around.

➤ Luke Weaver started for the Yankees and he got tagged for solo homers by Daulton Varsho in the third and Matt Chapman in the fourth and that was enough for him to take the loss as the Yankees couldn’t do anything against Blue Jays starter Chris Bassitt. He blanked the Yankees during 7.2 innings of five-hit ball with 12 strikeouts. And some of the strikeouts were ridiculous. He made the Yankees look foolish with some of their swings. It looked like a bunch of Stanton’s up there swinging.

➤ The Jays added a run in the fifth off Greg Weissert, and then Zach McAllister served up a three-run homer to Brandon Belt in the sixth to close the scoring.

➤ So for the season, the Yankees finished 7-6 against Toronto, the only AL East team they had a winning record against. They were 6-7 against the Orioles, 4-9 against the Red Sox and 5-8 against the Rays. Add it up and it’s 22-30 in the division for the season. Ugly.

➤ Yankees prospect Yoendrys Gomez made his MLB debut by pitching the final two innings and giving up just one hit while striking out four. The 23-year-old looks like a pitcher who could push for a role next season though he’ll probably start the year in Triple-A. He had a 3.58 in 19 starts at Double-A Somerset this year.

BOX SCORE

 ➤ Sept. 28, 1947: The concept of Old Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium was born on this day 76 years ago, and it brought together a who’s who of former baseball greats, most of whom were in the Baseball Hall of Fame or would be eventually.

The concept for the game was to honor Babe Ruth - who was in poor health and would die 11 months later - by bringing back many of the players from his day. All the money from the gate of more than 25,000 fans went to the Babe Ruth Foundation. The old-timers played two innings, but as you might imagine, the baseball wasn’t exactly brilliant. Ruth, of course, did not participate.

The American League All-Stars featured Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Jimmy Foxx, Charlie Gehringer, Al Simmons and Mickey Cochrane. The Yankees All-Stars included Waite Hoyt, Red Rolfe, Bob Meusel, Earle Combs, Lefty Gomez, and George Selkirk. The Yankees were managed by Joe McCarthy, the Americans by Connie Mack.

Combs hit a long fly ball over the head of Speaker in the second inning and by the time Speaker - who was 59 years old at the time - tracked the ball down and got it back to the infield, three Yankees including the 48-year-old Combs had scored.

In the real ballgame, the Yankees closed their regular season with a 5-3 victory over the A’s in a tuneup for the World Series showdown with the Brooklyn Dodgers which would begin two days hence. Tommy Henrich and Phil Rizzuto had two hits each to back the complete game by Bill Wight, the only game he pitched in 1947, and as it turned out the last game he’d pitch in pinstripes.

When the 2023 schedule was first released, this final series in Kansas City for the Yankees seemed like an advantageous one. If the Yankees were in a tight race to make the playoffs, what a great position to be in on the last weekend of the regular season, playing a Royals team that everyone knew was going to be terrible.

Instead, the games against the 54-105 Royals won’t matter a bit because the 81-78 Yankees are not in the playoff race; they’re playing out the string just like Kansas City. Hey, at least the Yankees secured their 31st straight non-losing season by winning twice in Toronto.

The pitching matchups are as follows: Friday at 8:10 p.m. on YES it’s Carlos Rodon (5.74 ERA) against Jordan Lyles (6.24); Saturday at 7:10 on YES it’s Clarke Schmidt (4.65) against a TBD; and Sunday’s season finale at 3:10 p.m. on YES will feature Michael King (2.66) against Zack Greinke (5.37).