The Yankees announced today that the club has selected the contract of catcher Carlos Narvaez. In addition, outfielders Franchy Cordero and Billy McKinney as well as right-handers Domingo German, Jimmy Cordero, Matt Bowman, and Ryan Weber have all elected free agency after rejecting outright assignments from earlier this week.
It’s an early birthday present for Narvaez, who turns 25 in a few weeks. A right-handed hitter, he signed with the Yankees as an amateur from Venezuela before the 2016 season. The cousin of Mets catcher Omar Narvaez, Carlos has spent the past seven years in the Yankee system. He didn’t reach Low-A until 2021 but has posted respectable numbers over the past couple years — albeit with a three true outcomes approach.
Narvaez opened this year in Double-A but spent the bulk of the season at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He hit .240/.373/.387 with 10 home runs across 84 games for the RailRiders. Narvaez walked in a huge 15.3% of his plate appearances but struck out more than a quarter of the time. He has routinely posted strikeout rates approaching 30% in the minors, generally limiting his batting average.
The ability to draw free passes and bring some power from behind the plate is clearly still intriguing to the New York front office. Narvaez has spent parts of seven seasons in the minors, meaning he would have become a minor league free agent were he not added to the 40-man roster. He joins Kyle Higashioka, Jose Trevino, Ben Rortvedt and prospect Austin Wells in what has become a crowded catching mix. Narvaez can be sent to Triple-A for the foreseeable future, as he’ll be in his first of three minor league option years in 2024.
He hit .240/.373/.387 in 84 AAA games this year. I guess they need some organizational depth now, but I find it hard to believe he was on any Rule 5 radars this fall, unless the glove is really good.
I mean, Austin Barnes was worse with the Dodgers. The Pirates and Marlins need a backup (and a starter). Taking him in the Rule 5 Draft would be a cheap way to solve that problem
I don’t necessarily disagree, but I’d point out that a lot of backup C’s in the bigs have seemingly great AAA slash lines and can never come close to replicating it at the bigs.
Barnes had like an .875 OPS across 3 years at AAA. Austin Hedges had almost a 1.000 OPS in around 100+ AAA games over various seasons.
And yeah MOST players can’t replicate what they’re doing in AAA in the bigs, but catchers seem to be the worst when it comes to this divide. Would be really interested to see a positional breakdown of career AAA numbers vs. MLB performance for each position.
For C’s with at least 200 ABs that reached AAA this year, 46 other C’s had a better OPS .Just saying he doesn’t scream “protect him from the R5 draft” to me, but again, I can’t find too much on his glovework. All I see is he was supposed to be a power-over-bat kinda guy.
It isn’t “protect players from Rule 5” time yet. It’s “prevent players from electing minor league free agency time” now.
This means Roverdt is probably gone too along with Higashioka. With rookie Austin Wells likely serving as backup to Jose Trevino, I doubt an inexperienced Narvaez will be the primary emergency backup catcher. They’ll sign a vet to a minor league contract when the market eventually thins out.
That group of 6 players whom the Yankees granted free agency, combined for a couple wins over replacement. Let us see if the handful of guys replacing them bounce back and forth between the show and bus-riding, while still delivering in very limited time, as gracefully.
Sure, I lumped German there to because, why not. Imagine twirling a perfect game, telling your manager your dealing with a personal medical condition and to become unemployed all in short order. Shocking to see that, considering they’ve allowed other players the time to get right.
They obviously needed the room for studs like Rizzo and Stanton for 2024 to tie for bounce back player of the year, or something.
In that DFA, talent assessing line of thought, Hicks turned the corner in Baltimore almost immediately upon release, and I guarantee several of the the guys they’ll lose in the crunch (here and R5) will shine elsewhere too. Those assessing talent in NY need a new profession. Wonder if the “team with an active manager” is Boone for Counsel.
Aside from German, those guys were fringe players. German showed up to ballclub drunk and tossed around some furniture. They also forced him into a sauna to sweat out the alcohol. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming with his alcohol dependency issues but I’m sure the team was already of it. He’s had his chances since his initial off the field related suspension. Addiction sucks and I hope he turns it around and wish him well.
A .370 OBP with some pop and he’s throw out 32% of baserunners in his MiLB career so it appears he has an arm too. Sounds like he has some tools to work with. Duran has a similar profile with pop and an arm….a little higher BA and low OBP.
The big wild card is Ben Rice who can rake!
You would think that the Yankees front office would have learned from Joey Gallo. I’m tired of watching the whole team strike out all of the time = (
I am really worried about the Yankees. They need to get it together. They have become a big shiny place where guys go to struggle and become mediocre low average high strike out versions of themselves.
There have been way too many players the last 5-10 years or longer who have struggled or been mediocre on the Yankees, got DFA’d or left in free agency or got traded and immediately re-discovered themselves.
They need to take a long hard look in the mirror about their coaching staff, their training and coaching systems, etc. and course correct, even if it means poaching, even if it means getting a guy they like and maybe think *they* can improve, but instead they don’t touch him, they don’t mess with his mechanics one iota and they just let him play his game for them and they would probably, “shockingly” get results more typical of players who leave the Yankees and improve by 40% or whatever.
@Trillionaire
Yanks fans with an ounce of noodle have been saying this for years. The FO seem to be lost in the 90s years of the core four, even though Jeter retired as the last one in 2014.
Personally I’d looking at the medical team, and literally the turf they are playing upon. Stanton had one nasty injury (HBP) in Miami, but now he seems to be unable to run at all?
There just seems to be no coherence in the organisation, and whilst Cole is thus far a big expensive plus, you have to question deals for Stanton, Donaldson, the extension on DJLM, and a heap of others.