Aaron Boone sounded like someone who had made up his mind.
But he was not yet ready to let the public in on what he has decided with regards to his starting left fielder for Game 1 of the ALDS against the Royals on Saturday.
And just because Alex Verdugo or Jasson Dominguez starts the series opener does not mean he is locked into the lineup.
Alex Verdugo had a down year offensively, but was a plus on defense in left field.
“I have in my mind where I’m going right now, but I’m still going to let it marinate for 24 hours and make sure I’m talking to the right people before I ultimately make that decision,” Boone said Thursday before the Yankees held another simulated game at the Stadium. “At least for Game 1, and then it could be fluid from there.”
The decision comes down to Verdugo’s defense and experience versus Dominguez’s offensive upside, both from a power and speed perspective.
The left-handed hitting Verdugo finished the year with a .647 OPS, the eighth-lowest among 129 qualified hitters.
But Boone has raved about his glove all season, and the manager previously indicated that defense would play a big role in the ultimate decision.
Dominguez, a natural center fielder, looked shaky at times in left field after being called up Sept. 9.
Though the switch-hitter(who is stronger from the left side) did not light it up offensively since his call-up, he has the potential to be much more of a threat in the lineup.
But in the postseason, where every out is magnified, it remains to be seen if the Yankees will be comfortable starting him in left field.
The Yankees are high on Jasson Dominguez’s bat, but his left-field defense has been shaky in his limited action at the position in September.
GM Brian Cashman on Thursday defended the Yankees’ preparation with Dominguez, which included starting him in left field just 11 times in his final 25 games in the minors before coming up for good.
“Obviously there’s a few plays, clearly, that have gotten a lot of attention and understandably so,” Cashman said. “This is a very young, high-end prospect that gets dropped into the middle of a pennant race and playing a position that he’s still developing in. It’s a tough spot to be in, but the compete factor is there.”
“The whole purpose of getting him up when we did after the injury to DJ [LeMahieu] was to learn as much as we could so hopefully we’d be in a position to factor all the information in when we’re trying to put together a postseason roster. The trial was definitely beneficial and everything we saw will certainly be discussed here as we finalize what we hope to be the winning roster in the next round.”
Anthony Rizzo (fractured fingers) had still not attempted any baseball activities as of Thursday afternoon, and his chances of making the ALDS roster appeared slim.
But the Yankees continued to leave the door open for him, at least for another day.
“I know he presents, under those circumstances, better than you would expect in terms of a lot less pain than you would expect and more strength to the squeeze than you would expect, given what he’s going through,” Cashman said. “It’s given us maybe a glimmer of — I wouldn’t say hope, but a glimmer of, ‘Hmm, we’ll see, let’s talk further about this down the line as we get closer to having to make the final official decision.’ ”
Gleyber Torres, a pending free agent, is about to begin what may be his final playoff run as a Yankee after a regular season in which he struggled mightily for the first three months before turning it around over the final three months.
“I’d flip the question more about, why didn’t he hit before rather than now?” Cashman said. “But hopefully he saved the best for last. He’s always been a professional, tremendously talented hitter. I’ve pondered, was it the trade deadline and he got through that? Then all of a sudden decided to settle in and relax? I really don’t have an answer to it.”
