The trade deadline has come and gone and the Yankees were able to make some big moves. For New York, they were able to secure some major deals and they were able to keep their top tier prospects. One prospect I’m surprised they held onto is shortstop Oswald Peraza.
Peraza had been mentioned in trades all throughout trade season. There was a lot of whispers tying Peraza to the talks on Luis Castillo as well as Frankie Montas. Obviously, Castillo was traded to the Reds and the Yankees were able to get Montas without dealing Peraza.
Now the question becomes, what’s next for the star prospect? For now, the Yankees feel like their infield is set with Anthony Rizzo, Gleyber Torres, IKF, and Josh Donaldson with DJ LeMahieu floating. However, there are some definite areas of weakness where Peraza could help out.
Yankees’ Weak Spots
One major area of weakness for New York is their defense at shortstop. Sure, IKF has been slightly better than Gleyber Torres, but he’s one of the worst defensive shortstops in baseball. He’s also been very fortunate that scorers have labeled a number of his errors hits even though they were clearly errors.
IKF won a gold glove at third base, but he’s the furthest thing from a gold glove shortstop. Another area of weakness is Josh Donaldson’s bat. For the most part this season, his bat has been non-existent and that has really hurt the Yankees. He’s been pretty good defensively, but he’s going to have a magnifying glass on his offense especially with Joey Gallo gone.
Many people believe that since they didn’t trade him, Oswald Peraza should be called up. Peraza is a gold glove level defender right now and would be a massive upgrade to the infield. Not too mention he’s got some serious pop in his bat. He’s hit 14 homers so far in Triple-A this year opposed to the zero from IKF.
If the Yanks called up Peraza, they could either move IKF to the bench or they could shift him to third and bench Donaldson. Of course, they could always do what I’d prefer and that’s bench both in favor of an infield of DJ LeMahieu, Peraza, Torres, and Rizzo.
As of now, I think the Yankees will keep Peraza in the minors, but don’t rule out seeing one of their top prospects before the end of the season. Moving Peraza up would also give Anthony Volpe a shot at playing up a level before the end of the season.