The New York Yankees are projected to inject Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe into prominent roles this upcoming season. Seemingly, the shortstop job is Peraza’s to lose, despite management telling Volpe he will have a great opportunity to steal the job, despite having minimal experience at the Triple-A level.
Peraza enjoyed 18 games of action with the Yankees last season, heading .306 with a .404 OBP and 146 wRC+. The sample size was incredibly small, but Peraza showed that he could be an asset moving forward, at the very least, with his elite defense.
Volpe, on the other hand, does expect to make an impact in the 2023 season, but it might not be until a few months down the road. Unless the Yankees elect to trade Gleyber Torres and insert Volpe at second base, there isn’t necessarily an open spot for him at the moment unless he impresses so much at shortstop the Yankees decide to move Peraza.
However, there is one other prospect the MLB Pipeline projects to have a breakout campaign. Outfielder and 5th-ranked prospect Everson Pereira are in line to take a significant step forward.
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The Yankees might have something with Everson Pereira:
Pereira is 21 years old, featuring as an outfielder at the minor-league level. As a righty, Pereira hit .283 with a .341 OBP, five homers, and 13 RBIs last season across 29 games with Double-A Somerset. He did host a 30.1% strike-out rate and a 7.3% walk rate, indicating his chase rate might be a bit high at this point in his career, but he does have fantastic potential.
Signed for $1.5 million out of Venezuela as one of the best all-around talents in the 2017 international class, Pereira didn’t play 100 games in a season until 2022 because of injuries and the pandemic. Coming off a .277/.350/.469 season with 15 homers and 21 steals between High-A and Double-A, he’s still just 21, offers a solid power/speed combo and has the tools to play anywhere in the outfield.
Per the MLB Pipeline.
Having dealt with a few injuries over the past few years, Pereira has seen a few hiccups in his growth. However, he’s just now legal enough to buy a beer in the USA, so seeing him crush at the Double-A level is certainly exciting. The expectation is that Pereira will make the Leap to Triple-A Scranton this upcoming season, breaking out and potentially making an impact for the Yankees down the stretch, mitigating injury and fatigue.
The Yankees already added Pereira to the 40-man roster once back in 2021 to protect him from the Rule-5 draft. Obviously, he’s a valuable prospect the Yankees would like to either utilize in a trade or test this upcoming season. He’s still trying to work out some of the kinks in his game, notably an elevated whiff rate and vulnerability in the strike-out department. However, he has all the talent in the world, and reaching Scranton would be a fantastic accomplishment, putting him on the fast track to feature with the Yankees at some point in the future.