The Yankees handled the Red Sox in the AL Wild Card Series, but Wednesday night still left a couple of warning lights blinking in center field.
Both came with Trent Grisham, and both were the kind of defensive lapses that can flip a tight October game fast. In the top of the third, Nate Eaton dropped a ball into shallow center.
It was a tough chance, sure, but Grisham got a poor jump and never covered much ground. Eaton turned it into a double, and even though Max Fried escaped the inning, it forced him to pitch with a runner in scoring position and added unnecessary stress.
The next issue arrived in the sixth. Adley Rutschman lifted a ball to center, and Grisham again was slow to react and never really got close.
Spencer Jones and Jazz Chisholm Jr. had to close in, and Chisholm finished the play with a nice over-the-shoulder basket catch. The out was recorded, but it was a much harder play than it needed to be because of Grisham’s read and his lack of burst.
That mattered immediately. Fried gave up a solo homer to Willson Contreras on the very next pitch, trimming the Yankees’ lead to one. If Rutschman had reached on that routine fly ball, the Contreras blast would have tied the game at two.
The Yankees answered with a big offensive inning in the bottom of the sixth, so the defensive miscues never changed the result. Grisham also helped at the plate, finishing 2-for-3 with a walk and a run scored. But the larger issue is hard to ignore: center field is too important for a team that expects every small mistake to get exposed.
Grisham’s regular season in center was rough by the numbers, with -6.8 Fielding Runs and -6 Outs Above Average, according to FanGraphs and Baseball Savant. His right hamstring has also been strained twice, and that kind of injury history shows up in the way he moves. On the Eaton double, he was clocked at 23.5 feet per second, a sprint speed comparable to catchers, according to Chris Kirschner of The Athletic.
He had only just returned from that second hamstring strain to make the Wild Card roster, so maybe he still isn’t all the way back. Either way, the Yankees have seen enough to know they can’t keep rolling him out in center.
There are alternatives. Spencer Jones and Cody Bellinger are both options, though Jones looks more likely to get the call. His defensive metrics have also been poor, with -4 Outs Above Average, but the Yankees may still prefer him over a compromised Grisham in center.
Bellinger would be the best defender of the three in theory, but the Yankees have mostly used him in left field, where he’s been excellent. He has only 107.0 innings in center this season, compared with 1,008.2 in left, where he posted 21 Defensive Runs Saved, 6 Outs Above Average, and a Fielding Run Value of 8. The Yankees get more value from him staying in his strongest spot than from shifting him to cover center.
That leaves the simplest answer: Jones in center, Grisham in right when he starts. Grisham hasn’t played right field since 2019, but his limited range would be easier to hide there.
The Yankees also don’t have much else in right, since Heliot Ramos is an extremely poor fielder and Aaron Judge likely won’t play there because of his calf injury. Matchups would probably put Grisham and Ramos in a platoon anyway.
However it’s arranged, the Yankees can’t keep using Grisham in center field. The Red Sox game showed why, and a matchup with the Rays would make those mistakes even more dangerous.
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