Oswald Peraza deserves a chance

 The New York Yankees right now are not a good baseball team. Part of why they are not a winning club is because of their bench. You can’t have starters on a Major League bench, but you should have guys who are at least league average.

The J.D. Davis experiment with the Yankees was a risk worth taking but it is time for Brian Cashman to admit that the experiment has not worked. The idea behind bringing Davis onboard was to fill the first base hole left behind by Anthony Rizzo breaking his right arm, in particular against left-handed pitching. Davis in his career has a slash line of .254/.339/.771 with a .324 average when he put the ball in play. This season the 31-year-old veteran has a slash line of .209/.292/.664 with a .250 average when he puts the ball in play. The two numbers that are extremely alarming are the dip in almost 50 points of batting average and almost 100 in OPS. Simply put, J.D. Davis is not the same player the Yankees thought they were getting when they signed him after he was DFA’d by the Oakland Athletics. So, if the Yankees will designate Davis for assignment, what would be the corresponding move?

 How about finally allowing Oswald Peraza the space to figure out if he can be something at the big-league level? Peraza has been on the “Scranton Shuttle” for much of the past two years. He had a literal cup of coffee with the Yankees this year to fill space when Davis was moving from one side of the country to the other and was on the Major League roster for one day. For the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees Peraza has a slash line of .211/.328/.579 with three doubles, one home run, and 17 RBI’s. Peraza has played 39 games this season 20 of those games have been played at shortstop, nine games at third base, nine at second, and one game as the designated hitter. Obviously if Peraza would be called up, he would likely get most of his reps at third base, which he has 36 games played all which came last season.

If right now is not the time for Peraza—when will it be? The 24-year-old shortstop has enough service time to not show up on the Yankees top prospect list and it is no secret that the plan is for him to eventually take over the second base position when the Bombers move on from Torres at some point in the near future. If the Yankee front office is so sure that Peraza is a guy of the future, he needs the opportunity to showcase that the talent can produce at the highest level. Also, the Yankees are currently three games behind the Baltimore Orioles in the AL East. They are three games ahead of the Boston Red Sox in the loss column. The Yankees are in the midst of their season ending in terms of being able to win the World Series. There is still a chance and Peraza is a part of it. The Bronx Bombers need a spark in the worst way possible. With the trade deadline approaching fast Brian Cashman will be able to address various needs that need to be filled and having a youth injection at the same time could super charge an easy part of their schedule and get the Yankees winning multiple games in a row and multiple series in a row again. But it needs to happen now!

If not, it is a clear message from the top down to the ball club and the fans that the organization is fine with letting the 2024 season play out the way it will and not throw out the lifeline the team is in desperate need of.

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