The Yankees like Eduardo Nunez that much is clear, he’s a middle infielder with a lot of speed, athleticism, and a bit of pop in his bat, and they try to play him as often as possible. On a team with no holes in the lineup, this bench player has managed to find himself in 20 of the team’s first 31 games.
The problem is that he can’t play defense. At all. He’s consistently bad and if he’s not the worst defensive player in the game, he’s in the Top 10. Yet the Yankees keep playing him because nobody can consistently be this bad and with all of his athletic ability surely he will improve. It makes sense except Nunez has not shown any improvement whatsoever out there as he made two more errors on Thursday night.
“I think we’re gonna have to evaluate it a little bit, how much we move him around in a sense,” Girardi told Kieran Darcy of ESPNNewYork.com. “Maybe it’s just difficult for him, all the different throws.”
The Yankees are going to have to evaluate him alright. They have to evaluate whether or not it is worth having him on the team at all. He’s got a few solid tools, but he is such a liability on defense that it’s hard to see how he’s worth it. A move to the outfield seems possible, with his speed he could potentially cover a lot of ground out there. However, his power numbers would leave a lot to be desired in the outfield.
The way I see it the Yankees have two options because they can’t keep running him out there. They could try him in the outfield now with Brett Gardner on the DL or they could send him back down to the minors. A trip to the minors may be what’s best for him as it would give him a chance to play everyday to try to improve his consistency.
One things for sure, they can’t just keep running him out there to make error after error.
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- April 24, 2012 -- Grading the Yankees first 16 games
- April 20, 2012 -- How Brett Gardner’s injury changes the Yankees roster
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May 12, 2012
