It had been a while since Yankees fans were able to hear from manager Aaron Boone, and there was plenty to touch on when he spoke on Tuesday.
The Yankees manager, speaking with reporters via Zoom, discussed Gary Sanchez’s progress as he continues play in the Dominican Winter League, gave some insight on the 2021 starting rotation, and provided an update on a few players dealing with injuries, including Gio Urshela.
ON GARY SANCHEZ’S DOMINICAN WINTER LEAGUE WORK:
“He’s just DHing down there. You know it was really Gary driving that. … obviously having a difficult season and struggling and being a shortened season, he just wanted more at-bats. To his credit, he kind of got after it and got himself ready to go down there and got himself regular at-bats. I was actually just in here watching a video of him. I know he got a big hit in what looked like a pretty big emotional game. It was pretty fun to see some reactions out of [Yasiel] Puig and Gary. It was a big game down there. I think just him wanting to kind of get in a little bit of a groove, get some regular at-bats and kind of work on some of the things that he and [hitting coach] Marcus [Thames] and [assistant hitting coach] PJ [Pilittere] worked on here in this last month getting ready for winter ball so he can try and take some of those improvements and adjustments in a Winter Ball setting with some regular at-bats.”
ON WHETHER THE ROTATION’S CURRENT MAKEUP WILL BE ENOUGH IN 2021:
“It may have to be enough and I’m certainly excited about the people we have behind Gerrit Cole. From a depth standpoint, from a number of young guys getting an opportunity to pitch this year, and showing a lot of promise. Look, we still have a couple of months for the offseason to unfold and I know [general manager Brian Cashman] is working hard to try and add pitching where he can. But you never know how in the end how that’s going to flush out. So you’ve got to be prepared to go in with what you have and we’re obviously really excited about some of the things we were able to see from the development of the Deivi Garcias and the Clarke Schmidts and Nick Nelson and Michael Kings of the world to obviously getting [Luis Severino] back at some point to Domingo German pitching himself back into the conversation. So feel like we got good depth and hopefully we’re able to add to that bunch and maybe even see some more young guys emerge and put their names in there.”
ON DOMINGO GERMAN BEING PART OF THE ROTATION IN 2021:
“I hope so. He’s playing Winter Ball right now. He’s in good shape and did what he needed to do to get himself ready to pitch in Winter Ball. There’s a lot of value in that with him not being able to pitch at all this year. My hope is that he can come in and impact us like he has in ’18 and ’19. I’m hopeful and optimistic of that, but we’re still months away from that to coming to fruition.”
ON GIO URSHELA’S SURGERY:
Gio’s going to be fine. He should be ready to go for spring training. Everything with the surgery went according to plan, exactly what they expected when they went in there to remove that bone chip. So I don’t think that’s going to be a big deal. He’s rehabbing now in the New York area. What happened was at the end of the season, he felt really good and the player didn’t want to have surgery, which you certainly understand and respect that. If you’re having a non-issue, you’re not eager to have surgery for surgery’s sake. I think we wanted him to go ahead and have it because we felt it was fairly minor.”
Kyle leads sports coverage and hosts the Concrete Jungle podcast. Have a lead or question? Send it to [email protected].