Yankees Need to Determine Tyler Austin’s Long Term Value

Tyler Austin became just the fourth Yankees first basemen since 1916 to hit a home run on his birthday.

Talk about the perfect gift for a 25-year-old big league rookie. With two outs in the bottom of the 7th inning, Austin stepped to the plate, immediately following Aaron Judge‘s single, and laced an opposite-field home run to put the Yankees up 3-2.

Obviously, this pivotal game against the Toronto Blue Jays wouldn’t be decided until the top of the 9th inning, with a game-saving grab up against the left field wall by Brett Gardner; but the poise showed by Austin, to lift the Yankees, as momentarily as it might have been, will hopefully aid in his growing confidence–hitting against major league pitching.

Two of the Baby Bombers, Judge and Austin, are having strikingly similar starts since being called up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre; both have great athletic ability, have hit two home runs apiece, currently possess an inability to hit breaking balls, and strike out at an alarming pace.

The thing with Judge, though, is that he’s all but guaranteed the starting right field job in 2017. Austin’s spot, however, is much more undefined.

The reasoning behind this is both simple and complex. The simplicity is that Austin is young, he’s versatile. Over the course of five and a half seasons of minor league ball, Austin played 119 games at first base, 39 at third base, 19 in left field, and 300 in right!

While it’s an asset to have a guy on a 25-man roster that can play a number of different positions well, which allows for the addition of more bullpen arms, the reluctance to hand a player, still in the infancy of his big league development a set position he can grow into, can often do more harm than good.

Players like Ben Zobrist, Matt Carpenter, and Josh Harrison, each of whom broke into the bigs as super utility guys, play a much different style of ball than that of Austin. So as to compare them would do this debate a disservice.

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The three aforementioned players are scrappy infielders by trade. They hit for average, keep strikeouts to a minimum, and take the field almost every day, no matter the place on the diamond.

Austin’s path to a consistent presence in the lineup is blocked at his two most natural positions; Judge in right field, and the impending return of Greg Bird at first base.

The most vital option to finding playing time for Austin might be for him to squeeze his way into the third base conversation. Chase Headley has been hitting well of late but at 32, with and a mediocre slash line of .259/.334/.398, I wouldn’t be shocked for a moment to see the Yankees move him and his remaining 2-years, $26 million in the offseason–if they could find a taker.

The other, more controversial, more complex option, would be to replace Brett Gardner in left field. At 33, Gardner’s best asset is still his defensive ability. But his bat and stolen base game have taken a gigantic step backward in 2016.

With 3-years, $37.5 million remaining on his contract, the Yankees can either bite the bullet and trade the nine-year veteran for a prospect or two; in turn, shed his salary, opening a spot for Austin; or they could continue to pay Gardy to act as a fourth outfielder and late inning defensive replacement, a la Aaron Hicks.

The former would make the most sense since Gardner’s best playing days are likely behind him.

It really comes down to how much Brian Cashman and the Yankees’ brass value Austin. While the easy move is to keep Austin on the bench–ready and available at four different defensive positions, getting him premium at-bats as DH over Brian McCann could prove a challenge.

As of tight now, the Yankees are still in the thick of the Wild Card hunt. So alternating Austin with Mark Teixeira at first base is fine. But as soon as this season comes to an end, the organization needs to think long and hard about where they can maximize Austin’s potential.

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For all we know, it could be as a member of a different club, in the event of a large-scale trade. I just hope for the kid’s sake, the Yankees make up their minds one way or the other before we have another Rob Refsynder situation on our hands. Because we’ve seen what toying with a one-time prospect can result in–nothing.