Double Play: An Early Gloating of the Yankees Middle Infield Trades

Here we are heading into the third game of the season, and already we’ve seen reasons to cheer and fear for the 2016 Yankees.

All season long, fans will endlessly bicker about what Yankees’ GM Brian Cashman and the front office should’ve done to better equip the team for its 28th World Series quest. Maybe the Bombers needed a dominant front-line starting pitcher. Or another reliever. Probably wouldn’t have hurt to have added some more infield and minor-league pitching depth.

But this Yankees squad, coming off of a 16-6 victory against the Houston Astros on Wednesday, has the potential to be the best infusion of veteran leadership and young talent that the Bronx has seen in recent years.

Over the past couple of winters, Cashman has made two particular trades that anoint this New York team with such a refreshing distinction.

• 2014-15 off-season: The Yankees sent P Shane Greene to the Detroit Tigers and received SS Didi Gregorius as part of a three-team trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks
• 2015-16 off-season: The Yankees sent P Adam Warren and INF Brendan Ryan to the Chicago Cubs for 2B/SS Starlin Castro

It’s clear that New York delved into its valuable pitching depth to make these trades happen. But come on, only trading two players for your starting middle infield is a steal–Ryan was included to adjust the finances of the Cubs-Yanks trade and was released almost immediately. Concerning Gregorius, once Jeter departed from the field and it was revealed that the heir to shortstop was a 6’3″ curiosity that batted .226 in limited 2014 playing time, the outlook of the Greene-Gregorius trade seemed hopeful at best. But Cashman insisted that his scouts were envisioning room for development, so following an impressive rookie debut with the Yankees, Greene was shipped off to Detroit.

For the first couple of months in 2015, watching Gregorius was like observing a newborn animal trying to gain its land legs. He was as-advertised on defense except for the occasional jittery hands, but he would get caught up in bone-headed base running plays and was starting off slow at the plate. Fans began raining down shrouds of “De-rek Je-ter!” chants that grew more boisterous with each mistake.

But Gregorius eventually found his footing, and just like that we witnessed a man transform from a question into the answer at shortstop.

As far as Castro, scientific evidence may have proven that even the sun isn’t quite as hot as the Yankees’ new second baseman. While collecting seven RBIs in his first two games as a Yankee, he’s also clubbing .625 to go with his pivotal 3-run HR Wednesday night.

Not to be outdone by his new double play partner, Gregorius has come out swinging the bat to a .500 average and a home run of his own that came in the season opener.

So yes, the Yankees will likely miss having Warren in their bullpen and rotation this year, especially with Bryan Mitchell missing at least four months of the year on the DL. But Warren-for-Castro was a deal that Cashman was a genius to agree to, because even though Castro has his inconsistencies, he has an All-Star caliber ceiling and the defensive range to gobble up a good number of grounders with Gregorius patrolling the opposite side of the bag.

Cashman’s two trades for Gregorius and Castro have given Yankees fans a dynamic duo to be excited about for the foreseeable future. The front office’s youth injection looks to be shaping up nicely, because when you can revamp your roster’s flexibility without exhausting free agency or trading away your top prospects, it’s nearly impossible to have a more successful plan and execution.

I know it’s early, but put a “W” in the books for these Yankees’ trades.