Yankees: Tyler Wade losing his hold on second base job

Yankees rookie Tyler Wade earned the opportunity to be the starting second basemen out of spring training but so far this season he’s looked overmatched at the big league level. If his struggles continue a demotion to Triple-A could be on the way. 

We’re only 14 games into the season, but the Yankees have to be a little concerned with what they’ve seen from Wade. He struggled mightily during his limited time with the big league club in 2017 and that’s been the same case this season. Entering play today the 23-year old is hitting .094 in 32 at-bats with 11 strikeouts.

He’s looked lost at the plate at times and he hasn’t done much to give management confidence that he’s going to break out of his slump any time soon. His defense has been fine, but the lack of offensive production is surprising. The Yankees must be somewhat shocked because they thought Wade would really help them this season and prove last year’s struggles were just a fluke.

90 career at-bats are too small of a sample size to judge whether Wade will be an impact player at the big league level, but the early returns certainly aren’t good. A career .133 average isn’t going to cut it and eventually the Yankees are going to have to look elsewhere if the lack of production continues.

One option who we’ve seen a lot of lately is utility man Ronald Torreyes. Toe has been outstanding in the early going picking up nine hits in only 21 at-bats (.429 AVG). He continues to have a knack for picking up big hits whenever his number is called upon even though he doesn’t play every day.

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As Wade continues to scuffle Torreyes should see more playing time but since he’s better off in that utility role the Yankees could also start looking at Gleyber Torres as another option.

The Yankees are well aware that Torres is raking to start his season at Triple-A which has led to speculation that a call-up could be coming. Even though manager Aaron Boone said that a Torres call-up isn’t necessarily likely he did admit that it is a possibility and that he has taken notice of his hot start.

Long term you can assume that Gleyber is the starting second basemen of the future, but if Wade can’t get it going the Torres era could start as soon as this week. I’m sure the Yankees would like to give Wade a longer leash, but with the team off to a pretty mediocre start, there should be a slight sense of urgency as they continue to fall behind the Red Sox in the standings.

Next: Yankees need more from their starting rotation

I like Wade and still think he could be a valuable player for this team, but I don’t know if he’ll ever do so in an everyday role. The Yankees still envision him to be a big contributor as their own version of Ben Zobrist, but his versatility won’t do him much good in his career if he can’t hit.