Should the Yankees platoon Greg Bird and Tyler Austin at first base?

Pretty soon, Yankees first baseman Greg Bird will return to the majors and Tyler Austin’s time in the bigs will be up, right? Not so fast. Why not platoon the lefty and righty power bats?

Why would the Yankees want to remove Tyler Austin’s bat from the active roster for Greg Bird when Austin wrecks left-handed pitching? With 87 plate appearances, his career slash line against lefties is .342/.414/.712. He’s also smacked eight home runs.

As for Greg Bird, he hasn’t been terrible against lefties, but he also hasn’t been exceptional. With 81 plate appearances, Bird’s career slash line against lefties is .257/.346/.500, and he’s smacked five home runs. Again, not bad, but not as good as Austin’s splits.

Before I go on any further, let me point out the sample size is too small to forecast how both of these players careers will pan out. For all we know, Austin could be off to a hot start against lefties, and Bird is a future Hall of Famer in the making.

However, we should not ignore the performance of both players in their careers. Some Yankees fans do not believe Greg Bird should immediately get the starting first base job back because he is always getting injured.

Even Mike Francesa agreed with a caller live on WFAN that Bird’s lack of durability is a fair reason not to trust him.

If there is one thing that Bird has proven so far in his young career, it’s that he is unable to play first base for the Yankees for an extended period. He has failed to hold down the job time, and time again.

Related Story: Tyler Austin the obvious and best choice to stay with the club

Why is Greg Bird getting veteran treatment?

I can understand handing Bird the job if he was an established, proven veteran, but he is not. Only a proven veteran should replace a rookie who is leading all other rookies in his league in home runs (8) and runs batted in (23).

Is Bird getting veteran treatment because of the clutch home run he hit against Andrew Miller in the ALDS?

Yeah, the home run was awesome, but it didn’t immortalize Bird amongst the Yankee gods. It was a cool moment. The truth is the Yankees organization views Bird as the better prospect than Austin. And arguably, even the numbers prove Bird is a better overall player.

Bird can hit a slider, unlike Austin

Fangraphs is terrific when it comes to analyzing the performance of players. Pitch Type Linear Weights “attempts to answer the question: How well has a batter performed against a certain pitch?” A score of zero is average, negative is below average, and positive is above average.

Austin crushes fastballs as he has a career wFB (Fastball runs above average) of 12.3. He’s slightly above average hitting curves, scoring a wCB of 3.0, but he struggles with every other pitch: his wSL against sliders is -5.2, his wCT against cutters is -2.4. And his wCH against changeups is -2.1.

As for Bird, he is a complete hitter based off of his performance so far: his wFB is 0.8, his wSL is 4.4, his wCT is -2.9, his wCB is 2.3, and his wCH is 4.9.

Bird has more plate discipline and doesn’t strike out as much

Bird walks 10.9% of the time, and he strikes out 27.3% of the time. Austin walks 7.6% of the time and strikes out 37.4% of the time. While both players strikeout way too much, Austin’s high K% is higher than Aaron Judge‘s 31.8% strikeout rate.

These splits do not play in Austin’s favor as it’s common knowledge that the Yankees front office is heavily invested nowadays in sabermetrics.

Tyler Austin has done everything asked of him

A caller on WFAN during the Mike Francesa show mentioned to Mike how unfortunate it would be if Tyler Austin is demoted. In my opinion, he doesn’t deserve to be sent down. He has performed well enough to remain on the active roster.

He has proven to be capable of hitting against the best pitchers in the league. Seriously, look at who he has homered off of in his career:

My personal favorite is against Chris Sale for obvious reasons (he is on the Red Sox).

So when the time comes for Bird to be activated, should the Yankees demote Austin? No, they shouldn’t, but they may have to. The Yankees are having issues getting Brandon Drury back to the majors. There is not enough room on this roster to hold all of these players.

Austin has done everything asked of him, and he’s been successful filling in at first base. I would imagine Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman will have a difficult time making their decision when the time comes.

Is Tyler Austin trade bait?

Speaking of Cashman, maybe he has something else in mind for Austin? Perhaps he views Austin as a reliable trade piece for a starting pitcher. Austin is 26-years-old and isn’t at the stage of his career where he should be a bench player.

He has the bat to start every day, so maybe his remaining time in pinstripes is limited. I hope not, but the Yankees will have to lose someone valuable to obtain a good pitcher.

Next: Yankees: Improve starting pitching now, not later

What do you think?

I think the Yankees should keep both Bird and Austin on the active roster, and they should platoon the first base job. If they platoon the two, then they can hold one less pitcher on their roster or part ways with Neil Walker.

I don’t want to see anyone go, but I think removing Austin would definitely be a mistake. I could be wrong though. What are your thoughts?

"Should the #Yankees platoon Greg Bird and Tyler Austin at first base?— Christopher Scott (@cjscoott) May 22, 2018"