Yankees set their 25-man Opening Day roster

We’re just three days away from Opening Day and the Yankees 25-man roster appears to be set. Due to the injury to Aaron Hicks, there are some surprise additions to the roster with the most notable being newly acquired outfield Mike Tauchman.

On Sunday the Yankees played their final game of Grapefruit League play and before the game, they made their final roster cut of the spring. Just a day after the team acquired Mike Tauchman from the Rockies in exchange for LHP Phillip Diehl the team optioned utility OF/IF Tyler Wade to Triple-A.

The news was somewhat surprising considering Wade had enjoyed a really good spring and after the injury to Hicks and the demotion of Clint Frazier, he seemed like a safe bet to make the team. However, since Wade is still relatively new to playing center field the Yankees opted to go with Tauchman for that fourth outfield spot.

The lefty-hitting Tauchman is coming off a great season with the Rockies Triple-A club where he hit .323 with 20 HR and 81 RBi in the Pacific Coast League. He’s been blocked from playing with the Rockies at the big league level in recent years so he was expendable and the Yankees gave up a promising young relief prospect to get him.

He can play all three outfield positions and is a career .304 minor league hitter but at 28 years old he’s never been given an extended look at the big league level. He might not get that opportunity with the Yanks but clearly, they see something in him. His situation seems similar to Luke Voit’s when he was with the Cardinals before the Yanks acquired him prior to last year’s trade deadline. Hopefully, he can turn out to be another diamond in the rough.

As for the rest of the roster, Tauchman and Voit will be joined by Greg Bird who certainly earned his spot with another terrific spring. We’ll have to wait and see who will get the nod to start at first this Thursday, but it’s safe to assume that until Hicks return Bird and Voit are both going to get a lot of playing time. I think since Bird is the better defender he’ll see more time at first while Voit will be the DH with Giancarlo Stanton set to begin the year as the primary left-fielder.

On the pitching side, the final bullpen spots will go to Luis Cessa and Stephen Tarpley. They both had excellent springs themselves and with Dellin Betances also set to start the year on the IL it opened up another spot on the roster.

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In what was a make or break spring for Cessa he led the team in innings with 17 and pitched to an outstanding ERA of 0.63. Tarpley, on the other hand, didn’t allow a single run in 11.1 IP and should serve a valuable role this year as a left-handed specialist.

Even though CC Sabathia was expected to start the season on the injured list he was included on the roster but only to serve his five-game suspension to start the year. Once that’s up he will go to the IL and top prospect Jonathan Loaisiga will take his spot.

Domingo German also made the club and will be the team’s fourth starter in the rotation. German will get a long look to make a strong impression with Luis Severino out until the beginning of May at the earliest. If he or Loaisiga struggle early on there’s a good chance we could see recently signed veteran Gio Gonzalez take one of their rotation spots.

All together the Yankees will carry 13 pitchers and 12 position players with a three-man bench of Austin Romine, D.J. LeMahieu and Tauchman. The Yanks obviously won’t be at full strength to begin the season, but the roster they have set is still more than good enough to help them get off to a strong start in April.