Yankees: 3 players NYY should consider taking off roster with decisions looming

MLB rosters will shrink to 28 players and the Yankees won’t have an easy task.

This coming Thursday, Major League Baseball (for some reason) decided to mandate that rosters decrease from 30 to 28. That’s some sound, logical thinking, especially because teams across the league definitely don’t need more reinforcements amid a global pandemic and uncertainty around every corner. The Yankees are totally locked in, for sure for sure.

But such is life with commissioner Rob Manfred running the show, and we’ll just have to deal. For the New York Yankees, who have one of the deepest rosters in the league, they won’t have an easy decision to make, given their formidable depth.

We could see two of these three guys gone in the next few days once manager Aaron Boone and general manager Brian Cashman figure it out.

3. David Hale

The Yankees’ stacked bullpen makes David Hale expendable.

New York’s bullpen is especially deep with right-handers, and while Hale isn’t bad at all, he’s probably the least effective one. He only appeared in 20 games last year (and just 93 since debuting in 2013), so it’s not like he’s heavily used to the point where Boone would have to find a new innings-eater or workhorse.

Though he’s appeared in three games already this year (and even recorded a save against the Red Sox!), young guys like Michael King and Nick Nelson have already been used just as much (if not more) and we fully know Chad Green, Jonathan Holder and Jonathan Loaisiga are much more valued.

If any right-hander is getting taken off the roster, it’s probably going to be the 32-year-old Hale.