Yankees: NY writer’s wild Gio Urshela trade argument makes one big leap

The Yankees might have to trade Gio Urshela or Luke Voit (yikes), but this new piece of the argument doesn’t make much sense to us.

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it 1,000 times. The Yankees have an infield logjam that isn’t sustainable, and must be sussed out by trading one of their stronger contributors, Gio Urshela or Luke Voit, to make room for a defensive upgrade at shortstop and to keep Gleyber Torres happy.

This would all be so much easier if Gleyber Torres had simply been … good at shortstop in 2020. But we digress.

SNY’s Andy Martino added his name to the fray on Thursday, publishing a column that advocated for an Urshela deal over a Voit trade, citing the defensive metrics that inexplicably seem to all be pitted against him, as well as plateauing offense. All well and good, if you really want to deconstruct this team entering 2020.

However, Martino’s deal, which involved re-signing DJ LeMahieu, was also predicated on moving…Gleyber Torres to third?!

It would seem to be a natural assumption that, with Urshela gone, you’d ink LeMahieu, move the Gold Glover to third, and shift Torres back to the position he seemed more comfortable with, at second base.

Unless you had an assurance from LeMahieu that he wouldn’t come back if he were shifted semi-full time to third, why would you ever try to teach Torres an entirely new position for his age-24 season? Especially after he showed clear discomfort at short? Range wasn’t the only flaw in his game, and replacing Urshela’s quick hands at third with Torres’ feels like a more disastrous downgrade than just keeping things the way they were in 2020.

And is LeMahieu really the kind of person who, if he wanted to return to the Yankees, would nix the third base plan and use it as motivation to bolt?

Trading Urshela? Fine. We hate it, but we understand it. And perhaps the defensive metrics catch up with him, and his offense tilts back to league-average.

But trading Urshela just to teach a clunky Gleyber Torres his extremely difficult position, while adding a flashy player like Francisco Lindor who will also command a lengthy extension next offseason, complicating payments to Aaron Judge? My head hurts.

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