3 players the New York Yankees should promote soon to save offense
By Adam Weinrib
Andres Chaparro
The Big Fish. The Door Prize. By far the most exciting thing the Yankees could do right now.
And Chaparro's earning it.
Famously not on the 40-man either -- and thanks, Every Other MLB Team in the Rule 5 Draft, for helping us out here -- Chaparro began the 2023 season at Triple-A in an 0-for-29 skid. On April 8, he broke the ice with a home run ... and never stopped.
Now, Chaparro's hitting .228, but that means he's gone 18-for-50 since his silent start (.360) while pummeling eight homers.
He might not be the team's third baseman of the future. He might come with an "offense-only" profile, in the most pessimistic sense, but ... that's exactly what the Yankees need right now. In fact, it's possible they've never needed a Triple-A offensive infusion more.
Prospects often struggle when they're given a new test, which Yankee fans are learning first-hand through the trials and tribulations of Volpe/Cabrera/Oswald Peraza. There's certainly a chance Chaparro begins his big-league career with a similar 0-fer skid to the one that tripped him up in Scranton earlier this month.
That said, he's the player mentioned on this list with the most likely shot at a big-league future with the Yankees. And, if they intend to use him eventually, he's going to begin his career with a hurdle, whenever that time comes. Maybe they'd prefer to break him in when the offense is humming and they can hide him. That power, though ... he'd be a much more logical DH than Calhoun, and could probably go immediately from "promoted" to "batting fifth nightly". That's a sad indictment of the Yankees' roster construction, but it's also an endorsement of his impressive power. And it might be time.