Latest Yankees rumor shows exactly what team thinks of Oswald Peraza in 2024

Needless to say, Oswald Peraza really needs to recover from his recent bout of shoulder stiffness in order to make a statement about his role on the 2024 Yankees roster.

At this moment, Peraza is not a starting shortstop, not yet a bench player, and after a season's worth of stashing random underperforming kids on their second unit rather than building purposeful depth, it appears the Yankees might be ready to change that. Their former top prospect's inauspicious start to camp certainly didn't help matters, either.

If Peraza is healthy enough to travel north with the team for Opening Day, he'll currently be stashed on the pine alongside Oswaldo Cabrera, the backup catcher du jour, and Trent Grisham. Is carrying Peraza and Cabrera redundant? Does giving Peraza reps every four days help his development? What about demoting him to Triple-A, which didn't exactly get him going last year, either? Forget about replacing Gleyber Torres in 2025. These days, he's just trying to stay in the organization, and his case won't be helped by the big-league front office's late flurry of offers.

The Yankees reportedly pursued Gio Urshela earlier in the offseason, but came up short to the Detroit Tigers, who were able to guarantee the ex-Yankee everyday playing time. On Thursday, another recently signed MLB player dropped a minor bombshell, when Kiké Hernández revealed it came down to the Yankees and Dodgers for his services (yes, despite Ken Rosenthal's "finalists" list, which included neither team).

That's twice now the Yankees have pursued some veteran (and versatile) infield insurance. It would stand to reason, then, that they're not done exploring such things with Opening Day one month away. Peraza's injury troubles won't change that notion, but certainly weren't the origin point, either.

Yankees were looking at Gio Urshela, Kiké Hernández (seriously) to supplant Oswald Peraza

Potential infield bench free agents remaining include (ex-Yankee) Donovan Solano, Elvis Andrus, Jean Segura, Jonathan Schoop and, uh, Josh Donaldson (but it's fair to question his versatility). All of the preceding players are closer to retirement than the peak of their contributions, but none of these names should cost more than Urshela's $1.5 million, and most might not even require the immediate use of a 40-man roster spot.

Hernández would've only been a fit that made sense for the Yankees if they'd lost faith in Peraza/Cabrera, or viewed Peraza as an eventual starter, but an unimpressive bench piece.

Considering the recency of that frenzied pursuit, it stands to reason the Yankees are still looking in this particular market.