Yankees sign former Braves, Rangers infield solution after brutal Triple-A season

The New York Yankees are inevitably going to have to build up their infield versatility on a budget this offseason while they chase Cody Bellinger (and absorb Trent Grisham). Jose Caballero may be America's favorite demon, but he's best used in special circumstances.

While Anthony Volpe's on the shelf, the Yankees are going to have to pick and choose their spots with Caballero. Versatile backups who can cover multiple positions will be the name of the game, especially on minor-league pacts that don't require 40-man roster protection.

Enter Jonathan Ornelas, who the Yankees signed on Wednesday morning.

Ornelas, with 32 big league games under his belt with the Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves over the past three years, played in just two contests once he reached the ATL last season and went 2-for-4. After scoping through the rest of his data, I, personally, prefer to judge him entirely based off of that tiny sample size.

Unfortunately, the 25-year-old's Triple-A numbers were ... what's the opposite of "nothing to sneeze at"? Something to sneeze at? Yeah. You can definitely sneeze at these.

Yankees sign Jonathan Ornelas to minor-league contract after time with Braves, Rangers

The bulk of his time was spent at Triple-A Gwinnett, where he raised his OPS to .605 in 85 games after it had slipped to .574 in 33 games in the PCL. He homered 10 times in the Braves' system, but only knocked in 28 runs. He stole nine bags and was caught five times.

The versatility holds some level of allure, but so far, Ornelas sounds like some evolution of Rougned Odor that forgot about his own power most of the time. He's still young, and there's no such thing as a bad minor-league deal, but there's certainly such thing as a bad minor-league player. Unfortunately, that seems to be Ornelas' most accurate descriptor.

If you squint, you can see the .785 OPS he posted at Double-A Frisco back in 2022 and formulate some hope for his ability to slide into Oswald Peraza's shoes on the Scranton Shuttle. But it's difficult to see him playing a significant role for a team with playoff aspirations.