Despite many rumors saying teams are interested in Yankees third baseman Miguel Andujar, New York must hold off on dealing the young slugger.
In what was supposed to be another great year for Miguel Andujar, it turned into a lost season when he tore his labrum sliding back to third base. His injury opened up the door to the third base job for Gio Urshela, who surprised almost everyone with the way he performed throughout the 2019 season. With Urshela being a much better defender than Andujar, people were already writing off Miggy. Here are two reasons why the Yankees need to wait until at least the trade deadline to trade Miggy:
1. Need to wait see if Urshela is the real deal
We all knew that Gio Urshela was an amazing defender and that he would be able to lock down third, but what we didn’t know was that he was going to be one of the Yankees’ best hitters. In 2019, Gio slashed .315/.355/.534 while hitting 21 homers and driving in 74 runs. This came out of nowhere for Gio Urshela, who up until this year never hit over .233. He was one of the Yankees’ most consistent hitters and was lockdown on defense.
However, can we really trade Andujar after just one year from Gio? We don’t know if this was just a fluke year from Urshela, so the Yankees need to wait and make sure he is the real deal before they consider trading Miggy.
2. Andujar’s lethal bat
If you take the defense out of the picture and just talk about Miguel Andujar as a hitter, he is one of the best up and coming hitters. Let’s not forget that he finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 2018. In 2018, he slashed .297/.328/.527 while hitting 27 homers and driving in 92 runs. Miggy was hitting for average and power while carrying the team with Stanton for the second half of the season while Aaron Judge was injured.
Skill-wise based on scouting reports, Anujar is still a better hitter than Gio and you must see what he can do post-surgery before you think about sending him off. The raw hitting talent is there and you need to see if he is the same after surgery because if he is, you need to keep someone like him in the lineup no matter what it takes.