Rougned Odor is now a Yankee, with the team making the trade official on Tuesday afternoon, and now the focus will be on how exactly the team deploys the 27-year-old infielder in 2021.
Odor lost the starting second base job with the Rangers, and tried a move over to third base in spring training before being designated for assignment, and with four straight years of offensive struggles, finding playing time with the Yanks would likely be a challenge, but Aaron Boone believes Odor could be a valuable depth piece for the major league roster.
“I think first and foremost, I think [Brian Cashman] and the front office saw an opportunity added a talented guy to add some depth and strength on our roster,” Boone said on a Zoom call with reporters on Tuesday. “Obviously you know you’re going to need to lean on certain things throughout the course of a long season. Hopefully he can get here and hopefully we can help him get that talent out that we’ve seen flashed over the years.”
Odor has certainly flashed power over the years, hitting at least 30 long balls in three of the last five seasons, but over the last four years, he has been among the least valuable second baseman in all of baseball when measured by WAR, but the Yankees liked the idea of his lefty bat at Yankee Stadium, much like they did when they added Jay Bruce to the roster, and hope Odor can rediscover his production from 2016, before his batting average began to hover consistently around the .200 mark with a heightened strikeout rate.
“The talent is there; we feel like undeniably,” Boone said. “He has the ability to really impact the ball, obviously from the left side at Yankee Stadium, we feel like that can play up. Hopefully getting into our environment and our culture will unlock some things for him, and we’ll see.”
The Yankees designated Thairo Estrada for assignment as a corresponding move from their 40-man roster to make room for Odor, who is out of minor league options, indicating that the Yanks will try to find playing time for him at the major league level. His defensive numbers have been below average over the past four years according to defensive runs saved, but Boone and the Yanks still see some defensive value for a versatile infielder that could bounce between second and third base, though the Yankees already have that in DJ LeMahieu and Tyler Wade.
“He’s a solid defender at second and showed he can play third this spring...we have him as a solid defender,” Boone said. “We feel like he gives us some defensive versatility also…I know he played mostly third this spring and got decent returns on that.”
Boone isn’t sure where exactly Odor will begin his career in pinstripes, but it could be at the big-league level right away.
“I’m not sure when exactly we’ll see him,” Boone said. “I know with intake and all that I’m not sure how that works. But I think it was a chance to add a talented guy and add some depth to our roster. I don’t know exactly where he’ll go to do his intake…but I think there’s a chance he can come right to us.”
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