Right now, Derek Jeter is on pace to rejoin the Yankees on Monday. The Yankees will have a choice, though I’m not sure they’ll consider it so, on whom to option back to AAA Scranton-Wilkes Barre. Jeter will obviously take his spot back at shortstop (and atop the Yankee lineup) leaving one of Ramiro Pena or Eduardo Nunez without a spot on the team. If I had to place a bet on who’s going to be taking the bus back to Scranton, I’d put it my bet on Pena, but is that the best move?
Eduardo Nunez has been with the big league club all year and the results have been mixed at best. He’s shown flashes of the ability to be a regular shortstop, but he’s also been downright awful at times, both at the plate and in the field. Still, there’s some upside there and the organization clearly has faith in him. Ramiro Pena, on the other hand, pretty much is what he is, and that’s an all field/no hit infielder who can play the non-1B positions.
Call me nuts, but I think the Yankees should send Eduardo Nunez back to AAA to get some more seasoning. He clearly has more of a shot at being an every day player than Pena does and he could use some more pressure-free work on his throwing and on his approach at the plate. While he may get a good deal of guidance at the Major League level, I think it would be more valuable for him to get consistent plate appearances and time in the field at AAA. Pena has limited (no) upside and doesn’t suffer too much from not getting much playing time.
What do you guys think? Is this nuts? Am I way off base here?
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13 Responses to Upon Jeter’s arrival
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TIQ IQ
I think it’s an interesting topic, Nunez is probably the better offensively player. I’d rather have Pena for defense. This is the same situation as the Nova to the bullpen talk. I’d rather him continue getting starts at AAA if we decided to take him out of the rotation. In that regard, I can see where your idea to send nunez to AAA makes sense.
Nunez’ development is the important thing. Whatever it takes to get him up to his potential is probably the best move. But as it happens, sending him down wouldn’t make the major league club any worse. Nunez’s WAR this year is negative, and Pena’s career WAR is slightly positive. There isn’t much difference between them overall.
I think it would make sense to send Nunez back to AAA so that he can,in essence, start over and forget about his fielding lapses. I’m afraid at this point he’s putting too much pressure on himself and thinking about every ball he fields and every throw he makes rather than reacting instinctively. If he recovers sufficiently he can get a Sept call-up and would even be eligible for the playoff roster.
Nunez isn’t going to develop by sitting on the bench after Jeter returns – he’s got a lot of potential but having a lot of problems fielding. I think he should be the one to go back to AAA also.
One question though: as good an idea as it might be to have Nunez back down in AAA to further develop his skills, wouldn’t the Yankee bench be better off with the more-talented player?
If the Yanks were a normal organization we could presume that Nunez’s upside would have some degree of immediacy and that he could eventually become the everyday SS. On the Yankees, however, where legacy/sentimentality led to a state of being where Jeter will likely remain in Nunez’s path for at least one (if not two) more season and where very few free agents are not considered realistic targets, Nunez’s upside means very little to the Yankees.
In other words, if given the choice between Nunez and Pena, I choose Nunez as the (marginally) better player since either one will simply be a bench player for the Yankees as long as they’re still a part of the team. And if the goal is to have the best 25-man roster possible, the Yanks may as well cap Nunez’s upside to keep the better player around for spot-starting duty. They’re not grooming Nunez for the future; that ship sailed when Jeter returned this past offseason.
That’s a reasonable way to look at it, but I disagree on two things. I think developing Nunez is worth it even if only as a trading chip. And I think that the difference between Pena and the undeveloped Nunez is too small to worry about; it may even be that Pena is superior unless Nunez gets his throwing under control.
I agree that further developing Nunez as a trade chip has a place in this discussion and, for that reason, sending him to AAA makes a degree of sense.
Looking at a bigger picture, I’d like to see Dickerson sent down and let Nunez get some experience as the 5th outfielder for a couple of weeks. When Chavez comes back in July, Pena becomes the backup at SS and 2nd, and Chavez is the backup at 1st & 3rd. Nunez goes to Scranton for everyday playing time until a September callup.
All this Pena love! Nunez looks significantly better than Pena at the plate, and seems the better option as a PR late in the game when you want a SB. I don’t see Nunez developing much better as a fielder or gaining much trade value at AAA. As others have said, with the resources of the Yankees, the goal should be to maximize the value of your starters. If Nunez could be a starting SS someday, you should develop and protect that. If he’s just a backup, then I think the value to the 2011 team on the bench is more important than some incremental trade value as a secondary piece in a some trade for a starter.
I don’t get this. Pena is a black hole in the batting order whenever he plays. Eddie puts the ball in play — sometimes with a little pop — and gets on base with far greater frequency, plus he and Dickerson are our only available pinch-runners (not an insignificant role with our lack of speed in the order and propensity to wait out starting pitching and make a move in the late innings). His fielding down at Scranton appears to be just fine so it would appear to me what he needs to develop further is more — not less — exposure to MLB game speed situations. I may be crazy, but I don’t recall Eddie actually costing us more than one game with his glove or arm, and his bat has definitely been helpful in a few I can recall. You can’t say either of those things about Ramiro. Between scheduled days off for Alex and Derek and pinch-running for Jorge, I don’t see how this is even a choice. Eddie clearly grows and improves every time he plays and he’s got lots of upside. Ramiro doesn’t belong on an MLB roster.
1. Can we please stop the “Eduardo Nunez has pop” myth? His IsoP right now is barely over .100 and it was .095 in 2,772 MiL PAs. He has never hit for any sort of power.
2. Nunez’s .281 wOBA/.626 OPS isn’t lighting the world on fire. He doesn’t have a great bat. In thos 2,772 MiL PAs, he OPSed a whopping .687. He may be a very, very, very, very marginal upgrade with the bat over Pena, but he gives nearly all of that value back with poor fielding, which is magnified considering the small amount of playing time he’ll get when Jeter gets back. To paraphrase from Sean in the game recap the other day, if you’re going to come off the bench for the Yankees, you should be good at something. Nunez has a questionable bat and is shaky-at-best in the field. Pena can at least hold his own at three infield positions. I will admit that Nunez has more upside (though I don’t think he has a lot of upside) and that’s why he should be getting every day reps; he’s not going to get that on the ML team.
I said “sometimes” and “a little pop” Matt, and it was obviously said in comparison with Pena, and that’s true, sabermetrically or any other way you care to compare the two. Of course neither one of these guys makes or breaks our team. But I still haven’t seen anybody give a good reason explaining just how our big club is better if Ramiro stays and Eddie goes….just how it would be better for Eddie if he did. And I’m just about making the big club better now, no matter how small the increment or addition. That’s all.
[...] for always making the obvious move, so I’ll offer the same suggestion I did when Derek Jeter returned from the DL: Call me nuts, but I think the Yankees should send Eduardo Nunez back to AAA to get some more [...]