{"id":805617,"date":"2026-07-17T07:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T07:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/805617\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T07:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T07:18:08","slug":"jonathan-ornelas-to-opt-out-of-yankees-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/805617\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Ornelas To Opt Out Of Yankees Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Infielder\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/o\/orneljo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-17_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jonathan Ornelas<\/a> is opting out of his minor league deal with the Yankees, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/francysromeroFR\/status\/2077827732436578401?\" rel=\"nofollow\">reports Francys Romero<\/a>. He\u2019ll become a free agent if New York doesn\u2019t select him onto the MLB roster.<\/p>\n<p>Ornelas signed a non-roster deal last November. He has spent the season at Triple-A Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre. He\u2019s hitting .299\/.362\/.480 with nine homers through 280 plate appearances. He has fanned at a league average 22.5% strikeout rate with a slightly below-average 7.5% walk percentage. Ornelas has made a decent amount of hard contact and has a .368 average on balls in play.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s well above the 26-year-old\u2019s usual level of offense. Ornelas was a .233\/.331\/.331 hitter at the Triple-A level coming into the season. He hit .208 without a home run in 32 big league games with the Rangers and Braves between 2023-25. The former third-round pick has been better known for his glove and versatility, as he can play anywhere in the infield.<\/p>\n<p>The Yankees are splitting the shortstop work between\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/cabaljo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-17_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jos\u00e9 Caballero<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/volpean01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-17_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Anthony Volpe<\/a>. Top prospect\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=lombar002geo&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-17_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">George Lombard Jr.<\/a> is nearing a return from the Triple-A injured list and has a chance to debut late in the season. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/schuema01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-17_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Max Schuemann<\/a> has played well in a utility role, so it wouldn\u2019t be a surprise if they let Ornelas explore other opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Infielder\u00a0Jonathan Ornelas is opting out of his minor league deal with the Yankees, reports Francys Romero. He\u2019ll become&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,110547,591,85],"class_list":["post-805617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-jonathan-ornelas","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}