Organizational depth and a quality bench could be connected, but they don\u2019t necessarily mean the same thing. The Yankees have an option in Jasson Dom\u00ednguez who, for all the reservations some of us may have, most teams would be perfectly willing to hand him the reins and at least try to maintain a starting gig. As things currently stand, that won\u2019t be the case, but at the same time, the Yankees can\u2019t simply restrict him to coming off the bench, as it\u2019d likely be detrimental to his development. The better option to fill that role of a fourth outfielder for New York is Randall Grichuk, signed to a minor league deal a few days ago.<\/p>\n
If we strictly look at Grichuk\u2019s production last year, it\u2019s hard to argue he\u2019d represent a better fit than anything the Yankees might turn to in-house, acknowledging Grichuk will earn a 2.5 million salary if he makes the Opening Day roster. The veteran right-handed hitter followed up an exciting 2024 campaign with arguably the worst season of his career. Grichuk was treading water with a 99 OPS+ in a little under 200 plate appearances for Arizona before being shipped off to Kansas City at the deadline, where he struggled mightily, producing a .566 OPS in 105 plate appearances with the Royals.<\/p>\n
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On a very basic level, Grichuk is predictable in his unpredictability, and this volatility is what makes him attainable with little to no resistance or risk. Over the last three seasons, he\u2019s been good with the Rockies, then not good with the Angels, good again with the Diamondbacks, then very bad with the Royals.<\/p>\n
A closer look at that 2025 campaign would suggest Grichuk got severely unlucky with his final stat line, and there is a nice blend of contact and power to be tapped into here. Grichuk ended the year with an impressive average exit velocity of 92.4 MPH, and he did it all without chasing that much, and most importantly, making a ton of contact in the zone (north of 90 percent). The .452 xSLG Grichuk ended the season showing there was a lot more there to work with.<\/p>\n
A hitter with a strikeout rate of 28.3 percent in his first five seasons in the bigs, Grichuk has taken the less-traveled road of a player who\u2019s able to drastically cut down his strikeout rate. Even through his worst period of the 2025 season, Grichuk\u2019s strikeout rate of 21 percent with the Royals was manageable, in part thanks to his ability to make consistent contact in the zone. Odds are, Grichuk won\u2019t deliver a big campaign for the Yankees, and as things currently stand, it\u2019s unclear if he even makes the roster. What\u2019s undeniable is that for what he costs, a hitter who showed his contact skills and raw power represents a worthwhile gamble for a team in need of a better bench.<\/p>\n
After covering the potential for improvement, what\u2019s been consistent throughout Grichuk\u2019s career is his reliability to perform significantly better against left-handed pitching, something particularly appealing for a team with two-thirds of its starting outfield being left-handed hitters. Back in 2024, Grichuk delivered a .319\/.386\/.528 slash line against southpaws, and throughout his entire career, the outfielder has an OPS north of .800 against southpaws.<\/p>\n
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Spencer Jones and Jasson Dom\u00ednguez are doing quite well during the start of spring, but neither fits the profile of what the Yankees would look for in a fourth outfielder. Grichuk is this team\u2019s clear-cut top option right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Organizational depth and a quality bench could be connected, but they don\u2019t necessarily mean the same thing. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[1017,227321,32426,86879,363,227320,99,71317,12404],"class_list":{"0":"post-497563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-fourth-outfielder","10":"tag-grichuk","11":"tag-jasson-dominguez","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-randall-grichuk","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-the-diamondbacks","16":"tag-yankees"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}