Four non-roster invitees that could make the Yankees’ big league team
There are a whopping 29 players at Yankee spring training who were invited without any guarantee of making the roster.
Non-roster invitees, players who are not currently on the 40-man roster but can compete for a spot on it, rarely leave much of an impact. But it’s fairly common for at least one to, at the very least, make the team out of camp. Last year that was Marwin Gonzalez for the Yankees, who had a very forgettable tenure in pinstripes, but showed that the Yankees are open to rewarding a good spring performance with a place in the clubhouse and all of the cushy perks that go with it.
Of these 29 players, roughly 25 or so will fade into the dustbin of history. But a good few weeks in Tampa can be enough to earn them a spot somewhere in some organization, whether that’s with the Yankees or another team that wants to take a shot on them.
Looking at this year’s crop of Yankee NRI’s, four seem to have the best shot of making the team, though that still remains unlikely for all of them unless a more qualified teammate gets hurt or traded.
RYAN WEBER
Projecting the Yankee bullpen, we know for sure that Clay Holmes, Jonathan Loaisiga, Wandy Peralta, Michael King, Lou Trivino, Tommy Kahnle and Ron Marinaccio will all break camp with the big-league team barring injury. Whichever half of the German-Clarke Schmidt duo that doesn’t grab the final slot in the starting rotation is likely to get the eighth bullpen spot. But if the Yankees elect to give the fifth starter job to German and send Schmidt to the minors, Weber stands the likeliest chance of crashing the party among the non-roster invitees.
Weber is 32 years old and made his MLB debut way back in 2015. This is not some wide-eyed kid at his first rodeo. Though he’s never set the world on fire in his 68 outings in The Show, Weber put up solid numbers in 2022, both at the minor and major league levels. In a limited five-game run with the Yankees, he allowed just one earned run, a solo home run to Rays’ catcher Francisco Mejia.
In a larger sample from Triple-A, the veteran righty put up a respectable 3.86 ERA in 39.2 innings. He is not going to strike many hitters out, but he has been around the block enough times for the Yankees to trust him. Weber is also out of minor league options, which could help his case. The same is true of 26-year-old Albert Abreu, though. Abreu has had a turbulent time with the big club over the last three years but offers a much higher upside and is already on the 40-man roster.
WILLIE CALHOUN
It’s not every day that a team gives up on a guy under 30 years old with as much latent potential as Willie Calhoun.
That is exactly what the Texas Rangers did to the power-hitting kid they got in the Yu Darvish trade, though. Calhoun was Texas’ second-ranked prospect in 2018, and in 2019 he mashed 21 homers for the Rangers in just 83 games. In many ways, Calhoun was to the Rangers what Clint Frazier was to the Yankees, a highly-touted outfield prospect with several tantalizing skills that never quite put it together for a consistent period of time.
Calhoun’s 2019 campaign is far better than anything Frazier produced in the bigs, though. Unlocking the power that allowed Calhoun to slug .524 that year is definitely something the Yankees’ hitting coaches are interested in. They already struck gold last year by scooping up a left-handed hitter from the Rangers’ scrap heap, though that one (Matt Carpenter) had a far longer track record of MLB success.
The knock on Calhoun is that he doesn’t have a true position on defense — Statcast’s Outs Above Average graded him as one of the 20 worst outfielders in the entire league in 2019 — and he doesn’t walk. He improved that walk rate tremendously last season, though, which was admittedly just 22 games split between the Rangers and Giants. A strong camp from Calhoun could still be enough to earn him this year’s Carpenter bench role. For what it’s worth, the team gave him the same No. 24 jersey that Carpenter wore.
WILMER DIFO
If the Yankees decide that one or both of the Oswald Peraza-Oswaldo Cabrera tandem needs to start the season in the minor leagues, Difo will make the team. They need a utility infielder on the bench — Cabrera is still the overwhelming favorite — and Difo has over 350 MLB innings at second base, third base and shortstop. The switch-hitting 30-year-old isn’t much of an offensive threat, but he’s a more than capable insurance option should Peraza, Cabrera or both get schooled in Grapefruit League games.
Of the 29 NRI’s, Difo has the most major league service time, and he’s already flashed a little bit at the team’s training complex, taking Domingo German deep twice in live batting practice on Sunday.
RAFAEL ORTEGA
The oldest of the non-roster invitee position players, Ortega is also the least removed from consistent MLB playing time. The 31-year-old played 103 games for the Cubs in 2021 and 118 more last year, posting a .265/.344/.408 line across the two seasons.
A fairly patient hitter with enough speed and base running instincts to steal 12 bases in both ‘21 and ‘22, Ortega can be a perfectly fine fourth outfielder. While every single future-oriented Yankee fan would rather see those reps go to Cabrera, the precocious youngster had literally never played outfield at any point of his professional career until last summer. Ortega is not a strong defensive outfielder, per se, but he could absolutely handle right field at Yankee Stadium as needed. He is an incredibly unsexy option, but that’s sort of the whole point of non-roster invitees.
If Ortega ends up making more than 100 plate appearances for the major league team, the Yankees are in trouble. But if they need someone to keep a seat warm in April until someone else is ready, a guy like Ortega (who’s appeared in six different MLB seasons) can do that.
