TAMPA — Aaron Boone has already prepared himself for the moment.
Two outs in the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, the Yankees trailing by two and Aaron Judge takes a low called strike three to end the game, with their two challenges already used up in the new automated ball-strike system (ABS).
“It’s going to happen,” Boone said Wednesday.
But the Yankees manager does not necessarily want his team to guard against such a scenario, either, as they continue to develop their strategy this spring ahead of its implementation in the regular season.
“The thing we’ve found with this where it’s been used is, people don’t challenge enough,” Boone said. “When you first hear about it, the natural reaction or tendency is, ‘I got to save them.’ Then you end up taking them home. Games are won and lost in the second, third and fourth inning all the time. So we want our guys to be good at it, we want them to be disciplined, but we also want them to be aggressive with it.”
The Yankees brought in an umpire to call balls and strikes during their live batting practice Wednesday, with hitters and pitchers freely using challenges to get used to the system.
They have also regularly had a strike zone on the scoreboard that shows, a few seconds after each pitch, where exactly it landed even if they did not use the ABS.
“These reps are valuable to continue to dial that in,” Boone said. “This is a new muscle, because you got to [challenge] within two seconds. And you want to be right. We want our guys to be aggressive with it, but we want to be right, we want to keep those things. So these are valuable reps.”
The Yankees plan to get Ryan McMahon some reps at shortstop this spring to see if he can be a backup option there if needed, which could give them greater roster flexibility especially early in the season when they will be missing a shortstop or two.
Anthony Volpe is going to start the year on the injured list, Oswaldo Cabrera might not be ready to start the season on time as he gets his full movement back from rehabbing a broken ankle, and the Yankees do not seem to love the idea of Amed Rosario at shortstop.
So instead of carrying an extra infielder on the bench just to have a backup shortstop however long Volpe and/or Cabrera is out, the Yankees could cover themselves by knowing McMahon, a terrific defender at third base, could play there in a pinch.
“Feel like he could absolutely handle it if we’re in a situation where we need him to be the backup or something,” Boone said. “I think he’s more than capable of handling that. … I might pick a week where, ‘Hey, let’s do a couple days of ground balls there,’ maybe pop him into a game. It’s something I’ve talked to him about.”
Ryan Yarbrough and Paul Blackburn, who are both being built up as starters for now in case the Yankees have an injury to their rotation, each threw two innings and 35 pitches in live BP on Wednesday.