Baby Bombers Read online

  “He’s one of the guys that really helped kind of take me under his wing and feel comfortable, and at the end of the day I was trying to take Johnny’s job from him as a young guy,” Gardner said. “Clint’s trying to do the same to me. I’ve got to respect his work ethic and the way that he goes about his business, and I’m sure that he does the same to me. It’s my job to be as good as I can be and try to keep him from taking my job. That’s how it works, man.”

  Cashman made it clear that he was not counting on Frazier to be in the mix for a starting role as soon as 2017, believing that Frazier would benefit from additional development time at the Triple-A level. Remember, if Frazier had been a Yankee for all of 2016, he likely would have spent the entire year in Double-A. Yet Cashman had seen players with outstanding tool packages force the Yankees’ hand before; Robinson Cano had been one such case.

  “We anticipated [Cano] coming out of Double-A and being ready in two years; he moved that up a full year, came to spring training after a good winter ball and crushed it,” Cashman said. “All of a sudden, everybody was like, ‘We have to get this guy on the team.’ [Alfonso] Soriano was the same way when he was coming through our system, the shortstop we moved to second and left. It was, ‘How do we get this guy on the roster?’ When you have that type of tool package, once it all comes together—Gary Sanchez is the more recent example—it’s like a flood.”

  There was similar buzz around Gleyber Torres, who had been named the youngest Most Valuable Player in the Arizona Fall League prior to his twentieth birthday, leading the circuit with a .403 batting average and a .513 on-base percentage. Getting a chance to see Torres on a daily basis that spring, the Yankees raved about the infielder’s maturity and ability to use the entire field with his lively bat. When shortstop Didi Gregorius injured his right shoulder in late March, some members of the coaching staff pushed for Torres to make the leap from A-ball into the majors.

  “We had the injury to Didi, and all of a sudden, our major league staff wanted him now,” Cashman said. “They wanted him to break camp and play him at shortstop. I can understand why, but you take careful steps when you have that type of ceiling. At that age, he had never played in cold weather in his career. I didn’t want him drinking out of a fire hose in April.”

  The Yankees stuck to their plan, telling Torres that there was nothing he could do to force his way to New York that spring. Understanding that, Torres said he set his goals upon continuing to mature and gaining experience in what he called “a very unique opportunity.”

  “I worked really hard so that I wouldn’t feel out of place,” Torres said. “You want to keep working hard. That’s a key.”

  • • •

  Once a jewel of the Florida State League, Steinbrenner Field had started to show its age in recent seasons, especially with newer, flashier structures starting to pop up along the coastlines. A $40 million renovation project was underway to add a new main entrance, a two-story gift shop, lounges, cabanas, and a walkway that offered a 360 degree route around the field. As the Yankees took their first batting practice hacks of 2017, they did so amid a cacophony of jackhammers and clanging steel. No one made more noise than Judge, who blasted a memorable drive over the large left-field scoreboard and dented the structure often.

  “We actually worry about the construction workers a little bit,” Girardi said. “I just think the ball is really going off the bat from a lot of our players, younger players, and that’s kind of exciting to see. I know it’s BP, but the potential is there to have huge run production from some of these guys. And that kind of excites me.”

  The Yankees entered the spring with two vacancies in the pitching rotation, having guaranteed spots to Masahiro Tanaka, CC Sabathia, and Michael Pineda. A crowded mix followed for the final slots, with Cashman often rattling off the names of Luis Cessa, Chad Green, Bryan Mitchell, and Luis Severino as his prime candidates. Despite going 14-5 with a 2.13 ERA at Double-A Trenton and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in 2016, Jordan Montgomery’s name had been scarcely mentioned as a serious contender.

  Wearing uniform No. 90, the twenty-four-year-old lefty’s most memorable appearance of the spring came on March 23 against the Rays in Port Charlotte, Florida, a contest that was nationally televised on ESPN. Montgomery struck out eight, including fanning three-time All-Star Evan Longoria twice. Seated in the dugout, Girardi and pitching coach Larry Rothschild exchanged impressed glances throughout the performance.

  By this point, most of Montgomery’s peers had been dispatched across the street to minor league camp, leaving the soft-spoken South Carolinian to dress in a row of empty lockers. When a bulletin was posted on the clubhouse wall, urging players to bring their vehicles to Steinbrenner Field so they could be loaded onto a carrier for New York, Montgomery tried to keep his head down in case the club brass had forgotten he was still there.

  “He’d been on my radar, but we had him as more depth than taking a legit shot at the fifth spot,” Cashman said. “He came to camp and took it. That’s why it’s great to have spring training, because guys can change the narrative. He was entering spring training as starting pitching depth that we could turn to if we had injuries and maybe be an up-down guy for us, but he said, ‘Nope, my time is now.’”

  A finesse pitcher who features a fastball, slider, curveball, and changeup, Montgomery made a career out of proving people wrong. He once recalled how he had initially been tabbed to be a specialist at the University of South Carolina, trusted to enter only in relief against left-handed batters. Growing up in Sumter, South Carolina, where his father Jim was a government farm service agent and his mother Raury was a substitute teacher, Montgomery had gone undrafted out of high school.

  Sumter was perhaps best known as the home of former Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson, whom Montgomery correctly identifies as the only player from a losing team ever to be named World Series MVP (1960). The Yankees dropped that Fall Classic on a series-ending Game 7 homer by the Pirates’ Bill Mazeroski off pitcher Ralph Terry, despite Richardson’s .367 average and 12 RBIs.

  “You’d see him around Sumter all the time,” Montgomery said. “He would talk to us a lot with our high school and American Legion teams. He would tell us that we had to work hard and put our faith first.”

  Montgomery carried the nickname “Gumby,” which he said was given to him by a fifth-year senior at South Carolina because of a doughy, gawky frame that Montgomery had yet to grow into. Montgomery initially hated the moniker but learned to embrace it, eventually using it as part of his Twitter handle: @gumbynation34.

  “I was so uncoordinated,” Montgomery said. “I hadn’t matured into my body yet. Really, I don’t think I started maturing until my junior year of college, which is really when I grew into my body. I had a bunch of baby fat and I kept growing, and my body wasn’t catching up to it.”

  The Yankees watched Montgomery often as a member of the Gamecocks, relying on both old-school scouting and advanced analytics to hone in on his performance. The Bombers have a staff of fifteen analytics staffers who pore over that sort of collegiate and professional data on a daily basis, including Scott Benecke, who holds a PhD in applied statistics.

  While scout Adam Czajkowski filed reports on Montgomery’s swing-and-miss stuff, the Yanks’ software also distilled Trackman radar data that highlighted Montgomery as a pitcher of interest. In April 2014, Yankees national scout Brian Barber brought his radar gun to the stands at Baum Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Barber filed a positive report after watching Montgomery dominate the Razorbacks’ lineup, striking out nine over seven innings.

  “It’s probably the best game he threw the whole spring,” Barber said. “It’s just the luck that you have to be at the right park on the right day. I was able to see the Jordan Montgomery that you guys are seeing now. He had a good fastball that day, he was up to 93 mph. He had a really good changeup that day. You saw the size, the pitchability that he had, with the stuff. Other people saw bits and pieces of th
at, but I saw the total package.”

  Barber’s review was so enthusiastic that Damon Oppenheimer booked a trip to Nashville to watch Montgomery start against Vanderbilt University. Montgomery struck out eight over seven sharp innings that evening, impressing with a changeup that Oppenheimer viewed as being an above-average big-league pitch at that time.

  “Because he didn’t light the radar gun up at 93, 94, 95, in today’s world, he slides,” Oppenheimer said. “But the rest of the stuff—the location on the fastball, the slider, the changeup, you saw the secondary stuff, you saw the composure he had in a big Friday game at Vandy.”

  Oppenheimer said that a consistent piece of draft strategy echoed by old-time scouts and farm directors is that a team should try to pick a legitimate left-handed pitcher within the first seven rounds. In Montgomery, the Yankees saw one with pitchability, size, and a funky overhand delivery. The Yankees called Montgomery’s name in the fourth round that June, making him the 122nd selection in the nation.

  Jordan Montgomery shows his form during the 2015 season with the Tampa Yankees, when he went 6-5 with a 3.08 ERA in 16 games (15 starts). (© Buck Davidson / Pro Sports Media, Inc.)

  Girardi believed that Montgomery’s poise stemmed from his experience in the 2012 College World Series, when Montgomery had a trial by fire as a freshman, pitching in front of large, enthusiastic crowds. Montgomery pitched well in an elimination game against Arkansas to help South Carolina advance to the finals, and had they made it past Arizona, Montgomery would have started the championship game.

  During the spring of 2017, Girardi observed that Montgomery’s overhand delivery reminded him somewhat of a young Andy Pettitte, another baby-faced left-hander who also opted to shave on his bullpen days so he could take the mound with a slight amount of scruff. Pettitte quickly took an interest in Montgomery’s career path, exchanging contact information so they could swap text messages throughout the season.

  “Jordan’s a little different mechanically, he’s straighter over the top, but he’s left-handed so I can relate with a lefty,” Pettitte said. “Me and Jordan stay in touch with each other and we’ll continue to talk. I know he wants to talk to me about the cutter and stuff like that. He’s a great kid. He’s got a great makeup. I love everything about him and I think he’s got a great future if he stays healthy.”

  • • •

  There is an old saying that reminds baseball people not to believe what they see in March or September, since the influx of minor league players participating in the major league starting lineups dilutes the talent pool. Still, in the spring of 2017, the Yankees had a difficult time finding reasons not to buy into Greg Bird’s performance.

  Looking like the best hitter on the planet for an extended stretch of the spring, Bird batted .451 (23-for-51) with eight homers in Grapefruit League play, convincingly answering any questions about his return from the right shoulder injury that cost him all of 2016. As he stepped into the batter’s box during a March 30 exhibition against the Phillies in Clearwater, Florida, Bird only was trying to get to Opening Day healthy.

  The foul ball that Bird whacked off his right ankle that afternoon would change the course of his season, but the Yankees didn’t know that as they traveled to Atlanta, helping to open the Braves’ sparkling new SunTrust Park in an exhibition game (Bird hit the stadium’s first homer, off the ageless Bartolo Colon) before returning to the Tampa-St. Petersburg area for the season opener at the Rays’ Tropicana Field.

  The experts were still lukewarm on the Yankees’ chances. Fangraphs softened their prediction to say that the Yankees would finish a few games above .500, in fourth place. USA Today had the Yankees finishing 80-82, also in fourth place, and the New York Post’s front page for April 1 touted a fan poll declaring that “the Mets are the kings of New York.” As the hours ticked off until Opening Day, Cashman said that he thought the 2017 Yankees were capable of more than they were being given credit for.

  “We contended all the way to the end last year. That was proof in the pudding,” Cashman said. “Listen, if our current roster stays healthy and performs up to their maximum capability or close to their maximum capability, we’re without a doubt a Wild Card contending team at the very least. We’ll see. You’ve got to play it out.”

  CHAPTER 9.

  All Rise

  The concept of “The Judge’s Chambers” was first floated in the spring of 2017, during a time in which team officials were brainstorming avenues to make Yankee Stadium more appealing to a younger generation of fans. Work had already begun in the Bronx to add children’s play areas, terraces, and party decks to the facility, which was readying for its ninth year of service. Noting the popular response that Aaron Judge had received during the exhibition games in Florida, the Yanks’ decision-makers deemed a dedicated cheering section to be a logical next step.

  Similar concepts had been successful in other ballparks, such as the Astros’ “Keuchel’s Korner” for ace Dallas Keuchel and the Mariners’ “King Felix’s Court” for standout pitcher Felix Hernandez. It may not have been groundbreaking, but it seemed that way for the Yankees, a team that had to fight the temptation of simply leaning upon their storied history to sell tickets. Though some would argue that there had never been a special section devoted to Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera, the willingness to innovate represented a refreshing change of pace.

  Judge told the Yankees that he thought the idea was “cool,” but first, he had to actually make the team. It may seem difficult to believe in hindsight, given how sensational Judge’s rookie season turned out to be, but there was serious consideration given to having Judge begin 2017 in the minors. Since Judge still had minor league options remaining and Aaron Hicks did not, the Yankees decided to carry Judge on the roster only if he won the starting right field job, believing that a backup role would stunt his development.

  “He never had a full year in the big leagues,” Cashman said. “He had competition that was legitimate with Aaron Hicks. Aaron Hicks had performed just as well for a period of time, if not better, for the first half of the spring. It was a tight competition. I’d say halfway through camp, Hicks was winning by a hair.”

  Though Aaron Hicks came up short in his battle to win the right field job from Aaron Judge in the spring of 2017, the switch hitter still was able to set single-season career highs in runs, doubles, homers, RBIs, and walks. (Photo Credit: Hayden Schiff, CC BY 2.0 license)

  Driven to convince management that he was ready for the opportunity, Judge said that he locked his focus upon having quality at-bats for thirty days straight. The organization held daily meetings in the final weeks of camp, with Cashman, Tim Naehring, and numerous other assistants disappearing into Girardi’s office. Judge ignored their lengthy chats, saying that he couldn’t afford to waste time worrying about whether he would begin the season as a RailRider or a Yankee.

  “I wasn’t getting paid enough to make that decision,” Judge said. “I had one goal in my mind, to go out there and compete and do whatever I can to fight for a job. Every day I was just taking that mindset, I’ve got to go out there and work my butt off to get this job.”

  Seven minutes after 10:00 on the morning of March 30, the heavy steel door to the manager’s office swung open, indicating that a decision had been made. Someone joked that it reminded them of the clouds of smoke that rise over the Sistine Chapel to announce the selection of a new Pope. Girardi summoned the team’s beat reporters and lauded both Hicks and Judge for making it a very tough call, but announced that Judge’s late-spring surge had tipped the scales in his favor.

  Hicks needed a couple of days to stew over the decision, and though he was disappointed with the outcome, he acknowledged that the team had given him a fair shot. The job had been given to the man who had played the best.

  “The last two or three weeks of camp, Hicks didn’t necessarily lose it as much as Judge took it,” Cashman said. “Those weren’t false conversations. It was more like, you’ve got to win that everyday
job or you’re going to Triple-A, and Judge knew that. Aaron Hicks is an above-average right fielder in this game, but Judge has turned out to be an MVP candidate. It was real. I guess we made the right decision.”

  Judge, meanwhile, was elated. He responded by saying that “now the real work starts,” adding that the challenge would be to ward off the competition from Hicks and the team’s stable of talented minor leaguers. Girardi said that the Yankees were now locked in and would give Judge plenty of leeway if he got off to a slow start. With the Yankees about to open the regular season, Judge called his folks in California, urging them to hop on the next flight to Florida.

  “They were worrying about it, just like any parent would,” Judge said. “They just wanted to know what was going on, so I just called them and let them know, ‘Hey, I’ll be in Tampa on Opening Day.’”

  Judge was one of five players on the Yankees’ active roster who participated in their first big league Opening Day, joined by Gary Sanchez, Greg Bird, Jonathan Holder, and Bryan Mitchell. Judge hit eighth in the season opener and, upon returning to New York, opted to settle into an art deco hotel in the heart of Times Square, living out of two suitcases between road trips. It was the same hotel where the Yankees had sent him after his first big league call-up the previous August.

  “I didn’t know where else to live,” Judge said. “This is my first go-round, so I just kind of thought, ‘I’ll live in New York.’ It was just busy. There were a lot of things going on. That was probably the first thing I noticed when I came here, especially from a small town in California. Then you come here, and usually on the sidewalks back home there’s nobody on the streets. Here, you’re shoulder to shoulder with people.”