When the Yankees acquired José Caballero on deadline day last month, it was something of a surprise. For one thing, the Yankees had already added three position players in Ryan McMahon, Amed Rosario, and Austin Slater. For another, Caballero came from a division rival that was just a game below .500 and, ostensibly, still in the playoff race. With Anthony Volpe firmly entrenched at shortstop, it was unclear what the versatile 28-year-old’s role would be.
Through the first three weeks of his Yankees
career, that role has become clear: sparkplug. It’s a role GM Brian Cashman has been seeking to fill for quite some time. He traded for utilitymen Tim Locastro midseason in 2021 and Jon Berti just before Opening Day last year. Both of those players had a few things in common — defensive versatility, elite sprint speed, and a slap-happy offensive profile. They also both had their tenures in pinstripes derailed by injuries, never fulfilling the Swiss Army knife potential for which they were acquired.
Caballero is Locastro and Berti 2.0. After leading the American League in steals last year with 44, he’s tops again so far, already having swiped 39 bags. Five of those have come during his short tenure in New York, where he’s immediately impacted the team through his aggressive approach to the game. He leads all players in MLB in stolen base attempt percentage, attempting swipes in 8.2 percent of his opportunities. While that kind of eagerness leads to some outs on the bases, it also puts the other team on their back foot from the jump.
Case in point came in the seventh inning of Saturday’s game in St. Louis, in which the speedster hopped, deked, and dashed his way to swipes of both second and third, the latter coming on a wild pitch that appeared to exemplify the degree to which Caballero was in the opposing pitcher’s head.
It’s a conscious piece of strategy that comes naturally to Caballero. “I don’t want them to have the full attention on what they’re doing and rather a little more attention on me to try to hate me,” he told Randy Miller of NJ.com of his peskiness.
The former Ray’s shiftiness on the basepaths extends beyond stolen bases. Earlier in the same game, he went first to third with one out in a crucial spot as the Yankees were attempting to key a comeback despite having to hold up to ensure the ball made it out of the infield, helping set the stage for an eventual 12-8 Yankees victory.
And, with injuries to Aaron Judge and Austin Slater, as well as Giancarlo Stanton’s spurious defensive profile, Caballero’s defensive versatility has come into play early. Despite appearing only in the infield last year, Caballero played every position except for first base and catcher for Tampa Bay this season (his six-run, one inning outing on the mound cost him 0.2 bWAR, which just seems mean).
The man who made his bones as an infielder has already made six appearances in right with the Yankees and — one disastrous miscue in Miami aside — has performed admirably.
Despite hitting being the weakest part of his game, Caballero has already demonstrated some of the positives of a “swing first, ask questions later” approach. He slapped a first-pitch slider at the top of the zone the other way for a key RBI single that staked the Yankees to a 3-0 lead Sunday.
The man is capable of further surprises, too. Caballero entered the season with just 13 career home runs in 243 games, and that rate only went down in the first half, as he had only two all year long at the time he joined the Yankees. Unsurprisingly held homerless in his first 10 games in pinstripes, Caballero erupted out of nowhere last night against his old teammates in Tampa (tribute videos only mean so much). He launched two long balls as part of the Yanks’ team record-tying nine.
The overall package is a player who takes the field with a skill set and mentality that stand out on the current Yankees squad. His new manager summed it up well. “Yeah, I couldn’t stand him playing against him and now he’s turning into one of my favorite players,” said Aaron Boone about his new designated pot-stirrer.
The Yankees didn’t need José Caballero, not as such. He didn’t fill an obvious area of need positionally like Ryan McMahon or fortify a part of the roster in which depth was being tested, like the three relievers the team acquired. But, for teams with championship aspirations, depth and flexibility late in games are not luxuries — they’re necessities. In a stretch in which Yankees brass has frequently been criticized for its lack of urgency, the decision to pull the trigger on Caballero is quietly the most notable sign that Cashman is committed to doing more than what is “good enough,” pulling out all the stops to augment his roster around its fringes for the stretch run.
