TAMPA — Aaron Boone has already prepared for this 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 also doesn’t necessarily want his team to protect itself from such a scenario as they continue to develop their strategy this spring ahead of implementing it in the regular season.
“What we’ve found with this in the places where it’s being used is that people aren’t providing enough of a challenge,” Boone says. “When you first hear about it, the natural reaction or inclination is, ‘I have to save them.’ Then you finally take them home. Games are won and lost in the second, third and fourth innings 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 on Wednesday, with hitters and pitchers freely using challenges to get used to the system.
They’ve also regularly had a strike zone on the scoreboard that shows exactly where the ball landed a few seconds after each pitch, even when they weren’t using the ABS.
“These reps are valuable in continuing to dial that in,” Boone said. ‘This is a new muscle, because it has to be [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 representatives.”
The Yankees plan to give Ryan McMahon some reps at shortstop this spring to see if he can be a backup option there if needed, which could give them more roster flexibility, especially early in the season when they will be missing a shortstop or two.
Anthony Volpe will start the year on the injured list, Oswaldo Cabrera may not be ready to start the season on time as he regains full range of motion after rehabbing a broken ankle, and the Yankees don’t seem to like the idea of Amed Rosario at shortstop.
So instead of having an extra infielder on the bench just to have a backup shortstop no matter how long Volpe and/or Cabrera are out, the Yankees could hedge themselves by knowing that McMahon, a great defender at third base, could play there in an emergency.
“I feel like he can definitely handle it if we’re in a situation where we need him to be a backup or something,” Boone said. “I think he’s more than capable of doing that. I could pick a week where, ‘Hey, let’s do ground balls there for a few days,’ maybe put him in 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 suffer injuries in their rotation, each threw two innings and 35 pitches in live BP on Wednesday.
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