Rushing Rob Refsnyder is not going to save the 2015 Yankees

The Yankees have not exactly gotten off to the best of starts, as they lost both series to begin the year while their offense hit .193/.280/.342 with a 78 wRC+ over the season’s first week. Although there are a number of culprits to their early malaise, the one player many fans appeared fixated on is the same whipping boy from the end of last year, Stephen Drew.

It was definitely frustrating in 2014 to watch the final form of Brian Roberts bumble about for half a season only to somehow still perform better than a supposedly still-in-his-prime Drew when the Yankees acquired him at the trade deadline. For certain prospect lovers, it was particularly galling because the Yankees had someone playing the exact same position as Roberts and Drew in the minors who happened to be hitting the tar out of the ball. Enter 2012 fifth round pick Rob Refsnyder.

At 23-years-old and in just his third professional season, Refsnyder had a breakout performances, as he hit .342/.385/.548 with a .303 TAv in Double-A Trenton, his first taste above A-ball. A June promotion to Triple-A Scranton hardly slowed him down, either. In 77 games the rest of the way, he continued his assault on minor league pitching with a .300/.389/.456 triple slash and a .291 TAv. Scouting analysts raved about his approach at the plate. Chris Mellen and the BP staff noted that he had a “line drive stroke” with “strong knowledge of the strike zone,” and a natural intelligence for the game. Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com ranked him the 8th best second base prospect in baseball, agreeing that his hitting “translates into consistent line drives to all fields.” The Yankees eventually named Refsnyder their top minor league position player of the year in 2014.

So if Refsnyder tore up the minors so much, why did the Yankees re-sign Drew, and why is he still in Triple-A to begin the 2015 campaign? Unfortunately, Refsnyder’s defense leaves a lot to be desired. While he was a second baseman in high school, he patrolled right field during his collegiate days at Arizona for good reason. The Yankees felt that his bat would play a lot better at second than in a corner outfield spot, so he moved back to the infield at the start of the 2013 season. His shaky defense was on full display in spring training this year, as this was just one of his several fielding miscues:

Throughout the spring, Refsnyder made a team-high six errors and simply looked awkward around the position, even on successful plays. Callis and Mayo wrote in the off-season that Refsnyder “has made progress there, but still struggles with his footwork and probably won’t become more than an adequate defender.” Although the linked clip was just one play out of many, it highlights those problems at the keystone on double plays. Some people might cite stats like his mere three errors in 245 chances at Triple-A last year and an improved range factor, but that’s not enough to fly in the face of all the negative scouting reports, which are far more reliable. Refsnyder’s defense is probably better than it was in 2013, but boy, is that faint praise.

Given his present Acme brand glove, adding Refsnyder to the Yankees’ current roster would clearly just be rushing him. He’s not ready defensively, and GM Brian Cashman has made no secret of the fact that working on it will be his path to the big leagues. A common counterargument some fans have mentioned is represented by 2005 Robinson Cano. Like Refsnyder, Cano was a second baseman who never made a Top 100 Prospect list and whose opportunity opened up by no clear solution for second at the big league level.

Ten years ago, it was Tony Womack in the Opening Day second base job, but by May 3rd with the team stumbling at 11-15, Cano was promoted while Womack and fan favorite Bernie Williams saw their playing time cut. Cano was red hot in Triple-A Columbus at the time with a .333/.368/.574 triple slash over the season’s first month while Womack and Bernie were only hitting .282/.330/.329 and .247/.324/.312, respectively. (While Bernie rebounded somewhat, Womack’s game would amazingly plummet far further into the depths of hell to become one of the worst players in franchise history. He was somehow traded in the off-season to the Reds for minor leaguers with a pulse.) Cano finished runner-up to Huston Street in Rookie of the Year voting that season thanks to a steady bat that carried him to a .266 TAv, 2.7 WARP season despite defensive problems that lingered in his game for the next four years.

So the logic goes “if it worked with Cano a decade ago, why couldn’t it work for Refsnyder now?” It certainly could work–baseball can be surprising like that. However, the Canos of the world who weren’t heralded at all during their minor league days are the exceptions rather than the rule. There also seems to be a misconception about Cano’s arrival turning the 2005 Yankees offense around. The team did, in fact, recover to win their eighth consecutive AL East crown with a major league best 84-52 record from Cano’s arrival onward. Cano was definitely an improvement over Womack, but it wasn’t him that made them play over .600 ball.

The 2005 Yankees had 111 team wRC+ prior to his call-up and a 116 wRC+ afterward. Yes, it was better, but they were already great. This was an 886-run team that was absolutely stacked on offense with eventual MVP Alex Rodriguez, AL Comeback Player of the Year Jason Giambi, ’04 MVP runner-up Gary Sheffield, ’06 MVP runner-up Derek Jeter, not to mention solid seasons from Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada. Like Cano, they were also not good on defense, so they needed every bit of offense to squeak out a division title.

Refsnyder would not be arriving in a similar situation at all. The 2015 Yankees offense has some useful parts who can reasonably be counted on in Jacoby Ellsbury, Brett Gardner, and Chase Headley. Beyond them though, there are the quickly declining bats of Brian McCann, Mark Teixiera, and in particular, Carlos Beltran. Oh, and a mysterious version of A-Rod who will turn 40 in July, has played professionally just two months in the past two seasons, and is operating on twice surgically repaired hips. Even if Refsnyder is called up now and produces at a 2005 Cano-like level (far from a guarantee with hitting in the majors more difficult than it has been in decades), it’s probably not going to be enough to be what pushes a presently projected .500 team over the edge. They need their primary starters to produce in order to make that happen.

So for now, it’s best that the Yankees adhere to former BP prospect analyst Kevin Goldstein’s rule of rushing prospects as little as possible and just let Refsnyder work on the kinks in the minors. Like the big league club, he’s already off to an unpromising start anyway.
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