Waiting for Wade

On Wednesday, the Yankees sent shortstop/center fielder/spring training rock star Tyler Wade down to minor-league camp, ending the weeks-long mystery about whether or not the man Baseball Prospectus has ranked as the organization’s No. 9 prospect would be the one to fill in for Didi Gregorius throughout the first six weeks of the season. While both the New York Daily News and the New York Post pleaded Wade’s case to start the year in pinstripes, the team’s front office decided not to make room on the 40-man roster for the guy who has hit for an .852 OPS this spring. While Wednesday’s news may have disappointed the many fans who had hoped to watch Wade continue his hustle-induced success, I propose that not only does Ronald Torreyes make more sense as the Yankees’ Opening Day shortstop, but that we should be grateful for the fact that the team has decided to wait on Wade.

The narrative surrounding the Yankees’ development of Wade, their jack-of-all-trades prospect, hints toward the team’s well-established sense of entitlement. The franchise that has, for decades, seen a star player on another team, said “we want that star player,” and often proceeded to pay exorbitant money to get that star player, recently began to covet utility players the likes of Ben Zobrist and Brock Holt. However, instead of merely snatching one of these existing multi-positional role players from the teams they were on, the Yankees decided to develop their own super utility man. “We want that type of guy,”  Brian Cashman probably said, and now that Yankees fans have seen what it looks like to have that type of guy on their team, they want him too.

It is easy to see why Wade is such an appealing option to fill in for Gregorius. As Lance Brozdowski pointed out on this very website last week, fans are already coming to terms with the fact that Gleyber Torres will be in the minors for most of 2017, and are prepared to be patient with him. Wade, on the other hand, is an unexpected treat. The 22-year-old has come seemingly out of nowhere, gotten on base at a .400 clip, stolen bases, played shortstop, and made plays like this in the outfield:

Yankees supporters see these facts and wonder: why can’t we have that now? As a speedy, versatile player with what someone might refer to as “moxie” (not me, of course, but someone), Wade is the antithesis of the aging sluggers that have populated Yankees rosters in recent years. So why can’t he fill in for the first month of the season? We’ve seen Ronald Torreyes play, we know what Ruben Tejada can do, and Pete Kozma doesn’t capture our imagination the way Wade does. Tyler Wade is shiny, he’s new, and if we just give him a chance, maybe — maybe — he can make all our dreams come true.

But 2017 Tyler Wade will not make our dreams come true, and deep down, we know that. He has yet to play a single game in Triple-A. Last year, in Double-A Trenton, he did this:

A .271 true average and 37.6 VORP! That’s pretty good! But it’s not outstanding. And, again, it’s still Double-A. Even looking toward the 2018 season, BP only has Wade projected for a 2.6 VORP, which is not nearly as impressive. If you are looking for a player who has already put up a 4.6 VORP (still not impressive) in 168 plate appearances for the Yankees, look no further than Ronald Torreyes. To be clear, I have no illusions about Torreyes being an outstanding option for the 2017 Yankees (4.6 is not many more runs than a replacement player), but a replacement player is all the Yankees are looking for, and Torreyes has proven he can be just that at the major-league level. If Wade is a player the Yankees hope to plug into a variety of roles in key situations, they need to know that he can handle anything that gets thrown at him, not just spring training pitching. In order to be sure that Wade is the player the Yankees are looking for, the 22-year-old has to at least get some at-bats in Scranton.

Looking at Baseball Prospectus’ “comparable players” feature, one of Wade’s comps (with a similarity score of 89) is Billy Hamilton from 2013. Now, one may see Billy Hamilton’s name and think “he’s a great prospect,” but Billy Hamilton in 2013 was a great prospect who was not ready for the majors. Hamilton had a .305 OBP in Triple-A that season, and though he had some success in his brief major-league stint that year, he still struggles to get on base. If we think back to that year, we recall that 2013 was when the dreams and aspirations for Hamilton’s career were at their peak. Wow, he’s out-performing his minor-league stats and his tools are great! People saw his speed and thought of the mind-blowing possibilities, but now, four years later, it is clear that Hamilton is still very much a work in progress. If the Yankees want Tyler Wade to become the plug-in player they’ve been pining for, they should not fall in love with the outlier stats he has put up in spring training, and they should not follow the Reds’ strategy of sitting back while he collects a sub-.300 OBP for two full seasons in the majors.

So let’s give Wade a little more time to work things out, outside of the bright lights of Yankee Stadium, and in the meantime, we can enjoy dreaming for just a little bit longer. When we’re out on the open seas of a 162-game season, with our illusions of the Yankees out-performing their win projections a distant memory, while we’re being served the unappetizing slop of a 5.08 ERA from CC Sabathia, and we’re withstanding the heavy gales of an 0-for-22 streak from Aaron Judge, we can take comfort in the fact that, back on the familiar shores of our homeland, Tyler Wade is there, waiting to sooth us with his hustle plays and — dare I say — his moxie.

Photo: Butch Dill / USATSI