Miguel Andujar joins Giancarlo Stanton in heading to the IL with injured shoulder

One of the more interesting stories in baseball over the last few years is just how good of a job the New York Yankees have done in cultivating young talent. Sure, we are used to the Yankees signing the big names in free agency back to the George Steinbrenner years, but of late they have been one of the absolute best organizations at acquiring young talent and developing it from the draft, international free agent market, and in trades.

We have seen that pay big dividends for the team in recent years with young studs like Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres, Luis Severino, Miguel Andujar, Gary Sanchez and others all coming up and contributing in meaningful ways. In the case of Andujar, in a year where Gleyber was supposed to be the big impact rookie for New York (he still was), Andujar was a a revelation in his own right with a .297/.328/.527 slash line with 27 homers in his rookie season. One can question his OBP or his defense at third, but the guy raked for the majority of the season and seemed to be one of those bats that was worth getting excited about.

Unfortunately, Andujar’s second full season with the Yankees is not off to a great start.

Andujar injured his shoulder diving back to third base and the Yankees now find themselves as the walking wounded with Giancarlo Stanton heading for the injured list with a biceps injury. As of this writing, Andujar and Stanton’s injuries are both being described as strains which is both good and bad news. The good news is that there does not appear to be any obvious tears or breaks which would mean lengthy IL stints. The downside is that strains and sprains are notoriously difficult to project in terms of how long it will take to clear up. Sometimes, they are healed and good to go before the 10 day injured list stint is up. Other times, it can take significantly longer and require some rehab time in the minors.

Adding Stanton and Andujar to an IL that already has Didi Gregorius, Luis Severino, CC Sabathia, and Dellin Betances among others on it means that the Yankees are going to have it tougher than many expected when it comes to challenging for the division crown....at least to start the season. Whether or not this problem lingers is very much to be determined.