This afternoon, the Yankees declared that they had acquired infielder Jordan Groshans from the A’s in exchange for infielder J.D. Davis and financial considerations. The A’s had earlier in the week designated Davis for assignment. To create space for Davis on the 40-man roster, the Yankees placed right-hander Nick Burdi on the 60-day disabled list.After being dismissed by the Giants during Spring Training, Davis, 31, inked a contract with the A’s in late spring to avoid paying the majority of the $6.9MM salary he had been granted in arbitration over the previous winter. Even after accounting for the approximately $1.1MM in termination money he received from San Francisco, he was only able to obtain a guarantee of $2.5MM from Oakland—a far cry from the arbitration amount he had previously been given.
After the incident in the late spring, Davis played in 39 games with the A’s, sharing time between first base, third base, and DH. In 135 plate appearances, he batted a league average of roughly.236/.304/.366.Although Davis’s offensive output this season has been below average, his positional versatility and history as an above-average hitter make him an ideal fit for the Yankees right now. The team lost first baseman Anthony Rizzo to a fractured forearm not too long ago, and starting DH Giancarlo Stanton was added to the injured list earlier today.While the team lacks a clear replacement for Stanton as the starting designated hitter on a daily basis, rookie Ben Rice has struggled in his first few games since taking Rizzo’s spot at first base. The team has a wRC+ of just 78, which is second-worst in the AL and only better than the White Sox, even at third base, where they presently rely on Oswaldo Cabrera and DJ LeMahieu.
Let’s introduce Davis, who divided his five seasons as an above-average hitter between the Mets and Giants coming into the 2024 season. With a wRC+ of 118, Davis has slashed a strong.265/.349/.438 since the 2019 season began. In that span, he has walked at a solid 10% rate and struck out at a rate of 27.1%, but he has also demonstrated 20-home run ability.
Even without Stanton, at least temporarily, a Yankees team that has usually struggled to generate offense outside of the outfield this year would really benefit from that kind of productivity.While Stanton is out, Davis is expected to assume the Yankees’ regular DH job. However, he may also be able to help out at third base with LeMahieu and Cabrera, as well as spell Rice at first base when left-handed pitching is applied.The Yankees could give Aaron Judge or Juan Soto the chance to take a half-day off as a DH on days when Davis is playing the infield. By adding glove-first center fielder Trent Grisham to the mix, the team might strengthen its outfield defense. The Yankees would probably decide what to do next when Stanton eventually makes a comeback to take back regular at-bats at DH based on how well Davis, Rice, Cabrera, and LeMahieu have done in those present roles thus far.
That being said, even after Stanton eventually returns, Davis should be a lock for at least semi-regular playing time in the Yankees infield if he can even sustain his output as an Athletic in the Bronx. Groshans is being sent to Oakland by the Yankees in return for Davis’s services. After the 24-year-old was grabbed off waivers by the Yankees from the Marlins in February, his time with the team was comparatively short. He was immediately removed from their 40-man roster in early March, and despite playing all four infield positions in 50 games split between Double- and Triple-A, he has struggled to this point in the 2024 season, with a slash line of.232/.310/.281.
That comes after a similarly poor showing at Triple-A with Miami the previous season; in 125 games and 528 plate appearances, Groshans hit a pitiful.244/.339/.330 with only six home runs.It’s understandable why the A’s would be open to giving Groshan a chance, even though he’s had difficulty throughout the previous two seasons. After all, the infielder was selected by the Blue Jays with the twelfth overall pick in the 2018 draft and had garnered a lot of attention as a top prospect earlier in his career, including a period in 2021 when he was regarded as one of the sport’s consensus top-50 prospects.There is some hope that Groshans may eventually be able to contribute at the major league level because of his lineage and his better performance at the Double-A level earlier in his career. For an Oakland team that has alternated between Tyler Nevin, Abraham Toro, and Davis at third base this season in an attempt to find a reliable alternative, that prospect is undoubtedly alluring.
