Collins: Time to see what Florial can do

Jun. 25—MOOSIC

There's something about this that seems so simple, so obvious. The New York Yankees are badly in need of outfield depth at the major league level. They need a ball-hawking defender to roam their cavernous left and center fields. They need a bat that can get hot, that can add some pop to a lineup dotted with more .600 OPSes than a contending team should have. Plus, it would be great if that bat swung from the left side of the plate.

Most of all, they need an infusion of youth on a roster that can't get veterans going. Giancarlo Stanton's .410 slugging percentage entering the Yankees' weekend series with hard-hitting Texas was 50 points south of the worst number he's ever posted in a season. DJ LeMahieu was approaching as many strikeouts in 2023 than he had in all of 2022, in half the games. Josh Donaldson was hitting .127. Five regular starters were sporting on-base percentages below .300.

All the while, at PNC Field, someone who checks every one of the above boxes just keeps on raking.

Estevan Florial already has a career high in home runs, drilling his personal best 18th of the 2023 season against Rochester on June 17 and then bettering it with another Thursday against Buffalo, hitting a 96-mph fastball 403 feet of the facing of the walkway beyond the Bisons bullpen in left-center — an impressive ride historically for a lefty.

Five years ago, Florial was the future of the Yankees. The top prospect in the system. A top talent in the game. But again, here he is. Working on a season in which he's hitting .293 with a .383 on-base percentage and a .994 OPS. A season in which he has stolen 13 bases to go along with those 19 bombs. A season in which his 45 RBIs lead the RailRiders, and they've mostly come out of the leadoff spot in the batting order.

But a Yankees team champing at the bit for outfield help already removed him from the 40-man roster once this season. When players like Aaron Judge, Harrison Bader and Stanton hit the injured list, the Yankees bypassed giving Florial a look to check out veteran journeymen like Willie Calhoun, Jake Bauers and Billy McKinney.

No offense to them, because they've hardly been the Yankees' biggest issues. But all older players than the 25-year-old Florial, and none are close to the caliber of defender.

It's enough to make you wonder. And if you're wondering, imagine what Florial has to be thinking.

"I'm absolutely getting better. But I feel like, at the end, it's, 'Where else can I get better?'" Florial said. "I know there's a lot of things I can get better at. Try to get more contact. Don't try to do too much. Put the ball in play."

It's amazing how it works in player development sometimes. An organization rushes a player like the Yankees did with their shortstop Anthony Volpe, arguably to his detriment, but almost always out of some sort of perceived need. The time, for him, came.

But, it never came for Florial. What are the Yankees waiting for?

Unless things change and he gets a bit of a run with the Yankees, Florial is fast-approaching an impressive and unenviable number. At some point in the next three weeks, he'll likely become the 23rd player in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre's 34-year history to surpass 1,000 career at-bats with the franchise

He'll join intriguing company if he does. Fan favorites like Jon Zuber, Gene Schall, Greg Legg and David Doster are on it. So are a few future major league all-stars, Chase Utley and Mike Lieberthal.

Mostly though, it's a rundown of players who got close enough to be a call away but never got an extended shot. It's a list full of Darren Burtons and Brandon Lairds, Kevin Russos and J.P. Roberges. And that's a group Florial can't want to join.

It's also one he shouldn't join.

The Yankees' feet-dragging would be understandable if Florial was the same free-swinging, all-or-nothing threat at the plate who struck out 112 times in 312 at-bats during his first season with the RailRiders in 2021.

Florial has worked to get better. He has seen his average rise from .218 his first season, to .283 in 2022 and, right now, it's sitting close to .300. He has seen his on-base percentage rise 70 points, and his OPS shoot up about 220 in that same time frame.

He's not the guy getting on base at a .295 clip and striking out at a 31.7 percent clip against lefties anymore, either. This season, he's hitting .293 against them, and 10 of his 19 homers have come against southpaws.

"The most impressive thing out of all the impressive things he has been doing is the adjustments he has made on left-handed pitchers this season," RailRiders manager Shelley Duncan said. "At the beginning of the year, you could say it almost looked like he had no shot. But now when a left-hander is on the mound, it looks like we have a guy who has a chance to pop one here. No matter who they throw out there, he has a chance to do damage against that guy."

Florial is not a perfect player. He's still striking out 30.6 percent of the time he steps in the box, which has long been the Yankees' concern with him. That's obviously too high. Poorly as the Yankees are hitting, they don't have a player striking out at that rate, outside of Volpe.

The difference is, what Florial is hitting, he's destroying. The Yankees aren't getting that consistently out of anyone in their lineup.

So, consider the question officially begged: Can beggars be choosers in the ultra-competitive American League East? Is there a point to stashing in the minors a player who you once considered a valuable prospect, who is clearly developing, who is still young enough, who still provides plenty of what you need most? Is there a reason to never give him an extended look? The guy has played parts of four seasons in the bigs, but he has never started more than three games in a row.

There's something the Yankees aren't seeing, for sure, when it comes to Florial. But until the offense shows the kind of spark needed to make this team look like a legitimate contender once the postseason rolls around, there's no use using the RailRiders as a storage facility.

Estevan Florial is playing as well as anybody in Triple-A baseball this season. It's past time for the Yankees to see if he can finally make it happen at the big league level.

DONNIE COLLINS is a sports columnist for The Times-Tribune. Contact him at dcollins@timesshamrock.com and follow him on Twitter @DonnieCollinsTT.