TAMPA — DJ LeMahieu went two months without swinging a bat this offseason, which for the veteran baseball junkie, was essentially a shock to the system.
It was the longest time he could remember ever going without picking up a bat, but the 36-year-old was at a point in his career where he was willing to try anything to get fully healthy again.
And while the Yankees infielder felt good when he started swinging again in January, he’s been through this enough to know how much that matters.
“It’s easy to feel good in January,” LeMahieu said Tuesday with a wry grin inside the Yankees clubhouse at Steinbrenner Field.
Injuries have taken a toll on LeMahieu over the last few seasons and sapped the production of the two-time batting champion. But it’s clear that LeMahieu has also beaten himself up over that time for not being able to consistently suit up with his teammates and hold up his end of a six-year, $90 million contract.
“It’s tough, it’s tough,” said LeMahieu, who has two years and $30 million left on the deal. “I’ve definitely lost a lot of sleep and it’s tough to be a guy that the team can’t rely on at times. I always take pride in that, so to not be able to do that, it’s definitely frustrating. At the same time, I haven’t lost my passion for helping this team and my passion for this team. That keeps me going.”
LeMahieu saying he is healthy and the Yankees voicing their hope for a bounce back have become as much of a spring training ritual as pitchers’ fielding practice.
The team raved about LeMahieu for most of last spring until he fouled a ball off his foot a few days before St. Patrick’s Day and suffered a non-displaced fracture.
The year before that, he was still coming off dealing with the broken toe and torn ligament in another toe that derailed him late in the 2022 season.
The result has been LeMahieu being a shell of himself at the plate, batting just .232 with a .663 OPS across 203 games over the last two years.
“For a majority of my career, I’d pretty much play unless my leg was cut off,” LeMahieu said. “That was my mindset. I didn’t go in the training room. I just strapped it on every day and played. The last few years, bumps and bruises, this and that, the foot fracture, stuff that I could kind of play through in the past, it escalates and compounds. I think that’s been the frustrating part. Is it a major injury? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s the stuff that it’s been difficult to get past has been frustrating.”
This spring, LeMahieu has a chance to win the third base job, which the Yankees could desperately use if he returns to being even close to the hitter he once was.
“It’s the same game I’ve been doing for a long time, it’s just been a little more difficult for me,” LeMahieu said. “But my passion for doing special things on the field and my passion for this organization and helping this team hasn’t really wavered. But it’s obviously been a little bit more difficult for me. I feel good right now. I just gotta find a way to keep it that way.”
