TAMPA — Aaron Boone does not want Jazz to be on shuffle this season.
The Yankees manager is planning on shifting Jazz Chisholm Jr. back to second base this year, and though he left the door open for him to return to third base after learning it on the fly last year, Boone wants him to have a permanent home once the season begins.
“I don’t want to get into bouncing him back and forth,” Boone said Tuesday after a workout at Steinbrenner Field. “But once we settle on what we’re doing [with the roster], then I’ll make that final call. But I just felt like him going to second, keeping the [Oswaldo] Cabrera, DJ [LeMahieu], [Oswald] Peraza, [Jorbit] Vivas, whoever else you want to throw in that mix, I felt like made more sense hashing it out at third.”
Chisholm is a natural shortstop who played mostly second base in 2021 and 2022 before shifting to center field in 2023 and the first half of 2024.
He moved to third base last summer after the Yankees acquired him from the Marlins. He made the transition look mostly seamless and graded out well there metrically — recording eight outs above average.
And though Boone believes Chisholm can “be elite at either position,” he thinks he has “a chance to be really dynamic in the middle with Anthony [Volpe].”
That said, Boone left himself some wiggle room as the situation could change — for example, if no one emerges for the third base job and the best infielder the Yankees can acquire later in camp is a second baseman.
“Right now, I have him locked in at second, but that can always change,” Boone said.
Gerrit Cole threw the equivalent of two innings in a live batting practice session Tuesday, building his pitch count up to 35 while facing a group that included shortstop prospects George Lombard Jr. and Roderick Arias.
A year after not bouncing back well between spring outings led to the diagnosis of an elbow nerve injury, the Yankees are keeping close tabs on that this spring.
“That’s been good,” Boone said. “His side the other day into this live was really, really sharp, and I thought he carried that out there. Really controlled his tempo and how much he wanted to throttle up and down. He was in that 94-96 [mph] but able to back off, and add and subtract while also having really good command with it. For this time of the year, really sharp.”
Pitching prospect Cam Schlittler, coming off a breakout season in the minors, also threw live batting practice and struck out Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt, LeMahieu and Volpe.
