{"id":554649,"date":"2026-02-04T18:46:36","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/554649\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T18:46:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:46:36","slug":"yankees-to-claim-yanquiel-fernandez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/554649\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees To Claim Yanquiel Fern\u00e1ndez"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Yankees are going to claim outfielder Yanquiel Fern\u00e1ndez<\/a> off waivers from the Rockies, reports Francys Romero of BeisbolFR<\/a>. Colorado designated him for assignment a week ago. The Yanks haven\u2019t yet officially announced this claim. When they do, they will need to make a corresponding move to open a 40-man spot.<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez, 23, was one of the top prospects in the Rockies\u2019 system as of a few years ago. An international signing out of Cuba, Fern\u00e1ndez boosted his stock with a strong 2023 season. He hit 25 home runs across three different levels, topping out at Double-A. Going into 2024, the Rockies added him to their 40-man roster to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. Baseball America<\/a> ranked him the #3 prospect in the organization and #92 in the whole league.<\/p>\n

His stock has dipped since then. He has taken 147 big league plate appearances with a .225\/.265\/.348 line and 29.9% strikeout rate. In 409 Triple-A plate appearances, his .259\/.320\/.437 line looks decent at first glance but actually translates to a 77 wRC+ in the hitter-friendly environment of the Pacific Coast League. The declining offense is significant for Fern\u00e1ndez. He doesn\u2019t steal a ton of bases and is a corner outfielder. He has a strong arm but isn\u2019t considered an especially strong defender. His best path to providing value is crushing the ball.<\/p>\n

The Rockies just overhauled their front office, moving on from general manager Bill Schmidt in the fall. It seems the new regime, led by president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta, wasn\u2019t bullish on his chances of getting back on track. Fern\u00e1ndez has a minor league option remaining and could have been kept in Triple-A as depth but the Rockies bumped him off the roster as they made buy-low pickups of slightly more experienced players like Jake McCarthy<\/a> and Edouard Julien<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Yankees have a fairly crowded outfield at the moment. They project to have Aaron Judge<\/a>, Trent Grisham<\/a> and Cody Bellinger<\/a> getting regular playing time on the grass with Giancarlo Stanton<\/a> in the designated hitter spot. They also have Jasson Dom\u00ednguez<\/a> and Spencer Jones<\/a> in the mix and have been sniffing around the market for righty platoon guys like Randal Grichuk<\/a> and Austin Slater<\/a>. Guys like Marco Luciano<\/a> and Seth Brown<\/a> are around as non-roster depth.<\/p>\n

That picture could change over time. There are some injury concerns in there, particularly with Stanton. There has been some trade speculation surrounding Dom\u00ednguez and Jones. For now, Fern\u00e1ndez figures to be way down the depth chart. The Yankees might try to pass him through waivers at some point in the future. If he hangs onto his roster spot, he figures to get regular playing time in Triple-A.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Isaiah J. Downing, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Yankees are going to claim outfielder Yanquiel Fern\u00e1ndez off waivers from the Rockies, reports Francys Romero of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,26509],"class_list":{"0":"post-554649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-yanquiel-fernandez"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116013852519762212","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}