{"id":114456,"date":"2026-02-21T18:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T23:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=114456"},"modified":"2026-02-21T18:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T23:48:15","slug":"three-non-roster-invitees-to-make-yankees-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/02\/21\/three-non-roster-invitees-to-make-yankees-roster\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Non-Roster Invitees Who Might Make Yankees\u2019 Roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are typically a couple of players on a team’s list of non-roster invites to Spring Training that end up cracking the big league roster. The New York Yankees are one of the stronger teams in the American League, but with injuries as an already-prevalent issue for this squad, they’ll have to ensure that they have the depth, both with pitchers and position players, to keep up in the AL East. So, without further ado, these are the three non-roster invitees who have the best shot of having their name on the big league roster by the end of Spring Training.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul DeJong<\/h2>\n

The Yankees don\u2019t need a lot of help on the offensive side of the ball. With Cody Bellinger<\/a> and Trent Grisham<\/a> both returning for 2026<\/a>, there is very little that they need to address in terms of position players. However, with Anthony Volpe<\/a> out to begin the season, the starting shortstop job is technically up for grabs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

DeJong has not been the same since leaving St. Louis in 2023. The 32-year-old has put up a .658 OPS and a brWAR of just 0.3 in 308 games since that season. But, with Volpe out for at least a month to begin the year<\/a>, Dejong has another (granted, short-term) shot at starting. Still, he\u2019ll have to outplay Jos\u00e9 Caballero<\/a>, who slashed .266\/.372\/.456 with 15 stolen bases in just 40 games with New York in 2025. Plus, Gold Glove-winning third baseman Ryan McMahon<\/a> has reportedly been taking reps at shortstop, too. It\u2019s not very likely, but don\u2019t be surprised if this veteran finds himself on New York\u2019s bench as a utility option.<\/span><\/p>\n

Elmer Rodriguez<\/h2>\n

In his opening press conference, Yankees captain Aaron Judge<\/a> spoke of his disappointment with New York\u2019s lack of activity this offseason. If he\u2019s upset that New York did nothing to improve their bullpen, he\u2019s not entirely wrong. Devin Williams<\/a> and Luke Weaver<\/a> have left for another borough<\/a>, and the Yankees did absolutely nothing to replace their combined value. What\u2019s worse is that this bullpen was not even very good to begin with, arguably costing the Yankees the AL East title as well as the ALDS against the Toronto Blue Jays.<\/span><\/p>\n

Clearly, the Yankees believe that they\u2019ll find the pitchers they need internally. One potential addition to their pen is Elmer Rodriguez, one of New York\u2019s best performers across their entire farm system in 2025. The 23-year-old was ranked third on MLB Pipeline\u2019s 2025 list of Yankee prospects. Rodriguez quickly shot up to AAA after dominating in Single and Double-A, with an ERA of 2.58, and 176 strikeouts over 150 innings across all three levels. If any Yankee is a starting pitching prospect with a legitimate chance of making the Opening Day roster, it\u2019s him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seth Brown<\/h2>\n

The Yankees signed Brown to a minor league deal in January. Since hitting 25 home runs for the Oakland Athletics in 2022, the 33-year-old veteran has hit just 29 in almost 300 games, sporting a subpar OPS of .667. <\/span>Even with younger players like Jasson Dom\u00ednguez<\/a> and Spencer Jones in the Yankees\u2019 outfield mix this spring<\/a>, New York likes to have more experienced backups, so with a solid spring, there is a good chance that Brown can make the Yankees\u2019 roster as a bench player.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, New York’s excess of veteran backups calls into question what the futures of young players like Jones and Dominguez look like. The Yankees’ outfield is already quite full, so throwing in another aging veteran into the mix will only take away playing time from the young players who truly need it. Perhaps having all kinds of depth will help New York in the end, but it will come at the unfortunate detriment of a few of their top prospects.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are typically a couple of players on a team’s list of non-roster invites to Spring Training that end up cracking the big league roster. The New York Yankees are one of the stronger teams in the American League, but with injuries as an already-prevalent issue for this squad, they’ll have to ensure that they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5148,"featured_media":81796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,5,35],"tags":[501,3461,899,4266,2970,28376,2562,2600,3041,3081,3226],"class_list":["post-114456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-yankees","category-news","tag-aaron-judge","tag-anthony-volpe","tag-cody-bellinger","tag-devin-williams","tag-jasson-dominguez","tag-jose-caballero","tag-luke-weaver","tag-paul-dejong","tag-ryan-mcmahon","tag-seth-brown","tag-trent-grisham"],"modified_by":"Augustus Oswald, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114456"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114496,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114456\/revisions\/114496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}