Earlier this afternoon, former Yankee third baseman Gio Urshela took to Instagram to announce his retirement.
Originally signed by Cleveland as an international amateur free agent in 2008, the Colombia native spent parts of ten seasons in the Major Leagues, posting a .270/.314/.407 slash line (97 OPS+) with 73 home runs and 147 doubles with Cleveland, Toronto, Minnesota, Detroit, and Atlanta, as well as the Angels, A’s, and—of course—the Yankees. Over that span, he was also a regular member of the Colombia national team, playing for the 2013 squad that lost in the World Baseball Classic qualifiers before appearing in the 2017, 2023, and 2026 tournaments. Urshela retires as the third-best Colombian hitter in MLB history by rWAR, trailing only World Series hero Édgar Rentería and longtime shortstop Orlando Cabrera.
For fans of the Yankees in the early years of the Aaron Judge era, Urshela is a player whose career will always be looked upon fondly. He came to the Yankees purely to serve as minor-league depth in August 2018, a move that went so far under the radar that we here at Pinstripe Alley simply didn’t post about it; his first appearance as a member of the Yankees organization on this site came the very next day as part of our daily minor league recap. When he reported to camp the following spring, he was named a likely candidate to be the 2019 version of Shane Robinson, i.e., a player incapable of producing at the MLB level who also ends up playing way too many innings at the MLB level, and in another piece was described as “by far the least known and least likely person to play for the Yankees in 2019.”
Fortunately, however, we were very, very, very wrong about him.
After Miguel Andújar and Troy Tulowitzki both hit the injured list in the opening days of the 2019 season, the Yankees called up Urshela from Triple-A Scranton, where he had gotten off to a hot start. And in the Bronx, he continued to rake. On the back of his 133 wRC+ and strong defensive performance at the hot corner, he finished second in the All-Star vote, ultimately missing out on his best chance for an All-Star nod because the Yankees had already a small army of players already named to the All-Star team (including his two fellow infielders, DJ LeMahieu and Gleyber Torres). His strong and consistence performance made him one of the two faces of the #NextManUp Yankees (alongside Mike Tauchman), and his offensive explosion in the weeks following the All-Star break was a major reason the Yankees entered September with a very comfortable lead over the Tampa Bay Rays in the division.
Urshela remained the starting third baseman for the majority of the next two seasons, ultimately moving to shortstop for the final few weeks of the 2021 season when it became clear that Torres could not handle the position on a consistent basis. Although he hit much better in the abbreviated 2020 season than he did in 2021, he nonetheless continued to put together a strong highlight reel, coming up with a big grand slam in the 2020 AL Wild Card round against his old team and flashing the leather everywhere he went.
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In the end, Urshela’s Yankees tenure came to an end following the 2021-2022 lockout, when the team rewrote the left side of the infield by trading Urshela and Gary Sánchez to the Minnesota Twins for Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Josh Donaldson (as well as catcher Ben Rortvedt). There he would put together one last strong season before becoming a journeyman, bouncing around the league as injuries and age caught up to him. He spent this past spring back in Minnesota on a minor-league deal following his WBC participation, but did not make the team out of spring training and was released.
In the end, Urshela may not have locked down the hot corner for the Yankees throughout the first half of 2020s as many of us hoped he would after the 2020 season, but he nonetheless ended up a beloved member of the Yankees family who had a nice career both in the Bronx and elsewhere. We wish him the best in his retirement!
And what better way to celebrate Urshela’s career than one last collection of his defensive highlights?
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