His First Chance
The story of Thairo Estrada is just like that of many other professional baseball players… until it isn’t. Estrada was born in Bejuma Venezuela on February 23, 1996. The New York Yankees signed Estrada in April of 2012 at the age of sixteen to play second base in their minor league system. Although this seems like an insanely young age to be signed, it is not as uncommon as some might think. International players are eligible to become free agents and be signed by a Major League Organization once they turn sixteen. This was the case for many of the league’s stars including Jose Ramirez, Jose Altuve, and Luis Severino. With that being said, Estrada’s $49,000 signing bonus didn’t exactly guarantee an opportunity to play in the major leagues. Teams are much quicker to give up on a player when they have only invested $49,000 into them. Without the “top prospect” label or multi million signing bonus, Estrada would have to work extremely hard to hold on to his opportunity.
Minor League Success
Thairo Estrada began his professional baseball career in 2013 as seventeen year old with the Gulf Coast Yankees, the Rookie Ball affiliate of the New York Yankees. He maintained a .275 batting average over 56 games of Rookie Ball before being moved up to the Single-A shortened season affiliate of the Yankees, the Staten Island Yankees. Although he performed well enough to take a small step up in the organization, Estrada’s numbers weren’t good enough to justify a lackluster season at the next level. He continued to hit a decent level in Staten Island, batting .270 over 80 games in the next two seasons. In 2016, Estrada put up an improved batting average of .290 over 118 combined games between the Single-A level and Advanced-A. This improvement was enough for scouts to invite him to participate in the Arizona Fall League as a member of the Scottsdale Scorpions. The 2017 AFL season was one to remember for Thairo. Surrounded by the highest rated prospect in all of baseball, he finished eleventh in the league with a .342 batting average. This ranked ahead of names like Ronald Acuna, Fransisco Mejia, and Luis Urias who happened to be three of the top thirty prospects in all of baseball, with Acuna being ranked number one. This performance put the entire league on notice. The only problem was that the MVP of that very same league the prior year was fellow Venezuelan second baseman Gleyber Torres, the golden ticket that the Yankees received when they traded Aroldis Chapman to the eventual World Series Champion Chicago Cubs. Torres was the youngest player in the AFL that year and took home MVP honors, batting over .400. Torres was the Yankees number one prospect and the future at the second base position and it wasn’t hard to see why. As for Thairo Estrada, all he could do was continue to produce. Estrada continued his dominant year of 2017 during the regular season in Double-A as a member of the Trenton Thunder. Playing his first full season at one level, Estrada maintained a .300 average and 48 RBIs over 122 games, establishing himself as a legitimate prospect in the Yankees Organization. In June of 2017, Gleyber Torres, Estrada’s top competition for the MLB second base spot of the future, suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his non throwing arm sliding into home plate during a Triple-A game. Torres would require season ending Tommy John surgery and was scheduled to miss at least the first few weeks of the following season. Although this was a tragic blow to the Yankees and baseball as a whole, that meant it was Thairo Estrada’s turn. He was the next man up and seemed to destined for a roster spot once the 2018 season began and they waited for Torres to completely heal. Estrada was finally going to get his chance, but then the unthinkable happened.
The Tragedy
On January 28th, 2018, Thairo Estrada and his wife were robbed at gunpoint at a restaurant in his hometown of Bejuma Venezuela. The two teenage robbers demanded either his phone or cash. After Estrada told them that he didn’t have either, one of the robbers let off one shot, hitting him in the hip. Luckily the injury was not life threatening and his wife was not harmed at all. Doctors were unable to remove the bullet from his hip but expected a full recovery. Although further tragedy was avoided, Estrada’s offseason to prepare for a potential call up to the Majors ended up with him getting a bullet in his hip. Understandably upset about the incident, Estrada said “In the moment, you can’t really believe that something like that is happening to you,” He continued by saying “I was getting ready for Spring Training and all of a sudden you realize that you have been shot.” I wish I could say that this was an isolated incident, but unfortunately it is not very rare for baseball players from Latin American countries to return home and have something like this happen to them. As crazy as it sounds, Thairo Estrada turned out to be one of the lucky ones. Estrada commented on this, saying “The situation there is not very good, not very safe, As baseball players, it makes you think about [not] even going back anymore.”
The Return
While most players were preparing for the upcoming season, Estrada was recovering from a gunshot wound and had most likely missed his shot at making the MLB roster by no fault of his own. With the odds stacked against him and a bullet in his hip, he had to fight even harder to get another shot. Unfortunately, Estrada did not have the fairy tale season that he desperately needed. On top of being shot in the offseason, the regular season was riddled with injuries for the Yankee prospect. A wrist and back injury held Thairo Estrada to just 18 games in which he posted a measly .192 batting average. After a nightmare season, the only thing you can do is just ignore the noise and get back to work preparing for the next season. That’s exactly what Estrada did. He bagan the 2019 season in Triple-A with little to no chance of cracking the stacked New York Yankees Roster. The Yankees had a slow start to the season and players began dropping like flies. The injury bug was biting harder than ever, taking players such as Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Miguel Andujar off the field. In total, the Yankees had 13 player on the injured list at one time. This left a lot of room on the MLB roster for potential call ups. On April 4th, in desperate need of infield help, the Yankees turned to Thairo Estrada to fill the void. After only two days on the active roster, the Yankees demoted him back to Triple-A. Just another setback for someone that must be used to them by now. Luckily, this setback didn’t last long. On April 21st, the Yankees turned back to the second baseman who was batting .273 through 10 games at the Triple-A level. Estrada has played in 4 games since his second call up and has seemingly hit the ball hard every time he’s stepped up to the plate. Through his first 4 games, Estrada is batting .400 and has proved that he can hit and defend at the MLB level. Estrada seems destined for success but he must maintain this success if he wants a chance to stay on the roster once the Yankee all stars come off the IL. If Thairo Estrada’s past has taught us anything, it’s that he will not stop working no matter what obstacles are thrown his way.
Timothy Martin Sports Journalism 