Yankees had really good day while Bryce Harper was simulating

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Right there, right on the turf at Spectrum Field and on the grounds beyond, at adjoining Robin Roberts Field, you could actually watch the Yankees’ evolved philosophies juxtaposed against the chill sunshine of the middle of spring training.

On display on the back field was the Ghost of Yankees Past, where Bryce Harper was playing a simulated game against minor league pitchers, readying himself for his first exhibition game as a Phillie this weekend. Harper took 12 turns at the plate, had a single, two doubles and a 400-foot home run, walked a bunch, looked fine.

In the varsity ballpark, the Reality of Yankees Present was on full display during a 6-0 splattering of the split-squad Phillies.

Miguel Andujar — who a year ago had turned in a Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson-level performance in this very yard to serve notice what was to come — had a couple of scorching hits, and made a terrific play at third base, stealing a double away. Estevan Florial, 21 years old, looked a lot like 2018 Andujar, getting two hits (including an impressive bomb of a home run to left-center field) and stealing a base.

And on the mound was James Alston Paxton, aka the Big Maple, working his left arm into shape, looking ragged at the start but sharp thereafter, mowing through the Phillies, allowing no runs and three hits in 3 ¹/₃ innings, striking out five, looking precisely like the pitcher who, as it turned out, was the feature addition of the Yankees’ offseason.

Against stupendous odds.

“I felt good,” Paxton said. “Another step in the right direction. I’m still looking for my release point, but overall it’s looking very good.”

Two days shy of five months earlier, the Yankees lost Game 4 of the ALDS to the Red Sox, 4-3, and almost immediately, began the speculation of what the Yankees would look like the next time they took the field together. It wasn’t certain who among the following troika would benefit from the coming Yankees spending spree — Harper, Manny Machado, Patrick Corbin — but certainly one would. If not two.

If not all three.

The over/under, of course, turns out to be zero. And so Harper was hammering JV fastballs on a back field here, and Machado was out in Arizona, and Corbin was across the state with the Nationals in West Palm Beach. Andujar was doing what he does — hammering baseballs — and Florial was doing what we’ve heard that he does — looking awfully elite as a prospect.

And, of course, there was Paxton. Doing what he does.

“It was a really good day for him,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.

Which means it was a really good day for the Yankees, who were due one after getting dyspeptic news about Luis Severino two days earlier and learning that CC Sabathia would be starting his final season on the injured list a day before. Paxton was acquired to beef up a suspect Yankees rotation, but with Severino out, it looks like Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ are going to need to be ready to break out of the starting gate at the top of their games.

There is no need for panic here — or for poetry; put away “Pax, Happ and ’Hiro and pray for sub-zero” — but it is different than what was on the blueprint a few weeks ago.

But, then, by now we are used to the Yankees shifting off old blueprints. Forget when George Steinbrenner was alive; five years ago there is zero chance that one of the Big Three wouldn’t have been the drawing card for the visiting Yanks Thursday. There is no shot there wouldn’t have been at least one big-ticket show-off day at the Stadium in December or January.

But they signed none of them. They made an old-fashioned trade for Paxton, rather than overpaying Corbin. They figured out early in the process that Andujar’s bat was at least the equal of Machado’s, and believed the rest of his game could follow. And they made other choices in the outfield: Brett Gardner and Aaron Hicks for now, possibly Florial for years to come. Now, we don’t know yet if those choices were the right ones. But they are different ones.

And so far, they seem like smart ones.

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