Alex Verdugo excited for 'fresh start' with Yankees, to be one of Aaron Boone's 'savages'

Even after a season marked by some public criticism from his manager and disappointment at the plate, Alex Verdugo’s initial reaction to the news that the Boston Red Sox, where he spent the past four seasons, were trading him to the rival Yankees.

“The genuine reaction was mad. I was hot,” Verdugo said in his introductory Zoom call with the New York media on Thursday.

“I was just like, man, they really sent me to the rivals, the Yankees,” he said, adding that after thinking about things and how last season went from him in Boston the 27-year-old began to change his mind then Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Staton, Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rizzo “started reaching out and just welcoming me to the team, it just then got me excited, man. It got me excited.”

And that excitement about a fresh–start manifested itself in a fresh look for a player who had worn a beard or some kind of facial hair since high school.

“I shaved right away just so I could like, you know, feel like I'm in it,” a clean-shaven Verdugo said. “I work out every day in a Yankees hat. I got it right here just to kind of see what it looks on me, how it feels, and… like I said before, a fresh start and it, it feels good, it feels good. I wanna go to this organization and I just wanna work hard and I wanna prove maybe a lot of these ‘he said, she said’ things wrong.

“And I wanna just show ‘em we're all people, man. We're all humans and, yeah we make mistakes. But how do we learn from it? How do we bounce back from it and how, how much stronger do we get from that? I'm excited for this new fresh start and I wanna win the World Series, man, but, obviously we gotta take it day by day.”

Ahead of the 2023 season, Red Sox manager Alex Cora highlighted Verdugo as somebody who needed to improve. That June, Cora benched him for not hustling before scratching him from the lineup in August for reportedly being late to the ballpark.

Verdugo said that he thinks last year’s friction with his manager “toughens” him up and made him “realize some things” about being a big leaguer.

“I think the biggest thing is I had several players and kind of veteran figures reached out to me and just really helped me through some stuff,” he said Thursday. “And just kind of encouraging me and letting me know, ‘hey, it's, you just gotta do certain things that just make it all kind of run smoothly.

“And for me, those bumps in the road, those things like that, I'm not too sure, 100 percent what it was. It could also be, you're struggling on a baseball team. There's a lot of expectations and when you're not really meeting ‘em, you start bumping heads a little bit.”

Verdugo added that he is “very, very excited” to work with manager Aaron Boone.

“I've seen the way he has his players’ backs,” the new Yankee said. “The one that really [stands] out to me is when he's like, ‘These guys are savages!’ and he's yelling at the umpire. That's something I wanna see out of my head coach, man.

“I wanna see some fire, some fight for the guys. I think just instead of airing people out, you know, have their backs. And I'm really excited for this fresh start and to kind of get with the guys and really just change the narrative, man. Go out there, play hard, work hard and just have fun and that's the biggest thing.”

In addition to a new environment, Verdugo will adapt to a new ballpark trading a spacious right field in Fenway for, more likely than not, a spacious left field at Yankee Stadium. Verdugo said he entered the past offseason working on getting in better shape and improving his ability to run and change directions, something that he said he saw an “immediate” difference in.

“There's a definite difference. I was a Gold Glove finalist. There was a big difference in the way that I played and I was able to run after balls, go get balls. And, if I had not the best jump, I could make up for it,” he said. “... Wherever I play in New York – whether it's left, center, right – it's gonna be wherever they need me. And I just wanna do what I can do.

“I just wanna help the pitching staff, help the team, making outs and just keeping people from taking extra bases.”

The Yankees are expected to start Judge in center and the recently acquired Juan Soto in right, who Verdugo expects to “handle the power side” of the game in the lineup “and I wanna handle the getting on base for them, the saving runs and, and helping any way I can out there.”

“I think for me it's just gonna be a lot of kind of just picking their brains,” he continued. “I wanna talk to these guys that have proven that they're superstars and just consistently, they go out there and do it every day.

“So I wanna talk to them see what their routine is, what they do, like just, just to how they kind of live to, to make sure they sustain that. And I think the older I get, it's like I said, the pieces of the puzzle are all coming to be all coming together.”

As far as where he will fit into the Yankee lineup, Verdugo said the club hasn’t spoken to him about how he will be used and he is, right now, just focused on getting stronger and maintaining his health throughout the season.

“I feel like numbers talk, man, you go out there and you play well, you do your thing, you're gonna get more at-bats, you're gonna get more opportunities. So that's how I see it,” Verdugo said.

He added: “I can kind of be wherever in the lineup. I mean, I could be at the top of the lineup to, work at bats, see pitches get on base. I could be in the middle of the lineup for when some of the guys are on base I can shoot a hole, I can hit a gapper, every once in a while I run into one where it will leave the park.”

In 142 games last year, the left-handed batter slashed .264/.324/421 for a .745 OPS (100 OPS+, exactly average) with 37 doubles, 13 home runs and 54 RBI. A down year after he averaged a .288/.343/.425 slashline over the first three seasons with Boston.

Verdugo said his “bat-to-ball skills” are his biggest strength, but can also be a weakness when he makes weak contact, but he plans to get with Judge, Soto and Rizzo to get a better understanding “about leverage” and “maybe just getting the ball out in front a little bit more.”

“I think we could really take off and have a little bit more power numbers even though that's not what I'm looking for, but it's just more quality contact,” he said, adding the short porch in right could help with that.

“I've hit a lot of line drives to Fenway's right field that have been at the warning track, that would be home runs in New York,” Verdugo said. “...We'll see how it is and, hopefully, it benefits me a lot more. Hopefully, we can sneak out five, 10 more home runs, just out of that."