TAMPA — For the next two weeks or so, Didi Gregorius won’t be a starting shortstop.
Gregorius is leaving Tuesday to take part in the World Baseball Classic, where he expects to split time at short with Andrelton Simmons on the Netherlands team, which opens play in South Korea.
There’s no debate in Tampa as Gregorius enters his third season with the Yankees. Though now, in addition to answering questions about what it’s been like to replace Derek Jeter, Gregorius knows there are prospects like Gleyber Torres coming up through the Yankees system.
And still, those Jeter questions remain.
“It’s always there,” Gregorius said Monday at Steinbrenner Field, of playing in Jeter’s shadow. “No matter what I do, you guys are gonna compare me to [him]. It’s never gonna go away. It’s a game of comparisons. Maybe when he played, he got compared to someone else.”
Gregorius’ play a year ago put to rest any lingering doubt that he could be an everyday shortstop, but that will change in the WBC. He’ll be a part of a stacked infield that will include Simmons from the Angels as well as Baltimore’s Jonathan Schoop, Boston’s Xander Bogaerts and Texas’ Jurickson Profar.
“I think we’re gonna flip-flop at short,” Gregorius said of him and Simmons.
Growing up in Curacao playing on the same teams, Simmons kept Gregorius at second base until he was 16. Gregorius didn’t rule out moving back to second for the tournament; Bogaerts will be at third, Schoop at second and Profar either at first or in the outfield.
Gregorius skipped the last WBC, in 2013, due to an elbow injury, but he was part of the team that won the Baseball World Cup in 2011.
With Gregorius away from the Yankees during the heart of spring training, Joe Girardi said he’ll use several options at short — from prospects such as Torres, Jorge Mateo and Tyler Wade, to potential utility players for this season, Ronald Torreyes and Ruben Tejada.
Gregorius welcomes the challenge from Torres that may lie ahead.
“I’m just gonna play my game,” Gregorius said. “That’s all I can do. Why worry about something I can’t control? It’s always good to have competition. … I’m not gonna be mad.”
But he remains focused on 2017 and has lofty expectations for a team in transition.
“You really want to know what’s in my mind?” Gregorius said when the topic of goals came up. “Win the ring. We have a good, young team with hungry guys who want to show what they’ve got. Everybody’s counting us out like all these years. We keep giving them a scare.”