NEW YORK — Heliot Ramos was searching for a way to escape the nail-biting stress of Trade Deadline day, so he did not take his phone with him to the gym. It stayed charging at Ramos’ locker as he went for a quick workout before Monday’s series opener between the Giants and Rangers.
That’s how a teammate wound up breaking the news to Ramos that he was traded. Together, they looked up at the TV and saw the headline: “Yankees acquire Heliot Ramos.”
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Ramos started shaking. He had spent his entire career with the Giants, who made him a first-round pick in the 2017 Draft.
“Then, I realized: ‘Man, I’m going to be a New York Yankee,’” Ramos said. “‘That’s crazy.’”
A day later, he certainly looked at home.
“I feel good in pinstripes,” Ramos said, laughing, while taking a seat for his introductory press conference on Tuesday.
Ramos batted cleanup and started in left field against the Cardinals in his Yankees debut on Tuesday night.
Ramos grew up in baseball-crazed Puerto Rico at a time when the island was consumed by the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. He admired Jorge Posada. His dad regaled him with stories about Bernie Williams. Ramos remembers watching Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit, which he considers to be one of his core baseball memories.
“Honestly, I’m very proud,” Ramos said. “Who doesn’t like being a Yankee?”
Good story aside, Ramos fits an acute need as a right-handed-hitting outfielder. He is a high-impact bat and the third key addition in the past two days to the Bombers’ lineup, along with prized prospect George Lombard Jr. and the recently acquired Luis García Jr., who was a teammate of Ramos’s at the Futures Game in 2018.
An All-Star in 2024, Ramos is slashing .264/.304/.424 (104 OPS+) with nine home runs and 34 RBIs in 74 games this season. His strong underlying metrics include an 88th-percentile barrel rate (13.7%) and an 85th-percentile hard-hit rate (48.3%).
Most of Ramos’s success this season has come against left-handed pitching. He is slugging .492 with an .835 OPS against southpaws, compared to a .404 SLG and a .696 OPS against right-handers.
For now, though, he figures to receive regular playing time against righties and lefties, especially as Cody Bellinger works his way back from a left hamstring injury.
“At the end of the day, whatever the role they need for me, I’m here for it,” Ramos said. “I’m just proud to be in this organization and ready to go.”
Defensively, Ramos has predominantly played left field this season, drawing 64 starts in left compared to seven in right. He told Yankees manager Aaron Boone that he is comfortable playing both positions. So Tuesday’s starting unit – Ramos in left, Trent Grisham in center and Spencer Jones in right – isn’t necessarily set in stone.
That speaks to the mentality that Ramos carries.
“I’m a pretty confident guy. I feel like every day I go out there, I’m going to get four hits. Obviously, it’s not like that every day because the pitchers have to eat, too. At the end of the day, I’m a confident guy. I’m going to bring a lot to the table with the game I have.”
García made a memorable first impression in his first game as a Yankee on Monday, launching a two-run go-ahead home run in the seventh inning of an eventual 13-7 loss.
As the Yankees cobble together their new-look lineup, they will turn to Ramos for a similar spark.
“One of the guys told me, they picked me for a reason,” Ramos said. “I'm just here to give my best. The standards and expectations in this organization are super high. I just want to keep that standard high.”