Two nights ago, outfielder Justin Christian, 28, made his major league debut in Pittsburgh, starting in left field for the Yankees. He had two hits, including a double, and also made an error. His name is now in the Baseball Encyclopedia, and he will be in future editions of the annual Yankees Official Media Guide on the long list of every player to wear the team colors in the bigs. No matter what happens, regardless of what happens in the rest of his life, no one can take that away from him. More importantly, no one can take it away from the Yankees.

As you might guess from his age, Christian is a very limited player. Undrafted after playing college ball, Christian went to the independent Frontier League. The Yankees noticed his .450 AVG/.518 OBA/.700 SLG rates in 2004 and signed the then-24-year-old. Christian then began the slow trek up the minor league ladder. Overall, he’s batted .287/.349/.422 in 467 games to date, stealing 191 bases in 224 tries, an excellent percentage. He was hitting .309/.360/.455 with 18 steals in 21 chances in 55 games at Scranton when the Yankees called him up.

ALthough Christian’s minor league career proves that scouts were wrong to pass on him at draft time, at no point have they suggested that he could be much more than a fifth outfielder. Right-handed hitters with no power and limited patience at the plate had better hit over .300 if they want a job in any other than the most desperate circumstances. Yet fifth outfielders have value to major league teams. A player who has the speed to pinch-run is a utility to a team that might have Jorge Posada or Jason Giambi lead off the ninth inning with a walk. A fast outfielder who can go back on the ball without needing a change of underwear can contribute to a team that has the famously wall-shy Bobby Abreu playing right field.

At any given moment, the upper minor leagues are teeming with players who, while not coming stars (or even coming starters), can do something if only a team is willing to hold its nose and bet its 24th- or 25th-roster spot on that player. Often, the team will get some kind of short-term contribution in areas such as pinch-hitting, pinch-running, or defense. On rare occasions, they luck into more. In the early 1990s, outfielder Geronimo Berroa had been kicking around the minor leagues for nearly 10 years. In his late 20s, he was painfully slow and a horrible fielder, but he put up .320/.360/.500 seasons rather easily. He received the odd major league trial, didn’t hit, and went back to the sticks. In 1994, the Oakland A’s gave him another chance. This time, he caught on. Over the next four seasons, he hit .288/.359/.485.

More recently, the Braves gave a shot to 28-year-old Matt Diaz, another slow corner outfielder who had passed through the Rays’ and Royals’ systems despite hitting .315/.350/.491. Before a slow start sent him to the bench for this season, he hit .327/.364/.475 in 2006, and .338/.368/.497 last year. Diaz doesn’t walk and doesn’t catch the ball. But for the Braves at that moment, he was freely available, and better than any of their other alternatives. Last year, Shelley Duncan, then 27, was that kind of player for the Yankees, albeit in a much smaller amount of playing time.

Even if the injuries open up long-term spots in the Yankees outfield, Christian won’t have that kind of impact for the Yankees. First, he doesn’t have that kind of hitting talent. Second, he’ll have to get in line behind Brett Gardner, and perhaps even Austin Jackson, whose tough home park has disguised just how well he has played at Double-A this year.

Still, that the Yankees even deigned to use him is significant. In the past they would have preferred to throw Miguel Cairo out there, or Charles Gipson, Tony Womack, Terrence Long, or any other number of hopeless options who had no more skill than Justin Christian (or any number of Christian-equivalent predecessors), but had a “proven” ability as major leaguers. That what they had proven was largely the ability to make outs didn’t matter as much as the fact that baseball cards had been issued with their name, that some other team’s manager or general manager had decided that they were worthy of playing in some other time and place. If a journeyman didn’t have that outside endorsement, or didn’t have salary expectations higher than the major league minimum, they didn’t get a chance.

Valuing name recognition over any actual utility has hurt the Yankees in ways large and small over the years, particularly in an annual collection of anemic bench players. Christian may yet prove to belong in that group — but at least he’s not the same old same old. It really is a step forward — in the old days, Austin Jackson would now be a Mariner, and Willie Bloomquist would be a Yankee.

Mr. Goldman writes the Pinstriped Bible for yesnetwork.com and is the author of “Forging Genius,” a biography of Casey Stengel.