So when the Yankees instead turned to some guy named Gio Urshela in April 2019, I was less than pleased. This was a career journeyman had never posted a wRC+ above 67 and who, despite his defensive prowess, had amassed a negative career WAR through three seasons. Little did I know at the time that he would soon become one of the most consistent and beloved Yankees, and would seize the starting position so forcefully that Miguel Andujar would become an afterthought just one year after nearly winning Rookie of the Year.

It is not hyperbole to say that the Yankees effectively got Manny Machado for a fraction of the price when they acquired Urshela for cash considerations back in August 2018. In his time as a Yankee, Urshela has hit .307/.355/.513 (131 wRC+), nearly doubling his career production preceding his time in pinstripes. He’s produced 5.5 WAR through 209 games, playing above average defense to match his incredible offensive performance.

Machado’s numbers in that time? A 117 wRC+ and 6.4 WAR in 256 games as a Padre. In other words, Urshela has outhit Machado and produced more WAR per game played than a guy on a 10 year, $300 million contract. He has to be considered among the best transactions that Brian Cashman has ever made.

And while I admit that I was among the many doubters in his first season as a Yankee, Gio has left no doubt that his bat is the real deal. His xwOBA has been above .340 in each of his first three years as a Yankee placing him comfortably above league average and occasionally in elite territory as a hitter.

While he still struggles with plate discipline and does not walk frequently, his xBA (expected batting average based on quality of contact) has been in the 75th percentile or above in each of the last three seasons, even reaching the 97th percentile in the shortened 2020 year. And he does it with damage, also placing above the 75th percentile of all hitters in xSLG in that timeframe.

All of this results in Gio solidifying himself as a top 10 offensive third baseman in the league, in the company of household names like Josh Donaldson, Jose Ramirez, Kris Bryant, and Justin Turner. As much as Yankee fans love Gio for his smooth plays in the field, it’s his bat that makes him truly valuable.

In fact, Gio’s defense prowess at third base is perhaps a bit overstated. His trademark play is the charge and off balance throw off one leg to nail baserunners on slow grounders toward third. But Statcast’s Outs Above Average doesn’t rate his ability to move laterally, actually having him as a net negative fielder overall in his time in pinstripes. That seems a bit farfetched, and Fangraphs fielding metrics agree, putting him at +8 DRS at third since 2019, among the best of all qualified third basemen in that time frame.

I think you’d have a hard time using metrics to convince anyone who watches Gio’s silky plays at third that he’s anything but an excellent third baseman. But ultimately, his defensive ability is all gravy when it comes to his overall value. His bat alone guarantees him a place in the Yankee lineup, and he currently stands as the third most valuable Yankee by WAR since his first game with the team in 2019.

To date, the Yankees have paid Gio Urshela less than $1.5 million for his services. Even with his healthy salary bump from arbitration, the Yankees will have paid him a grand total of just over $6 million in three full years when the 2021 season comes to a close. In other words, they’ll have spent roughly 1/50 of the cost of acquiring Machado to secure a player who has outproduced him in a more than two season sample size.

The combination of payroll flexibility, on field production, and pure joy that Gio brings to the Yankees cannot be overstated. He is simply one of my favorite Yankees, playing with consistency and intensity every time he steps onto the diamond. With 0.8 WAR and a 125 wRC+ through just 34 games in 2021, Gio looks set for another year as a lynchpin in the Yankee lineup. There’s not much else to say but thank you Toronto (and San Diego!) for helping us secure one of the most important players on our team for pennies on the dollar.

The post The incredible value of Gio Urshela appeared first on Bronx Pinstripes | BronxPinstripes.com.

The offense, which has started to show signs of life in recent weeks, is still struggling to reach the standard expected in the Bronx. But the pitching staff has been phenomenal to start the year, highlighted by a two-hit shutout of the Tigers yesterday. Over the course of the series, the Yankees staff pitched two shutouts, allowed just four runs on 13 hits, and struck out 43 batters over 27 innings.

And while the Yankees unfortunately won’t be able to face the putrid Tigers offense every night, the opening 28 games have given fans a lot to get excited about when it comes to the team’s rotation and bullpen. Pitching has plagued the Yankees for several seasons now, with the team failing to break into the top 10 ERAs in the league since 2017. Last year, the Yankees 4.35 team ERA and 4.39 FIP placed 17th and 12th in the league respectively. So far this season they rank 3rd in ERA (3.02) and 2nd in FIP (3.20).

But many fans, myself included, will surely be skeptical that the early success can continue and, most importantly, be sustained in the playoffs. In order to get a sense of the numbers behind the Yankees hot start, I analyze some of the key members of the staff to see whose strong starts seem likely to be maintained over the course of the year.

The Unhittables

On a team filled with strong performers, two pitchers have stood above the crowd to establish themselves as among the best in the league. I am talking, of course, about Gerrit Cole and Aroldis Chapman, two guys building on already sterling careers to raise themselves to new heights so far this year.

Cole has quickly made himself a favorite for the AL Cy Young, pitching to a 1.43 ERA and 0.72 WHIP in 37.2 innings. He has posted an absurd 62 strikeouts and 3 walks, good for a 14.81 K/9 and 0.72 BB/9. His 1.57 xERA, 0.48 FIP and 1.57 SIERA all highlight his complete dominance through his first six starts. There’s not much more that needs to be said about Cole. He’s the ace the Yankees have desperately needed since CC Sabathia began to decline in the mid-2010s, and he looks up to the challenge with each start he makes.

Chapman has, amazingly, been even better in his work out of the bullpen. He’s yet to allow a run through 10 innings, striking out 24 batters and allowing just five baserunners thus far. The addition of a nasty splitter to complement a fastball that has gained velocity since last year makes him look just as unhittable as he’s been to begin the season. He’s been so good that his FIP is literally negative, sitting at -0.79 to go along with a 0.77 xERA so far.

The Bullpen Aces

Besides Chapman, the most consistent bullpen arm for the Yankees in recent years has been Chad Green. He shows no signs of slowing down in 2021, pitching to a 1.08 ERA, 3.11 FIP, and 2.05 xERA through 16.2 innings. While his strikeouts are down somewhat to 8.64 K/9, so too is his walk rate which is currently at a career low 1.08 BB/9. He’s throwing more pitches in the zone without allowing harder contact, and has been generating more swings and misses on pitches out of the zone at least in part due to increased curveball usage. He looks set to be the key weapon for Boone out of the bullpen again this year.

Perhaps more surprisingly, Jonathan Loaisiga and Luis Cessa have thus far joined Green as versatile arms in the late innings. In 16.1 innings, Loaisiga has pitched to a 1.10 ERA, 2.87 FIP, and 1.76 xERA, placing in the 90th percentile or above in nearly every Statcast pitching category. While his stuff has always been excellent, he’s managed to improve his command resulting in a career best 1.65 BB/9. Interestingly, he’s not throwing more pitches in the strike zone than he used to. Instead, it’s his elite ability to get hitters to chase outside the zone driving his improved walk rate and overall performance thus far.

The story is similar for Cessa, who is using his slider more than ever in what has been a breakout season to this point. His 1.42 ERA, 2.08 FIP, and 1.74 xERA are all easily the best of his career, driven largely by a huge spike in his strikeout rate to 12.08 K/9. Cessa’s slider has always been by far his best pitch, and by throwing it more often and with better command he’s generated far more whiffs and produced softer contact this year. Though an increase in walks is a slight concern, his overall ability to make hitters miss bodes well for his ability to make a leap and become a key bullpen arm in 2021.

The Non-Cole Starters

It’s fair to say the rest of the starting rotation has been a mixed bag, at best, to start the year. Six guys besides Cole have made starts so far, but only three of them seem likely to remain in the rotation throughout the year if they remain healthy. Those three starters are Corey Kluber, Jameson Taillon, and Jordan Montgomery.

Kluber comes off his best two starts of the year, which follow four very uneven and even sloppy outings to begin the season. Like many other fans, I thought perhaps his best days were behind him, but his starts against the Orioles and Tigers demonstrate there’s still a piece of the guy who won multiple Cy Youngs tucked away in there somewhere. His peripherals are somewhat average thus far, with a 3.03 ERA masking a weaker 4.19 FIP and 3.91 xERA. His biggest issue has been an inability to put guys away, manifesting in a 8.80 K/9 and 4.25 BB/9. But his uptick in form has directly coincided with an increase in both command and putaway stuff, as he’s struck out 15 and walked just 2 over his past two starts. Since he still is able to limit hard contact relatively effectively, increased consistency in his K/BB ratio could bode well for a resurgence this year. The jury is definitely still out as he seeks to re-find some semblance of the masterful pitcher he was in his prime.

The story with Taillon is almost the opposite, with an ugly 5.24 ERA obscuring the fact that there are some highly encouraging signs in his peripheral statistics. He has 11.69 K/9, a huge jump from his career average of just over 8 K/9 in Pittsburgh. This has been a common trend with pitchers who leave the Pirates, and tracks with an increase in four-seam fastball usage so far this year. His batted ball profile has also been quite strong, grading out above the 75th percentile in most of the key Statcast metrics and resulting in a very solid 2.90 xERA. But he’s been burned by home runs through his first few starts, allowing an elevated 2.01 HR/9 and leaving his FIP at a mediocre 4.23. I’m optimistic about Taillon, and see his high strikeout and low walk rates despite two years away from the game as proof of why he was once a top pitching prospect. If he can learn to limit home runs in the small confines of Yankee Stadium, an admittedly tough task, he has the stuff to be a solid starter for the Yankees as the year progresses.

Lastly we have Jordan Montgomery, who has been disappointing since I wrote a piece highlighting his importance to the team early last season. His calling card has always been an ability to limit hard contact, but he’s struggled to do so pretty much since that article came out. Since he lacks high velocity and a knockout pitch, Montgomery has to succeed by missing barrels, limiting walks, and grinding through his outings without turning to strikeouts. Through five starts his strikeout rate is down to 8.10 K/9, below his career average, and he’s not limiting hard contact very effectively. His Barrel%, average exit velocity, and xwOBA are all currently below league average, culminating in his 4.39 ERA, 4.87 FIP, and 4.31 xERA. There’s not a ton to get excited about with Montgomery so far in 2021. Maybe this article can be an effective reverse jinx since the last did just the opposite.

Conclusion

It’s still extremely early in the season, and it’s hard to say anything with certainty besides the fact that Gerrit Cole and Aroldis Chapman look poised to have monster seasons. But there are lots of encouraging signs behind the great topline numbers the Yankees staff have put up so far, and more help is on the way in the form of Zack Britton and, later in the year, Luis Severino.

In addition to the guys listed here, Darren O’Day, Lucas Luetge, and Michael King have had solid if unremarkable starts to their 2021 campaigns. Justin Wilson is a veteran lefty with a solid track record, and the front office clearly sees something they like in Wandy Peralta after trading Mike Tauchman for him last week.

This Yankees pitching staff has perhaps the greatest amount of uncertainty of any in the past few years, but looks like it has the highest upside as well. In particular, I recommend keeping an eye on Loaisiga, Cessa, Kluber, and Taillon in coming months. In the case of Loaisiga and Cessa, I’m looking to see if their hot starts are as real as the peripheral stats indicate. For Kluber and Taillon, I’m hoping they can continue to build strength, confidence, and form as the weather warms up and they get back into the flow of a full MLB season.

And, of course, I’m hoping that as many of the key arms as possible can stay healthy through the year, since injuries are always the fastest way to derail a promising start. But if the team can stave off the injury curse and successfully add Britton and Severino to an already strong core, the Yankees have the potential to have their best pitching staff in recent memory in 2021.

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The Yankees only time as AL East champions in the past five years came after they started 5-5 in 2019. Last year, they failed to win the division or advance past the ALDS despite starting 8-2 in a shortened season. In 2009, they were under .500 after 33 games, and we all know how that year ended. I promise, this team is not doomed because they lost two of the opening three series of the year.

But, of course, it is disappointing when a team that has underachieved in recent seasons gets off to another lackluster start in 2021. The expectation has been World Series or bust for several years running, and each premature exit in the playoffs becomes more and more frustrating, building anticipation for the coming season.

So I’m not at all shocked to see the hot takes flying again after dropping two out of three at the Trop and generally looking average through nine games. Some claims have gotten more attention and gathered more steam than others, so I thought I’d work through some of the more interesting overreactions I’ve seen in the opening weeks of the season.

The Yankees defense is terrible, and Gleyber is a main culprit

From 2017 to 2020, the Yankees rank roughly in the middle of the pack by DRS (Defensive Runs Saved), a seemingly encouraging sign. But most of the positive defensive metrics have evaporated since 2018. Across 2019 and 2020, the Yankees were 24th in the league with -25 DRS. For reference, the Dodgers and Astros were in first and second at 129 and 107 DRS respectively.

Statcast paints an even more dire picture, with the Yankees coming in at 29th in OAA (Outs Above Average) from 2019 through 2020. They were an appalling 43 outs below average, just one better than the last placed Orioles. The Astros, by contrast, were 46 outs above average over the same two year spell, topping the league. While key errors and misplays are more visibly appalling, the Yankees have neglected their defense for several years now to the point where it is among the worst in the league.

Unfortunately, Gleyber does seem to be a big part of the problem as well. Across 2019 and 2020, Gleyber has posted -12 DRS in about 1000 innings at SS, and -11 DRS in 550 innings at 2B. That brings his total to -23 DRS across the past two years, worst on the Yankees and among the worst in baseball. Voit is also a significant liability in the field, racking up -17 DRS in 1084 innings at 1B.

Some people are skeptical of advanced defensive metrics, but if they agree across sources in a multi-season sample size, that’s generally a sign that they can be trusted. And Statcast also hates both Gleyber and Voit defensively, at -13 OAA apiece over the past two seasons, both among the worst in the league. Just for “fun”, we can even throw in UZR/150 (Ultimate Zone Rating/150 innings), another commonly used Fangraphs defensive metric. With -11.7 UZR/150 at second and -8.9 UZR/150 at shortstop, this also suggests Gleyber is the worst defender on the team.

This could be a huge problem for the team since Gleyber was once the #1 prospect in baseball in part because he was thought to be a complete player. While he has time to figure it out, the Yankees need him to be at least an average defender to reach his full potential and give them the value they need up the middle. But even if Gleyber does improve, the team has systemic problems on defense that are  worrisome moving forward. This could and should be an area Cashman looks to shore up via the trade market midseason.

It’s time for Domingo German to go

This one is pretty simple. German is a domestic abuser. Players such as Zack Britton have already made comments that indicate some of his teammates may be rightly uncomfortable having him return to the team. And there is no “baseball argument” to keep him around, as some people argue. He’s just not that good.

Some people love to talk about his 18 wins in 2019. They seem to conveniently forget the part where they came with a 4.03 ERA and even worse peripherals. His 4.51 xERA, 4.72 FIP, and 4.22 xFIP were average at best, and Statcast shows he was quite fortunate to escape with an ERA hovering around four. He allowed some of the hardest contact among starters in the league, and was simply not so impressive that he had to be brought back for a second chance.

Now he’s more than a full year removed from his last full time action, and it’s showed in his first two starts. He’s a backend rotation arm at best, and a fringe bullpen guy at worst. Beyond that, the Yankees have a terrific prospect in Deivi Garcia who will almost certainly exceed German’s on field output, and also is not a complete scumbag. Normally I berate people for using small sample sizes. This time, I’ll make an exception. Get this guy off the team.

Once again, the team can’t hit with RISP

I’m not going to get into any arguments over whether or not an athlete can be clutch. I’ve played the sport, and I think it’s a real thing, but probably is marginal and doesn’t dictate that much about performance in key spots. Let’s not litigate that here.

No matter what you believe about clutch, it is simply not true that the Yankees fail to get hits in key spots. This is one of the longest running beliefs among fans that is not grounded in actual fact. From 2017 through 2020, the Yankees had the 7th highest average and 3rd highest wRC+ with RISP. For people that like counting stats, they had the 3rd most RBIs and the most home runs in those situations.

Similarly, in “high leverage” situations or those in which the game is most likely to be on the line (think RISP, 2 outs, tie game), the Yankees have the tied-4th highest average and 3rd highest wRC+ over the past four years. Their strikeout rate in these situations? Just 21.8%, 7th lowest in baseball. Let’s retire the tired narrative that the Yankees are somehow uniquely bad at hitting with men on base or in key spots.

It is no doubt frustrating when the team fails to produce in key moments, but the Yankees are no worse and truthfully better than most of the league in “clutch” situations. The explanation is simple: they are one of the best offensive teams in the league, and that shines through over time with RISP and in high leverage situations.

The pitching staff will be better in 2021 than in the past four years

The jury is still very much out on this one. It’s impossible to come to any conclusions after just nine games this year. But the early signs are certainly encouraging for the pitching staff this year. Please take all of this with a grain of salt, especially the traditional statistics which are inherently noisy in such a small sample size.

To start with the simple stuff, the team’s ERA of 2.93 ranks 5th in baseball. They have racked up 11.82 K/9 and 2.06 BB/9, both best in league. Though their HR/9 numbers are around the middle of the pack, the ultimate result is a FIP of 3.27, 3rd best in the league.

They are also limiting hard contact better than any staff in baseball, pitching to a .275 xwOBA, tops in the league. The .203 xBA again laps the field, coming in well ahead of the second best White Sox. Just 37.4% of balls put in play against them have been “hard hit” (exit velo >95 MPH).

While by no means determinative, all of this should be encouraging for fans. In particular, the early emergence of Jonathan Loaisiga and Luis Cessa as legitimate bullpen weapons would be huge for the team if they can sustain their performance throughout the season.

From 2019 through 2020, the Yankees ranked just 11th in ERA, 15th in FIP, and hovered at the fringes of the top 10 in xERA. If their patchwork of starters and bullpen arms can build on a strong start, they will be poised to play a key role in overcoming recent playoff woes.

Conclusion

Most people who make determinative statements after just 10 games are doomed to look back with regret on their reactionary takes. However, examining evidence from recent seasons, there is real reason to be concerned about the Yankees continued struggles on defense to start the year. Targeting a quality defensive utility infielder should be a priority for the team to shore up significant weaknesses at both shortstop and first base moving forward.

But there is no doubt in my mind that the Yankees offense will be perfectly fine in the long run. The team is easily one of the most talented in the league at the plate, and that will certainly shine through over the course of the 162 game regular season and, with any luck, into the postseason as well. And if the rotation and bullpen can continue to improve over the course of the year, they have a chance to make a real leap and help the team claim its first AL pennant in over a decade.

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This will not be that type of article. Because Gary Sanchez doesn’t have to prove he’s “back” — he remains one of the top catchers in the league.

Every player in the history of baseball has had a bad 49 game stretch at some point in their careers. And players are humans, not robots. It’s easy to see how a slow start compounds under the pressure of a shortened season. JD Martinez had the second lowest WAR in all of baseball last season after making consecutive All Star games and winning MVP votes in 2018 and 2019. Strange things happen with a sample size that small in the most unprecedented season in baseball history.

So I will not sit here and defend Sanchez’s abysmal 2020 season. His struggles have been well documented, and led to some fans comically calling on him to be non-tendered — not traded, but cut — in the offseason. If you are one of those fans, I recommend you stop reading now, because we cannot and will not ever see eye to eye on the game of baseball.

Put simply, Gary Sanchez has been one of the best Yankees and best catchers in baseball since he set the world on fire in his rookie year in 2016. Some people seem to forget that Gary announced himself to the world with one of the best debut seasons in recent memory, hitting .299/.376/.657 (170 wRC+) with a 3.1 fWAR in just 53 games. If you tend to roll your eyes at stats like that, here’s an easier one: 20 home runs in 53 games, a pace that would project to more than 60 homers in a full 162 game season. By fWAR, he was the 7th most valuable catcher in the league while playing less than half the games of the other catchers in the top 10.

You might rightly think it’s hypocritical to slate people evaluating him based on a shortened 2020 season and respond with arguments from an equally short stint in 2016. So let’s evaluate his full body of work.

Sanchez followed his 2016 campaign with an All Star caliber year in 2017, winning the Silver Slugger and garnering an MVP vote in his first full season in the bigs. In 2019, he became the fastest catcher and second fastest player in baseball history to hit 100 home runs, doing it even faster than Aaron Judge.

Since he broke into the league, Sanchez has the most home runs, highest OPS, and highest wRC+ of any catcher in baseball. That includes his horrendous 2020 stats. Let me be quite clear: Gary Sanchez is statistically the best offensive catcher in the game.

That level of offensive production is also more valuable at catcher than it would be at any other position. From 2016 to now, only 13 qualified catchers have graded out as above league average offensively (wRC+ of 100 or more), by far the fewest of any position. By contrast, 42 first basemen, 33 third basemen, and 85 outfielders have graded out above league average in the same time frame. In other words, it’s just much harder to find an offensive contributor at the catcher position, and the Yankees are lucky enough to have the best of the bunch. That’s a huge competitive advantage compared to almost every other team in the league.

While evaluating catcher defense is notoriously difficult, Gary is not unplayable defensively as some people would have you believe. Catcher defense is roughly composed of framing, blocking, stolen base prevention, and game calling. Most people focus on his blocking, which has been admittedly poor in terms of passed balls. But his poptime has consistently ranked in the top 10 in the league, and most metrics have him as among the three to five best catchers in terms of stolen base prevention.

Emerging evidence suggests that framing is an area where catchers have significant room to create value on defense, and Gary does grade somewhat below average by most metrics. But overall, he seems to be somewhere around league average defensively, and there are promising signs that his framing and blocking are improving to pair with his already great contributions in preventing steals.

Looking at the bigger picture, I have no problem saying that Gary Sanchez is a top 5 catcher in baseball. The stats back that up, as his 11.6 fWAR places him exactly fifth among catchers since he debuted in 2016. At his best, I think he flashes as the best in the league.

Back at the start of the 2018 season I argued he was the most important player for the Yankees. I still believe that today. He is an elite offensive player at a position where most teams have to accept an automatic out, a weapon that few teams besides the Yankees can boast. And the drop off between him and Kyle Higashioka is far greater than the gap between the first and second choice options at any other position in the team (except perhaps starting pitcher).

Some fans have a relentless narrative that Gary is lazy, he doesn’t understand the game, and he doesn’t care enough to reach his potential. They are wrong. Terrific reporting from Lindsey Adler at The Athletic demonstrates that Gary is a hard worker who desperately wants to succeed and help the team. It’s long past time for fans to stop slandering a homegrown talent and appreciate the incredible value Gary Sanchez provides to the Yankees.

Professional athletes in the social media age will always have doubters and defenders with extreme and sometimes irrational takes on their ability. But ultimately it won’t be evangelists like me writing articles that wins back the love of the demanding Yankees faithful. He’ll have to let his play do the talking.

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Behind the star-studded front three were Masahiro Tanaka and JA Happ, two established veterans who were guaranteed starting roles at least to start the season. Meanwhile, Monty hadn’t been a full time starter in nearly two full years after suffering a torn UCL and undergoing Tommy John surgery in the first half of the 2018 season. When the team was drawing up its plans at the start of the year, it looked more likely than not that they would stash Monty in AAA and use him as cover in case of injury to one of their five starters.

Well, those injuries came as they always seem to do for the Yankees. In early February the Yankees announced that Paxton would need to miss 3-4 months after undergoing surgery on his back to remove a cyst that was impacting his spine. That was followed by an even more devastating announcement later in the month that Luis Severino required Tommy John surgery, and that he’d be out for the entirety of the 2020 season.

These were crushing blows to the Yankees, sidelining their young superstar for at least a year and removing last year’s #1 from the equation for at least half of the regular season. All of a sudden, Jordan Montgomery went from the outside-looking-in to projecting as a guaranteed rotation piece for at least the regular season.

Fast forward six months and it now looks like the Yankees ability to challenge for a title in 2020 will hinge in no small part on Gumby’s progression. While the COVID-induced delay to the season meant Paxton was “ready” for Opening Day, he’s been plagued by continuing injury issues that currently have him back on the shelf. In his few starts before the return to the IL, his velocity was down precipitously from past seasons and he looked a fraction of the elite pitcher he’s been in years past.

When paired with JA Happ’s struggles, this leaves Montgomery as the clear number three on the staff and a likely playoff starter pending Paxton’s return to health. His importance to the Yankees rotation is highlighted by the announcement that he will start along with Cole and Tanaka in their crucial upcoming series against the Rays.

Upcoming pitching: Cole, Tanaka, Montgomery to face Rays. Happ will see the Mets again.

— Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) August 30, 2020

So after being abruptly thrust back into the spotlight, how confident should Yankee fans be in Monty’s ability to make the leap and perform like a playoff-caliber starter in his first year back from injury? Early evidence suggests reasons for cautious optimism.

Montgomery never has been and likely never will be a dominant strikeout pitcher like Cole, Severino, or Paxton. In his brief MLB career, he’s accrued 8.19 K/9 and a 24.4% Whiff rate, respectable but unspectacular numbers. Simply watching him pitch, it’s clear that even with his improved velocity since returning from Tommy John he will never have the ability to overpower hitters.

But that’s quite alright from Montgomery’s perspective, as his calling card is his ability to generate some of the weakest contact in the league. He epitomizes the old adage of being a “pitcher, not a thrower”, minimizing hitters’ ability to barrel up balls against him and thus giving his fielders a chance to make plays.

Montgomery isn’t just good at this. He has the potential to be elite at it. In an admittedly small sample of 24.1 IP this season, the average exit velocity of batted balls against him is just 82.9 MPH. This is tied for the best among all SP in the league. In his 211 career innings pitched, he has allowed an average EV of 86.6 MPH which would place him in the top 10 for all pitchers from 2017-2020, on par with guys like Jacob DeGrom and Jack Flaherty.

Now don’t get overly excited. Montgomery is obviously miles away from those guys in almost every respect, especially because they are able to pair the weak contact with strikeouts in ways that few in the big leagues can. But it proves a larger point that Montgomery has shown an ability to be successful with less than stellar stuff by pitching cerebrally and forcing hitters into making soft contact.

So far in 2020, Montgomery has pitched to a 4.44 ERA, with a 3.71 FIP and 4.01 SIERA (advanced metrics that try to predict what a pitcher’s ERA should be based on their performance). These numbers that indicate that Montgomery has been a roughly league average starter, offsetting his lack of strikeout stuff with solid command and an ability to limit the longball.

But if Montgomery can continue to perform in this fashion, and especially if he can capitalize on a much improved changeup that’s been his best swing-and-miss pitch so far, he is more than capable of helping anchor a depleted Yankees staff. He will continue to give the Yankees quality innings during a regular season in which they’re clawing to get outs from pitchers not named Gerrit Cole in any fashion possible. And if he can make even modest improvements in his strikeout numbers, he can become a legitimately formidable pitcher that Yankee fans can have confidence in as we draw closer to October.

In this strange season, many unexpected players have been asked to step up yet again for the Yankees. Jordan Montgomery figures to be the most important of the lot, with the Yankees success this year hinging in no small part on his progression throughout this season. If he can continue to limit hard contact and grow into his developing arsenal, he will give the team consistency in the rotation they desperately need if they hope to compete for a championship.

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With just three days to go until the trade deadline, Brian Cashman made an unassuming move that flew under the radar for most fans at the time. The Yankees traded Chasen Shreve and relief prospect Giovanny Gallegos to the Cardinals for international signing pool money and a 27-year-old first baseman named Luke Voit.

Ironically, the most notable piece of the trade at the time for most Yankee fans would have been the jettisoning of Shreve. Shreve was in the midst of a tough stretch in relief, and fans had been loudly calling for his ouster for several weeks. Few but the most committed of fans would have recognized Gallegos’ name, as he was towards the bottom of the Yankees MLB.com top 30 prospects at the time. And I can say with some confidence that no one had any idea who Luke Voit was, an unheralded minor leaguer from the National League that seemed to be a simple depth move.

At the time of his acquisition, the Yankees starting first basemen were Neil Walker, Greg Bird, and Tyler Austin. In the previous two seasons, Yankees fans were made to endure watching the likes of Chris Parmalee, Dustin Ackley, Billy Butler, and Chris Carter start games at first base. In fact, from the start of the 2016 season (when Mark Teixeira was still the starter) through the time of the Luke Voit trade, Yankees first basemen ranked 28th in WAR and 29th in wRC+. Not what you want from what should be one of the most productive offensive positions!

This is all to say the Yankees were truly desperate for production from first base when Voit was brought into the fold in the middle of 2018. Voit had put together a nice career in the minor leagues, but was far from a premier prospect and had hardly any experience in the major leagues. This is the context that is needed to appreciate the incredible production he’s given the Yankees in the two years since he first donned the pinstripes.

In 174 games as a Yankee, Luke Voit has played to a 3.9 WAR and slashed .279/.380/.519 (141 wRC+). He has solidified himself as the undisputed everyday starting first baseman for the team, a role not firmly held by one player since the 2015 season when Teixeira was still a relatively productive player. In that span, he has produced the 4th highest WAR and the 2nd highest wRC+ on the team, trailing only Aaron Judge.

Not only has he been one of the best Yankees during his tenure in the Bronx, he has been one of the best first basemen in the league. In a position where offensive production is paramount, he’s produced the 5th highest wRC+ of first basemen playing at least 100 games since the date of the trade. He has outproduced household names like Freddie Freeman, Paul Goldschmidt, Matt Olson, and even “Face of New York” Pete Alonso over that stretch.

With 174 games played as a Yankee, it’s fair to say that Voit’s production is no fluke and he’s here to stay as a premier offensive player for the team. But for those that still remain doubtful, his Statcast numbers serve as only more proof that his success has been no accident. His career xwOBA, which captures expected production based on batted ball contact, is .382, actually exceeding his career wOBA of .370. He has been every bit as good as the topline numbers indicate.

To this point in 2020, Voit is slashing .267/.333/.533 (135 wRC+) through his first 17 games played. While it is an admittedly small sample size, he has barreled 15.8% of balls put in play, with a .304 expected batting average, .616 expected slugging percentage, and .407 xwOBA. All of these numbers would represent career bests for Voit, and each number places him in the top 10% of all hitters in 2020. If anything, Luke Voit is continuing to evolve and improve as he solidifies himself as a crucial Yankee player.

It must be conceded that Voit never has been and likely never will be an elite, or even above average defender. He was a -20 DRS player between 2018 and 2019 in about 1000 innings in the field. Defensive metrics take a while to stabilize, but the eye test certainly confirms what the advanced stats say. He will always be a slight negative in the field, but that can be tolerated from a player who is among the five or ten best offensive players at his position.

When the season started, Yankees Twitter was calling for Mike Ford to see more reps at first base over Voit. While Ford can be an excellent bench player for the Yankees, it is nothing short of blasphemy to call for Ford to start over Luke Voit. He has established himself as an essential bat in the Yankees lineup, and a mainstay at a position that was a black hole for many years in the Bronx.

It is impossible not to smile when Voit shuffles into his Sammy Sosa home run hop after blasting a ball into orbit, and Yankee fans should not lose sight of what an incredible player they have in Louis Linwood Voit III. With Judge, Stanton, and now DJ hitting the IL, it is not hyperbole to say Luke Voit is the best active hitter on the team. While few knew his name two years ago, he now looks likely to play a key role in the Yankees chase to return a championship to the Bronx.

The post The underrated brilliance of Luke Voit appeared first on Bronx Pinstripes | BronxPinstripes.com.

But I, like you, am a diehard Yankee fan. Though you may believe I have a calculator for a heart, I live and die with every pitch like the rest of you. And I love Didi Gregorius. Who can forget what they felt when Didi crushed that ball to right in the 2017 Wild Card Game, or his transcendent performance against Kluber in the ALDS that same year? Didi is a fan favorite, and for good reason. He has delivered some of the most memorable Yankee moments of recent memory.

He also should not start for the Yankees in the 2019 playoffs.

For the more devoted readers, you may remember I touted him to start against righties in the playoffs as recently as a week ago. I convinced myself that his slightly better splits against righties than Edwin Encarnacion justified putting him in the starting lineup. Mostly, I was desperate to find a reason to insert Didi into the playoff lineup because he’s earned the adoration of every fan.

But I made two mistakes, both born out of my blinding love for the way he has made me feel as a Yankee fan since the retirement of Derek Jeter. The first mistake was looking only at Edwin’s stats as a Yankee in 2019, not his combined splits with the Mariners as well. Doing so skewed the fact he has actually far outperformed Didi against righties.

Secondly, I neglected to look at his fielding stats, because my eyes and brain tell me Didi is a solid, if not above average shortstop. That was wrong too. He has never been a particularly good shortstop, and has fallen off precipitously since his offseason Tommy John surgery.

So that left me in the perplexing position of defending Didi to my fellow sabermetric nerds without valid justification. And in looking more deeply at the numbers, I have found myself fully converted to the position that Didi, much as I may love him, does not put the Yankees in the best position to win their 28th World Series title.

The three most common arguments I hear are this:

1) Didi is a great hitter having a bad year, and he’ll figure it out in the playoffs.

2) Didi is super clutch, so even if he’s not hitting well overall he should start to get the big hits in the big October moments.

3) Didi is a far better defender than Voit or Edwin, so our defense is better with him at SS, Gleyber at 2B, and DJ at 1B.

All would be fair arguments, if only they were actually correct. If you haven’t already closed the article to angrily tweet at me, let me walk you through each of the three defenses of Didi and why they don’t hold water upon close scrutiny.

Didi is a great hitter, he’s just having a bad year

Throughout his career, Didi is a .265/.315/.430 hitter, which comes out to a .319 wOBA and 98 wRC+. In simpler terms, he has been an exactly average MLB hitter during his time in the major leagues. Some say he’s turned his entire career around with the Yankees. Well, in truth, he has hit .272/.315/.448 as a Yankee, amounting to a .325 wOBA and 102 wRC+.

So, yes, he has been better as a Yankee than his career numbers. But not by any significant amount! He is a perfectly average hitter who is plagued by his very low OBP. That makes for a decently valuable player, but not one that you look at and say should be guaranteed a starting role in the playoffs.

This year, Didi has been even worse at a .253/.285/.458 line, coming out to a .308 wOBA and 89 wRC+. He’s been 11% worse than a league average hitter over the course of 2019. We have an average career hitter now struggling in a below average season.

And his batted ball metrics don’t suggest he is getting unlucky this year, or throughout his career. If anything, the opposite is true. In 2019, Didi has a .293 xwOBA, meaning that he is actually lucky to be hitting as “well” as he has. There is absolutely no evidence that Didi will overnight turn into the above average hitter that some Yankee fans perceive him as being.

Didi is clutch, and you need clutch in the playoffs

Once again, you could convince yourself that he deserves to start if he is “clutch”, outperforming his ability in the most important situations. Most fans focus on performance with runners in scoring position, and us saber nerds love to look at high leverage performance. Both of these capture how a hitter does when the game is on the line, a valid metric for measuring the “clutchness” of a batter.

But, again, Didi is actually not as clutch as people think. With Gleyber, Gio, and DJ locked into starting roles, Didi is effectively competing with Edwin Encarnacion and Luke Voit for a starting spot. How does he stack up in terms of “clutchness” against these guys?

In his career, Didi is a .267/.321/.439 hitter in high leverage situations, good for a .321 wOBA. Very respectable! But Voit and Encarnacion are both significantly better, at .267/.389/.433 (.360 wOBA) and .265/.374/.438 (.351 wOBA) respectively. This is also my chance to get in a jab at “clutchness” in general, as all three guys perform in line with their career statistics. In other words, Edwin and Voit are better hitters, and that continues to be true in high leverage situations.

If you prefer good old fashioned RISP numbers, that’s great too! The pattern still holds with Didi at .260/.317/.425, or a .309 wOBA. Encarnacion and Voit? .272/.378/.498 (.367 wOBA) and .309/.424/.581 (.418 wOBA) respectively. If anything, Voit is the most “clutch” of the three!

So sadly, Didi is not the big moment hitter of most people’s fantasies. He’s significantly worse than both guys he’s competing with, both in general and in the biggest moments.

For the crowd that probably hates me, I’ll throw in one last nugget. Giancarlo Stanton, the alleged king of the choke in big moments? He has a .342 wOBA in high leverage situations, and a .352 wOBA with RISP. Didi is simply not that clutch, which means he is offensively inferior to both Voit and Encarnacion.

Didi makes the infield better defensively

This one was by far the most surprising to me, but also puts the nail in the coffin of the arguments for Didi starting. Effectively, you are looking to fill two roles here: DH and an infield spot. If Didi plays, Gleyber shifts to 2B and DJ goes to 1B with Voit or Edwin at DH. If Didi sits, you have Gleyber at SS, DJ at 2B, and Edwin at 1B, with Voit DH. Seems pretty close, if not advantage Didi right?

Wrong. In 2019, Didi is at -7 DRS, the same as Luke Voit! Edwin comes in significantly better at an even 0 DRS at 1B. Moreover, Didi has actually never been a very good SS. In his career, he has -12 DRS at the position through 7000+ innings, more than a large enough sample size to know he’s a below average SS. And while the -7 this season may seem like an outlier, it also makes sense in context. His best asset was always his strong arm, and after the surgery it seems that last bulwark against his below average defense is gone.

Add the fact that LeMahieu has an insane 71 DRS in his career at 2B, but is a merely 0 DRS player at 1B, and it becomes clear the better defensive arrangement excludes Didi. For good measure, Gleyber is even better at SS than 2B (and better than Didi), at -1 vs. -6 DRS.

LeMahieu being allowed to play 2B alone makes the second alignment the far superior one defensively. But the reality is that Didi himself is not a particularly good fielder. All told, it becomes obvious that Encarnacion should play 1B and Voit should be allowed to DH, shifting Gleyber to SS and DJ to 2B to optimize the playoff defense.

Final thoughts

Look, I get the perceived Didi bashing gets exhausting. I desperately want Didi to succeed for us, and I will always remember him fondly for his heroics in 2017. But the job for the 2019 Yankees is not to reminisce over past failed seasons. It is to win the World Series this year and add number 28 to the trophy cabinet.

There is no way to look at the team we have today and find a place for Didi Gregorius in the playoffs. If injuries come up or other players fall off a cliff in terms of performance, I will be out there rooting for Didi harder than anyone. But above all I want to win, and if everyone is healthy, Didi does not give the Yankees the best chance to win.

Love me or hate me, these are the facts as they exist right now for the Yankees and Aaron Boone. While I doubt if they will actually sit him in the playoffs, the choice to me is clear. Stash Didi on the bench and allow Edwin and Voit to mash, turning the lineup into a legitimate murderers’ row and making the defense better at the same time. Then go out and win another world championship.

The post Why Didi Gregorius should not start in the playoffs appeared first on Bronx Pinstripes | BronxPinstripes.com.

But James Paxton‘s recent run of form, the impending return of Luis Severino, and the possible reinforcement of the already strong bullpen with relief ace Dellin Betances gives me optimism about the team’s pitching prospects in October. The Astros, Dodgers, and rest of the playoff field will certainly be formidable. But at their best this Yankee squad can go toe-to-toe with any ballclub in the league.

So let me begin with a quick primer before we enter this breakdown of the offense. First, I am assuming for this article that all the starters who are currently injured but are scheduled to return before the postseason will do so without setbacks. I refer specifically to Giancarlo Stanton, Edwin Encarnacion, Luke Voit, and Aaron Hicks, all of whom would presumably reclaim their starting roles should they regain health without incident. This is of course an optimistic assumption, but it seems a fair one given that all four are supposed to return within the next month. With luck, they will even have a couple weeks to hit their stride before the playoffs.

Second, I want to establish a few principles that will guide this analysis. The most obvious is that the best hitters should hit at the top of the lineup. You would think this would be a fairly self-evident strategy, but managers (and nerds) often work themselves in knots trying to optimize matchups and get overly clever with the bottom of the lineup. I believe strongly that it is more important to stack your big bats, and maximize their opportunities throughout the postseason. No more Gleyber hitting ninth to “turn the lineup over”.

Next, I think there is value in mixing high on-base guys with high slugging guys. This comes secondary to your best hitters being stacked at the top — if your best five hitters were all power guys I would still bat them 1 through 5. But given the Yankees luxury of having strength in both areas and many hitters that excel at both, Boone will have the ability to mix their grinders with their sluggers to optimize scoring opportunities.

Finally, I am extremely against the notion of mixing righties and lefties simply for the sake of avoiding relief specialists. For one thing, the rise of sabermetrics has rightly led to a decline in the number of so-called LOOGYs (lefty one-out guys). Additionally, messing with your lineup construction for the sake of a potential single matchup is foolish when there are nine innings and twenty-seven outs in a game. And above all, a hitter’s splits are not always dictated by their handedness! Bottom line, I refuse to mess with the best lineup simply for the sake of avoiding a string of hitters that bat from the same side.

As a known BP nerd, I will be heavily employing wOBA, xwOBA, SLG, xSLG, and xBA. For the less statistically inclined, wOBA stands for “weighted on-base average” and is an improved version of OPS that focuses on each plate appearance’s impact on runs scored. Anything that you see with an “x” in front of it means it is an “expected” stat, and uses Statcast batted ball data to predict what a hitter’s statistic should be based on the type of contact that they make.

Got all that? Without further ado, let’s dive into the breakdown and figure out the Yankees best lineup for October.

The Top of the Lineup

1. DJ LeMahieu 2. Aaron Judge 3. Gio Urshela 4. Gleyber Torres 5. Luke Voit

The first five guys pick themselves, and they should all be automatic starters whenever rested and ready to play. They share the characteristics of having wOBA and xwOBA over .350, SLG and xSLG over .480, and OBP over .350, all incredible numbers that prove there have been no flukes in their success. None of them has any significant differences in their performance against righties or lefties, with Judge the lone aberration at a .332 wOBA against righties. However, his long track record of crushing righties and the fact that he’s Aaron freakin’ Judge earns him an obvious pass.

Frankly, you could mix and match these five guys any which way and experience tremendous success. I chose this configuration for two main reasons. The first is that it puts the three guys with by far the best batted ball statistics first. These three have been head and shoulders above most of the league in terms of the quality and consistency of their contact, and thus should be getting the most at bats on the team.

The second is that it splits up the two guys that struggle with strikeouts, Judge and Voit, with the three best contact hitters on the team. LeMahieu, Urshela, and Gleyber have three of the lowest strikeout and whiff rates on the team, and all rank in the team’s top 5 of xBA (expected batting average). This means that with runners in scoring position, the likelihood of suffering consecutive strikeouts is diminished, increasing the chances of scoring a run.

As I said, there is essentially no wrong way to configure a lineup that puts these five guys at the top. While past evidence suggests Boone will likely insert Sanchez or Stanton in one of these spots, a metrics driven approach would guarantee these five guys the top spots in the lineup based on offensive production throughout this year.

The Other Guaranteed Starter

6. Gary Sanchez

Sorry Rominites, El Kraken has proved that last year was a fluke and the best hitting catcher in baseball is back for good. Gary hasn’t been perfect this year, and his torrid start has cooled to a merely excellent middle of the season. But Gary remains head and shoulders above Romine in all aspects of offensive production, and it’s really not close.

Beyond being a clear starter, he also slots in nicely behind Voit at 6 in the lineup. While he too can struggle with strikeouts and pop ups, his power is formidable, putting him in the top 5% of the league in xSLG and Barrel%. Sticking these two behind the high on-base top of the order means these two should have plenty of chances to drive in runs. He’ll certainly need the occasional off day, but Gary should be a shoo-in at the 6 spot on any night where he’s got the freshness to play.

The Last Six

You’ll notice that there are still some notable names missing. This is a testament to the tremendous depth in offensive talent that the Yankees will have at their disposal this fall. Also, I doubt that most fans would have predicted before the season that Giovanny Urshela would be locked into a top-3 lineup spot while Giancarlo Stanton and Didi Gregorius failed to make the top 6.

For the last three spots, it starts making sense to consider splits on top of overall performance. This is not a contradiction of my earlier principle! These guys will be chosen based on their performance against different types of pitchers, not the side that they bat from. And it is also simply a recognition that given the similar overall performance of these hitters, it makes sense to try to extract value at the margin by optimizing matchups based on pitchers.

So where does that leave us? Remember that based on the currently selected guys, we need two outfielders and either an IF or DH depending on where Voit slots in. In essence, this gives us six spots to fill between two lineups (one vs. LHP, one vs. RHP).

vs. LHP

7. Giancarlo Stanton 8. Edwin Encarnacion 9. Aaron Hicks

The most obvious pick is Stanton. He has crushed lefties throughout his entire career, with a .422 career wOBA and .631 career SLG against southpaws. He is the clear choice for the 7 spot against lefties. Edwin also slides in against lefties, hitting to a .408 wOBA and .615 SLG against such pitchers this year, even better than his excellent career numbers.

That leaves just a single outfield spot for the lefty lineup, one that must go to a player with the ability to play center. Based purely on 2019 numbers, Mike Tauchman would actually earn this position. But due mostly to the extremely small sample size and partly due to his inexperience, we will instead go with Aaron Hicks. Gardner and Hicks are actually comparable against lefties (both not great), but Hicks gets the edge due to his superior defensive talents in center. While Gardner is admirable in LF, his metrics while patrolling the middle of the outfield are decidedly subpar.

vs. RHP

7. Giancarlo Stanton 8. Didi Gregorius 9. Brett Gardner

What about against the righties? Gardner steals the spot in center, with his performance outpacing the injured Hicks in all offensive facets. His resurgence in 2019 has come in large part due to his dominance against righties, and he has more than justified a spot in the 9 hole. This means that again Stanton gets the nod, mostly on the backs of last year and his career numbers. He’s a lifetime .369 wOBA hitter against righties, and even in a down year in 2018 exceeded the performance of Hicks to earn the 7 spot in the lineup.

And, finally, we find a role for Didi Gregorius, who is severely underperforming in his 2019 return from offseason Tommy John surgery. His .296 xwOBA and .318 wOBA put him in the bottom third of the team in terms of overall offensive performance. But his .330 wOBA against righties is still better than what Edwin Encarnacion has produced this season. Throw in the fact that his K% is effectively half that of Edwin’s and his defense allows Voit to move to DH, and you get a strong case for the beloved Sir Didi to start against righties in the playoffs.

Final Thoughts

More than anything, writing this article gave me tremendous hope for the Yankees’ championship prospects this season. This offense is legitimately fantastic, ranking in the top 3 in the league in every category of import as we enter the final month of the season. Boone can hardly go wrong if he keeps things simple, and this lineup has proven it will be a major headache for even the very best pitchers in baseball (right, Ryu?).

That being said, here’s how I would set up the team if I were in charge of the lineup during October:

vs. RHP

1. DJ LeMahieu, 2B
2. Aaron Judge, RF
3. Gio Urshela, 3B
4. Gleyber Torres, SS
5. Luke Voit, 1B
6. Gary Sanchez, C
7. Giancarlo Stanton, LF
8. Edwin Encarnacion, DH
9. Aaron Hicks, CF

vs. LHP

1. DJ LeMahieu, 1B
2. Aaron Judge, RF
3. Gio Urshela, 3B
4. Gleyber Torres, 2B
5. Luke Voit, DH
6. Gary Sanchez, C
7. Giancarlo Stanton, LF
8. Didi Gregorius, SS
9. Brett Gardner, CF

The realities of managing a baseball team are far more complicated, and there will no doubt be significant mixing and matching based on who’s hot and who the Yankees are facing any given day. But based purely on the merits of their performance, this is the optimal alignment for the Yankees this postseason.

I hope my two articles, on both the pitching staff and lineup, have given you the same buzz of excitement it’s given me for the 2019 playoffs. This is the Yankees best chance at a World Series since 2009, better even than last year or their magical run in 2017. With two years of experience behind them and a cavalry of All Stars set to return in the next month, it’s an exciting year to be a Yankee fan. I look forward to seeing if this team can perform in practice the way it looks on paper, and restore the Commissioner’s Trophy to its rightful home in the Bronx.

The post Building the perfect postseason lineup for the Bombers appeared first on Bronx Pinstripes | BronxPinstripes.com.

It’s easy to forget just how dire things were looking on July 31, when Cashman stood pat despite the abysmal performance of the starting rotation. Yankee World was apoplectic over the seeming indifference of the front office to the obvious need for reinforcements to the pitching staff. But following a couple weeks of strong performances, now’s a good time to take a step back and analyze the team’s options objectively as we hurtle toward October.

A few weeks back, I wrote a review of the past five World Series winners, trying to discern what actually makes a championship-caliber pitching staff. I urge you to read the article for the full scoop. But the key takeaway for this year’s Yankees was that while a strong bullpen can compensate for a weak rotation, it must be complemented by starters that can keep teams competitive into the middle innings of games. While this isn’t groundbreaking, it does dispel the misconception that a super bullpen can simply erase the need for a competent rotation.

So with the final cast for this year’s playoff dance all but set, let’s break down how Aaron Boone can optimize the arms he has at his disposal to carry this team to championship number 28. In order to do so, we’re going to hone in on two key elements of a pitcher’s makeup that can help dispassionately assess their utility in October.

The first is simply their performance on the field, and what the underlying metrics tell us about their true talent level this season. For this aspect of the evaluation, we will use metrics like xFIP, SIERA, and yes, even ERA to analyze who has been effective enough to deserve our confidence in the most important games of the year.

But unlike some nerds, I still find some value in the abstract concept of wins, holds, and saves as a measure of how well pitchers manage to keep their teams in the game. Though there are too many external factors to make these stats a valid evaluation tool, it can still tell us something about the consistency and competitiveness of a pitcher’s performance. But the old-fashioned construction of these stats is frankly illogical. Can’t win a game unless you pitch 5 innings? Arbitrary lead in the 9th means you get a save? Surely there is a better way to get at what these stats claim to tell us.

And indeed, I would argue there is. A few weeks back, Andrew mentioned the notion of WPA Wins and Losses on the podcast. For nerds like me who want the full Fangraphs primer, the article on this stat is here. For those who don’t care to read it in depth, here’s the main idea.

Every play in a baseball game increases or decreases a team’s probability of winning. A home run late in a tie game has a huge impact on that probability. A two-out walk with no runners on in a blowout has almost no impact. Fangraphs tracks the change in win probability for each play, and credits the pitcher and batter with equal and opposite WPA that corresponds to that change in probability. For example, when Brett Gardner hit a go-ahead double in yesterday’s game, he was given 0.123 WPA (12.3% win probability added), while the pitcher Thornton received -0.123 WPA. The WPA winner or loser is simply the pitcher on the winning team with the highest WPA, or the one on the losing team with the lowest WPA.

This makes much more sense than the classic construction of wins and losses. If a starter allows six runs but his team is up 7-6 when he leaves the game, why should the reliever who shuts the game down with a tight lead not get the win? And the same with losses — why should the starter who goes seven scoreless get the loss if a reliever allows an inherited runner on first to score in a 0-0 game?

If you agree with this notion, you’ll like Shutdowns and Meltdowns too. This is the WPA equivalent of holds, saves, and blown saves, and it applies to relievers. If as a reliever, you add or subtract 6% win probability in your outing, you are credited with a Shutdown or a Meltdown. This captures the fact that a reliever getting only one out with the bases loaded in a one-run game is actually playing a more important role than a closer who gets a save up 3 in the 9th. Ultimately, both WPA Win/Loss and Shutdowns /Meltdowns paint a valuable picture of each pitcher’s performance in context and their ability to help their team win games.

Whew, that was a long intro. But hopefully, if you’ve stuck with me, you’ve bought into the idea that both a pitcher’s true talent and their performance in context are key to deciding who is trustworthy in the playoffs. So with this in mind, let’s analyze the Yankees starters and relievers to build the perfect playoff blueprint for Boone and the nerds.

The Starters

There are two things that are obvious about the rotation, one good and one bad. And both will come as absolutely no surprise to fans who have been paying attention this year. The first is that Domingo German has been the Yankees’ best starter by a long shot, and should absolutely be the team’s #1 starter despite his inexperience. The second is that JA Happ should not set foot on a mound in October barring disaster.

German has pitched to a miraculous 12-1 WPA record, in line with his true 15-2 W-L. He has been without question the most consistent Yankees pitcher, averaging nearly 6 innings per start and pitching to a 4.12 ERA. He has managed to improve his main weakness, reducing his BB% to 5.5% from previous seasons in which he posted numbers of 14.5% and 8.8%. While plagued by the home run like many Yankees starters, he still posts solid peripherals with a 4.07 xFIP and 3.99 SIERA. If the Yankees actually intend to win in October, they will ignore innings limits and allow German to anchor the rotation in October much as he has all year.

Happ has no business pitching in anything resembling an important game, let alone a playoff game. His 4.91 xFIP and 4.84 SIERA are legitimately offensive, and untimely home runs have pushed his actual ERA even higher to 5.48. Though he has salvaged a 5-6 WPA record, there are few redeeming qualities to Happ’s profile right now. He should be benched in October, and used only in blowout situations (and maybe not even then).

Next, we come to two guys the Yankees will have no choice but to use: James Paxton and Masahiro Tanaka will be in the playoff rotation out of necessity, like it or not. I would argue that fans should actually be excited for the potential role Paxton might play in October. As my colleague Sean constantly points out, Paxton is a very good pitcher who has been plagued by bad luck and inconsistency this year. His 4.02 xFIP and 3.94 SIERA are even better than German’s, and his 29.4 K% puts him in elite company when it comes to missing bats. But he has been unreliable, as his mediocre 6-5 WPA record demonstrates. At his best, Paxton has truly ace-like ability that can provide tremendous value to this club. Boone should plug him in at #2 in the rotation to bet on this upside.

That’s especially true because Tanaka comes with all of the same risk and inconsistency with less of an upside. Yes, I know he’s been nails in the postseason in the past and pitched lights out yesterday. But the reality is that Tanaka is just not a very good pitcher. His 4.39 xFIP and 4.53 SIERA are mediocre at best, and his propensity to melt down and allow home runs in the middle innings does not inspire confidence in the postseason. He struggles to strike out batters and has an xwOBA in the bottom half of the league, a terrible combination that means more baserunners and an inability to escape jams. The silver lining is that, at 9-5, he has shown an ability to keep this Yankees team competitive and pitch with length. Boone will have to bank on that track record and a little playoff magic when he plugs Tanaka in at #3 in the playoffs.

So what about the fourth starter? You have to begin with CC, whose illustrious Yankee career will be coming to a close after this year. Much as I love him, his 4.96 xFIP and 4.75 SIERA simply do not play in must-win games. Not only is he not the ace from 2009, but he’s no longer the reinvented, crafty lefty of recent years. At this point, CC is a replacement-level starter who can add experience and fire from the dugout. But he sadly should not be out on the mound in October.

That leaves Boone with two choices, but that choice will be made for him in due time. I of course am referring to the health of staff ace Luis Severino, who we are told is progressing well in his long road back from a Spring Training shoulder injury. At his best, Severino is a true superstar, with a career 3.28 xFIP and 3.44 SIERA that puts him up there with the very best in the game. Everyone remembers his transcendent first half last year, when he was on a Cy Young trajectory and practically guaranteed a Yankees win when he took the mound.

But should his health fail (don’t worry, I’m knocking on every piece of wood with crossed fingers), the Yankees will likely turn to an opener in Chad Green. Since his return from AAA and assimilation into the role, Green has a 1.98 ERA, 3.27 xFIP, and 2.99 SIERA. He’s been downright filthy in this position, and is part of why the Yankees only lost their first opener game on Saturday. That being said, it’s hard to imagine Boone going to Cortes or Tarpley in a must-win playoff game (he also shouldn’t). The reality is he will turn to the main arms in his bullpen, which may increase the chance of victory but would likely be unsustainable throughout a full World Series run.

In fact, the best-case scenario is likely Chad Green opening for Luis Severino, who will be on a reduced pitch count even if he does return to health in time. Otherwise, should Severino not return, the Yankees will be left in a bind for their #4 starter or forced to try a 3-man rotation, a tactic that has not proven successful in the current era of baseball.

The Relievers

Of course, the Yankees will have the luxury of four of the very best relievers in baseball locking down games in their bullpen. I refer to Aroldis Chapman, Adam Ottavino, Zack Britton, and Tommy Kahnle, all of whom have been magnificent this year. Kahnle has arguably been the cream of the crop, pitching to a 2.48 xFIP and 2.60 SIERA thus far. His 20/6 Shutdown to Meltdown (SD/MD) ratio demonstrates his consistent excellence, with 5 WPA wins to boot. Kahnle, not Ottavino, should be employed in the David Robertson role of years past, inserted in the most high-leverage situations during the game. Boone has failed to do this so far this season, but would be wise to continue transitioning Kahnle into the role through the remainder of the regular season.

This is not to disparage Ottavino. He and Britton have both been terrific this year as well. However, they fall significantly behind Kahnle in terms of context-neutral performance this year, with xFIPs and SIERAs around 4.00 that reflect their battles with command. This has not damaged their ability to lock down leads, as they have 24/5 and 19/9 SD/MD ratios respectively. But in my opinion, they should clearly fall below Kahnle in the leverage pecking order to #3 and #4.

This leaves Chapman, who in an ideal nerd world would be used as the #2 leverage guy behind Kahnle. However, I am not naive, and actually don’t object to him remaining in his traditional closing role for which he is well-suited. Boone should show dexterity by using Chapman in key situations outside the 9th should the need arise (basically, don’t give me Jonathan Holder over him just because it’s the 7th). But with three other elite guys, the need for Chapman to be stretched outside his usual end of game position should be limited.

Who else can be trusted with relief appearances in a playoff game? Well, Domingo German and Chad Green for starters (bad baseball pun, I know). These two guys both have experience in relief as well as starting, and should be called on sparingly should the situation arise. German is more questionable, given his already alarming innings increase and importance as the #1 starter for the team. But Green should without question be employed in relief as well as opening throughout the course of the postseason. His 6/11 SD/MD ratio looks ugly, but is heavily influenced by his disastrous early season performance. In fact, his ability to reign in his SIERA to 3.61 as a reliever shows that he can and should be trusted with late innings over the course of October.

While Jonathan Holder’s 3.72 SIERA is actually 5th best on the team, it is impossible to get past his 13 meltdowns this year. Boone tried to a fault to use him in the late innings of key games, and got burned time and again. There is simply no appetite for him to be anywhere near a mound during a close playoff game. Use him to soak up innings with big leads or deficits, but keep him away from important spots if at all possible.

Lastly, would you believe me if I said Luis Cessa has basically been the same pitcher as Adam Ottavino this year? Their xFIPs and SIERAs are each separated by less 0.02 points, and incidentally Cessa comes out marginally on top in both categories. No, that does not mean Luis Cessa should be pitching the 8th inning in the ALDS. What it does mean is that in any game where a starter struggles and is forced out early, Cessa should unquestionably be trusted to hold down the fort for multiple innings to get the team back into the game. He has 8 shutdowns this year, a testament to the fact that he’s successfully navigated that exact role during the regular season. He can and should be relied upon as a stopgap when the Yankees fail to get length out of a starter.

Final Thoughts

The Yankees will not have the best pitching staff in the playoffs. Not even close. But you don’t have to squint very hard to see four capable starters and a top notch bullpen that, when paired with this explosive offense, can make it the distance in 2019. Despite the doom and gloom predictions, the season is in fact not over, and some very fun October baseball lies ahead.

But there is no doubt that an outsize amount of risk is being taken on by the reliance on Luis Severino’s return. With him, the Yankees are probably co-favorites with Houston and the Dodgers. Without him, the rotation looks dangerously thin, and a single starter injury could completely derail their World Series hopes.

Betances is less critical, but nonetheless could play a major part in a potential championship run. With or without Severino, he simply lengthens the list of elite relievers that Boone can lean on to shorten games and ease the burden on shaky starters. Getting both of these guys back as even 80% of their best selves would go a long way toward making the chase for 28 a reality.

In sum, I would line up a healthy Yankees rotation like this:

1. Domingo German
2. James Paxton
3. Masahiro Tanaka
4. Chad Green/Luis Severino

And the bullpen would look something like this, in terms of leverage situations:

1. Tommy Kahnle
2. Aroldis Chapman
3. (Fully healthy Dellin probably goes here)
4. Zack Britton
5. Adam Ottavino
6. Chad Green/Domingo German
7. Luis Cessa
8. Jonathan Holder

Writing this article makes me both incredibly excited for October and absolutely terrified for the remaining 44 games of the regular season. So much can go wrong in terms of injury or setback from now until the end of September (again, knocking on wood). But if it doesn’t, and if this pitching staff goes into the playoffs at full strength, the Yankees have every chance of making this their year. Here’s to hoping that everything breaks right for this team as we enter the dog days of August.

The post Who can be trusted on the mound in big October moments? appeared first on Bronx Pinstripes | BronxPinstripes.com.

Fans are rightly frustrated by the recent performance of the team’s starters and the inaction of the front office to solve a glaring issue. But there is still time for Cashman to make a move and shore up a shaky pitching staff before we reach October. While of course everyone wants to bring in a top line starter like Noah Syndergaard or Max Scherzer, the Yankees deadline moves will likely be much more modest.

That got me thinking about what a World Series winning pitching staff really looks like. What are the characteristics of recent champions that the Yankees and Cashman can look to as a model for their own staff this fall?

In order to do this, I looked at the five most recent World Series champions to try to draw some lessons from the most successful teams of recent years. I chose five years for two reasons.

One, I think it roughly tracks the period in which pitching paradigms have shifted away from workhorse starters and towards stacked bullpens. Two, it also covers a period in which advanced metrics have come to dominate front offices, and thus the attitudes and decisions of baseball executives is most similar to today’s game. And most importantly, it allows me to avoid analyzing two Red Sox championship teams, which I don’t have the will to do after the events of recent days.

So with this in mind, let’s dive into some of the key similarities between recent championship pitching staffs.

The playoff bump is a myth

It seems like every year, commentators love to talk about how much harder it is to score runs in the postseason. Among fans, I’ve also heard a narrative that, because every game is so important, managers are more willing to take risks and make unconventional moves with their bullpens that reduce overall runs scored. This might lead one to believe that playoff teams can outperform their regular season statistics in a short, must-win sequence of playoff games.

But there is next to no evidence to support this claim. While it may be true that manager usage of pitchers differs drastically in October, there is no marked shift in playoff performance among pitching staffs relative to the season as a whole. Each of the five most recent world champions were in the top 10 in the league in ERA during the regular season. And none of them managed to outperform their regular season ERA by greater than 0.75 runs in the playoffs.

As a lover of sabermetrics, I am far from suggesting that this is definitive proof that you can never markedly improve relative to your regular season stats. In fact, the small sample size of the postseason would suggest one of the next champions may well do just that. I simply use this as evidence that an expectation of sudden greatness is misguided.

World Series winning teams have great pitching staffs that demonstrate their competence over the course of an entire 162 game season. They then tend to carry that same quality in the playoffs. There is, in recent history, no suggestion that you can skate by with a mediocre rotation and work managerial magic in the postseason to glide to victory. This is by no means groundbreaking, but does suggest that there are no shortcuts to building a winning team.

Aces matter, but deep rotations matter more

There is also a prevalent belief that an ace is critical to winning a championship. I certainly won’t dispute that notion out of hand, given that four of the five most recent champions had someone in their rotation that qualified as an ace. Madison Bumgarner, Kyle Hendricks, Justin Verlander, and Chris Sale were all indisputably aces in the years that their teams won the World Series.

But these pitchers averaged roughly 32 IP in the playoffs between them, even with Bumgarner’s outsize role in the 2014 playoffs for the Giants. While each was pivotal to their team’s success in their own right, it is hardly the norm to have an ace single handedly drag a team to a title (again, Bumgarner is the exception). Their impact is limited by feasibility constraints, since they can start at an absolute maximum 5 or 6 games all postseason. And in such a small sample, underperformance is a risk too. Both Sale and Hendricks were far from dominant in their limited appearances during their teams’ championship runs.

Instead, the recipe for success is driven by having four highly competent starters who can keep the team competitive in every game. All five of the teams had the luxury of deep rotations filled with reliable arms, simultaneously keeping the bullpen fresh and avoiding non-competitive games. There is no precedent in recent years of a top heavy rotation compensating for the significant shortcomings of a disastrous back end of the staff. While it may allow a team to steal a series, or even two, the grueling postseason process weeds out the thinnest rotations and exposes them by the time they reach World Series.

Even the 2015 Royals, who had the weakest and most inconsistent starting rotation of the set, allowed more than 5 runs in a game only four times throughout their playoff run. Edinson Volquez, Johnny Cueto, Yordano Ventura, and Jason Vargas each fought to keep games competitive through five or six innings. This allowed their bullpen to lock down tight leads and give their offense a chance to come back if they were trailing. While none were standouts, none were disasters either, reducing wear on bullpen arms and generating positive value for their team through their relative consistency in October.

Starting and relief pitching are substitutable, but only to a point

I leave this header intentionally vague, because I think it is true in a couple of ways. Most obviously, you can compensate from subpar performance in one facet of your pitching staff with excellent performance from the other. But if either the bullpen or starting rotation is consistently struggling, even perfect performance from the other group cannot save you.

The necessary balance is evidenced by the fact that, of the five sets of starters and relievers for these teams, only one ranked in the bottom half of the league in ERA. Again, this was the 2015 Royals, whose rotation was ranked 22nd but was just 0.20 behind the median team that year. And their bullpen was the best of the bunch, coming in with a ridiculous 2.72 ERA and multiple elite arms that made the difference for them in the playoffs.

The other interpretation of this header is that starters and relievers can be literally substituted to some extent in playoff games. Teams have experimented with openers, bullpen games, and the use of starters as relievers in recent years to varying degrees of success. The notion of openers and bullpening is relatively new, so it is too soon to judge the efficacy of these strategies through an entire postseason. But many of these championship teams have used starters out of the bullpen in close games to great effect.

Often the players employed in this role have dynamite stuff, but don’t always demonstrate the consistency to be trusted with starts in playoff games. Think Lance McCullers and Nathan Eovaldi, two pitchers that have plus-plus pitches but have had careers plagued by an inability to successfully navigate the third time through the batting order. By using these pitchers in relief appearances, their managers were able to avoid lower level relievers in key situations and plug in elite arms to get key outs late in games.

But again, this strategy fails without the necessary depth in the rotation to sustain this usage pattern through an entire playoffs. While employing a starter this way might help seal a victory in one game, it may necessitate a less effective starter stepping in during a future game, which can have a trickle down effect through the whole pitching staff. Each of the teams that have employed this tactic have done so in moderation, and had the backstop of deep, high quality rotations to hedge against overuse of bullpen arms. Teams should always play to their strengths, but this shifting of burden can only go so far if one half of the pitching staff is an active liability on the mound.

What it means for the 2019 Yankees

So how should this information inform the Yankees approach to the trade deadline this year? I want to emphasize that this article is less scientific than most of the stuff I write, and relies more on general trends than hard causal relationships. But I still see important lessons the team can take in their approach to deadline moves this year.

Of the teams mentioned, I see the closest similarity to the 2015 Royals. They also had only a mediocre rotation but a truly excellent bullpen. In October, Boone will know he has the ability to shorten games with his relievers. But if games are consistently out of reach by the middle innings, as was the case in last year’s ALDS, the team will be doomed to another year as also-rans.

Contrary to popular belief, I think the evidence outlined here suggests that multiple quality arms, not one ace, is the surer solution to the Yankees woes. They currently have just one consistent and reliable starter in Domingo German, who also may be facing an innings limit or risk of burnout given his youth. In an ideal world, Masahiro Tanaka and James Paxton would refind their form as solid middle rotation arms, and Luis Severino would return like a white knight in his ace form from last year’s first half.

The front office should not and cannot take that gamble if they are serious about winning this year. Given the set of options available and the reality facing this team, the Yankees should bring in two starters who can ensure that the rotation can keep the team competitive throughout a World Series run. My picks would be Matthew Boyd and Robbie Ray, two young and controllable starters whose peripherals suggest a penchant for excellence.

This approach would have a variety of benefits. In a best case scenario, this would give Boone the ability to move some of his starters to a bullpen role in the playoffs. The best four starters would have reduced pressure, because the already strong bullpen could be shored up by the likes of a limited German or post-injury Severino who have experience in those roles already. In the most likely case, the team would have insurance for future injuries or continued inconsistency from guys they currently would have to rely on in October. And in a worst case scenario where the team does not win this year, these guys would continue to be young and cheap fixtures in the rotation for years to come.

Regardless, there is not scenario in which adding a bullpen arm or 2018 Lance Lynn is adequate for this team to win a World Series this year. They need to rectify the imbalance between the two halves of their pitching staff, and produce a set of four reliable arms at a minimum as they move into the postseason. I do not subscribe to the philosophy that only an ace can put this team over the top. But two legitimate MLB starters should be added by July 31 to put this team in the best position possible to win their 28th championship.

The post What recent history tells us about championship-caliber pitching appeared first on Bronx Pinstripes | BronxPinstripes.com.

The story of the Yankees season thus far has been defined by two fantastic stretches of play. One is the run they are currently enjoying, wherein they have won 16 of 20 against the likes of Houston, Tampa, and Boston. The other came between April 16 and June 2, when the team played to a remarkable 32-11 record. They dropped just one series out of 14 during the period, and rattled off nine consecutive series wins after the lone loss to the Diamondbacks in Arizona.

As any reader of Bronx Pinstripes will no doubt know, this success has come in spite of significant adversity. Staff ace Luis Severino and elite reliever Dellin Betances have not registered an appearance between them, each sidelined by a combination of shoulder and lat issues. Miguel Andujar played in just 12 games before making the decision to have season-ending surgery on a torn labrum. Didi Gregorius made his return less than a month ago from offseason Tommy John surgery. Giancarlo Stanton has only played nine games this season…shall I go on?

Yet, even with all those injuries, the Yankees have just closed an indisputably excellent first half. How have they done it? Let’s dive into the numbers and see what’s driven the Yankees excellent first half.

The Offense

Team Stats: .265 AVG (6th), .804 OPS (5th), 111 wRC+ (4th), .335 xwOBA (6th), 23.1 K% (t-15th), 9.6 BB% (t-6th), 149 HR (4th)

By most metrics, the Yankees have had one of the most potent offenses in the league thus far. This should be unsurprising to anyone who has followed the team in recent years. Last year’s edition of the Bronx Bombers set the all-time record for home runs in a season, and scored the second most runs in the MLB.

What has been surprising is the way in which the team has scored its runs this season. With marquee sluggers like Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge sidelined at various points, the team has become more adept at hitting with runners in scoring position. Though 149 home runs is clearly nothing to scoff at, the team has hit .302/.378/.515 (130 wRC+) with RISP this year, by far the best in baseball. Contrast that with last year when they hit just .253 in these crucial situations. The team has clearly evolved away from the boom or bust mindset and can score runs in a wider variety of ways this year.

Crucial to this development has been DJ “The Machine” LeMahieu, who has put himself squarely in the MVP conversation after the first half. Overall, he is slashing a ridiculous .336/.383/.518 (138 wRC+), establishing himself as the most consistent hitter in the lineup. He has epitomized the Yankees success with RISP, hitting .468 with 51 RBI in those situations.

But while production has been shifted somewhat from home runs to clutch hitting, the main storyline of the Yankees first half offense is one of consistency from last season. This was fundamentally a very good offense last year, and early indications are that nothing has changed here in 2019. The team averaged 5.25 runs per game last year, a number that has now blossomed into more than 5.71 runs per game this season. With a complete lineup and strong underlying numbers in the batted ball data, there is little reason to believe this juggernaut offense will slow in the second half.

The Pitching

Team Stats: 4.15 ERA (10th), 4.39 FIP (14th), .305 xwOBA (5th), 24.4 K% (8th), 8.0 BB% (7th), 1.49 HR/9 (22nd)

Unlike the offensive numbers, the team’s pitching statistics hardly jump off the page. Though their ERA remains in the top third of teams in baseball, the staff has clearly been plagued by the home run ball. This contributes to their less than stellar FIP, and helps explain how a team with such excellent batted ball numbers can produce such mediocre results on the mound.

The bullpen has continued to be a strength, though it has perhaps fallen short of the lofty expectations set in the preseason. Aroldis Chapman has been the standout in the closer role, pitching to a matching 1.82 ERA and FIP. Boosted by his ridiculous 35.0 K%, Chapman has eradicated fears of burnout and utilized an improved slider to great effect thus far.

Behind him come a string of solid first half performers, headlined by Adam Ottavino, Zack Britton, and Tommy Kahnle. The trio have been used in high leverage situations to great effect, and have each been a reason for the team’s success thus far. They’ve combined to strand more than 85% of runners on base, a testament to their performance in key situations. But it also potentially portends regression in the second half, and necessitates better command from each to minimize the number of runners they allow in the first place.

The bigger concern is clearly the rotation, which has unquestionably been missing the presence of Severino every fifth day. The team’s starters have been plagued by inconsistency and lack of depth, throwing the sixth-fewest innings in all of baseball and pitching to a 4.61 FIP, 20th in the league. The home run ball has been an issue for the entire rotation, headlined by JA Happ’s 2.01 HR/9.

While none of them have been notably awful, none have been notably successful either. Masahiro Tanaka was surprisingly named to the All Star team as a replacement, and it is perhaps telling that the rotation’s best starter boasts an ERA of just 3.86 with an attendant 4.24 FIP. If there is one place the front office will be looking to solidify on the trade market, it will certainly be the rotation. Several names have been floated as potential targets, and the Yankees would do well to add an arm regardless of Severino’s potential comeback.

The Defense

Team Stats: .979 FP (t-27th), -21 DRS (23rd), -3.8 UZR/150 (23rd)

There is some definite cognitive dissonance in the advanced metrics and eye test with these statistics. It is important to begin with the disclaimer that defensive statistics are notoriously fickle, and have a tendency not to normalize for long periods of time, even spanning entire seasons. That being said, there are a few takeaways that can be made from looking at these numbers.

The first is that this iteration of the Yankees will never be a standout defensive squad. Luke Voit is a massive liability at first, and that puts a drag on the rest of the infield defense. The Yankees defense actually grades out worse this year than last year, and a big reason is that Tyler Austin, Neil Walker, and Greg Bird were adequate first basemen, whereas Voit is a terrible one.

The second is that the outfield defense suffered tremendously in the absence of Judge and Stanton (and to a lesser extent Hicks). Judge is a legitimately elite defender, and replacing him with Frazier took a big plus and turned it into a big minus. Similarly, Stanton is solidly above average in left and Maybin, while adequate when stuffed in right, was abysmal when moved over to left. And whereas Gardner was among the best defensive left fielders in baseball last year, his move to center reduced him to a net zero.

The last observation is that the Yankees are rarely able to play their infielders in their best defensive positions. LeMahieu is Gold Glove caliber at second, but slightly below average at third. Gleyber is well above average at shortstop, but plays a below average second base. The defensive metrics say Didi and Urshela have both been below average at their native positions, which my eyes say is a load of BS. It is important to remember that a traffic cone would be an upgrade over Andujar at third, and both Urshela and LeMahieu have been far better than him despite not being great. But the reality is that offensive considerations preclude Boone from optimally aligning his infield defense, which puts a drag on the entire team’s defensive solidity.

Final Thoughts

The Yankees have had a great first half, one that is certainly more worthy of celebration than criticism. The offense has continued to evolve and improve, and the team’s ability to come through in the clutch has been a particularly welcome addition to an already well stocked arsenal. The bullpen likewise has been solid with flashes of excellence, and is likely to play a continuing role in the Yankees success as a team.

They will likely have to, unless the rotation can make major strides in the second half. The two biggest issues for the starters continue to be home runs and pitch counts, which have led to fewer comfortable wins and more extended bullpen outings than would be ideal. To succeed in the postseason, the Yankees will need a combination of improved performance and key reinforcements to solidify what is currently a shaky staff.

The defense is what it is, and can hopefully hover somewhere around average to help win at the margins. The health of Judge and Hicks in the outfield as well as Andujar’s absence make the potential for improvement great, but the returns thus far have been less than impressive to say the least.

If I had to, I would probably give out grades to the following aspects of the Yankees first half performance as follows:

Offense: A/A+

Rotation: B-

Bullpen: A-

Defense: C+

I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but the rotation clearly has to be the focus of Cashman and the front office. While the team has demonstrated the ability to win in the regular season and hopefully clinch a division title, the playoffs will be a different beast. Tanaka and Paxton must be better, and Yankees fans can only hope for Severino to return this season. But even in a best case scenario, an addition via trade would be welcome, and would establish the team as firm favorites for the World Series this fall.

The Yankees first half was about as good as could have been hoped for, especially given the injuries the team had to weather. The next task is clinching the AL East for the first time since 2012 and securing home field advantage throughout the postseason. After that, only one hurdle remains to be cleared: returning the Commissioner’s Trophy to the Bronx and clinching the elusive 28th championship.

The post Breaking down the Yankees’ excellent first half appeared first on Bronx Pinstripes | BronxPinstripes.com.

Now winners of seven of their last eight games, the team has been riding a mix of improved starting pitching and brute offensive force during the mini-streak. The team is slowly returning to full strength with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton reentering the mix this past week. The addition of Edwin Encarnacion has only increased the firepower in the Yankees lineup.

But despite this rosy outlook, there are warning signs flashing when it comes to the rotation. J.A. Happ continues to allow home runs at an alarming rate, and the team has been forced into using Chad Green as an opener for the past couple weeks. And while Masahiro Tanaka, James Paxton, and CC Sabathia have been solid, none have been able to give the team significant length. Being forced into a four-man rotation with few starters ever reaching the sixth inning is a recipe for bullpen burnout late in the year.

Yes, the Yankees are optimistic that staff ace and workhorse Luis Severino will return in the second half. If he is even 75 percent of the dominant pitcher he was in the first half of last year, he’ll surpass anything the Yankees can currently get on the market. And yes, Jordan Montgomery is due to return hopefully sometime in August. But the possibility of injury setback is significant as both of these starters rehab from injuries in their throwing arms. And it is unlikely if not impossible that the team will survive the next 85 games without a single injury to another starter. As the old adage goes, you can never have enough pitching.

With all this in mind, now seems a good time to survey the potential starting pitching options on the trade market. Of course, this list is not comprehensive but rather seeks to evaluate some of the names being linked with the team right now. Cashman is anything but predictable, and there is a chance the team moves for someone out of the blue in the next month. But each of the guys I’m about to discuss are great pitchers trapped on potential sellers, so they seem the most logical to survey at this early stage.

For each pitcher, I’m going to give some basics on age and team control, before breaking down the case for the Yankees acquiring or avoiding them. Let’s take a look at some of the starters that may be in pinstripes in the second half.

Madison Bumgarner

Age: Turning 30 on August 1, 2019

Contract: Free agent after this season, $12 million AAV

2019 Season: 4.28 ERA, 4.21 FIP, 1.24 WHIP, 8.66 K/9, 1.96 BB/9, 1.49 HR/9

Why it makes sense: Let’s start with the obvious. The Yankees have one goal in 2019, and it’s not to win 100 games again — it’s to bring home their 28th championship. While surviving the regular season with a division title is no doubt important, all acquisitions should be made with the playoffs in mind. And Bumgarner is an all time great playoff pitcher.

In 102.1 career playoff innings, Bumgarner has a mind-boggling 2.11 ERA. He is most remembered for his historic 2014 run, where he threw 52.2 innings as both a starter and reliever to the tune of a 1.03 ERA. His efforts secured the Giants another World Series, and he was awarded the MVP of the series for single-handedly dragging his team to victory.

Beyond that, Bumgarner remains a workhorse. He has already thrown 96.2 innings this year, averaging 6 IP per start and has not spent a day on the IL thus far in 2019. With the Yankees struggling to get length out of their starters, Bumgarner would solidify the rotation and help give the bullpen some much needed rest.

Why it doesn’t make sense: Because he isn’t the same Madison Bumgarner we all remember. He has allowed significantly more hard contact this year than at any other point in his career, which is contributing to his mediocre ERA and peripherals. His 42.4% hard hit rate is 9 full points above his career average, and puts him in the bottom quartile of all starters this year. This is manifesting itself in more home runs and fewer ground balls than any other season he has pitched.

But even though he’s not the same dominant Bumgarner of old, you can be sure the Giants will be asking teams to pay up like he is. Bumgarner is beloved in San Francisco, and management is guaranteed to ask for a king’s ransom for a player who will be a pure rental for the second half of 2019. Between his declining performance and presumed astronomical asking price, there are plenty of reasons to think the Yankees would be well served to stay away from the southpaw.

Max Scherzer

Age: Turning 35 on July 27, 2019

Contract: Free agent after 2021, $30 million AAV

2019 Season: 2.62 ERA, 2.19 FIP, 1.06 WHIP, 12.36 K/9, 1.86 BB/9, 0.68 HR/9

Why it makes sense: Because he’s still one of the best pitchers in baseball. Scherzer is like a proverbial fine wine, he gets better as he ages. Since joining the Nationals on a mega-contract in 2015, Scherzer has never posted an ERA above 3.00 and has eclipsed 200 IP every single year. He has put himself solidly in the Hall of Fame conversation with three Cy Young awards, and continues to justify every dollar the Nationals have paid him.

Unlike Bumgarner, Scherzer has showed no signs of slowing. His peripherals remain remarkably robust, as evidenced by his microscopic 2.19 FIP and his consistently excellent batted ball profile. When it comes to Max Scherzer the baseball player, there is truly nothing not to like. In a vacuum, you trade the farm for a guy like him, who would instantly transform the Yankees from title contender to odds-on favorite.

Why it doesn’t make sense: Put simply, Scherzer might not be for sale at any price. The Nationals are owned by the Lerner family, and former kingpin Ted Lerner will turn 94 this October. He and his son are reportedly desperate to bring a championship back to DC, which has led to some stubborn if not outright foolish decisions in the past couple years. Despite the ability to bring in a massive haul for impending free agent Bryce Harper last year, the Lerner’s refused to sell and missed the playoffs with an 82-80 record.

There’s no reason to believe the situation will be any different with Scherzer. He is under control for two and a half more years, and the Lerners will surely believe they can build another championship contender with him anchoring their rotation. While it may be foolish, the Yankees will be out of luck if Nationals ownership vetoes a potential deal.

And though I personally disagree with it, there is also an argument that Scherzer would tie the Yankees hands financially in future offseasons. With several massive contracts already on the books, adding another $30 million per year may preclude the team from extending current stars or chasing a younger free agent. But frankly I find this line of complaint preposterous. Scherzer is one of the best to do it, and it would be asinine to let money prevent a deal from happening if it is indeed possible.

Trevor Bauer

Age: Turning 29 on January 17, 2020

Contract: Free agent after 2020, $13 million AAV, arbitration eligible next season

2019 Season: 3.69 ERA, 4.26 FIP, 1.18 WHIP, 9.77 K/9, 3.69 BB/9, 1.20 HR/9

Why it makes sense: He may be odd off the field, but Trevor Bauer is a damn good baseball player. He broke out last season, putting up ace-like numbers that eclipsed even those of staff stalwart Corey Kluber. At his best, Bauer is a strikeout machine and true workhorse, averaging more than 6 IP per start and posting an 11.34 K/9 in his 2018 All Star campaign.

Bauer boasts an extensive arsenal that includes an elite spin-rate fastball, a wipeout slider, and several other complementary pitches that he mixes in to stifle hitters. As a cheap, controllable, high quality starter, he checks many of the boxes that you look for in a potential trade acquisition. His experience pitching out of the bullpen in the playoffs under manager Terry Francona is also a plus. That flexibility could allow him to fulfill a role like that of Bumgarner or Nathan Eovaldi (ugh) in postseasons past, adding to his potential value to the Yankees.

Why it doesn’t make sense: Like Scherzer, it’s pretty simple. The Indians might not be sellers at the deadline. The Twins are currently running away with the AL Central, but the Indians are narrowly clinging to the second Wild Card spot with a 42-35 record. In a different market, there would be no question that the team would be buyers at the deadline and look to build another championship contender.

But Cleveland’s ownership has already displayed their inability to sustain their current payroll. They sold several key assets over the summer to shed money off the books, and there’s a chance they may not be able to afford Bauer’s significant arbitration salary next year. If they are looking to maximize assets, now is the time to sell. But it will be hard to justify shipping off one of their best starters in the midst of a closing championship window to a rabid fan base that has endured so many years of losing.

Beyond that, there’s always a chance that Bauer’s eccentric personality is not a good fit for the New York media market. He is notorious for being outspoken on social media, something that might not fly with the Yankees brass. Though I think “fit” is overblown, there’s always the possibility that Bauer is one of the acquisitions that fans and the media torpedo from day one. This is clearly secondary to the chance he’s just not available, but he will surely face character scrutiny from Cashman and his nerds before the team feels comfortable shipping away a boatload of key prospects.

Marcus Stroman

Age: Turning 29 on May 1, 2020

Contract: Free agent after 2020, $7.4 million AAV, arbitration eligible next season

2019 Season: 3.04 ERA, 3.70 FIP, 1.25 WHIP, 6.88 K/9, 2.68 BB/9, 0.80 HR/9

Why it makes sense: Coming off a disastrous 2018, Stroman has quickly returned to form as one of the top competitors in the game. Always doubted due to his small, 5′ 8″ frame, Stroman has made a living by relying on his sinker to generate ground balls. His 58.0% groundball rate is second among qualified starters, a quality that dovetails with his 0.80 HR/9 to make him a prime candidate for Yankee Stadium.

And, much like the other pitchers listed above, Stroman has demonstrated an ability to go deep in games, averaging just under 6 IP per start. Never known for his strikeout abilities, Stroman compensates by effectively limiting hard contact and particularly avoiding “Barrels”, the worst outcome for a pitcher. His .292 xwOBA is in the 75th percentile among starters this year, and indicates that his success is sustainable despite his lack of a wipeout pitch. Stroman would undoubtedly be another welcome addition to the Yankee rotation.

Why it doesn’t make sense: Lack of a proven postseason record is really the only knock against Stroman. He featured heavily in the Blue Jays’ 2015 and 2016 playoff runs, pitching to a somewhat disappointing 4.40 ERA in 30.2 IP. But in 2015 Stroman was returning from a torn ACL, which he suffered in March and remarkably recovered from in just 6 months to make the postseason roster. Though his lack of a record is a legitimate gripe, Stroman is a consummate gamer and I have confidence he’d shine under the bright lights of the Bronx in October.

Besides that, there are fewer hurdles with Stroman than any name listed above. The Blue Jays will clearly be sellers of any and all assets at the deadline, in the midst of a complete teardown that sees them at 29-49 as of today. Unlike other AL East teams, the Blue Jays have never hesitated to deal within the division, as evidenced by last year’s trade of JA Happ to the Yankees before the deadline. And though he will of course come at a cost, the Yankees would likely be able to hold onto top prospect Estevan Florial and possibly even Clint Frazier in a deal.

Conclusion

Any of these four guys would solidify the Yankee rotation and make the team better as they chase another World Series title. But, in my opinion, Marcus Stroman seems far and away the most likely acquisition of the bunch. Yes, I too dream about Mad Max tossing a 20 strikeout gem in front of the adoring crowd in the Bronx. But I remain extremely doubtful that the Nationals will ever part with their franchise cornerstone, even as they continue to slip out of the playoff picture. Bumgarner will command a ridiculous prospect price that does not match the pitcher he is today. And I still believe the Indians will look to remain competitive in 2019 despite their payroll crunch.

Marcus Stroman seems resigned to the Blue Jays not extending him, and has expressed an interest in moving to a contending team. What better place for him than New York, where his hunger to win would instantly make him a fan favorite. Though we won’t get to see him in this week’s series, keep an eye on Stroman over the course of this next month. He’s almost certain to be shipped out of Toronto, and don’t be surprised if Brian Cashman arranges a homecoming for the Long Island native before the trade deadline this July.

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Early this January, I wrote a piece breaking down why I thought Adam Ottavino and Zack Britton would be huge additions to this 2019 Yankees team. Our beloved GM delivered in full, signing both guys within the month and solidifying the Yankees bullpen juggernaut.

This series against the Red Sox was a case study in how valuable those moves were, and the ways that the Yankees distanced themselves from competitors with these two elite arms. Though their bullpen was arguably already among the best in the bigs, locking down these two relief aces has set the team up for success both throughout the season and into October.

But Britton and Ottavino were far from the only options available to the Yankees when they went shopping this offseason. The free agent class was littered with high end relievers. One of them, Craig Kimbrel, still remains inexplicably unsigned more than a third of the way through the season. But of the many bullpen arms to find new homes this past winter, it’s not hard to make the case that the Yankees got the best of the bunch.

The Yankees

Zack Britton: 3 years, $39 million (with 2020 club option, 2022 player option); 26.1 IP, 2.05 ERA (3.00 FIP)

Adam Ottavino: 3 years, $27 million; 27.2 IP, 1.30 ERA (3.62 FIP)

Forget comparing these guys to their free agent counterparts for a second — these guys have been two of the best relievers in the entire MLB so far this year. After struggling with command during his return from injury last year, Britton has rekindled the ground ball magic that has made him one of the best throughout his career. And Ottavino is quickly proving last year’s breakout was no fluke, with stellar strikeout numbers and a slider straight out of a video game.

The fascinating thing about the Yankees double-barreled duo is that their success could hardly be found in more different ways. Britton touts a fairly pedestrian 24.3% strikeout rate and relies almost entirely on his patented sinker. The bowling ball movement on the pitch rarely fools hitters outright, but drives his stratospheric 74.6% ground ball rate on balls in play. His more than 90% usage of the pitch leads to plenty of hard contact, but keeps the ball on the ground and generates lots of easy outs.

Ottavino, contrastingly, plays his slider and two-seamer off one another in a devastating combination that keeps hitters guessing. His roughly even usage of these two nasty pitches leaves opponents visibly uncomfortable, allowing him to find success by striking out 31.3% of the hitters he faces and creating lots of weak contact. With just an 83.0 MPH average exit velocity against, Ottavino ranks 5th among all major league pitchers in generating soft contact.

Any way you cut it, the Yankees locked up two gems this offseason. Their traditional metrics are superb, and the underlying numbers leave no doubt that the success is not a coincidence. Their incredible performances only look better when stacked up against the other pitchers acquired this past offseason.

The Old Friends

Andrew Miller (STL): 2 years, $25 million (with 2021 vesting option); 20.1 IP, 3.98 ERA (5.61 FIP)

David Robertson (PHI): 2 years, $23 million (with 2021 club option); 6.2 IP, 5.40 ERA (6.00 FIP)

Before I begin this section, I want to make clear that I loved and appreciated both of these guys in pinstripes. They were great Yankees, especially Robertson, who was a tremendous asset to both Girardi and Boone in his time in the Bronx. That being said, Cashman was absolutely right to pass on both of them despite their history.

Miller has been far from awful so far for the Cardinals, but is undoubtedly a shell of his former dominant self. Though his strikeout rate remains robust at 30.7%, Miller has allowed boatloads of hard contact that has led to a spike in home runs and extra base hits against him. His xwOBA has gone up dramatically from a ridiculous .198 back in 2016 to a below par .339 this season. He’s also been among the worst in baseball at allowing barreled balls, with 12.5% of all contact categorized as a “Barrel” by Statcast.

It’s no wonder then that his HR/9 is up to 2.21, up more than a whole HR/9 from his career average of 0.83. In fact, his ERA/FIP discrepancy suggests that Miller has been lucky to not allow more runs than he already has so far this year. While it was easy to fawn over his previously dominant self, Cashman can feel validated in saying no thanks to the former Yankee southpaw.

Robertson’s story is a sad one. He has been sidelined since April 15 with right forearm soreness and has since suffered a setback that will keep him out even longer. Though the initial diagnosis was a flexor strain, he recently met with Dr. James Andrews which is never a good sign for pitchers. Already 34, it is unclear what the future holds for Robertson both this season and into the future.

Though it was a very small sample, Robertson was hardly lighting the world on fire before the injury. Command struggles and reduced movement on his curveball left him largely ineffective in just under seven innings of work. His matching 8.10 K/9 and BB/9 rates demonstrate how wild and unsuccessful his start to the season was. While it’s hard to parse out how much of his performance can be chalked up to the injury, it is fair to ask if we are witnessing the twilight of his highly successful big league career.

Of all the relievers on the market, these are the two I heard the most Yankee fans clamoring to bring back. While I think there were legitimate ex ante arguments for both, their age and decline were surely noted by the Yankees front office. They can feel validated in avoiding both, who have not come close to the effectiveness of Britton or Ottavino thus far in 2019.

The “Best” of the Rest

Jeurys Familia (NYM): 3 years, $30 million; 23.1 IP, 6.56 ERA (5.51 FIP)

Joe Kelly (LAD): 3 years, $25 million (with 2022 club option); 18.1 IP, 8.35 ERA (5.49 FIP)

My goodness those are some ugly stat lines. While few Yankee fans would have been calling for the acquisition of Familia or Kelly, these two guys were somehow talked about in the same breath as the other relievers available last offseason. Familia and Kelly received contracts comparable to what Britton and Ottavino will be earning in the next three seasons. And boy have they not lived up to the billing so far this year.

Let’s start with Joe Kelly, infamous for his role in the brawl with Tyler Austin early last season. Teams continue to dream on his admittedly excellent fastball velocity and curveball spin rate, both above the 98th percentile in the league. Last year he was serviceable with a 4.39 ERA and peripherals that, if you squinted hard enough, might make you believe he was due for a big year.

He wasn’t. His abysmal ERA is driven by even worse batted ball numbers, with his 92.3 MPH average exit velocity ranking him in the bottom 1% of all MLB pitchers. Despite his seemingly good stuff he struggles to generate swings and misses, leading to low strikeout rates and lots of walks. Hard contact and baserunners is not a winning formula for pitchers, and Kelly has hardly justified the Dodgers investment thus far.

Familia has not been much better. His control has again abandoned him this year, driving his walk rate to 15.6% and leaving him with a series of messes to clean up. He, like Kelly, is experiencing a down year in terms of strikeouts, hurting his ability to work out of jams and limit damage when he finds himself in a sticky situation.

With Familia, there is a modicum of hope that can be extended to our tortured friends in Queens. His underlying numbers are not terrible, with just an 86.1 MPH exit velocity against and .321 xwOBA. Though neither of these numbers blow you away, they suggest he is maybe a bit unlucky to find himself with one of the worst ERAs in baseball. It hardly lives up to the lofty expectations his contract suggests, but he may be due for a slight correction as we move toward the halfway point in the season.

Truthfully I could have summarized this section in about one sentence. These guys got paid like closers, and instead have been flat out bad so far this year. The distance between the seasons these two guys have put together and the ones Ottavino and Britton are crafting is truly laughable. Though Familia may yet find his form, Kelly is on track to be one of the worst pitchers in all of baseball in 2019. It makes it that little bit sweeter to know that Kelly is an old foe and Familia is stinking it up for our crosstown rivals.

Final Thoughts

There are even more second tier relievers I could have added to this piece. Kelvin Herrera, Joakim Soria, and Cody Allen extend the list of dumpster fire offseason additions that have hurt their teams more than helped through 60 games this year. It was frankly gratifying to revisit the MLBTR Top 50 Free Agents page and see just how right the Yankees front office got things this offseason.

Britton and Ottavino look unstoppable right now, and both of them are sure to play a pivotal role on a team that looks destined for the postseason. Their value will only grow if they can carry their regular season performances into the playoffs, when bullpens are often the team component that decides the outcomes of games at the margin.

I hope you all had as much fun as I did scoffing at the disastrous choices made by other GMs around the league. Once again, in-house magician Brian Cashman pulled all the right strings, and aced free agency with his decisions for the bullpen.

The post Comparing Britton and Ottavino to the 2019 offseason reliever class appeared first on Bronx Pinstripes | BronxPinstripes.com.

One of the biggest factors in the team’s recent success has been their uncanny ability to come through in big moments. On both sides of the ball, clutch hitting and pitching has allowed the team to prevail in tight contests. Even during yesterday’s battle with the Royals, the team scored 6 of their 7 runs in two out situations and reached extras thanks to a Houdini act from Nestor Cortes in the 9th.

Whether you are a fan of the traditional statistics or sabermetrics, the Yankees have been one of the best teams in baseball when it comes to performance in key situations. After a couple years of fans groaning about an inability to hit with men on base, the team has responded by putting up a .278 AVG with RISP. That ranks second among all major league teams after not scratching the top 10 for any of the past three seasons.

But it doesn’t take a nerd to understand that not all at bats are made equal. Coming through with the bases loaded in a game you’re already winning by five runs isn’t nearly as important as getting a hit in the same situation when you’re trailing in the late innings. Thanks to the sabermetrics site Fangraphs, there’s a way to quantify just how important each at bat is during a game. Their “Leverage Index” (also known as LI) tracks how crucial each plate appearance is based on the game situation.

And during high leverage situations when the game is on the line, the Yankees have likewise been among the best in the MLB. The team has collectively slashed .282/.392/.443 in such scenarios with a 119 wRC+ making them the sixth best team when it comes to clutch hitting.

It won’t surprise any fans to know that DJ LeMahieu has been one of the biggest contributors when it comes to clutch hitting. In 17 high leverage plate appearances thus far LeMahieu has been unbelievable, hitting .500 (!!) with a 186 wRC+. Cult hero and breakout star Gio Urshela has been another clutch performer, hitting .389 with a 149 wRC+ in his 20 high leverage plate appearances.

Though I singled out these two fan favorites, the success has been nearly universal among the Yankees current position players. Luke Voit, Gary Sanchez, and Clint Frazier have likewise been transcendent in the most important at bats of the game. No matter who finds themselves up in a key spot, it always feels like they’re going to come through with a big hit to help the team to victory.

Not to be outdone, the team’s pitching staff has also stepped up in a big way when the game is on the line. Batters have managed a pitiful .204/.292/.316 slash line against Yankee pitchers in high leverage situations. To put that in perspective, opposing hitters have essentially turned into Tyler Wade when facing Yankee hurlers in a big spot (sorry Tyler).

In a nod to Boone’s managerial savvy, Adam Ottavino and Aroldis Chapman have been called upon the most in the game’s critical moments. They have by far the highest average LI on the team, meaning their pitches are rarely being wasted outside of innings of the highest significance.

Both have clearly been up to the challenge, holding hitters to a less than .200 AVG in high leverage appearances. Chapman’s numbers in particular stand out, as he has posted a 43.5% strikeout rate and 4.4% walk rate without allowing a single home run in these situations. Despite some shakiness last season, he has more than justified his $17.2 million salary this year with his ability to close the door in tight games and slippery situations.

From top to bottom, this team has found an extra gear when they know that the game is on the line. During the 6-9 start to the season, all nine Yankee losses were decided by three runs or less. Since then, they have won 18 of the 24 close games they’ve played that have been won or lost by a three run margin or slimmer.

When it comes to clutch performances, the nerd in me wants to say that it’s often driven by randomness and we can’t take too much from these numbers. But the much larger part of me that is a lifelong, diehard Yankee fan absolutely loves to see this team continue to find new ways to win. From the journeymen like Urshela to the All-Star closer in Chapman, these guys have fueled this winning streak with key contributions in the biggest moments. Games are won and lost on the margin in these crucial situations, and right now no one in baseball is as clutch as the Yankees.

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But after a successful rehab stint, Hicks will finally be back in pinstripes this week. When he steps onto the field in the upcoming series against the Orioles, it will be his first game action since he signed a stunning 7-year, $70 million extension with the team this offseason.

When the news broke of the deal, I was shocked for two reasons. First, because the Yankees seldom extend players before they reach free agency. But more importantly, because the deal represents remarkable value for a player who it is not hyperbole to call one of the five best CF in the league right now.

Hicks was the third highest ranked CF by fWAR last year, behind only Mike Trout and Lorenzo Cain at 4.9 WAR for the 2018 season. Indeed, he was the sixth highest player by fWAR of all outfielders in the MLB, and that’s with the generous inclusion of JD Martinez as a non-DH. Whether you like the numbers or prefer the eye test, Hicks was one of the best two-way position players in the bigs last year, and his contract looks like it could be a steal for the Yankees in the long run.

But forget the long run, let’s talk about the present. The Yankees are currently 24-16 with their entire starting outfield having played 23 games combined. That’s less than 20% of the total game time we might have expected if the trio had stayed off the dreaded IL to begin this season. With Hicks replacing Mike Tauchman on the roster and allowing Brett Gardner to return to his much preferred post in left, the outfield — and the team — are set to get much, much better. Since it’s been over half a year since we saw him in game action, let’s examine all the ways that Hicks improves this Yankee roster.

The Offense

Let’s start with the obvious one, and something even my non-nerds can appreciate: Hicks is a switch hitter, and a great one at that. After some early career struggles swinging from the left-hand batters box, Hicks has flourished from both sides of the plate the past couple years. His wRC+ hitting both lefty and righty has eclipsed 100 for two consecutive seasons now, making him a comfortably above average hitter against pitchers of all stripes. That is an incredible asset that makes the lineup deeper and grants Boone and the tunnel nerds their much coveted ~flexibility~.

Beyond that basic fact, Hicks has always had a tremendous approach and plate discipline that have only improved with age and experience. Unlike his fellow bashers in the outfield, he walks nearly as much as he strikes out, posting impressive BB/K ratios of 0.76 and 0.81 the last two seasons. That is a coveted asset on any squad, but even more so on one that has long been derided as overly reliant on the long ball.

It is made even more valuable by his uncanny ability to come through in the key situations. Though the inability of this Bombers squad to hit with RISP has been overblown, Hicks has consistently been one of the best performers in those situations thanks in no small part to his approach at the plate. Last year, the team as a whole hit .269/.351/.407 (100 wRC+) with men on base. Hicks, on the other hand, posted a .267/.416/.485 (143 wRC+) helped along by a whopping 21.2% BB% and 13.1% K% in such situations. Similarly, the team was below average hitting in crucial high leverage situations. But Hicks was one of the few clutch performers with a 120 wRC+ in the most important at bats of the game.

Perhaps most surprisingly and importantly of all, Hicks has experienced a massive power surge as he has broken out over the last two years. After below average production early in his career, Hicks has ridden an ISO boost of more than 80 points to reach .219 last year. His SLG and HR numbers rose in kind, reaching .467 and 27 respectively in last year’s campaign.

The best part is that there’s good reason to believe it’s not a fluke. Diving into the Statcast data, he produced career bests across every batted ball metric in 2018. In the largest sample size of his career, he outperformed his previous highs in hard hit rate, exit velocity, barrels, and xwOBA last year.

In tandem with his elite level plate discipline, Hicks has emerged as one of the most complete offensive players in the league right now. This is to say nothing of his ability to run and steal bases, which he does at a similarly exceptional level. Bottom line: Aaron Hicks will step in as an immediate upgrade at the top of the lineup and, health permitting, pick up where he left off as one of the more exciting offensive pieces on an already magnificent offensive squad.

The Defense

As many of you likely know, advanced defensive metrics have a tendency to be finicky and noisy from year to year. Unlike almost every other aspect of the game, I do believe there is still value in the eye test with a player’s defense. My conflicting feelings are encapsulated by a player like Hicks, who had one of the better defensive seasons in recent memory recorded in 2017, but followed it up with slightly below average numbers for last season.

While the numbers may waffle, I have no qualms about saying Hicks is a plus defender. His arm has always been his greatest asset, with some scouts even thinking he may become a pitcher when he was a young prospect. And while his sometimes inefficient routes can hurt him with UZR, he rarely makes mistakes and occasionally makes breathtaking plays with his glove. In his best defensive season, he posted a monumental 13.2 UZR/150 in center and had 12 DRS in just under 450 innings.

But, even if last year’s numbers prove correct and Hicks is truly just an average defender, that still will provide a massive boost relative to the current outfield arrangement. With Gardner’s prime defensive years long behind him, he has posted an abysmal -7.2 UZR/150 and already has -4 DRS in just over 300 innings in CF this year. When he presumably moves back to his more natural and comfortable LF following Hicks return, he will hopefully return to the player who posted a 9.9 UZR/150 and 8 DRS manning the corner in 2018.

Any way you cut it, Hicks is both a good defender in his own right and makes this outfield group stronger as a unit once he’s inserted back into CF. Once again with health as the qualifier, Hicks should provide an immediate upgrade to the defense once he returns to the team.

Final Words

It’s often easy for Hicks to get overlooked when he is flanked by superstars Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. But, by the numbers, Hicks should be considered one of the most valuable players on this roster, if not in the entire MLB. He is criminally underrated, but will have the opportunity provide an extra jolt of adrenaline and shine in this current team. As long as the back issues are truly behind him, Hicks can look to build on his transcendent 2018 and craft another top quality season patrolling centerfield in the Bronx.

The post The incredible value of Aaron Hicks appeared first on Bronx Pinstripes | BronxPinstripes.com.

This raises a question I feel has been little examined in Yankees world…is 13 pitchers and 12 position players really the best construction for the roster?

For several seasons running now, the Yankees have defaulted to using the last roster spot for a pitcher. It was taken as a given this spring when Stephen Tarpley was given a roster spot early, leaving Tyler Wade to miss out to Mike Tauchman. But why was the debate Wade vs. Tauchman when it could have just as easily been Wade vs. Tarpley?

Ostensibly, the Yankees seem to be worried about “running out of pitchers”. In today’s game where starters are only expected to pitch into the 5th or 6th, it is certainly rational to be concerned about the wear and tear on bullpen arms, and the possibility for a bad start leaving the manager in a bind.

And right now, after the latest injury that will see James Paxton moving to the IL for at least a couple weeks, I totally understand the rationale of maintaining eight bullpen arms rather than a fourth bench player. Jonathan Loaisiga, the expected replacement, has been good in the big leagues but has hardly shown a propensity to go deep in games. He has yet to exceed 5.1 IP in a major league start. To protect against fatigue, keeping bullpen arms like Tarpley and Joe Harvey on the roster is a perfectly defensible and rational move.

What happens when the team gets healthier?

But when Paxton returns, and especially once Luis Severino and Dellin Betances (hopefully) come back this season, I believe it is high time for the Yankees to evaluate the marginal benefit of a pitcher holding the last roster spot. Currently, last resort bullpen arms Tarpley, Jake Barrett, and Harvey have accrued just 13.1 IP between them. That’s barely one outing per every three games played.

For the sake of the argument, let’s play out a worst case scenario where the bullpen is forced into significant work on consecutive days and the proverbial last man is out of gas and the bullpen is running on fumes. Barrett, Harvey, Tarpley, and Chance Adams are all on the 40-man roster and have minor league options available. Let’s fire back up the Scranton Shuttle and shift these guys back and forth between AAA and the majors.

The 10-day rule dictating that a player must remain in AAA at least 10 days after being demoted provides a slight hitch. But the probability that all four of these options will be exhausted within a 10 day span is exceedingly low. In that disaster scenario, Domingo Acevedo and Albert Abreu are also on the 40-man roster, and could be used as last resort options.

Depth on the bench

Now we come to the counterfactual, which is the use of a fourth bench player rather than an eighth bullpen arm. Is that fourth player really more valuable than a guy like Tarpley, or Harvey, or Barrett? With a healthy roster, the position player on the bubble is likely Clint Frazier, Gio Urshela, or Wade. I would argue that all three provide significantly more value, even if only used in a part time capacity.

Wade could be employed as a pinch runner and defensive replacement. Ditto for Urshela, who could cover for Andujar late in games or be used to reduce stress on his injured shoulder. And Frazier could be used in rotation with Gardner as well as allowing the big bashers in the outfield to rotate through the DH spot.

No matter how you cut it, I’m frankly disappointed in the Yankees seeming paranoia with the eighth bullpen arm. For a highly analytic organization, this seems like an inefficiency that is not being exploited by their “nerds in the tunnel”. Every team in the AL besides the Houston Astros is currently employing a three man bench. But, on average, the last man in the bullpen has pitched only once in the last week or not at all!

It’s time for the Yankees to break this convention and look to make better use of their final roster spot. If Chad Green can return to form, Dellin Betances gets healthy, and there are absolutely no other injuries in between, then there is a legitimate argument that the last bullpen arm provides more value than the extra bench player.

But until that unlikely day comes, I am a staunch advocate for breaking unspoken AL rules and adding an extra position player to the major league roster. It seems like a no brainer low-risk, high-reward move that could reap dividends over the course of the season.

The post What’s more valuable: An extra bench player or bullpen arm? appeared first on Bronx Pinstripes | BronxPinstripes.com.

But that initial dread has quickly been transformed to excitement as this motley crew has continued to grind out wins and helped propel the team to a 9-1 record in its last 10 games. There was a collective gasp at Oracle Park today when Urshela, anonymous to Yankee fans this time last month, had to leave the game after being hit on the hand by a pitch. With hustle, grit, and an impressive quality of play, these players have done justice to the pinstripes they wear and begun to win over the fanbase with their hard nose play.

As fun as this run has been, many of these fill-ins will soon be forced back into anonymity with the return of the regular squad. If all (hopefully) continues to go according to plan, fans can expect to see Miguel Andujar, Troy Tulowitzki, Aaron Hicks, and Clint Frazier back with the team in coming weeks.

My colleague Tom touched upon the tough decision the front office will have with Urshela once Andujar rejoins the active roster. Today I want to take a more comprehensive look at the current active roster, and determine which players are expendable and which may have staying power with the team even as the starters return to health.

The Band-Aids

There are certain players that make for the most obvious first roster casualties because they are inexperienced at the big league level and have minor league options remaining. Falling into this category are Thairo Estrada and Mike Ford, who have less than 50 career PAs between the two of them and who both have multiple minor league option years remaining.

There are legitimate cases to be made for both of these players staying on the roster. Estrada continues to linger on the Yankees Top 30 prospect list (via MLB Prospect Pipeline) and has always been an intriguing utility alternative to the anti-Tyler Wade crowd. He’s posted respectable offensive numbers throughout his minor league career thanks to a low strikeout rate and a consistently good batting average. Though he leaves something to be desired in terms of pop and patience, his ability to play solid defense at any infield position has allowed the front office to dream on his flexibility (which we know they love).

On almost the polar opposite end of the spectrum is Ford, who has nothing in the way of flexibility or defensive prowess but provides a coveted lefty bat with pop and a solid approach at the plate. While Ford is tethered to first, he posted a career high 15 HR in AAA last year and has produced impressive offensive numbers driven by his power throughout his time in the minors.

But the hard reality of roster construction is that these guys are the easiest to demote when players need to be removed from the roster. Estrada is the inexperienced and less defensively talented version of Wade, and Ford is replaceable as the backup 1B thanks to LeMahieu. We have already seen Estrada ride the Scranton Shuttle a couple times this season, and don’t be surprised if he and Ford are the first two cuts when Andujar and Tulowitzki return.

Tyler Wade

I’ll admit, for a long time I was a Tyler Wade truther. I believed he’d figure out the offensive component and become a quality 2.0 WAR utility man for this Yankees team. But now, three seasons and nearly 200 PAs into his young career, I feel fairly confident that we know who Wade is.

Let me begin by conceding that there is no doubt value in being able to play more than five positions at a serviceable defensive level. While advance metrics don’t love him as much as the scouts do, Wade has been a roughly league average defender across 2B, SS, 3B, LF, and RF in his brief MLB experience. That is nothing to be scoffed at, and certainly makes the case for why Wade is a better roster component than a guy like Mike Ford.

But the offensive performance is just not there for a guy like Wade to justify his spot on the 25 man roster when guys are healthy. He is a career .182/.254/.248 (36 wRC+) hitter and there’s nothing in the underlying data to show that’s a fluke. He sports a 31.9 K%, .067 ISO, and 18.5 Hard%. According to Statcast, his career xwOBA is just .229, a pathetic number directly in line with his true career wOBA which also sits at .229.

With two minor league options remaining, and having already started the year in AAA, Wade has no business being on this Yankees team when guys get healthy. Given that the current roster features only three true outfielders, I expect Wade to be the guy sent down when either Hicks or Frazier return from their IL stints.

Mike Tauchman

The Yankees, and the projections systems, clearly see something in Mike Tauchman that I just don’t see. He won the opening day roster spot over Tyler Wade after an 11th hour trade despite an abysmal showing last year in Colorado. The projections somehow like him for roughly 1.7 WAR per year the next three seasons though he has a -0.7 WAR in his big league career to date.

Whatever the rationale, I hope and believe that Tauchman will be the roster casualty when the second of Hicks and Frazier come back from the IL. Unlike Maybin, Tauchman still has one option year remaining and he has no established track record as a successful big leaguer.

This year, Tauchman has played in 20 games to the tune of a .186/.294/.407 (86 wRC+) line. He has struggled with strikeouts (30.9 K%) and making high quality contact (.278 xwOBA) much like our good friend Tyler Wade. And while his ability to play center is a virtue especially in the absence of Hicks, Maybin also serves that function and has better advanced metrics as well as a longer track record.

While Maybin is hardly an exciting addition to the team, it’s clear to me that he is a better big league option than Tauchman as the Yankees wait on the return of the true stars Stanton and Judge. With Tauchman still relatively young and with an option year remaining, it makes more sense to stash him in AAA and let him earn another shot than lose Maybin for nothing so soon after acquiring him.

Cameron Maybin

This one is cut and dry. Maybin will stick around up to the day that the Yankees have four regular outfielders healthy and ready to play. As soon as that day comes, he is expendable, especially with Tauchman stashed in the minors and Wade another option in case of further injury.

That being said, Maybin might not be a total net zero in his stint as the replacement outfielder with the Bombers. He comes with an ability to play all three outfield positions well, with a combined 8 DRS and 1.6 UZR/150 across left, center, and right the past two seasons.

His base-running has gone from arguably his biggest asset to a roughly average tool, and he posted a respectable 88 wRC+ and .309 xwOBA across the last two years as well. While fans won’t be blown away by anything he does, he’s a solid big leaguer who can do a more than serviceable job filling in.

But when his day comes, the Yankees will have no trouble axing the career journeyman in favor of their in-house options. While he might outlast Estrada, Ford, Wade, and Tauchman on the MLB roster, he certainly won’t outlast their stays in the Yankees organization. Get well soon Giancarlo and Aaron!

Gio Urshela

Last but certainly not least, we come to the curious case of Gio Urshela. Moreso than any other player listed above, Urshela has capitalized on his Yankees opportunity with actual, tangible production on the field that has benefited the team greatly. His 0.6 WAR over 20 games is currently the third highest of any position player on the roster, and exceeds the combined contributions of the other five guys discussed here. Whereas with Wade or Tauchman you have to squint your eyes to see a big league player, there is no ambiguity with Urshela. While unspectacular, he has justified every day he has spent with the active roster.

But with Andujar returning and no minor league options remaining, he also has the most uncertain future. Urshela, historically valued for his solid defense at third base, has hardly any experience at the other infield positions. He has emerged offensively in a surprising and pleasant way this year, currently touting a .351/.415/.509 (148 wRC+) slash line and strong peripherals like a 13.8 K%, 7.7 BB%, and .383 xwOBA. But no matter how well he hits, there is no possibility he will unseat Andujar as the starter as long as they’re both healthy.

So what to do with a solid player that has no short term path to playing time, but is also the best option to replace the starter who may well go down again due to injury? With no minor league options remaining, it is clear to me that Urshela should be kept on the active roster until forced out by a fully healthy roster (a problem I can only pray the Yankees will one day have). With uncertainty swirling around Andujar’s shoulder and the flexibility of the Yankees other infielders, Urshela should be able to find at bats and provide value even when not starting every game at 3B.

While the Yankees could just as easily cut ties with him in favor of a more defensively flexible piece, I hope he’s allowed the opportunity to prove himself as the backup infielder. His offensive approach is unmatched among the other utility options, and his 3B skills should translate naturally to 2B at a bare minimum. Hopefully Cashman and the front office will see this and not make a rash decisions to cut ties with a grinder who has been nothing but excellent in his short time in pinstripes.

Final Thoughts

To conclude, here is my list of expected transactions in order of expected return date of the current injured starter.

1. Troy Tulowitzki <-> Thairo Estrada
2. Miguel Andujar <-> Mike Ford
3. Clint Frazier <-> Tyler Wade
4. Aaron Hicks <-> Mike Tauchman
5. Giancarlo Stanton <-> Cameron Maybin
6. Gio Urshela…?

While of course it will be exciting to get the stars back, I’ll be sad to see some of these guys go. Though at times it’s been ugly, these guys have consistently battled for wins and it’s clear that none of them take their big league chance for granted. As the season progresses, it’s entirely possible that some will emerge as key pieces as we move toward the postseason and the quest for the 28th championship.

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Taking a quick glance at these two pitcher’s stat lines paints a bleak picture. Paxton and Happ have ERAs of 6.00 and 8.76 respectively, with 4.41 and 6.47 FIPs to accompany them. Both have been torched by the long ball with HR/9 rates of 1.80 and 2.92, miles greater than their career averages. But beyond these baseline concerns, their early mishaps have come in very different forms. Let’s take a closer look at each pitcher to break down what is plaguing them in the early going.

James Paxton

For Paxton, the biggest issue so far has been a complete inability to fool hitters. His O-Swing% is currently at an abysmal 25.6%, nearly five full points below his career average. The attendant results have been exactly what you would expect, with a sky high walk rate of 3.60 BB/9 and high pitch counts driving him out of games early. Moreover, hitters are clearly able to lay off his chase pitches and barrel up deliveries in the zone, with a career high 38.1% Hard% and a 91.0 mph average exit velocity.

What does the underlying data say about what might be causing this inability to fool batters? For one thing, Paxton himself — with the assistance of Carlos Beltran — believes he tipped his pitches in his disastrous April 10 start against the Astros.

“They knew what was coming, so they were fouling off some pretty good pitches,” said Paxton. “I think we found something to remedy that so I’m not giving away any pitches, so that’ll help.”

James Paxton said he’s been putting pressure on himself in his new environment. A talk with his sports psychologist has him back on track.

Also, someone pointed out he tipped his curveball grip, runners at 2nd relayed to the hitter in Houston.

Who told him? Carlos Beltran.

— Sweeny Murti (@YankeesWFAN) April 14, 2019

But beyond tipping pitches, Paxton has used his curveball far less so far this year than he traditionally has in the past. So far, just 14.7% of his pitches have been curveballs, his only offspeed offering. Taking it’s place has been a higher usage of the cutter at 19.1%, a career high. His fastball use has also ticked upwards since last year, a surprise given the Yankees much discussed anti-fastball philosophy.

This all points to a needed shift in Paxton’s approach for his next couple outings. His career worst GB% at 35.7% and xwOBA of .329 are further evidence that something needs to actively change for his next start. If I were Larry Rothschild, my suggestion would unsurprisingly be to increase the usage of his high quality curveball. Throughout his career, Paxton has induced swings and misses and kept hitters guessing with his sweeping breaking ball. By using it less, hitters appear to be sitting on his hard stuff and having an easier time taking pitches out of the zone.

There is some evidence that his early struggles have come in part due to bad luck. His current .436 BABIP against is sky high, and suggests some balls simply aren’t bouncing his way through three starts. But there is clearly also an element of his own struggles incorporated into this number, as evidenced by his high Hard% and xwOBA as well as his very low GB%.

Paxton has clearly demonstrated throughout the past couple years that he has ace-like potential. The Yankees need to start seeing that soon, and it starts with mixing up his pitches better and showing better command of the zone to keep hitters off balance and generate more swings and misses.

J.A. Happ

Whoof. Where to begin with Happ, whose first three starts have all come against subpar competition and have all been absolutely terrible? When a player gets off to a start as bad as he has, there are usually clear indicators in the data as to why the pitcher is struggling. Interestingly, in this case, many of the usual places you’d go to give little to no indication of what’s going wrong.

His O-Swing% and Z-Contact% are sitting around his career averages, suggesting he’s doing at least a decent job of keeping hitters off balance at the plate. His Hard% is actually better than his career average thus far, and he’s not giving up significantly more fly balls than he traditionally has in the past. His strikeout and walk rates aren’t spectacular, but they’re also not terrible and not particularly far from past performances.

The only clear outlier in the data is his abysmal 2.92 HR/9 rate, which is more than 1.5 more HR/9 than his career average. Unfortunately, home runs have the potential to sink any starter, and they have very much done so thus far for Happ. Take a look at this “grooved pitch” graph courtesy of Brooks Baseball. For reference, a grooved pitch is defined as a pitch located middle-middle regardless of movement or velocity.

Nearly 10% of all of his fastballs have been grooved thus far this season. Not great! Fastballs middle-middle just don’t play in today’s league, especially when your average velocity is only is only about 91.6 mph. This is borne out in the Statcast data as well, where Happ is found to be surrendering a Barrel% of roughly 9.5%. If one out of every ten hitters is generating literally the best contact you can as an offensive player, you’re probably going to have a bad time regardless of how well you handle those other nine guys.

There is reason to be hopeful with Happ, given that most of his underlying stats are solid and it’s almost exclusively been the long ball destroying otherwise solid work. But the early season results are concerning, especially given his struggles with the long ball after coming over to the Yankees from Toronto last year. With his current stuff, it is clear Happ needs to work closer to the periphery of the zone especially with his fastball to have success this year.

Final Thoughts

Both of these guys are competitors and have proven their ability to be highly successful starters in this league. But while it’s only a small sample size, they clearly have work to do to return to their typical form and give the Yankees the type of production they need in the absence of staff ace Luis Severino.

For Paxton, he needs to become more consistent and confident in his curveball so that his plus fastball can play up as a knockout pitch as it has throughout his career. Without doing so, guys can continue to wait him out, drive up his pitch count, and choose pitches they can drive to reduce his effectiveness.

In Happ’s case, he simply has to do a better job of keeping his fastball down in the zone and limiting damage on home runs. If he continues to be plagued by the long ball, it will be frustrating for the fans and detrimental to the team’s success this year.

Both of these guys have an entire season to correct these issues, and there’s no time like the present. Here’s to hoping that the Yankees analytics team has identified these issues and they both turn in a string of quality starts beginning with their outings against the Red Sox.

The post What’s behind the early season struggles for James Paxton and JA Happ? appeared first on Bronx Pinstripes | BronxPinstripes.com.

In 2017 and 2018, he posted ERAs of 5.47 and 4.54 in the front half of the season. His struggles were characterized by high home run rates (2.03 and 1.94 HR/9) and an inability to fool hitters with his deceptive arsenal. As a measure of the drastic differences between his first and second half stuff, his K-BB% was just around 17.5% both years in the first half, but rocketed up to around 23% in his second half performances.

While it’s hard to pin down exactly what accounts for this strange pattern in Tanaka’s performances, there is no question the Yankees will need him to carry his ace-like potential through the full 162 game season this year. With unquestionable staff ace Luis Severino still in limbo due to a shoulder injury, CC Sabathia guaranteed to spend a couple stints on the shelf, and significant injury concerns swirling around new acquisition James Paxton, Tanaka’s performances will be crucial to the Yankees’ success in 2019.

Thankfully, through his first three starts of the new season, Tanaka looks very much up to the task. With a pitch composition dominated by his splitter and his slider, Tanaka’s success is very much driven by his ability to keep hitters off balance and avoid hard contact. Of course it is too early to draw sweeping conclusions, but Tanaka is thus far putting up numbers in line with his career bests in all the categories you would look to in order to gauge his effectiveness.

Despite an absolute moonshot by Jose Altuve on Monday, Tanaka is currently blowing away his career averages in HR/9 and GB%. There has always been a dissonance between his reputation as a crafty righty and his propensity to give up a high rate of fly balls and home runs. So far in 2019, his HR/9 rate of 0.49 and GB% of 57.4%would both represent career bests. That is more in line with what you want to see from a pitcher who does not live and die by the strikeout.

And there are some indicators in the underlying data that this strong start is no fluke. Last week I told you that O-Swing% and Z-Contact% were great ways to gauge how well a pitcher was managing to fool batters. Well, through his first three starts he has achieved an O-Swing% of 42.3% and a Z-Contact% of 83.1%, both of which would be — you guessed it — career bests.

Finally, if you enjoy the Statcast data, Tanaka has been masterful at keeping hitters from driving the ball, as evidenced by his Barrel% of 6.8%, his average exit velocity of 86.1 mph, and his average launch angle allowed of 6.2 degrees. The best comparisons for that batted ball profile in 2018 would have been Aroldis Chapman, Jacob deGrom, and Justin Verlander. It’s obviously optimistic to expect Tanaka to keep posting numbers of that caliber throughout the entire year, but it’s an indicator of just how hot a start he’s had to this season.

We have seen how good Tanaka can be at his very best. From 2014 to 2016, he posted an ERA of 3.12 and a WAR of 9.8, both in the top 20 among qualified SP over the period. And while slow starts have marred his full season stat lines the past two years, we have continued to see glimpses of the elite pitcher that he can be at his best. A career 1.50 postseason ERA also demonstrates that he can perform on the big stage when he is most needed by the team.

Right now, there is no question the Yankees badly need Masahiro Tanaka to be the most dominant, consistent version of himself. Though admittedly two of his first three starts have come against the lowly Orioles and Tigers, he has not shied away from the challenge and has posted exactly the type of performances you would want to see out of the Japanese righty. If he can continue to fool hitters and avoid the home run ball that his plagued him throughout his career, expect a big year out of Tanaka when the rotation is in dire need of an anchor.

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And while I can’t sit here and claim that I’m not slightly panicked after a series loss to the AAA Orioles to begin the year, I do believe there’s a smarter way to watch early season baseball. Rather than trying to draw sweeping conclusions from each at-bat or game, it’s important to dig into the underlying data and fundamental statistics to get a better picture of a team or player’s early performance.

As much as I’d love Tulo and LeMahieu to maintain an OPS of 1.301 and 1.611 respectively throughout the year, we all know it’s about as likely as Ottavino finishing with a 0.00 ERA or 16.20 K/9 rate. Throughout this first month, don’t be surprised if random fluctuations lead to some spectacular or atrocious stat lines for Yankee players. Rather than focusing on the stats you traditionally track to measure player performance, here’s a process you can use to better evaluate the Bombers early season performance.

All statistics referenced below are available on Fangraphs or BaseballSavant unless otherwise noted. I hope for even those of you who don’t love the new age statistics, this can provide a primer into advanced analytics and player evaluation.

Figure out your expectations

Whenever you’re trying to draw conclusions from inherently noisy and small data sets, it is crucial to first have a baseline in mind. Thankfully with MLB players, we have entire careers of data to draw from to set our expectations for each member of the team to determine if early results are a fluke, or indicative of some change in performance level.

In other words, what you should be looking for in each player varies based on their style and where they are in their career arc. For Brett Gardner, power numbers and exit velocity are probably not the most important statistics since his value is pretty clearly dictated by his ability to get on base and his defense. A big change in his O-Swing% (chase rate) or UZR/150 (ultimate zone rating) would be much more alarming than an expected decline in power.

By contrast, a low xwOBA (expected weighted on-base percentage) or declining Hard% (hard hit rate) would be major red flags for players like Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton who provide their value primarily through their ability to slug the ball. The key insight is that some traditional statistics are not one-size-fits-all, and are especially bad at capturing true performance when they have few data points to work with. Determining your baseline expectations for each player and what constitutes success for them is step one in evaluating early season performance.

Go to the raw data

At its core, the sabermetrics revolution is about trying to find independent data points that are almost entirely in a player’s control. A pitcher’s ERA, the gold standard of traditional pitching stats, is now known to be imperfect because exogenous factors like the quality of the defense or the size of the ballpark are highly determinative. They don’t get to the true talent level or performance of a pitcher. Similarly for hitting, batting average and RBIs are heavily reliant on external factors like luck or the quality of a hitter’s teammates.

And while it’s true that ultimately, at the end of a season, these stats are not meaningless as measures of success, it is especially important to dive deeper into the data when these numbers are highly variable in the early stages of the year. So what are some good places to turn to in lieu of these traditional statistics?

O-Swing% and Z-Contact%: Metrics for how often a player chases a pitch out of the zone, and how often they make contact on swings at pitches in the zone. These are great baseline statistics as a replacement for BB% to measure plate discipline and how well a hitter is seeing the ball.

Hard% and xwOBA: Metrics for the quality of contact a player is making when they do put the ball in play. These are great statistics to substitute for the old “eye test”. If your eyes tell you a player has been tearing the cover off the ball but their OPS is only .600, this data can reassure you that they are indeed hitting the ball well and a positive regression is coming soon. Analogously, if a guy is batting .350 but it doesn’t feel like they’re smacking the ball, this data might convince you that it’s simply BABIP (batting average on balls in play) luck and perhaps a batting title isn’t on the way.

At its core, hitting is all about putting these two things together. If you are disciplined and rarely chase balls out of the zone, and likewise consistently punish the ball when you do in fact swing, chances are you’re a damn good hitter. I can guarantee that looking at these numbers is going to tell you a lot more about how a player is performing early in the season than their RBI total or OPS toward the middle of April.

O-Swing%, Z-Contact%, and Whiff%: These should look familiar this time around. As you can imagine, these same stats are very instructive for a pitcher as well as a hitter. A pitcher inducing a number of chases and who can limit contact on pitches in the zone is likely successfully deceiving hitters and keeping them guessing. The added twist is whiff rate (available through Brooks Baseball) which tracks the number swinging strikes over the total number of swings by a hitter. This is perhaps the single most instructive data point for a pitcher, since fooling hitters into swinging and limiting their contact is, ultimately, the goal of pitching.

Average EV, Hard%, GB%, and FB%: By this point, I hope that you can see where I’m taking this. If so, you’re now a seasoned sabermetrics veteran! Looking at pitcher contact is inherently more of an art than a science. You can be highly successful allowing hard contact if you always keep the ball on the ground. You can be a good fly ball pitcher if batters have very low exit velocities and are making soft contact. Ultimately though, some combination of low exit velocity, low Hard%, and more ground balls than fly balls is a winning formula. Again, cater your reading of the data to your expectations of a given player to try to glean insights into their performance.

Glance at the “catch-all” advanced statistics

For all that I’ve preached about raw data and statistics, the reality is that the joy of baseball comes down to production. But if you’re constantly staring at Judge’s home run total when he comes to the plate, you’ll drive yourself crazy and fail to see the true value he adds with his bat. Here are, in my opinion, the two best statistics to look at if you want to simply measure a player’s production at any given point in the season.

wRC+ : This is the holy grail of offensive statistics. It captures the value of a player on both a weighted and absolute basis, measuring each contribution based on the timing of the hit, the type of hit, and the number of runs created by that at bat. It then adjusts them all based on ballparks and league averages, to create a scale where 100 is league average, 150 and above is excellent, and 75 and below is poor. Again, for early season performance the underlying statistics are more important. Will die on this hill. But if you want a measure of a batter’s performance, this is the metric to use.

FIP- : FIP- is for pitchers what wRC+ is to hitters. This is a catch all statistic that captures a players performance in a more meaningful way than the traditional statistic (ERA), and then adjusts it to capture ballpark effects and league averages. Here, 100 is still league average, but lower is better. Thus 80 and below constitutes high quality performance, and 115 and above indicates bad performance. Don’t drive yourself crazy staring at bloated ERAs like JA Happ’s after today’s brutal start. Start by looking at the types of data listed above, but then come to FIP- to see how a pitcher’s performance stacks up against the league.

Wrap-up

I have plenty of buddies who like to poke fun at my obsession with sabermetrics. And trust me, I know that citing a player’s wOBA sounds bizarre compared to an easy and sexy stat like dingers or RBIs. But the reality is that this is the way that front offices are evaluating players now, and for good reason. The data revolution in baseball has given analysts and casual fans like us equal access to high quality data about every MLB player.

If you want to save yourself a lot of headaches and give yourself a framework for analyzing player performance, the tools above apply throughout the baseball season. It is particularly helpful to use these stats now when the traditional statistics tell us next to nothing. But you can use these same data points in your next Twitter argument over whether Aaron Judge or Mike Trout should be the MVP, or whether Xander Bogaerts is worth that monster extension.

Questions? Email me at [email protected]

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