The Yankees are finally back home after the All-Star break and that long road trip. Tonight they’ll open a nine-game homestand with the first of two against the Reds. Four of those nine games are against the Rays. That’s a pretty darn big series by late-July standards. The Yankees and Rays are neck-and-neck in the standings. Anyway, I have some thoughts, so let’s get to ’em.
1. The trade deadline is six days away now and rotation help is, pretty darn clearly, the top priority for the Yankees. I expect them to bring in a starter. Maybe only a low cost rental, but someone. Beyond a starter, I hope the Yankees also go out and add another bat at first base. Matt Holliday hasn’t hit at all since coming back from his illness, and at his age, there’s always a chance this is the beginning of the end. Another first baseman would also allow the Yankees to scale back on Todd Frazier and Chase Headley as their performance warrants. Headley’s been hitting well of late, but what if he slips into another deep slump? Also, a new first baseman would mean more lineup depth and less reliance on Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez, two kids in their first long 162-game MLB season. Adding another first baseman, particularly a left-handed hitter, makes way too much sense to me. I prefer Yonder Alonso but Lucas Duda would work too. And because basically no other contender needs a first baseman or designated hitter, the Yankees are in position to sit back and let the market come to them before the deadline. They can make an lowball offer, and whoever accepts it first, gets it. The alternative for the A’s and Mets is losing their rental first baseman for nothing as free agent after the season. Neither Alonso nor Duda is a qualifying offer candidate. Not with how slowly the first base market moved last offseason. They’d both jump all over the qualifying offer. That works to the Yankees’ advantage. Adding a first baseman strikes me as one of those things that, if the Yankees don’t get it done before the deadline, we’ll be wishing they did.
2. Speaking of Headley and Frazier, right now I think the Yankees have their defensive assignments backwards. Headley should be at third and Frazier should be at first. Frazier is a better third baseman than Headley, at least statistically, but not by much. Not enough to negate the big defensive downgrade at first. We’ve already seen Headley’s inexperience at first base cost the Yankees a run. Friday night he ranged too far to his right to field a ground ball he should have let the second baseman handle, then missed the bag when he had to rush back. Frazier has much more experience at first base and is less likely to screw something up. Headley’s throwing has been fine for weeks now, and his range is sneaky good at third, particularly to his right. I say go with two players at positions they’re familiar with rather than one guy at a position he’s familiar with and another who is crashing coursing at a new position. Headley’s inexperience at first base has already cost the Yankees one run. They don’t want it to happen again. Let the guy with plenty of first base experience play first base.
3. Is it possible changes to the baseball are to blame for Masahiro Tanaka’s struggles? I don’t necessarily mean the ball being juiced and flying out of the park. Research by Ben Lindbergh and Mitchell Lichtman showed the balls being used this year are not the same as the balls being used in the past based on several criteria. One of them is the height of the seams. The seams are not raised as much. Not to get super nerdy, but the seams are what make a pitch move. There’s a friction between the seams and the air molecules. Change the size and shape of the seams and you’re going to change the way the ball moves. Could the smaller seams explain why so many more of Tanaka’s splitters and sliders have hung up this year? I suppose it’s possible. It seems unlikely though. The difference in the seams isn’t that big. I was just reading something about the balls being juiced the other day and that popped in my head. Tanaka relies on his non-fastballs so much that anything that could change the flight of the ball could have a big impact on his performance.
4. I think my favorite thing about the new-look bullpen — aside from the general awesomeness and added depth — is that it is basically Joe Girardi proof. Girardi assigns his relievers specific innings and rarely deviates from that plan, for better or worse. There have been too many instances over the years in which someone other than the team’s best reliever (i.e. Dellin Betances) was on the mound in a crucial situation because it wasn’t that reliever’s inning. How many seventh inning leads or tie games slipped away earlier this year because it was Tyler Clippard’s inning? Too many. Now, that’s not a problem. Betances, Tommy Kahnle, David Robertson, and Aroldis Chapman are all more than qualified for high-leverage work. As long as it’s late in the game and the score is reasonably close, one of those guys will be on the mound, and that’s great. They’ll still have their assigned innings, whatever they are, and it won’t really matter because they’re all really good. The bullpen is assigned innings proof.
5. There’s been lots of talk these last few weeks about the Yankees’ record in one-run games. They’re 9-19 in one-run games so far this year, the second worst one-run game winning percentage in baseball. Only the rebuilding Phillies have been worse. While one-run losses are pretty damn annoying, one-run games are largely coin flip games that aren’t a particularly good measure of a team’s true talent level. Bill James has written a ton about that over the years. One-run games are often decided by one mistake pitch, or a second baseman making too slow a turn to complete a double play, or an umpire’s tight strike zone. Things like that. The unspoken narrative seems to be that teams that win a lot one-run games have better execution and are tougher. Would it have been better if Clint Frazier hit a two-run double instead of a three-run walk-off homer against the Brewers, giving the Yankees a one-run win? Or how about Chapman not stranding the runner at third Sunday? Let that man score and the team’s record in one-run games improves! No, of course that’s not better. A team’s record in games decided by three or more runs better reflects their talent, and this year the Yankees are 46-22 in games decided by at least three runs. All those 19 one-run losses tell you is that the Yankees have been one swing away in more than 40% of their losses this year. When they win, they tend to win with several runs to spare. And when they lose, it’s often a winnable game that is within reach.
6. It was a really minor trade that most likely won’t amount to much of anything, though I did find it kinda interesting the Yankees targeted a first baseman in the Rob Refsnyder deal. The Yankees got caught with their pants down a bit at first base this year. They’ve got Headley starting there now. A few weeks ago Austin Romine — Austin Romine! — started three straight games at the position. Ji-Man Choi was the starter for a little while. They had to go out and trade for a guy like Garrett Cooper. The Yankees don’t want all this to happen again. Greg Bird and Tyler Austin have had a tough time staying healthy the last few seasons, plus first base is a weak spot throughout the organization, so the Yankees are adding some depth there. Remember, Cooper and Austin could very well lose their 40-man roster spots as part of the roster crunch this winter, which means they could be out of the organization come next Spring Training. That’s not an issue with Ryan McBroom, the guy the Yankees got for Refsnyder. He’s the kinda player you want to already have in your organization so you don’t have to scramble after an injury like the Yankees have so many times this season.
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