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Thoughts on a Rainy Sunday

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(Presswire)

Good Sunday morning, readers. If you’re in the tri-state area, I hope you’re staying dry today and warm tomorrow. Today, I’ll offer a few random thoughts on the Yankees as we sit a little less than a month away from pitchers and catchers reporting.

Clint’s Comeback

This is one of the best Yankee-related tweets of the offseason. I know I’m not alone in this, but I’m incredibly excited for the return of Clint Frazier. He had just about the worst year a player can have last year and seeing him get back into the swing of things is more than enough to bring a smile to my face. Red Thunder The Panther will likely have to start out the year in the minors, but it’s not hard to see him taking over for Brett Gardner as Mike alluded to in the Friday mailbag. While Frazier shouldn’t stand in the way of signing him, one positive thing about the Yankees not signing Bryce Harper is that it keeps Frazier’s future within the organization. I’ve long been a big believer in him and his talent and, if healthy, I think he can establish himself as a big league player this year. Good luck in 2019, Clint. We’re rooting for you.

Playoff Pitching Prowess

Bobby is completely right when he says that the Yankees have one of the best rotations in baseball going into 2019. I’ve harped on this before, but the talent in the Yankee rotation is almost astounding. At peak levels, Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, and James Paxton are aces. J.A. Happ and CC Sabathia as back end starters are great–an experienced, proven lefty and a borderline Hall of Famer? Hard to beat that. Paired with an elite bullpen, the Yankees’ pitching staff could make noise in the playoffs. There’s just one catch: they need to win the division to do that.

The Yankees are a damn good team and will likely win well north of 90 games, but will it be enough? They haven’t won a division title since 2012 and have played in three of the last four wild card games. Despite similar talent in the rotation at times, they’ve been unable to use it properly in a series because of that one game playoff.

If the Yankees manage to beat out Boston for the division title this year, they’ll finally be able to set their rotation the way they want and not have to worry about a gassed bullpen heading into the start of the ALDS. A top three of Severino, Tanaka, and Paxton is more than formidable in any series, especially a short one, and throwing Happ and/or Sabathia as long men out of the bullpen can help, too. Winning the division is much easier said than done, but it’s something the Yankees need to do to fully exploit the pitching talent they have.

(Jim McIsaac/Getty)

The Andujar Endgame 

At this point, it seems clear that the Yankees are hitching their third base wagon to Miguel Andujar. For good reason, they clearly believe in his bat. They also likely think that he can improve on defense or that they can mitigate his poor fielding through substitutions and lineup shuffling. But given how they treated him in the field in the playoffs, how long can we really buy that? Playing a significant amount of time at DH or a new position like first would probably cut down on the value Andujar has as a third baseman, even a bad one. On the other hand, his bad defense does the same thing the more he spends time at third.  And, with that aforementioned treatment in mind, are we sure that Andujar is most valuable to the Yankees as a third baseman or as a potential trade piece?

Obviously, anything can happen at any time and the Yankees could sign Manny Machado and deal Andujar at a moment’s notice, but I’m not holding my breath for that one. Hell, I’m not even waiting for it, and I’m barely bothering to hope for it.

One More Time

Despite what I said in the last bit, there’s still a part of me in disbelief that neither one of Machado or Bryce Harper isn’t a Yankee (or both!). I’ve seen people–mostly writers–make the argument that the Yankees don’t necessarily need either player because of how good they were last year, but that’s a half-truth.

Yes, the Yankees won 100 games, but it still wasn’t enough to win the division and avoid being embarrassed in the playoffs. Yes, they will win lots of games with the roster as currently constructed and could, conceivably, win the World Series with it. No, having the most talent doesn’t guarantee anything. But it helps.

The Yankees were good last year, and at times great. They have a solid young core with some good veterans mixed in. This is exactly the team and exactly the time to push over the edge in a big way. They’ve added to the team with good pieces so far, but adding great ones in Machado and/or Harper would go a long way towards helping win number 28.

It’s undeniable that the team has been improved. But it’s also undeniable that it hasn’t been improved as much as it could’ve been.

The Lineup and LeMahieu

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(Ralph Freso/Getty)

In the middle of the week, the New York Jets hired (apparent castoff) Adam Gase as their newest head coach. The reaction I saw on Twitter and heard on the radio was universally negative. I’ve been mostly unplugged from football this year, but if my brief exposure is any indicator of the truth, this is a terrible hire by the Jets.

As a New York sports fan, I should be used to it, but the totality of the (often) extreme pessimism towards Gase and his hire bordered on shocking. Despite my negative reaction to this negativity, I found myself in a similar place when the Yankees signed DJ LeMahieu on Friday afternoon.

The gut reaction was somewhere between befuddlement and anger as the move most likely ends the Yankees’ pursuit of Manny Machado, a far superior player who would improve the Yankees. In a vacuum, LeMahieu does the same thing; he’s a better option in the infield than Tyler Wade or the recently departed Ronald Torreyes or Hanser Alberto. He just doesn’t improve the Yankees as much as Machado would and it’s frustrating to see the Yankees pass on a player over money when they have so much. Along with that gut reaction, though, there are baseball reasons not to like this signing.

Despite playing the majority of his career for the Rockies–thus having his home games in Coors Field–LeMahieu is a below average offensive player. His career wRC+ is 90 and he has a lowly ISO of just .108. More surprising is the relative lack of production at Coors Field. Aside from the year he won the batting title–2016–he has failed to put up a wRC+ greater than 90 AT HOME. 2016 is also the only year in which his overall offensive production was better than league average. Pardon the snark, but I guess any time you have the chance to sign a guy who can’t be a league average hitter in the league’s best hitting environment, you’ve gotta do it.

To cut myself short and avoid sounding like one of those Jets fans, there are reasons to like the move. Bobby covered some of them yesterday in his post. Regardless of my reactions, though, he’s here and now we’ve got to see how he’ll fit into the lineup.

LeMahieu is a second baseman. He’s played nothing but since he played about 40 or so innings between first base, third base, and shortstop in 2014. And there’s the rub of fitting him into the lineup. With Troy Tulowitzki on board and shortstop while Didi Gregorius is out and Gleyber Torres at second, things become crowded in the Yankee infield rather quickly. A possible solution is one I’ve floated in the event that the Yankees did indeed sign Machado: move Miguel Andujar to first base. If that were the case, the lineup could look like this:

  1. Aaron Hicks CF
  2. Aaron Judge RF
  3. Giancarlo Stanton DH
  4. Gary Sanchez C
  5. Miguel Andujar 1B
  6. Gleyber Torres 3B
  7. Brett Gardner LF
  8. Troy Tulowitzki SS
  9. DJ LeMahieu 2B

This is definitely a workable lineup, but it does move two players out of position in Andujar and LeMahieu. It also cuts down the fact that LeMahieu is, by all accounts, a great defender at second. But is it a likely scenario? For it to be, we’ve got to believe that Tulo will be healthy and I’m not taking that bet; are you? Should he continue to be injured–or be ineffective and get cut in Spring Training–the lineup looks a little more “conventional”:

  1. Aaron Hicks CF
  2. Aaron Judge RF
  3. Giancarlo Stanton DH
  4. Gary Sanchez C
  5. Luke Voit 1B
  6. Miguel Andujar 3B
  7. Gleyber Torres SS
  8. Brett Gardner LF
  9. DJ LeMahieu 2B

Signing LeMahieu probably signals that the Yankees aren’t terribly confident in Tulo staying healthy or being good and we’ll cross the Didi bridge when we get there. There are pluses to signing him, but his being successful requires the Yankees to–like they were with Luke Voit–be successful in judging that a player’s batted ball profile will adjust him well to Yankee Stadium. It helps that this player is a great defender at an up-the-middle position, but that position is already taken and, as previously mentioned, he hasn’t played another one in a while. Might it have made more sense to give this deal to Jed Lowrie, especially when he got a less expensive one from the Mets? Probably. But that’s not how it worked out and we (I) have got to live with it.

Keeping the Bronx Sonny

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(Elsa/Getty)

In the course of our lives, there are many pills we’ll need to swallow. Some are easy, some are hard, and some have to do with baseball. It might be time for the Yankees to swallow a pill I (mildly, tepidly) prescribed last month: the Yankees should keep Sonny Gray.

Given what GM Brian Cashman said about Gray after the end of the season, there will certainly need to be some fence-mending between the two. But if all that really matters is baseball and winning baseball games, it likely best serves the Bombers to keep the embattled righty. In fact, it’s easy to argue that Cashman’s comments have affected the market for Gray.

There have been fairly steady reports of interest in Gray for a while, but there doesn’t seem to be any fire paired with this apparent smoke. Maybe teams are still waiting for the big dominoes to fall, but the teams connected to Gray are not likely in on the Manny Machado and/or Bryce Harper sweepstakes. Additionally, if the Yankees wanted so badly to move on from Gray, it’s doubtful that their pursuit of Machado would delay jettisoning Gray (unless their plan is to trade Miguel Andujar for a starter after signing Machado, which doesn’t seem likely right now).

Cashman, though, like all GMs, isn’t going to take a trade at a price he doesn’t want, so we could say he’s just being patient and waiting until he gets the package he thinks he deserves for Gray. But in retrospect, maybe trashing Gray publicly at season’s end was a bad idea for building his trade value. That might make it easier to get lowballed. After all, if Cashman values him so lowly, why should teams pretend to do the opposite and, thus, offer a stronger package to the Yankees? Given this odd market for Gray, he may be worth more to the Yankees on their roster than he would as a trade chip.

While the Yankee starters are certainly talented, each one comes with a degree of a question mark. CC Sabathia just had heart surgery, has a bad knee, and is old. James Paxton has been oft-injured. Masahiro Tanaka has missed his fair share of time while in the Majors. Luis Severino may have suffered from fatigue last year, which could be a precursor to injury (I’m not really worried about Severino). J.A. Happ is plain old.

Without Gray, the depth behind those five consists of Domingo German, Luis Cessa, Jonathan Loaisiga, Chance Adams, Mike King (not on the 40 man), Domingo Acevedo, Albert Abreu, and a rehabbing Jordan Montgomery. While there’s plenty of upside in there, I still trust Gray more than I do these pitchers, even Montgomery, especially for a prolonged stretch.

This isn’t where we expected to be with Gray back in October, but here we are. Despite all the bumps and bruises and perhaps because of the accidental suppression of his trade value, it is best for the Yankees to keep, rather than trade, Sonny Gray.  

Wrestling with Rotation Ideas

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(Getty)

Every year I’ve written about the Yankees–since August of 2008–I’ve written that they could use an improvement to the starting rotation. This, being a truism, is applicable to all teams, but it seems to perpetually apply to the Yankees. Over the years, they’ve done a great job of amassing great lineups and lockdown bullpens, but truly elite starting has generally eluded them.

In terms of true talent, the Yankees do have a more-than-formidable top three in Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, and James Paxton. Additionally, there are worse fourth and fifth starters in baseball than veteran J.A. Happ and borderline-Hall of Famer CC Sabathia. Despite that solid base of talent, there are still question marks with each one. Severino and Tanaka have bouts with inconsistency. Paxton and ‘good health’ don’t often go together in a sentence. Happ and Sabathia are, well, old.

Given the other truism about there never being too much pitching, should the Yankees consider aiming for a six man rotation? Maybe.

The internal options the Yankees have for the sixth starting spot–mainly Sonny Gray and Luis Cessa–are inadequate. Despite the fact that I’m higher on Gray than most, it’s hard to imagine him being a part of the 2019 team. As for Cessa, I just don’t see it happening for him as a starter. Nothing he’s done in his cups of coffee have shown he’s worth some sort of guarantee. There’s no point in having a sixth starter if he’s not any good, right?

However, if the Yankees do manage to swing a trade for an elite starter, then the Yankees should roll with six men. Adding one of, say, Corey Kluber or Noah Syndergaard (however unlikely) would make it worth it for the team to add an extra starter to their plans. They could also rejigger their rotation as needed, keeping the best pitchers on track regularly, while allowing others to get extra rest or play around with matchups.

Even if the Yankees stick with a five man rotation, they can start the year off by manipulating the rotation to give themselves a favorable matchup and give their best pitcher–Severino–an extra start in the month.

If they stay 1-5 in the order listed above, Severino will get six starts in March/April, pitching against Baltimore, Detroit, Houston, Boston, Kansas City, and San Francisco. There are some benefits here. Severino gets some extra rest at times and is still able to line up with Houston and Boston, two teams whom the Yankees’ll be racing with all year. And given that some of Severino’s struggles last year may have been due to fatigue, those days of extra rest may help.

On the other side of things, the Yankees can keep their ace on his regular rest and pitch him after four days, regardless of who’s lined up to pitch. This would give him seven starts total in the month, swapping out Houston for the White Sox and adding a start against Anaheim late in the month.

So what’s more valuable? An extra start in general or a start against a tough team and potential Wild Card opponent? I think the gut reaction is to say he should start against Houston. They’re obviously a hard team to beat and you could use all the firepower possible. But on the other hand, it’s more likely you’re going to beat the White Sox and Angels, especially with Severino pitching. Thinking about the probabilities, I think you take the two starts over the one.

The game against Houston is in Houston, which means it’s already tougher to win, before considering the quality of the opponent. The game against the White Sox is in New York, which is a big advantage for the Yankees, especially considering the quality of the opponent. The game against the Angels is in Anaheim, which increases the difficulty, but it’s not nearly as difficult as beating the Astros in Houston. Take the almost guaranteed win against Chicago and gamble against Anaheim; that seems more likely to lead to two wins instead of one.

Whether the Yankees add another starter or not, there will be plenty of questions about their rotation at the start of and throughout 2019. It’s what held them back in 2018 and they’ll need it to improve–whether by performance or addition–to make 2019 as successful as 2017 and 2018.

Reaping and Sowing

by

(Presswire)

With little sizzle to the Yankees’ stove since the James Paxton trade, I find myself thinking more about the Yankee organization more than the Yankee roster lately. Over the last few weeks of the offseason, I’ve expressed frustration at the Yankees for not going out and spending to bring in Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. I’m not alone in that feeling and from their point of view, neither are the Yankees.

Once again, free agent spending is down league-wide and we’ve heard of only two other teams–the White Sox and Phillies–as being in on Machado. Considering his talent and his age, that’s patently absurd. He would help literally every team and literally every team could afford him; they just choose not to. But as I reflect on baseball’s current situation, I can’t help but feel a twinge of responsibility.

I don’t bear any real responsibility for what’s going on; my ego may be big, but I’m not delusional. What I mean is that the analytical way I’ve come to think about the game–as many of you have–is now the norm across baseball. With so many front offices thinking and operating in the same general way, of course the hot stove is going to be slower, especially since that thinking is driven by the pursuit of efficiency.

This new way of thinking, however old it may be now, won out over the actual old ways of thinking (or co-opted those ways), which is essentially what “we” wanted. Years later, we’re reaping what we sowed and its led to this cold hot stove season. At its core, this way of thinking is about finding value and exploiting it using whatever resources you have. And that’s why it’s so frustrating that the Yankees seem to be hoarding their myriad resources.

The way George Steinbrenner wanted to run things–throwing money at whomever and whatever player came by–was not always a good thing. When Hal Steinbrenner took over, after Brian Cashman had already straightened things out on the baseball operations side of things, I thought we were going to get the best of both worlds: an analytical juggernaut, armed with the best quality data and the money to back it up. That’s what we were set up for with Plan 189 or 197 or whatever it was that led to punting 2013-2014 and selling off pieces in 2016 (which was totally the right move at the time).

Regardless of how frustrating it may have seen at times, the plan more or less worked out and the Yankees have the flexibility to spend right now and have two generational talents on the market in Machado and Harper. They have the room to fit them on the roster. They have a team with a wide-open window that will never be more wide open than it is now. And that’s what makes their apparent reluctance to engage with these high-end players so maddening. It’s right there for them, but they’re not taking the prize. No player–or two players–can guarantee a championship, but they can sure go a long way towards helping. The Yankees have sowed some opportune seeds; it’s time to reap them before it’s too late. Otherwise, it’ll appear that the Yankees are just going to reap what analytics have sowed: a concern with efficiency and cost control placed before a concern with winning.

Holding out Hope for Harper

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Come on Yankees please. (Dilip Vishwanat/Getty)

If any of my students are reading this, please stop, lest you think your current or former English teacher is a hypocrite, as I’m about to make a claim with very little–possibly no–evidence to support it. Based on his public statements and actions, Brian Cashman intends to sign Bryce Harper to the New York Yankees.

Going by Cashman’s public statements, this doesn’t make any sense. Last week at the Winter Meetings, Cashman essentially declared the Yankees out on Harper, ostensibly thanks to their very full outfield. With spots taken up by Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Giancarlo Stanton, Brett Gardner, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Clint Frazier, there’s just not room for another outfielder, even one as talented as Harper. That sentiment is true if we take Cash’s words at face value, but digging a bit deeper–not even that deep, really–might reveal this as posturing.

The Yankees and Cashman gain nothing by openly stating their desire to sign Harper. And while I question how effective negotiating through the media is in today’s age of baseball with almost every front office thinking and acting the same way, it’s not something many GMs or heads of baseball ops are going to do. Beyond that, does anyone really believe that the Yankees are going to let three of those six players stand in the way of Bryce Harper?

Gardner is a veteran leader and a ‘legacy’ player, who’s been a Yankee for life, but his days of starting probably should be numbered. On most contending teams, he’d be a backup. He and Harper are polar opposites at this point, with Gardner on the downside of his career and Harper just entering his age-based prime. Clint Frazier, despite his still massive upside and how much I want him to succeed with the Yankees, is coming off career-altering injuries and, as a relatively unproven player, should not stand in the way of one of the game’s best. As for Jacoby Ellsbury, well…he shouldn’t be a stumbling block for any player. The only question there is when, not if, the Yankees will develop the stomach to just eat his cost to get him off the team.

With regards to actions, it’s the one Cashman hasn’t taken that hints hopefully towards Harper. In the last few weeks, there has been a lot of smoke around the Yankees and trade talks for pitchers. They’ve been liked to a pair of Cleveland starters–Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer–as well as crosstown ‘rival,’ Noah Syndergaard. Presumably, third baseman Miguel Andujar would have been the centerpiece of any Yankee trade to bring high-quality pitching to the Bronx. As I write this, Andujar is still on the Yankees and none of those pitchers–or Manny Machado for that matter–are. With the caveat that anything can happen at any time, it seems the Yankees are committed to Andujar and are passing on Machado, even if Cashman’s language hasn’t been as strong in severing that connection as it has been regarding Harper.

The Yankees are, arguably, more in need of a starting outfielder like Harper than they are a starting infielder like Machado. Ideally, the Yankees would go–and should go!–for both players and let the rest sort itself out, but I’ve more or less written that idea off. Given Cashman’s words and actions, it’s still possible the Yankees will end up with Bryce Harper. He is a difference maker in every sense of the word and pairing him with the right handed power of Judge and Stanton as well as the on-base ability of Hicks would make the Yankee lineup virtually unstoppable, able to outslug their (actually pretty good) rotation’s potential woes. If the Yankees aren’t going to use their best trade piece to upgrade pitching and replace him with Machado, the most logical thing to do is sign Harper.

Staying Sonny in the Bronx: A Case for Keeping Sonny Gray

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(USA Today)

In a season four episode of “Mad Men,” the principal characters’ firm is about to go under thanks to the exit of a big account. When confronted with this, they have to put up a personal stake as collateral for the bank. Upon telling this to his wife, Pete (played by Vincent Kartheiser) gets the following response from his wife, Trudy (played by Alison Brie), “You bet big and lose, you don’t double down.” It’s likely sound advice, but, just for today, I’m proposing the Yankees go against it and making a case for keeping Sonny Gray around.

The Yankees bet (fairly) big to bring Gray to the Bronx at the trade deadline in 2017, trading away prospects Dustin Fowler, Jorge Mateo, and James Kaprielian to the A’s. Gray was good down the stretch in 2017, but was an absolute disaster in 2018. He was such a disaster that Brian Cashman has publicly stated the team’s desire to trade him and done so rather bluntly. The only thing offsetting just how bad 2018 was for Gray is the fact that the players for whom he was acquired didn’t fare too well either. Fowler was inconsistent with the As; Mateo is floundering in the minors; and Kaprielian hasn’t pitched in two years.

For full disclosure’s sake, I’m not totally into the idea I’m pitching here (pardon the pun). But with the Yankees missing out on Patrick Corbin and Nathan Eovaldi (on whom I wasn’t too high anyway) and me not being enamored with the other options, I’m just spitballing here. Cost-wise, keeping Gray is a fine move. He’s cheap as a third year arbitration guy, his $9.1M projected salary lower than the price of a free agent’s AAV. And since he’s already on the team, he obviously doesn’t cost any prospects like a trade would. Given how (annoyingly) cost-conscious the Yankees have been lately, this might appeal to them. There’s also room for improvement on Gray’s part.

In his career, Gray has been good more often than he’s been bad. And last year, he was way more bad than he had been before, enough that it might be fluky and there’s some rebound potential. His BABIP in 2018 was .326, the highest he’s ever given up and 42 points higher than his career norm. His home run numbers were also off from his career trends, but that’s likely a product of being in Yankee Stadium full time instead of the Coliseum in Oakland.

On a pitch-by-pitch basis, his slider in 2018 was not the pitch it’s been for his career, generating fewer ground balls than normal. This gets fleshed out in his pitch values as well, with even the pitches that were positive for him this year being worse than normal per 100 pitches.

On more of a surface level, Gray’s ERA was 4.90 (113 ERA-…ERA+ but in reverse), but his FIP–4.17–was better than average (94 FIP-). Granted, his DRA at Baseball Prospectus was a 5.00, signalling he may have been closer to the 4.90 than the 4.17.

Again, I’ll admit to all of this being mostly a stretch. It’s likely best for the Yankees and Gray if they’re parted by a trade. But part of me thinks there’s no way Gray could be as bad as he was in 2018 again. Part of me thinks that his true talent level is too good and, paired with the talents of Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, and James Paxton, that could make one hell of a rotation, especially with CC Sabathia anchoring the back. The likelihood of that, though, is near infinitesimal.