Matt Imbrogno, Author at River Avenue Blues

Evaluating Happ and Hamels

June 24, 2018 by Matt Imbrogno Leave a Comment

It’s a Cole world out there. (Bob Levey/Getty)

For most of last week, I was in a room at a high school in Queens Village–shouts to the Hillside Avenue Wendy’s–scoring ELA Regents exams. At first, it’s a nice change of pace from the day-to-day grind that is the end of the school year. It’s fun to read other students’ writings and get a glimpse into how their teachers approach the very same things that I do day in and day out. But, of course, by the second or third day, your eyes are crossed and every word looks exactly the same and the rubric is laughing at you with the subtle distinctions between scores. So you’d think the last thing I’d want to look at is another rubric. Well, you’d be wrong, because as we inch closer to the trade deadline, it’s time to evaluate some pitching targets.

The two the Yankees have been linked to most frequently–though that talk hasn’t been as fervent lately–have been JA Happ of the Blue Jays and Cole Hamels of the Rangers (hey, two former Phillies). Yes, they’ve been linked to Jacob deGrom as well, but that’s a pipe dream. I have more of a chance of successfully teaching pre-calc than the Yankees and Mets have of doing that trade. Let’s stick to more realistic options.

While the Yankees’ starting pitching has been good of late, it wouldn’t hurt to acquire one more starter for the second half and the playoffs when they get here. On a surface level, they fit well. Both are lefties, which the Yankees always love, and both aren’t aces. That last point may be counter-intuitive, but the Yankees don’t necessarily need that right now and that cost would be rather high. As a quick reminder of my very rudimentary trade rubric, see below and an explanation thereof here.

Category/Score	3	2	1
Cost $	Low $	Medium $	High $
Cost player	Low player	Medium player	High player
Control	3+ years beyond 2018	1-2 years beyond 2018	Impending free agent
Performance	High performance consistently AND recently	Some inconsistencies, may be a rebound/regression candidate	Consistently poor performance

In terms of money cost, both are relatively low. Haap would cost just under $4.5M for the rest of the year and Hamels, if acquired at the deadline, would fall somewhere around $10-11M, depending on the date. The Yankees, per our most recent calculations, have about $13M left to play with before hitting the luxury tax threshold. Acquiring either one of these guys would leave them with room to get someone else–a reliever?–if necessary.

Given that both are impending free agents–though Hamels has a club option and a buy out–they would score a 1 on the control part of the rubric, but there’s a caveat here. That’s fine for the Yankees this year. They’re not necessarily looking for a long-term piece this deadline season, but rather just one more piece to get them over the top. And both money cost and control combine nicely to help the Yankees out in player cost.

Since they can absorb the money and don’t have to worry about a long term commitment, the Yankees can insist on a lower player cost. Mike outlined the potential cost for Happ here and it seems pretty reasonable. Additionally, as Mike noted, the Yankees have the prospects to win a bidding war. The cost for Hamels is less clear, of course, but it’s doubtful that his cost would be much higher. Either way, the Yankees could acquire one of these pitchers without having to give up Clint Frazier or Justus Sheffield. Improve the team and keep two of the best prospects? Yes, please.

Both players have been solid performers, too. Happ has learned how to be a strikeout pitcher and has had four straight years of an ERA- no higher than 94. Likewise, Hamels–who has added a new pitch–has had no higher than a 92 ERA- in the last few years. Cole is experiencing a bit of a HR spike this year (HR/FB% of around 20%!), but that’s anomalous and should come down, even in Yankee Stadium.

Which one should the Yankees choose? My heart–which has loved Cole Hamels since his debut in 2006 (good god, I’m old)–wants Hamels. My head says that Happ is probably the better choice, since he doesn’t have the option/buyout looming. I’ll be typical, though, and say either one would be fine.

Changing the Game

June 18, 2018 by Matt Imbrogno Leave a Comment

Before we begin, I–and presumably everyone else here–would like to wish a belated Happy Father’s Day to all the dads, step-dads, half-dads, foster-dads, adoptive dads, and any and all people, regardless of gender, who play the role of ‘dad’ for the kids around them and in their lives. If your father or father-figure is no longer with us, you’re in our thoughts, too.

In a season 3 episode of “Mad Men,” lead character Don Draper is attempting to land an account for his ad agency, the Madison Square Garden account, after his juniors had muddled a prior meeting. The men who own the account are worried over public backlash stemming from their eventual destruction of old Penn Station to make way for MSG. To them, Don asserts the idea that change is neither good nor bad; it simply is. Generally, I agree. Change just happens, almost all the time. That in and of itself is just how things go; the consequences of change, though, can be labeled, broadly speaking, as good or bad.

This week, as there seem to be often lately, there were multiple conversations in multiple places and platforms centered around ways baseball could, would, or should change; I’ve written about this before, both in this space and on Twitter, so allow me, if you will, to repeat myself.

I don’t purport to say that baseball is perfect or shouldn’t change in anyway. Rather, I just think there are certain ways it should change that don’t necessarily conform to the ideas put forth in recent conversations.

To start, MLB should, in general, not make changes that directly affect on field play and strategy, with exceptions made for player, personnel, and fan safety. Eliminating the shift and dictating reliever/pitcher usage and changes are ideas that are beyond a bridge too far. When those strategies work or don’t work, it’s up to teams and organizations at large to change their tactics. If you’re getting your shifts beaten or your pitchers aren’t working right, that’s on you, your analytics department, your scouting department, and your players; MLB shouldn’t have to bail you out. Basically, there shouldn’t be changes to the game, but changes to the Game.

What should be done? A few things. Universalize the DH; yes, this sort of goes against my last paragraph, but I’m okay with it. Pitchers can’t hit. They don’t hit. There’s no reason for them to still hit in 2018 after a century of people noting how bad pitchers are at hitting. Everyone will get over it when they realize how much more fun it is to watch a pitcher face nine real hitters rather than eight and an automatic out. As an aside, I find it amusing that many of the Old School People who like pitchers hitting often have a problem with the high strikeout rate in baseball. You know what might help decrease that? Hmm…

Second, and I know this will never happen, I want some radical realignment. Short of expansion, the leagues should be unbalanced to eliminate interleague play every day. Move the Astros back to the NL or the Brewers back to the AL. Additionally, eliminate divisions and balance the schedule, and have the top four of each league make the playoffs. Do we really need to see the same teams play each other 19 times a year? It gets old. Knowing this won’t happen, I’d like to see a tweak to the wildcard game/round. As Mike has noted before, this should be a modified best two-out-of-three situation. If the home team wins game one, the series is over. If the away team wins, they have to do it twice.

On other levels that don’t affect the field of play, baseball needs to do a few things. The surest way to get people to like your sport is to get them playing it. We’ve heard over and over how participation is dropping in youth baseball, especially in urban communities and communities of color. To the fullest extent possible, then, MLB needs to subsidize youth baseball in America. At the higher levels, this is not a cheap sport, especially with travel and showcases and the like. As much as it can, which I’d imagine is a lot more than they’d admit, MLB needs to foot the bill for kids playing baseball.

The next two go hand in hand. MLB needs to celebrate the game. This goes for the league itself and the sport at large, media, players, etc. What I mean by that is that Baseball spends so much time self-reflecting that it turns toxic. I’ve said it before about the sport: self-reflection is good, but too much is detrimental. That’s doubly true when so much of it is focused on what is ‘wrong’ with the game, even if those things aren’t inherently wrong. This starts by getting the stars of the game out there. Reader Anthony notes that MLB is wasting an opportunity by not aggressively “marketing an all-time great crop of young players” as much as possible. Luckily, I’ve seen Aaron Judge in Pepsi and Adidas ads during the World Cup, so hopefully that continues. Reader Nick has a similar take:

As a professional educator over the past 11 years, baseball’s problems remind me (alarmingly so) of the a parent or guardian that wants to find a scapegoat for his/her child’s reprehensible behavior. Here, the parent/guardian (MLB) thinks that everyone else is to blame for its own negligence. The league has a problem with youth involvement and interest because it’s done nothing to address the behavior. Shaving 10-15 minutes off a game is like throwing a kid in detention; an administrator may feel like he/she has done something to address the behavior when really the root cause remains. MLB needs a fully overhauled marketing campaign that aggressively targets and engages youth. Slight rule adjustments and game modernizations would nicely complement the strategy, but short of getting kids interested in baseball, this is just window dressing.

Aside from the exposure of stars, baseball needs to embrace what it is, whatever that happens to be at the moment. Right now, that’s power: power hitting and power pitching. Guys are hitting the ball harder than ever and farther than ever. Guys are throwing harder than ever. These are good things! Don’t bemoan them! There will be a day when the game is a slap-and-speed game again, and that’s fine. When that happens, baseball should celebrate that, too. Constantly saying there’s something wrong with the way the game is being played is a surefire way to turn potential fans off, especially when that dominates the national conversation.

A Tale of Three Garys

June 10, 2018 by Matt Imbrogno Leave a Comment

It was the worst of times, it was the best of times, then it was the worst of times again.

From the beginning of the season through April 10, the first game of the series against the Red Sox, Gary Sanchez “hit” .056/.081/.167/.248. Aren’t early season, small sample numbers hilarious? Regardless, it was odd to see such a good hitter struggle so much. He soon recovered, though, and went on a long tear from April 11-May 21, hitting .278/.382/.652 in 32 games. Since then–not including Saturday night’s win against the Mets, he’s reverted to his early season “form” by putting up a line of .087/.208/.109/.316. At least he’s walking a lot? I touched on Sanchez’s season last week, but it bears another look, given that he still seems to be failing to gain traction at the plate. So, let’s break it down by the aforementioned segmentations, with the help of Brooks Baseball.

The first thing that stood out to me was Sanchez’s performance on fastballs. During the opening stretch , he pounded fastballs into the ground at a 2:1 rate and didn’t hit any home runs when he did manage to turn number one into a fly ball or line drive. In fact, none of the fastballs he put into play resulted in a line drive during that segment. Recently, Gary hasn’t hit as many grounders on fastballs, but his problem now seems to be popping them up. 30% of his fastballs in play have resulted in a pop up and, like that early stretch to start the season, he hasn’t hit any homers on that pitch. During the hot streak in the middle, Sanchez was turning fastballs into home runs at a wild pace of 26.32% of fly balls and line drives; one out of every four in play turned into a homer. To begin the year, Sanchez was topping fastballs; now, he’s getting too far under them. In his middle stretch, he found some sort of Goldilocks zone and they were just right for him.

Then there are the secondary pitches, the primary breaking balls: curves and sliders. All season, Sanchez has swung through them, tallying relatively high whiff/swing percentages on the pitches, even during his hot stretch. To a certain extent, that’s to be expected; those pitches are designed to be swing-and-miss pitches and Sanchez swings hard, so he’s got some swing-and-miss in his game to begin with. The difference is that during the middle stretch, he was hitting the ball hard when he did make contact with those pitches. He had line drives on 22.73% of the sliders he put into play along with an 11.1% HR/FB+LD rate on the pitch; on curves, he racked up a 16.7% HR/FB+LD rate. In both the early part of the season and now, he hasn’t racked up any home runs on sliders and curves.

Whether it’s inconsistent performance on certain pitch types or strange batted ball results like we discussed last week, something is up with Gary Sanchez and he just can’t find a groove to stay in. Some joke that the Yankees don’t play 162 games, but rather 162 seasons. So far, Gary Sanchez has played three separate seasons; hopefully, the middle one makes a comeback and stays through the fall.

Sanchez’s Strange Season

June 3, 2018 by Matt Imbrogno Leave a Comment

For some reason, there exists a level of polarization among Yankee fans when it comes to Gary Sanchez. Despite all the objective evidence showing that Sanchez is a good catcher, many just see his issues with blocking balls, can’t see past that, and want him permanently moved from behind the plate. That conversation existed last year, but it seems to happen more often now, especially since Sanchez hasn’t quite recovered from his awful start at the plate.

Despite that, there are some positive signs in Gary’s game at the plate. For example, he’s got a .342 wOBA and a 115 wRC+, both solid overall and great for a catcher. His walk rate has jumped up from 7.6% to 12.6% this year. But Sanchez has been absolutely slaughtered on balls in play with a .212 (!) BABIP. Considering how generally hard he hits the ball, that’s a shockingly low number. That number alone suggests he should be doing better. Let’s take a deeper look and what’s been happening to hold him down, referring mainly to his Statcast data.

Referring first to my own eye test, it certainly seems that Sanchez has had more than his share of infield fly balls this year. Generally, the Statcast data confirms this, noting a rise in pop-up percentage from 9.6 to 13.6. Additionally, FanGraphs shows a jump in IFFB% from 10.8 to 21.7. Damn. Not surprisingly, Statcast tracks Sanchez as having gotten under the ball nearly 27% of the time this year, a jump from last year when he did so under 22% of the time. So is he hitting the ball softer in general? Not necessarily. His average exit velocity sits at 90.6, down just 0.2 from last year’s mark of 90.8. Perhaps, then, the problem is with ‘directionality,’ so to speak.

While it’s a plus that Sanchez’s groundball rate has dropped, the aforementioned increase in pop ups has also resulted in a lack of line drives, down from 24.5% last year to 18.4% this year. There’s been no change in his pull percentage this year, but Gary is hitting fewer balls up the middle and more to the opposite field. In general, those aren’t necessarily bad things, but when a hitter as good as Sanchez is this far into the season without really breaking out yet, we’ll look for any explanation possible.

Gary should be getting better results based on his skill and talent. But, there does seem to be something in the way and I’d guess the main culprit is the infield pop ups. Those almost never lead to good things–unless you’re Alex Rodriguez and Luis Castillo is playing second–and seem to be sapping Sanchez of some perceived productivity. Indeed, Statcast’s xwOBA tells us Sanchez “should” have a wOBA of .381, but we should take that with a big ol’ grain of salt.

The Yankees have a primary catcher with an above league average wRC+ who hits for power–his ISO has actually increased from last year–but is simultaneously underachieving a bit. And, despite that underachievement, the Yankees are one of the best hitting teams in baseball. When Sanchez turns things around at the plate, the offense will be even scarier.

Living in the Past: Gleyber Torres and Baseball at Large

May 27, 2018 by Matt Imbrogno Leave a Comment

It’s impossible to know when or how the Gleyber Torres era will end, but it certainly has started with a bang. Torres has already hit nine home runs and the Yankees have been on a tear since they promoted the 21 year old middle infielder. For all its typical uncertainty, the future looks as bright as could be for Torres and that’s what the focus should be on. Instead, some are looking backwards for what Torres could be…or what they want him to be.

The headline of a New York Post article–by Kevin Kernan–declared “The Yankees have found the real Derek Jeter heir.” I think the breeze from my elongated sigh is still flapping the curtains in my living room as I write and you read this. This is exactly the kind of thing that media should not be saying about a player, no matter how talented or productive he is.

Derek Jeter had one of the most successful careers of recent memory. Personally, he was a Hall of Fame player; collectively, he won five championships. Either one of those things would be hard to beat before considering how generally beloved he was by the city and fans of New York. Hoisting that comparison to a guy whose first month in the Majors isn’t yet over is beyond unfair.

Torres and Jeter share two things, generally: a middle infield position and a matching throw/bat side. That’s all there needs to be. In style of play, in mannerisms, in dealings with the public and the media, Gleyber Torres does not need to be Derek Jeter. He needs to be Gleyber Torres.

This trend goes back decades with the Yankees. Bobby Murcer was supposed to be the next Mickey Mantle. Joba Chamberlain was the ‘heir apparent’ to Mariano Rivera. And now Torres is the new Jeter. This practice by Yankee fans and/or media is self-defeating at best. If the comparison in one’s mind is to one of the greats in the history of the game, how could anything less meet expectations? Looking backwards makes sense in a vacuum–we need to compare what we are seeing to what we have seen for it to make sense–but we have plenty of context here in the real world. Focusing solely on recreating the past leads us down a disappointing and damaging road.

Major League Baseball at large is guilty of this, too. Whether it’s in the way fans and media talk about the sport or how the institution talks about itself. It may not manifest itself in player comparisons, but it does in constant nostalgia and a harmful take on self-reflection.

Maybe I’ll be this way when I’m older, but it seems that we’re always told the past of baseball is better than its present. With almost any sport, this isn’t true. Contemporary athletes are bigger, faster, stronger, and likely more prepared than all their predecessors. That is a good thing! Is this to say that those guys from the ‘golden age’–whenever that is–were scrubs? Hell no! They were great! But the players today are, too. In fact, we’re in an era with the potential best player ever–Mike Trout–and the potential best pitcher ever–Clayton Kershaw. Why is this not celebrated?

This extends to the way the game is played and how we talk about it. Everyone is acting like players hitting lots of homers and pitchers getting lots of strikeouts are problems. Those are literally the two best things a hitter and pitcher can do. Part of me does get that a lack of ‘action’ is unappealing and the juiced up ball is definitely partially responsible for the homers. But I like watching homers. I like watching strikeouts. Is the game suddenly going to improve and draw more fans because guys are…grounding out to second and short more often? Or hitting flyouts instead of homers? Besides, teams have figured out that power pitching and power hitting are the ways to win. Are the Warriors and Rockets going to stop launching threes because some oldheads don’t like the three point line? No and they shouldn’t want to and fans shouldn’t want them to. Why baseball fans and media and executives are always so eager to change the way the game is in the current moment is beyond me. Self-reflection is good for sports and the fans thereof, but the way baseball chooses to do it draws negative attention to itself–the one thing it doesn’t want.

This is all to say that we need to stop looking to the past when it comes to the game and, more importantly perhaps, our large adult sons in pinstripes. Gleyber Torres doesn’t need to be Derek Jeter. Neither does Aaron Judge, nor Gary Sanchez, nor Didi Gregorius, nor any future Yankee need to be any past Yankee. They need only be themselves and carry with them their immense skills that got them to where they are.

Three Sunday Thoughts

May 20, 2018 by Matt Imbrogno Leave a Comment

Happy Sunday, RAB readers. I hope you’re doing well after a week mostly devoid of Yankee baseball. Luckily–at least on my end–it happened to go pretty quickly. For your content gobbling selves, I’ve got three thoughts on three Yankees: one past, one present, and one (potentially) future.

Time to Move Torres Up?

Gleyber Torres’s debut has been nothing short of spectacular. He’s come up and availed himself incredibly well and, as an added bonus, the Yankees have been nearly unstoppable since he was called up. Perhaps, then, it’s time to move him out of the nine spot in the lineup and up to…seventh?

The Yankee lineup is beyond stacked–and has been all year–which makes moving Torres a bit trickier than normal. Who should go down below him when just about everyone is, in a vacuum, capable of being a top-half-of-the-lineup hitter? Putting Torres to seventh is probably the best option since it gives some men-on-base opportunities to Neil Walker and/or Miguel Andujar when they come up.

On the flip side, the team has a good thing going with Torres batting ninth, which gives men-on-base opportunities to the top of the lineup, especially the leadoff hitter–be it Brett Gardner or Aaron Hicks–and Aaron Judge, batting second. We could argue that those opportunities–ones for better hitters–could yield better results than giving those opportunities to “lesser” hitters at the bottom of the lineup.

The important thing is that Torres has hit and is showing flashes of everything at the plate: contact, patience, and power. It’s gone about as well as we could’ve hoped for and hopefully it continues to go that way.

Cole in the July Stocking?

On Tuesday, the Yankees are slated to face the Rangers in game two of a three game series. As of now, lefty Cole Hamels is the probable starter for Texas. Beyond the pitching/hitting matchup itself, this is relevant because the Yankees have recently been linked to Hamels as a trade target for this summer. A few years ago, I would’ve been pumped for this idea. Hamels has long been one of my favorite non-Yankees, but now, it’s probably too late to trade for him.

Though he’s had his strikeout rate climb back up this year, his walk rate is still pushing four per nine and his home run rate is definitely too high. Additionally, his fastball velocity is–and has been–trending in the way wrong direction. For any pitcher, this is a big red flag. But for Hamels, one whose best pitch is a changeup, it’s doubly bad; that pitch can’t be as effective with minimal velocity separation. Part of this is switching to a cutter/two seamer approach instead of a four seamer, which may fit in with the Yankees’ philosophy, but unless the price is too good to refuse, the Yankees should probably pass on Hamels.

On Cano

Insert exasperated sigh here. Am I surprised that Robinson Cano is suspended for 80 games? Not really. But it has nothing to do with any suspicions of him from years ago, like Mark Teixeira intimated on the Kay Show last week. It mostly has to do with fatigue and not being surprised by anyone, of any caliber, taking PEDs. I’m not angry, but it doesn’t feel all that great, obviously. I’ll still root for him from afar, though I will feel a touch of disappointment. That disappointment isn’t because of some moral judgement, but rather that this will be the discussion around Cano now, not the fact that he’s been the best second baseman in baseball for most of his career.

Return of the Fastball Brings Back Sonny Days

May 6, 2018 by Matt Imbrogno Leave a Comment

Before the season started, I told you readers here, my Twitter followers, family, friends, coworkers–basically anyone I talk baseball with–that I thought Sonny Gray was going to have a huge year. Fast forward to April 25. If I could’ve found and quote tweeted when I said Gray would have a big year, the text could read “…and then what happened?” Through those five starts, his ERA was pushing 8. His OPS against was .846. For reference, Tony Gwynn, Anthony Rizzo, Nap Lajoie, Tony Lazzeri, and Andres Galarraga all have career a career OPS of about .846. He pitched into the fifth inning just twice and three times failed to complete even four innings. Something was seriously wrong and Sonny was pushing the clouds in, rather than away.

Over at FanGraphs, Sheryl Ring suggested that the Yankees’ fastball-light approach to pitching was hurting Gray. In his two most recent starts–undoubtedly his most successful ones of the year–Sonny returned to throwing more fastballs. Before his start on April 30, he threw fastballs and sinkers/two-seamers just over 47% of the time. In that April 30 start against Houston and yesterday’s against Cleveland, Gray threw a total of 190 pitches, 123 of which–about 65%–were fastballs or sinkers/two-seamers. With the typical caveat about correlation and causation, going back to number one has righted the ship for Sonny. Encouragingly, these starts came against heavy-hitting teams in Houston and Cleveland, hardly lineups to scoff at. His next start–assuming the Yankees keep him on turn and don’t push him back a day due to the off day tomorrow–will be against the Athletics, another offensively powerful team.

The last time Gray faced Boston–in Fenway on April 12–he turned in his worst start of the year, surrendering six runs on seven hits and two walks in just three innings (at least he had three strikeouts?). In that start, he was actually pretty reliant on his fastball , which wasn’t what I was expecting when I went searching, given the disparity in results between his most recent, fastball-heavy starts and his earlier ones, less reliant on fastballs. Despite those results, Gray should stick with the fastballs against Boston again. The same goes for the A’s if he sees them instead.

Not to go too deep into intangibles here, but confidence is most definitely a thing, and if Sonny believes his fastballs will work–like it did these last two starts–maybe they’ll continue to be successful. Considering how poorly this season started for him, anything to help him climb from that hole will be welcomed. Selfishly, I just want to be right about Gray having a big year; magnanimously, I want him to do well for both his own sake and that of the team.