Sung-Min Kim, Author at River Avenue Blues

Yankee bats silenced by Verlander and bullpen in a 5-1 loss to the Astros

May 28, 2018 by Sung-Min Kim Leave a Comment

Well, the Justin Verlander-Domingo German matchup seemed pretty favorable to the Astros in the first place, and that’s pretty much how Monday’s game went. The Yankees dropped the first game of the series 5-1, and with the Red Sox win, they are now back 2 games for the division lead. The bats were shut down for the most part and the Astros took advantage of a few mistakes by the Yankee pitchers. So it goes. Let’s recap this thing.

A mixed bag outing

The Astros struck first in the top of the second. Yuli Gurriel hit an infield single to get on base. The ball took a tricky hop that Didi Gregorius couldn’t handle and they ruled it a base hit rather than an error. A batter later, German walked Evan Gattis and J.D. Davis followed it up with a three-run home run. It was a fastball in a very fat part of the plate and Davis gladly took it for his first dinger of the season. And when I say fat…

In the 3-1 count, one ball from loading the bases, it was a typical fastball situation and Davis swung like it. 3-0 Astros.

Houston added another against German in the 4th inning. Gurriel reached first on a very lackadaisical throwing error by Gleyber Torres on an easy grounder. Marwin Gonzalez followed it up with a bloop single to left-center and Gattis pulled a fastball inside down the line to bring Gurriel in. Welp. That’s the thing about the Astros lineup – they can hit from top to bottom. A mistake against them is more likely to come back to bite you.

There are silver linings to German’s start. Some numbers tell us that he displayed his upside today. For instance, the whiffs. Per Baseball Savant, German induced 16 whiffs in 104 pitches today, with 5 from his fastball and 9 from curveball.

It’s usually a pretty good thing when a young pitcher can get hitters to swing and miss with more than one pitch. As you may recall from Eno Sarris’s article from awhile back, German’s pitches compare favorably to some big names in the league. Well, I’ll give you a spoiler: Sarris gave a Max Scherzer comp for his four-seamer. I’ll take that.

He’s inconsistent with command, which is frustrating but that comes with a lot of young pitchers. A part of trying to fix that? Get him some more real game experience. There’s no telling how long it would take (or if he will ever conquer that problem ever), but for someone with stuff that good, it may be a worthy endeavor. At the same time, the Yankees are right to seek starting pitching help via trade to give him less starts. Both are be true, in my opinion.

Verlander’d

Justin Verlander is as complete a product as any pitcher could be. The only real blip in the day was the Greg Bird solo HR in the 7th. You know what’s absurd? Verlander allowed 1 ER in 6.2 IP today and his ERA went up (1.08 to 1.11). If you wanted to find some kind of moral victory, well, there it is. It was also only the 2nd earned run Verlander allowed in the road this season and the first homer he gave up to a lefty hitter. Verlander is having an unreal season and that’s the kind of outing he puts up.

The thing about Verlander is that he can go after hitters as aggressive as possible and come out unscathed. He may be one of the few in the league that can get away with it. Take a look at his zone today.

There are a lot of pitches around the middle part of the zone (and a lot outside to set them up or get whiffs). Dude just has a really powerful stuff that overpowers bats even when they don’t get cheated. Let’s take his fastball, for instance. He threw 59 heaters today and only got 3 whiffs. That’s not really a high figure. But when you watch the game, the hitters often either late or under the ball. You can attribute it to his velocity or, more importantly, his spin rate. I think, at this point, you know the narrative with the spin rate. High RPM (revolutions per minute) gives an impression of “rise” and more life to the fastball, which results in bats getting under the pitch or being late, etc. Verlander clearly has that benefit, based on eye test and numbers.

Anyways, how about Greg Bird? He put some good swings today. His home run came on a slider right down the middle, which may have been the worst pitch that Verlander delivered today. To Bird’s credit though… he didn’t miss it. Also had this gorgeous swing to go with it.

Bird struck again leading off the ninth. He took a 1-2 count Ken Giles fastball for an opposite-field single. That pitch was not a meatball. It was a 98.4 mph fastball on the outside part of the zone and he just squared up on it beautifully. It’s just a glimpse of what Bird can bring to what is already a stacked lineup. Just please stay healthy.

Leftovers

A.J. Cole allowed the first run of his storied Yankee career. Jose Altuve shot a solo homer off of him leading off the top of the 8th to make it 5-1. But honestly? His tenure has been pretty solid for what it’s worth. As a long-relief guy in lower-leverage situations, Cole has been what the Yankees have asked for. In 11 innings pitched with the Yanks, Cole has allowed only one run and struck out 12.

Tommy Kahnle made his second appearance after coming back from the disabled list. For what it’s worth, the results were better than the first time around: 1.0 IP, 1 K and 6 strikes in 11 pitches. That definitely counts as a welcome development for what’s to come.

Greg Bird and Didi Gregorius both went 2-for-4 today. The other Yankee hitters went a combined 3-for-25. Not great! There’s a part of your losing formula right there. Anyways, here’s a good play by Torres for your visual pleasures. There weren’t a lot of it today.

Box score, highlights, standings and WPA

Here’s today’s box score, video highlights, updated standings and WPA.

Source: FanGraphs

Not much to write home about from today’s game. The Yankees are back at it again tomorrow in Bronx against the Astros. The big man CC Sabathia will face Charlie Morton, another one of their scary starters. Happy Memorial Day and enjoy your day off.

Eighth inning grand slam sinks the Yanks in 7-4 loss to Jays

April 1, 2018 by Sung-Min Kim Leave a Comment

Well, that was almost a nice series win to start the season. Instead, the Yankees were not able to hold on to a 4-1 lead and melted down to a 7-4 loss Sunday. Sonny Gray labored through four innings and Chad Green was the only reliever not to allow runs. Both Tommy Kahnle and David Robertson allowed big homers to Justin Smoak to let it slip. There’s the first L of the season that we won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Taking the lead

Both starting pitchers had a knack for stacking up baserunners in the first couple innings. Marcus Stroman walked Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton in the first, but got out of the frame with strikeouts to Didi Gregorius and Neil Walker. Gray walked Devon Travis and allowed a single to Josh Donaldson to start his game but struck out Justin Smoak, Yangervis Solarte and Curtis Granderson to get out of it.

The Yankees had another baserunner in the second but failed to score. The Blue Jays, however, capitalized on the baserunners in the bottom of the frame. Here’s how it went:

Thank God for Judge’s assist to throw Russell Martin out. The inning could have gotten out of hand without that extra out. It’s also ridiculous how easy he made it look. He launched a cannon from the right field and Martin wasn’t so close to being safe.

The Yankees took the first commanding lead in the third. Stroman struck out Brett Gardner and Judge to start the frame. Stanton worked a walk and Gregorius doubled to deep center to drive him in. 1-1 tie game. Walker singled to give Yankees a lead and Brandon Drury followed it up with a two-run home run to make it 4-1. With Sonny Gray not looking bad and the Yankees bullpen waiting, a lot of us had good feeling about this game to this point, right?

Well, that’s why you play the game. Anything can happen in baseball, especially when your starting pitcher goes only for 4.0 innings pitched.

Gray had his ups and downs in this start. A 4 IP, 1 run outing isn’t bad. You want your starting pitchers to go for 5 or 6 innings though. After allowing a bloop single to Justin Smoak in the fifth, he was at 89 pitches (also stacked up 10 baserunners) and that was simply too many for the first start of the season.

On a plus side, he missed a decent amount of bats. Gray got 16 whiffs on 89 pitches, with 10 coming from curveball. When he’s on and locating, Gray is as nasty as any starter could get. The Blue Jays lineup, however, isn’t exactly a walk in the park. They made him work to the extent that Boone reached to his bullpen with no outs in the fifth.

The bullpenning

Green came out of the pen in the fifth and well, he was Chad Green. He struck out four in two scoreless innings to hold a 4-1 lead into the seventh. In a perfect pinstriped world, the Yankees would have used Kahnle – Robertson – Aroldis Chapman sequence to close out the game.

Kahnle did not get off to the best start in the seventh. He walked Donaldson and gave up a two-run, 420 feet dinger to Smoak to make it a one-run game. He got the next two batters and Boone called on Robertson to build a bridge to Chappy. He got out of the seventh with a one-pitch out from Grichuk.

And then the eighth inning happened.

Robertson gave up a lead-off single to old friend Russell Martin. After Kevin Pillar lined out, Aledmys Diaz hit a double to right-center to put two runners in scoring position, uh-oh.

Robertson induced a Devon Travis grounder to himself to make it two outs, making the situation much more palatable. With Josh Donaldson (3-for-8 with 2 HRs vs. Robertson) coming up, the Yankees opted to intentionally walk him and face Justin Smoak (0-for-5 with 4 K’s vs. Robertson). The outcome of this at-bat was going to set some kind of narrative for the early part of Aaron Boone’s managerial career since it is a quite interesting call on a super dicey situation… and it did not go well.

Robertson faced a dangerous LHH instead of a dangerous RHH. One could make an argument that Robertson dominated Smoak in the past, but in the YES booth, David Cone wasn’t having it, noting that five at-bat sample isn’t big enough to take that risk against a hot hitter in Justin Smoak. Also, Smoak isn’t the same hitter that he was in the earlier in career. After a nine-pitch at-bat, Smoak hammered a fastball inside over the wall for a backbreaking grand slam. 7-4 Jays. Welp.

It will be interesting to see if this decision will set any kind of precedence for Boone in future decisions. In the postgame, he remarked that Robertson’s breaking ball seemed like a better matchup against Smoak. And, of course, Smoak fouled off a bunch of Robertson’s curveballs before hitting his fastball out of the park. Oh well, you have games like this. Things would have been discussed very differently had Robertson struck out Smoak. But because what happened happened, this is how we are talking about it.

The Blue Jays sent one of their FA signees RP Seung-Hwan Oh in the ninth. The Yankees tried threatening with a two-out Judge single, but that’s about all they could muster. Womp womp.

Leftovers

All the Yankees’ base hits came from 2, 4, 5 and 6 spot hitters. Judge, Gregorius, Walker and Drury combined for 5-for-15 and the rest went 0-for-19. Drury had the best day of them all: 2-for-3 with a two run homer. Yeah, this game stunk but at least you can feel good about the new starting third baseman.

Box score, highlights, standings and WPA

Here’s today’s box score, video highlights, updated standings and WPA.

Source: FanGraphs

The Yankees are finally back in Bronx starting tomorrow. They will face the Rays for a two-game series and the O’s will come to the down for a four-game one. Jordan Montgomery will be on the mound and the Rays will have, uh, their bullpen. I’m not kidding:

Tanaka’s solid start drives the Yankees to a 4-2 win in Toronto

March 30, 2018 by Sung-Min Kim Leave a Comment

The dream of a 162-0 season is still intact. The Yankees beat the Blue Jays 4-2 in the second game of the four-game opening series in Toronto. Instead of the Judges and Stantons getting it done like yesterday, it was the Gregoriuses and Drurys that provided the bulk of the offense. Masahiro Tanaka picked up where he left off this past postseason and pitched a gem of a start. Let’s recap this thing.

The Other Guys

Sir Didi Gregorius led off the second with a triple. He had no triples in 2017 and he hit a booming one in the second game of 2018. How about that? That proved to be a hell of a tease, however, as he was erased on the very next pitch. Gary Sanchez hit a grounder to the third baseman and Gregorius just took off home. Looked like he was too eager to score but he was a dead duck at the home plate.

The Yankees did score in that inning thanks to another infielder. After Billy McKinney got an ML debut base hit, Brandon Drury followed it up with a RBI double to drive Sanchez in. 1-0 Yankees. It was a big liner that just missed getting over the right field wall by like, a foot or two.

The Yankees added another run in the fourth. They followed a similar formula. Didi Gregorius lined a double to the gap to lead off. After Sanchez popped up to the catcher, Neil Walker earned a walk to put two runners on base. With two outs, Brandon Drury (who else?) lined a single to left to bring Didi home to make it 2-1 Yankees.

New York tacked on two more in the bottom of sixth, which turned out to be the difference of the game. Aaron Sanchez looked pretty nasty for the first few innings but around then, his command started to falter a bit. Didi walked, Walker singled and Drury walked to get the bases loaded with two outs. Up at bat was Tyler Wade, who is trying to solidify his status as a big leaguer. Wade got a hold of a sinker on the inner half to drive it in between the center and right fielders for a two-run double. Huge moment for this dude, also for the Yankees tonight. They took a 4-1 lead and would hold onto it for the win.

Masa Six Solid

The Blue Jays answered right back in the bottom of the second after the Yankees took a 1-0 lead. Randall Grichuk, one of their offseason acquisitions, jumped on a Tanaka first pitch (91 mph fastball) to send it to the outfield seats. It was… not a good pitch:

Don’t need a strike zone graphic to tell you that was a bad location. It was as middle-middle as it could get.

The good news is that was just about the only mistake Tanaka made tonight. As a matter of fact, Tanaka was pretty filthy for six frames. He struck out eight, walked none, and gave up only three hits. He also induced 14 swinging strikes in 79 pitches, good for a 17.7% rate and that is way above average. Corey Kluber led the starting pitchers in swinging strike percentage in 2017 with a 15.7%. Bottom line, don’t get caught up by Tanaka’s subpar Spring Training stats (7.24 ERA in 4 starts), because duh. With the stuff he displayed tonight, Tanaka is still the same ol’ Tanaka.

If you’re curious about that kind of stuff, here’s the Brooks Baseball’s pitch classification on Tanaka:

Leftovers

Billy McKinney, one of the pieces that the Yankees received from the Aroldis Chapman trade to the Cubs, made his ML debut today. He got a base hit on his first at bat with a hard single that just escaped 2B Devon Travis’s glove. Cool moment for the Billy the Kid.

While the bottom of the lineup did work tonight, the heavy lifters were silent. Judge, Stanton and Sanchez combined for 0-for-12 with 4 strikeouts. Good thing that they built a scary lineup from top to bottom, eh? The 6-7-8-9 hitters (Walker, McKinney, Drury, Wade) combined for 5-for-14 with 4 RBI’s.

Starting in the seventh, the bullpen came in to close the game out. Tommy Kahnle went 1.1 IP with a strikeout, David Robertson got two outs to finish the eighth, and Chapman took care of the ninth. Things got dicey in the bottom of the frame. After striking out Josh Donaldson and Justin Smoak, Chapman allowed back-to-back doubles to Steve Pearce and Yangervis Solarte – two former Yankees – to allow his first run of the season. However, he struck out Grichuk on a 100 mph fastball on the outside edge to end the game.

Box score, standings, highlights and WPA

Here’s tonight’s box score, updated standings, video highlights and WPA. Because the Orioles did not play tonight, the Yankees hold the sole possession of the first place of the AL East. It’s only the day two of the 2018 season and I’m liking it a lot already.

Source: FanGraphs

New York will face Toronto tomorrow at 4:07 pm EST. The big man CC Sabathia will take the mound against Marco Estrada.

The case for trading Brett Gardner to make room for Darvish

January 22, 2018 by Sung-Min Kim Leave a Comment

The other day, Steven wrote about the rationale of trading David Robertson to clear some salary room to fit Yu Darvish’s hypothetical contract under the $197 million luxury tax threshold. Today, I’m here to make a case for trading away another established veteran player with a +$10M salary: Brett Gardner.

We’ve talked about the Yankees’ commitment to stick to the current luxury tax plan all winter. As of this moment, the Yankees stand at $175 million for 2018, which gives them around $22 million of wiggle room. Trading away ~$10 million worth of of room will comfortably fit another big contract. It’s the ol’ subtract-to-add situation.

While Gardner is penciled in as a big part of the 2018 Yankees, he is not untouchable. Darvish can put the Yankee rotation in a solid spot for the next few years. This idea does not have my 100% endorsement, but there are reasons why it would make sense.

1. Gardner’s value. There are two sides here. First off, Gardner had one of his finest seasons in the majors in 2017, hitting .264/.350/.428 with 21 home runs, which is good for a 108 wRC+ and a 3.8 fWAR. Among outfielders with qualifying amount of plate appearances, Gardner ranks 16th in the majors in fWAR, which is pretty good. He is definitely a starter on any team. While the fielding metrics have not been as high on him as they used to be, he still rates as a good fielder and, of course, he brings speed on the bases.

While there are teams out there with OF needs, Gardner is currently a good enough player that he could go to a team with three spots all set and take one of the jobs. He’s also set to be paid $11 million in 2018, which is lower than what he would get in open market if he were a free agent.

What am I getting at? It’s that Gardner would be more than just a salary dump. He could net the Yanks something interesting in return while the Yankees clear $11 million in the payroll.

There are two things that limit his value: 1) his age, and 2) only one year left in his contract. If Gardner put up a season he did in 2017 when he was 27, Cashman’s phone would be buzzing quite a bit. Gardner is currently 34 and will turn 35 in August. Studies have shown that speedy guys tend to age more gracefully but as you have seen with Jacoby Ellsbury, it is not always a guarantee.

As you may know, 2018 is the last year of Gardener’s four-year, $52 million contract. There is a $12.5 million team option for 2019, by the way. Basically, whoever has him has a choice to keep Gardner for another season, which helps his overall value. While Gardner is a very good MLB player, teams will be wary of his age and for how long they can have him. At the same time … he is much more tradeable than Ellsbury.

2. It could clear the OF logjam. So, at this moment, the Yankees have four sure everyday guys in Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks, Aaron Judge and Gardner, and two bench guys in Ellsbury and Clint Frazier (don’t forget about Jabari Blash either). Depth is important and the Yankees have a lot of outfielders. Both of these can be true.

Let’s talk about the two bench guys here though. Ellsbury, with the decline he has shown since joining the Yankees, has become somewhat of an albatross and the team has not made it much of a secret they want to trade him away. At the same time … he’s not awful. He may be average at best, but he’s capable of good usage here and there.

Frazier, on the other hand, could be a guy who could use some exposure against big league pitching in 2018. When he makes contact, man, he can hit’em hard. Frazier had 31 base hits in the ML last year and 16 of them were for extra bases. He just needs to be more seasoned at the highest level. He’s a young talented outfielder who warrants patience. Giving him ample opportunity to experience growing pain in 2018 may pay off big time sooner than later.

3. One less OF or one less bullpen pitcher? Steven talked about how the Yankees bullpen has depth and can afford to subtract a piece for a overall greater good. I don’t disagree with him. However, bullpen pitchers can tend to be a bit more volatile. Uber-consistent relievers like Mariano Rivera are quite rare. In 2017, we saw Aroldis Chapman, one of the most sturdy closers in the recent history, get into some serious slumps that cost the team some games. Heck, even Tommy Kahnle had a bit of an unreliable stretch before the playoffs.

Because of the high bust rate of the relievers, it becomes hard to project how consistent the bullpen unit can be. Because the Yankees pitching is built to rely on late-inning arms, maybe it is not a bad idea to keep the best relievers for depth. Also, by having a loaded bullpen, the team will have an easier time limiting Darvish’s workload and keep him fresh.

At the same time, the Yankees do have a history of giving up an offensive piece to either acquire starting pitcher. Trading away Nick Johnson for Javier Vazquez back in 2003-04 offseason comes to mind. Sending Melky Cabrera to Braves to re-acquire Vazquez was also a thing. Both played as regulars for the Yankees prior to the deals, but Brian Cashman pulled the trigger to add another arm to the rotation.

What did Cabrera and Johnson have in common at the time? They were a bit superfluous to the team based on the position they played. Johnson was blocked by Jason Giambi and his long-term deal. Cabrera was traded away only a few weeks after the Yankees acquired Curtis Granderson in a three-way deal. Cashman didn’t trade away players that had clear positional dominance in the roster – he chose to part with those who were a little extra at the position.

Which brings us to Gardner. As I said, he’s a clear starter for every ML team. However, the Yankees have a big OF depth and the team could always use more starting pitching. Because of his value and contract, he is very tradeable and it might make sense to make a sacrifice to add a bigger boon.

Losing Gardner would obviously put a dent in current offense – but at the same time, they can rotate Judge – Hicks – Stanton – Ellsbury – Frazier. The first three can do a lot of damage year-round and Ellsbury/Frazier and be sub’d in once in awhile to give them rest.

4. Yu Darvish is pretty good. The Yankees need more rotation depth, etc. Yup. Steven covered this in his post.

What could we make of Estevan Florial’s high strikeout rate?

January 11, 2018 by Sung-Min Kim Leave a Comment

Here’s a simple answer to the question presented at the title: he’s a young guy, having turned only 20 this past November. He is clearly talented but his hitting needs polish, which could come as he advances through the minor league levels.

There is no doubt that Estevan Florial is talented. Baseball Prospectus rated him the No. 2 prospect in the organization behind Gleyber Torres and projects a 70-grade player (All-Star center fielder) as the overall future potential. However, when you strike out at a 31.9% clip in Low-A, there are some eyebrows raised. Florial’s .297/.373/.483 line has assuaged some concerns about those strikeout tendencies and, rightfully so, put him in the conversation among the top young prospects in the entire minor leagues. There are still questions to be answered for his future. First off, would that translate poorly as he ascends through the minor league levels? Secondly, even if he hits higher level pitching, will high strikeout rate be a long-term thing?

In 2017, Florial’s strikeout rate is the third highest in the South Atlantic League behind Mitchell Gunsolus (32.7% rate, .205/.347/.286 in 431 PA) of the Red Sox system and Khalil Lee (32.1% rate, .237/.344/.430 in 532 PA) of the Royals.

What is very much worth noting is that neither Gunsolus nor Lee came anywhere close to Florial’s 2017 production. Florial is a bit of a unique profile because, while he struck out a ton, he also could hit the crap out of the ball and hit close to a .300 average. Usually, the correlation is that, the more you strike out, the less likely you to hit for average – Florial has found a way around it. He’s pretty gifted with power (helps with hitting ball hard) and speed (helps with beating out infield singles), which helped his sky-high .431 BABIP in 91 Sally league games.

Is there any precedent or past cases similar to Florial’s combination strikeout rate and production? Of course. Here are some of the recent (2007-17) South Atlantic League hitters that showed high strikeout tendency yet mashed at the plate. My criteria: strikeout rate over 27% and a wRC+ (weighted runs created plus) over 130.

2017

Estevan Florial, NYY: 31.9% strikeout rate, 143 wRC+
Vince Fernandez, COL: 28.5%, 135 wRC+

Fernandez was a 10th rounder in the 2016 MLB Draft out of UC Riverside. He turned 22 in the past July so that kind of takes him away from ML top prospects conversation. However, to his credit, he’s hit well in the pros. Christopher Crawford of Baseball Prospectus projects him to have an above-average power but not quite a batting average guy. While Fernandez has a potential to carry himself into the bigs with his bat, Florial should be in high minors or knocking on the ML door by the time he’s Fernandez’s age.

2016

Chris Gittens, NYY: 27.9%, 140 wRC+

Just like Fernandez, Gittens is a college bat draftee (12th round in 2014 MLB Draft). He was 22 when he put up those numbers in Low-A and will turn 24 in upcoming February. He did, however, continue his strong hitting performance by hitting for a 150 wRC+ in High-A in Tampa. But, again like Fernandez, Gittens is nowhere near any top prospects conversation.

2015

K.J. Woods, MIA: 30.3%, 143 wRC+

Just like Florial, Woods was in his age-19 season when he spent 2015 in the South Atlantic League. He was a multi-sports star in high school and the Marlins were appealed by his high power tool. While there were reasons to be excited about Woods, the scouts were not as high on him as Florial. Woods was ranked Mo. 15 prospect in the Miami system after the 2015 season but was released by the organization during 2016 aNter hitting .483 OPS in High-A. He was picked up by White Sox and it seems that he missed the entirety of 2017 with an injury.

2014

None.

2013

Joey Gallo, TEX: 37.0%, 163 wRC+

Gallo lived and died by strikeouts and power – and still does the same. He struck out a lot all throughout the minors but his prodigious power carried him to the majors. In 2017, his first full-season in MLB, Gallo marked a 123 wRC+, and a 36.8% strikeout rate.

Nick Williams, TEX: 27.2%, 148 wRC+

A second-rounder by the Rangers in the 2012 MLB Draft, Williams had been a top prospect for a bit awhile. He was ranked Baseball America’s No. 27 prospect in the all minor after the 2015 season and made his ML debut with the Phillies in 2017 — he was one of the top pieces in the Cole Hamels trade — hitting 110 wRC+ in 343 PA. Not bad.

2012

Harold Riggins, COL: 27,4%, 155 wRC+

Riggins was another college bat guy (22 years old in Low-A) who mashed and struck out a lot in the Sally League. His peak as a prospect was being ranked No. 23 in the White Sox organization after the 2012 season. However, his strikeout rates ballooned the next few seasons and he was out of the pro baseball by the end of 2015.

Matt Smith, MIA: 27.2%, 136 wRC+

Smith was even older (24 years old in Low-A). He was an undrafted guy who simply hit younger pitchers very well and couldn’t replicate his performance in a higher level. After hitting 29 wRC+ in 14 games in 2013, Smith was released by the Marlins.

2011

None.

2010

None.

2009

Jim Murphy, PHI: 27.2%, 148 wRC+

Just like the many aforementioned guys, Murphy was an old dude (23 years old in 2009) in Low-A. A 17th-rounder out of Washington State in the 2008 MLB Draft, Murphy hung around long enough to make it to Triple-A but never got to big leagues. He retired after the 2014 season after posting a 101 wRC+ in Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs. He was never mentioned in the Baseball America’s Phillies organization top prospect list.

2008

Giancarlo Stanton, FLA: 28.3%, 169 wRC+

We all know about Stanton. He is a ridiculous human specimen and, despite the amount of strikeouts he had, he still terrorized the Sally pitching at age 18. Before reaching the majors, he has a history of being very highly regarded by the scouts and is one of the best players in the Major League Baseball. He is probably the prime example of flashy (or, in this case, ridiculous) tools overriding concerns in a young player’s game and enjoy the ensuing success.

2007

None.

***

These guys could be divided into two groups. One group is low-ceiling college bats that could hit low-minor pitching but did not show much beyond that. The other is high-ceiling prospects with attractive tools who also happened to be strikeout prone. Florial clearly belongs in the latter group.

Does that mean that Florial will take the Gallo/Williams/Stanton path of reaching the majors and becoming a future impact Major Leaguer? Many prospect experts will tell you that he clearly has the potential to be a future 30-HR, 20-SB guy in the majors. But at this moment, it’s too early to put all your chips on a 20-year-old who just got a taste of High-A. His performance could easily bust as early as 2018 and be forgotten for a long time a la K.J. Woods. It’s not ideal. But at the same time, we’ve seen low-level prospects hit well in Single-A levels and get completely overmatched in the higher ones. Such is life.

Also, it’s worth noting that Florial passed the big test of being able to hit Low-A pitching. A lot of high-tool prospects fizzle out after not being able to handle lower-level minor league pitching. A guy that comes to mind is a former Phillies 2008 first-rounder Anthony Hewitt. He was the epitome of the high-risk, high-reward high school bat and they hoped that he’ll learn to hit pro pitching. Hewitt ended up repeating Low-A twice (striking out more than 30% of the time in both seasons) and never got past Double-A. You could make a laundry list of guys who has all the athleticism would failed to go past low minors. Florial, it seems, has graduated that level.

My hunch is that, as long as Florial plays, the strikeouts will be a big part of his game. But he can certainly excel at many things and that’s what makes Florial so exciting. He might be a type where you want to take some patience since he could need some time to figure out higher level pitching. You might see his strikeout rate climb to 35 or 40% in his first stint in Double-A and flail at a lot of pitches out of the zone – but it’s a part of the growing pains. If Florial hits his way up to the big leagues as the future star centerfielder, then the strikeouts will be an afterthought. But for now, it’s a homework for a young guy who’s working to fulfill his potential.

Thoughts on the Yankees 2018 ZiPS projections

January 9, 2018 by Sung-Min Kim Leave a Comment

It’s that time of the year. This past Friday, Dan Szymborski of ESPN released his 2018 Yankees ZiPS projections. If you need a refresher, ZiPS is a projection system developed by Szymborski himself while he was at the Baseball Think Factory and it is considered one of the most accurate predictors in the industry. It takes a player’s recent performances + the career aging curve + park factor to count as many current indicators as possible to figure out the 50th percentile outcome.

Remember, projections are not predictions. Their main job is to try to figure out a player’s skill level. A player could hypothetically play to the level displayed by ZiPS but in a lot of the cases, they either exceed or underperform. That’s baseball. The game wouldn’t be as fun if everything played out as expected.

Here is the basic WAR depth chart of the Yankees team projection:

And here is the FanGraphs article talking about the team outlook and the projections. If you haven’t, take a read. A lot of fascinating numbers and comparisons in there. I have some thoughts from it.

1. Holy bullpen

The Yankees have shown commitment in #bullpening as part of their strategy and it shows in the projection. As you can see in their depth chart, the combination of top five of their relievers sum out to 8 WAR, which is massive. Add Adam Warren (1.2 fWAR in 2017) in there and that could boost it up to a 9 WAR one, which is neat to think about.

Is this an overly optimistic projection? Well, Aroldis Chapman, David Robertson, Tommy Kahnle, Chad Green and Dellin Betances combined for a 9.1 fWAR last year, believe it or not. The relievers are volatile beings so I wouldn’t necessarily bet on them to be 100% all year. If they are, then great! What matters right now is that the Yankees have stockpiled bullpen arms in the age where they have become a more valuable resource. Remember when they signed Andrew Miller for a 4-year, $36-million deal and that seemed like a hefty sum? It would easily be an underpay in the current market. Not only their bullpen is poised to supply a lot of value, but also will win the Yankees several more valuable close wins that will pay off during the pennant race.

2. The infield weakness is clear

Looking at the infield, we see that Didi Gregorius is the only guy who is projected to put up 1 WAR season. ZiPS has Miguel Andujar as the NYY starting third baseman with a 1.2 WAR and 93 wRC+. It also has Ronald Torreyes as the starting second baseman with a 0.1 WAR in 395 PA while slashing .258/.290/.340. Oof.

First off, I doubt that the Yankees will go with Torreyes as the primary starting second baseman for most of the season. But with Starlin Castro gone and Torreyes being the only infielder with extensive reps at 2B in the majors, it is easy to plug him in as the starter at this moment. At the same time, it is pretty telling that Gleyber Torres (projected 1.5 WAR, .247/.321/.444) will take over that spot as soon as the team deems him ready (which could be right out of Spring Training – but we’ll see). We talked about this many a time in this website. They could make a move, they could go with what they have, we’ll see.

Third base is a trickier one. Mike wrote about the reasons to believe (or not to believe) in the Yankees sticking with kids for infield solutions. While penciling Torres for long-term second baseman is a sure thing, I don’t know if (especially with Manny Machado’s free agency looming in next winter) one can say the same about Andujar (.267/.307/.432, 1.2 WAR projected for 2018) and the 3B.

For what it’s worth, ZiPS’ Todd Frazier projection is something that I’d buy into for a full-time third baseman: .249/.334/.482 (115 wRC+) with a 3.5 WAR. While projection is not the best case to make for the team to sign Frazier, you know that he is capable of producing 2-3 WAR full-time. At the same time, teams shouldn’t make decisions based on a projection. If they decide to swap around Andujar/Tyler Wade/Torreyes until Torres gets promoted, it’s not the end of the world. In fact, there’s a chance that a talent like Andujar could pleasantly surprise the fans thanks to his bat.

3. ZiPS is skeptical of the Hicks breakout

Aaron Hicks has had very different 2016 and 2017 seasons. He went from a middling 4th outfielder type to a useful everyday centerfielder with plate discipline and power. I love the type of player he’s become. He’s always had the glove and arm but the bat had always been an enigma ever since he came out of the Twins system as a 5-tool top prospect. In 2017, he put up 3.3 fWAR despite limited to only 88 games due to injuries – hitting for a strong .266/.372/.475 and playing a great defense as usual will help the value.

However, ZiPS thinks that Hicks played well-above his skill level in 2017. It projects him to hit an underwhelming .247/.334/.421, which is right around league-average. Why such regression? Well, again, Hicks was pretty bad in 2016 (.217/.281/.336) and the projection also takes account of pre-2017 performances. Hicks’ no.1 statistical match is Ron Roenicke, who hit .256/.400/.406 in age-29 season in 170 PA’s in 1985. That was his finest hitting season of his unremarkable career and his stats fizzled off after that year. Gotta hope that Hicks continues on with a better career trajectory than Roenicke.

4. Bird’s projection is a reality check… again

Last year, Mike noted that the 2017 ZiPS projection was lower on Bird than many Yankee fans would have liked to see. Bird didn’t help his case by not putting much production on-field by missing most of the season with injuries. We all know what Bird can do when he’s healthy and locked in. However, he’s shown that burst of brilliance for too short stretch of time to instill that confidence into the ZiPS system. And that kind of stuff is the reality for Bird right now – while he has shown that he is capable of driving the ball, he needs to show that for longer than a few months. If you want to be more optimistic, last year, ZiPS had Mo Vaughn as Bird’s top statistical comparison at age. This year, they have… David Ortiz. It remains to be seen whether Bird will have a breakout that everyone is waiting for. Putting up a -0.4 fWAR season wasn’t going to help his case in the projections, but he can beat the expectations in real life.

Young Dwight Gooden? (Abbie Parr/Getty Images)

5. The rotation looks pretty good on paper

The ZiPS projections’ top statistical comparison on the Yankee starting pitchers are quite glowing. Luis Severino is paired with none other than Dwight Gooden (!), Masahiro Tanaka has Kevin Tapani, Sonny Gray is with Jack Morris, Jordan Montgomery got Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia is similar to late-career Kenny Rogers. I mean, that’s some pretty good company and a nice perspective on how good this rotation could be.

Tanaka is expected to rebound with a 3.64 ERA/3.69 FIP season and Gray is projected to be respectable with a 3.80 ERA/3.83 FIP projected. Having Severino – Tanaka – Gray pitch well throughout the season will be a huge key to the 2018 team success both during the regular season and postseason. The 2018 Yankees rotation will not be confused for 2011 Phillies one, but they have the cast members that helped the team come within a win of reaching the World Series. Do these projections mean that I am satisfied with current rotation? Not really. Projections are, again, just projections. A lot of things could go wrong with pitchers during the season. Add more arms, etc.

6. How about Giancarlo Stanton?

.273/.366/.656, 55 HRs, 161 wRC+ as the 50th percentile outcome is pretty ridiculous. It takes into account that he’s at a new ballpark, in the prime of the career, etc. Imagine if he finishes, let’s say, 65 percentile of what ZiPS projected. It would be pretty incredible. Stanton’s no. 1 statistical comparison is Harmon Killebrew, who hit a career-high 49 dingers in his age-28 season (1964) and showed 30 HR power going into the age-36 season in 1972 (26 HRs in 139 games). For what it’s worth, Stanton’s 13-year deal will end right before he turns 38, so if the Yankees were to have him for the entirety of his contract, him following Killebrew’s career trajectory wouldn’t be abysmal.

Yankees Projected Lineup for 2018

December 15, 2017 by Sung-Min Kim Leave a Comment

Updated 12/21

Adding Giancarlo Stanton is great for the Yankees. I don’t need to use any sort of analytics to tell you that. It was already a lineup that did not have shortage in power and production. Now, thanks to some stealthy reinforcement, the offense figures to be hypothetically deadly to the opposing pitchers.

That begged the question: When it comes to the numbers, how good is the lineup projected to be, and how is it compared to recent Yankee lineups? Is it something worthy of the championship year stuff?

In this post, we will use the 2018 Steamer Projections. Keep in mind that these are just projections, which try to forecast the players’ median expected outcome, so some of the numbers that you see here can be, well, bullish. That means that many (or all) of these guys can perform above that median expected outcome and put up numbers that are better than what’s presented. However, it is worth noting that Steamer is known as one of the most accurate projections out there. As much as you want to hear that Aaron Judge will hit 70 home runs, we are given what we are given and will stick with them – bear with me.

The stat that I like to use to evaluate hitters’ value is wRC+ (weighted runs created plus), which you probably have seen if you’ve stuck around this site long enough. wRC+ tries to assign a value to hitter based on 1) basic numbers 2) wOBA 3) park factors 4) how rest of the league has performed. The league average for players is 100. Which means that, since Gary Sanchez put up a 130 wRC+ in 2017, he created 30% more runs than a league-average hitter would have in a same amount of plate appearances in this past season. If you want an estimation of how useful a hitter has been, wRC+ works.

As of December 14, 2017, with the Yankees in the thick of the Winter Meetings in Orlando, here are the hitters that would be featured regularly in the lineup if the season were to start right away:

C – Gary Sanchez
1B – Greg Bird
2B – Ronald Torreyes/Tyler Wade/Gleyber Torres
3B – Torreyes
SS – Didi Gregorius
Corner OFs – Aaron Judge/Giancarlo Stanton/Brett Gardner
CF – Aaron Hicks/Jacoby Ellsbury
DH – A rotation of Judge/Stanton

Based on that, here is a glance at a possible lineup that the Yankees could have on the opening day:

Gardner
Judge
Stanton
Bird
Sanchez
Gregorius
Hicks
Torreyes
Wade

And now, let’s take a look at what the 2018 Steamer projects for these guys.

LF Brett Gardner

.259/.345/.413, 16 HR, 62 BB, 111 K, 104 wRC+

In 2017, Gardy had the best power season of his career by hitting 21 home runs and put up a respectable 108 wRC+. Steamer projects him to do slightly worse but still perform at just above the league average. For a guy who will turn 35 at August, I’ll take that outcome.

RF Aaron Judge

.254/.368/.516, 37 HR, 91 BB, 188 K, 132 wRC+

Here is where I’d like to remind you this is just a projection but man, this is a considerable drop-off from Judge’s monstrous 2017 season. Here is a thing though – the projection usually gets more accurate when a player accumulates more plate appearances in their career. If Judge has a 2017 redux for 2018, then the projection for his 2019 would be much brighter. For now, we have a guy who suffers a sophomore slump yet puts up a well above-average 132 wRC+.

DH Giancarlo Stanton

.282/.376/.639, 55 HR, 78 BB, 164 K, 161 wRC+

That’s some pretty stuff, isn’t it? Stanton’s 161 wRC+ is the 2nd-highest projected in all of MLB (next to Mike Trout at 176 wRC+) and that gaudy 55 HR total gives you a glimpse of how good he can be when healthy for most of the season.

1B Greg Bird

.254/.344/.494, 28 HR, 61 BB, 117 K, 121 wRC+

Bird has had a very limited look in the MLB thanks to injuries, but because of what he could do while healthy, the Steamer projects a near-30 HR season with a .838 OPS in 2018. That would be quite neat. That would be the 2nd highest OPS from a Yankee first baseman since 2010 Mark Teixeira put up .846 OPS. Remember when gluten-free Tex put up a .905 OPS in 2015? That was fun.

C Gary Sanchez

.269/.333/.513, 30 HR, 41 BB, 111 K, 122 wRC+

Sanchez had a 130 wRC+ in 2017 so this is a slightly worse outlook. However, you can’t complain about an everyday catcher putting up a 122 wRC+. While you can bank on him doing better than what the Steamer thinks, but if you ask me, I’ll take it.

SS Didi Gregorius

.269/.314/.435, 19 HR, 31 BB, 77 K, 97 wRC+

Steamer thinks Sir Didi’s .287/.318/.478, 25 HR, 107 wRC+ 2017 season was a bit of overachieving compared to his talent. Just like Judge, Gregorius had a 2017 breakout with his bat and, because his past numbers are also put in consideration, the Steamer has him do less.

CF Aaron Hicks

.252/.341/.424, 18 HR, 62 BB, 101 K, 105 wRC+

Again, same deal with Judge and Gregorius. Hicks had a breakout 2017 on the plate but because of his past performances, the projection does not look as appealing as how he did this season (.266/.372/.475, 15 HR, 127 wRC+). Playing in the MLB is tough and it is certainly possible that Hicks regresses in 2018. However, there are reasons to believe in his breakout – his top prospect history, his tools, the improved plate approach, etc.

3B Ronald Torreyes

.266/.305/.366, 6 HR, 26 BB, 66 K, 77 wRC+

We will, for now, stick Torreyes in the third base spot. He played there for 26 games as Headley’s backup in 2017 and it seems that he figures to be the starter at this moment 1) unless the front office puts Gleyber there right away 2) they re-sign Todd Frazier or trade for another 3B. Anyways, Torreyes got a projected OPS of .671, which is just a bit lower than what he put up the past two seasons (.680, .689, respectively) but he’s not known for his hitting prowess. He did hit markedly better in 2017 (.258 to .292 avg.) but that kind of stuff can easily fluctuate. 2018 will be the season for him to prove that he can maintain hitting for a higher average.

2B Tyler Wade

.246/.313/.354, 7 HR, 36 BB, 94 K, 79 wRC+

I was going to put Gleyber here but because Tyler Wade has had some ML exposure this year and Torres might need more seasoning in the AAA before making it to the show, I put Wade here. Anyways, a 79 wRC+ in 245 PAs for a guy who can hit AAA pitching but struggled in the ML in brief look sounds about right. If I had to bank on it, I’d say Wade won’t be the primary second baseman in 2018. The Yankees will either make a move or promote internally (*ahem* Gleyber).

Based on this glance, we have a lineup that is projected to have 6 out of 9 hitters that could hit 20 or more home runs and produce runs better than a league-average hitter. Acquiring Stanton gives the lineup the higher highs because of his ridiculous projected 161 wRC+. If Judge comes close to his 173 wRC+ 2017 season then boy, there’s a two-headed monster right there. Now, here is a fun part. How does this Steamer-projected 2018 lineup compare to the past Yankee lineups?

To do so, I looked at every past Yankees positional hitter depths since 1996 with a minimum of 300 PAs each for a player. For fun, I decided to filter for the Yankee teams with more than six hitters with 100 or greater wRC+ WITH one or more hitters with 150 or greater wRC+ (since, in my opinion, it is very possible that Judge also breaks 150 wRC+ in 2018. With apologies to Steamer). Here they are:

1998 Yankees (9 hitters above 100 wRC+, Bernie Williams with a 158 wRC+)
1999 Yankees (6 hitters above 100 wRC+, Derek Jeter with a 156 wRC+)
2002 Yankees (7 hitters above 100 wRC+, Jason Giambi with a 175 wRC+)
2005 Yankees (8 hitters above 100 wRC+, Alex Rodriguez with a 174 wRC+ and Jason Giambi with 165 wRC+)
2007 Yankees (8 hitters above 100 wRC+, Alex Rodriguez with a 175 wRC+ and Jorge Posada with a 157 wRC+)
2008 Yankees (6 hitters above 100 wRC+, Alex Rodriguez with a 152 wRC+)
2017 Yankees (8 hitters above 100 wRC+, Aaron Judge with a 173 wRC+)

With the exception of the 2008 Yankees, which was plagued by some bad pitching (so bad that Sidney Ponson and Darrell Rasner got extended looks), the other teams made the playoffs and two of them won the World Series. This is not really the accurate way to compare lineups, mind you – it’s more or less finding similarities based on categories.

On one hand, if the Yankees can’t make any more moves for an starting infielder this offseason, you could make a case that they will be fine without them. They already have six guys projected to produce above average league level with two power monsters lurking. However, that notion should not stop them from exploring moves for more immediate upgrades. What is more important is how balanced the lineup is from head to toe. For instance, let’s look at the 2009 WS champs Yankees. While they did not have anyone who put up a Judge-like monster performance in the regular season, 8 hitters put up wRC+ higher than 120. Imagine 8 out of the 9 guys in the everyday lineup all being top 50 hitters of the league: that’s what the 2009 Yankees had.

In comparison, the 2018 projected lineup has four guys above 120 wRC+. In my opinion, it is important to build something that does not give pitchers a breathing room from no. 1 to 9. A lineup of eight or nine really good hitters can really, really wear pitchers down and hypothetically present scoring opportunities more often.

Based on Steamer, the 2018 Yankees lineup is projected to do pretty solid. However, the reality will be different since projections are just forecasts. You can’t project the adjustments that hitters will make to take their game to the next level. You also can’t project season-long slumps that could happen to anyone (2005 Mike Lowell says hello). I am probably biased but Steamer seems to low ball guys like Judge, Gregorius and Hicks – all of them who had 2017 breakouts – because of their performances prior to 2017.

The 2017 Yankees did some remarkable stuff. They led the baseball in home runs (241) and FanGraphs rated their offense as the 2nd best next to the Astros. Adding Giancarlo Stanton will only help their cause. While things could go differently than expectations, all we can do now, in the thick of the winter, is to just imagine. Who knows, maybe 2018 will bring some of the wildest dreams come true.