(Mike Stobe/Getty Images)

Yesterday I wrote about the Yankees and their increasingly impatient offense, showing that they haven’t been working the count this season like we’ve seen in the past. It’s unlikely that seeing fewer pitches per plate appearance is the root cause of the team’s recent offensive woes, but I do think it’s a contributing factor. Not getting in favorable counts and swinging at the pitches pitchers want you to swing at will drag down anyone’s numbers.

Plate discipline isn’t just swinging at strikes and laying off balls though, it’s also about swinging at quality strikes. Not every strike is one you can drive. Here’s a PitchFX breakdown of the team’s plate discipline tendencies — swing and contact rates on pitches both in and out of the strike zone — over the last four seasons…

Notice the in-zone stats I’ve highlighted in yellow. Starting with 2009, the Yankees have swung at more pitches in the strike zone each season but have made less contact. We’re talking about a three percentage point difference in each category over a four-year span so it’s not a huge change, but it is a change for the worse. The Yankees have become more aggressive within the strike zone in recent years but have less to show for it. Simply put, their swing-and-miss rate within the zone is climbing.

As a whole, pitchers around the league have not changed their overall approach against the Yankees since 2009…

Other than the expected year-to-year fluctuations, the Yankees have seen the same percentage of fastballs and offspeed pitches over the last few years. They’ve also seen the exact same number of first pitch strikes, so it’s not like they’re falling behind in the count more often. Pitchers may be pitching them differently in different counts and in specific situations (men on base, etc.), but that’s beyond my PitchFX capabilities at the moment. That would help explain the in-zone plate discipline issues, however.

The Yankees are anything but an offensive powerhouse these days and there are many reasons why. Missing more hittable pitches in the strike zone could be one of those reasons, though the little bit of data above hardly confirms that. The team is trending in the wrong direction when it comes to making contact on pitches in the strike zone, and some of those misses very likely came on pitches they should have hit hard somewhere.

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The Yankees and pitches in the strike zone

(Mike Stobe/Getty Images)

Power and patience. Those two traits have defined the Yankees’ offense for more than two decades now. They work deep counts and force pitchers to throw a ton of pitches, then take advantage by driving the ball all over the field and homers over the fence. It’s brutally effective, but lately the Yankees seem to have gotten away from the patience part. They’re still hitting for a ton of power — second in baseball in homers (61) and fifth in extra-base hits (135) — but the at-bats don’t seem to be as long as usual.

Anecdotally, we’ve seen a whole lotta first pitch swinging of late. Heck, Alex Rodriguez saw a total of six pitches (!) in four trips to the plate just yesterday, so this isn’t completely a case of my mind playing tricks on me. Bronson Arroyo started the eighth inning with a pitch count of just 83 on Friday and a day later Homey Bailey needed 97 pitches to navigate seven innings. When right, the Yankees have the opponent’s pitch count up in the 80s by the fourth or fifth inning, so clearly something has been amiss during this recent offensive slide.

At the moment, the Yankees average 3.83 pitches per plate appearances and that is actually below the league average. Granted, it’s below average by one-hundredth of a pitch per plate appearance, but below average is below average. The Yankees as currently constructed should be far above the league average in terms of seeing pitches. I was floored when I dug this up. It just doesn’t make sense. Worst of all, they’ve been hovering right around the league average all season…

(click to embiggen)

Other than a short climb in late-April and early-May, the Yankees have sat right around the league average in pitches per plate appearance since things stabilized about ten games into the season. That coincides with Brett Gardner‘s injury and he’s obviously a guy that will work counts and see a ton of pitches each time up. One guy isn’t enough to explain the huge difference from what the Yankees have established as the norm. They saw 3.92 pitches per plate appearance in each of the last two seasons and that’s right around where they should be in 2012 even though Jorge Posada has been replaced by Raul Ibanez.

It stands to reason that fewer pitches seen would result in a decline in walk rate, and sure enough…

(click to embiggen)

The Yankees have walked in 9.0% of their plate appearances this season, above the 8.4% league average. That walk rate has steadily declined as the season has progressed, particularly in the last 15-20 games. Last season they had a 9.9% walk rate and the year before it was 10.4%, and that’s right around where they were sitting this year until this ridiculous offensive slump set in about three weeks ago. Obviously hits are better than walks but this isn’t an either/or situation, the Yankees have dominated offensively for years because they’ve done both, hit and walked. Lately they haven’t done much of either.

The run production has been dreadful of late, like throw your remote at the television awful. The Yankees have scored two runs or less in half of their last 20 games and it’s no surprise given some of the at-bats. Maybe they’re pressing, maybe it’s irreversible decline, maybe it’s bad coaching, maybe it’s just small sample size noise, maybe it’s all of that and more. The Yankees have gotten away from being patient and waiting for the pitcher to make mistakes, and although we can’t definitively say it’s the root cause of their offensive problems, it sure seems to be a contributing factor. The sooner they get back to grinding out at-bats (in all situations!), the better.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

The increasingly impatient offense

(REUTERS/Mark Blinch)

I don’t know if there’s anything in baseball more frustrating than an underachieving team. If there is, I’m not sure I want to know. The Yankees have underachieved through their first 37 games of the season, but don’t confuse underachieving with being bad. They’ve played okay at best overall, but that’s not what they’re capable of. They haven’t played up to their full potential, specifically the starting pitching last month and the offense this month.

Last night’s 8-1 loss to the Blue Jays marked the eighth time in their last 16 games that the Yankees were held to two runs or less. That’s very hard to swallow. They’ve hit just .258/.323/.425 during those 16 games compared to a .279/.354/.479 performance in their first 21 games of the season. Their strikeout rate has gone up (15.7 K% vs. 18.4 K%) and their walk rate has gone down (10.2 BB% vs. 8.1 BB%) during those two admittedly arbitrary samples. Maybe the only difference between the first 21 games and the last 16 games is Derek Jeter‘s ridiculous hot streak. Who knows?

Is the offense going to come around at some point and start clicking on all (or at least most) cylinders? Yeah probably. It’ll be glorious when it happens but I don’t expect it to happen anytime soon. The Yankees appear content to just keep running the same ol’ lineup out there every night and hope that these problems will just correct themselves, which is fine I suppose. I wish they were a little more proactive with making slight changes — dropping Mark Teixeira in the lineup, moving Raul Ibanez and Nick Swisher up, etc. — but there’s value in patience. It’s just tough to expect improvement when no changes are made.

One thing that I do believe is very important right now is getting Curtis Granderson a day off. I don’t mean sometime this weekend or early next week, I’m talking tonight on the turf in Toronto. Granderson’s started every game of the season in center field and he’s stuck in a 5-for-36 rut at the moment (four of those five hits are homers, ironically enough), so let’s get the man off his feet for once. It may help re-ignite his bat or it may not, but I do know that fatigued players are less effective players. A day of rest for Curtis could end up helping the offense in a big way.

There are still 125 games to go this year and that’s great news because the Yankees are going need all the time they can get to figure this thing out. They’re lucky the AL East is so competitive right now because no team has really run away with the division yet. Sitting 3.5 games back in mid-May is nothing, not when there are so many intra-divison games left to play. The Yankees don’t need a shake-up or anything drastic, but they do need to start showing signs of improvement. Talk is cheap; it’s not all that early in the season anymore and the excuses are starting to run out. This is a results town and the results haven’t been there this month.

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On offensive slumps and frustration

There are few positives in Teixeira’s abnormally slow start to the season, but we can take solace in a few numbers. For starters, he’s not a true-talent .286 OBP or 83 OPS+, even if you believe that he’s in decline. His numbers have nowhere to go but up. He hasn’t been popping up balls with the propensity he has in the last two years; to date he has just three infield pop-ups. We can also look this his most recent four games: 6 for 16 with two doubles and a homer. He might already be in the midst of a turnaround.

Teixeira doesn’t need anyone making excuses for him. But at the same time it hasn’t been easy for him in the early goings. After last season he admitted to being a bit too pull happy, acknowledging that he needed to change his swing. Maybe he worked on that during the off-season into spring training. But all the cage work and BP in the world can’t replace the in-game work it takes to make such adjustments. At the same time, he’s been battling a nasty cold. Can you imagine having to cough while you’re waiting for a pitcher to deliver the ball?

It might take Teixeira some more time to get into the groove of things. But once he does, I expect big things. If his early season struggles truly are the results of a sick man trying to make adjustments to live pitching, then the best is yet to come. As we’ve seen in the past, that could provide an enormous improvement to the team’s offensive output.

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Retaining hope for Mark Teixeira

Something seemingly clicked for him in the final game of the series in Kansas City. With the Yankees needing a win to secure a series tie, Cano led the offense by going 2 for 5 with a homer and 4 RBI. In the eight games since he has gone 15 for 32 with two homers and four doubles. The surge has raised his average all the way to .303, which is second on the team behind Derek Jeter. Of his 14 RBI on the season 10 have come in these last eight games. Cano also leads the team in doubles with 12.

While Cano’s numbers aren’t quite where we’d expect them — he’s still missing a little power — he’s made it clear that he can reach those numbers in no time. It took just eight games for him to gain 50 points on his average and drive in 10 runs. Imagine what this might look like in another eight games. Imagine what it might look like at the end of June as we approach the halfway mark. It might be frustrating to see such a highly regarded player struggle out of the gate. But it’s equally pleasing to see him turn things around in such a short period of time.

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Robinson Cano’s eight-game surge to the top

A-Rod started the season with peaks and valleys, but he really started to turn it around when the Yankees returned home from Texas to face Detroit. He entered that series hitting .221/.329/.382 (15 for 68 in 79 PA). Since going 3 for 4 with a homer against Detroit he has hit .371/.458/.484 (23 for 62 in 72 PA). That includes two homers, but just one double. In fact, if there is any concern about A-Rod it is his lack of doubles. He has just three on the season, which could indicate that he’s just not driving the ball as he should.

Even better, in the small sample of 46 PA he has handled lefties reasonably well. He’s hitting just .263 against them (10 for 38), but he does have two homers and one of his three doubles. He had just two homers in all of 2011 against lefties after hitting six in 2010. In each of the last two seasons A-Rod has produce an OPS against righties that far exceeded his mark against lefties — nearly 100 points last year and 130 points in 2010. The turnaround, albeit against a small and selective sample, is encouraging.

A-Rod’s season started turning favorably at the end of April. As we’ll see later this afternoon, the other two major contributors have gotten started a bit later.

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A-Rod leads middle of the order turnaround

With runners in scoring position Ibanez is 7 for 18 with three doubles and a homer. He has worked four of his eight walks on the season in those situations. That all works out to 8 RBI, and it feels as though all eight of them have come at crucial points in games. On a team that has struggled to hit safely with men in scoring position, Ibanez stands out from the crowd. He, along with Eduardo Nunez (4 for 7) and Chris Stewart (4 for 13), are the only Yankees with a .300 or better batting average with RISP (minimum 10 PA).

After those three the most productive Yankees’ hitter with runners in scoring position is Mark Teixeira. He has drive in 12 runs when given the opportunity, tied for the team lead with Nick Swisher. Teixeira has gone 8 for 31 in those situations; it’s quite sad that his .258 BA with RISP bests anyone hitting one through six in the lineup. After that comes Derek Jeter (.238), Curtis Granderson (.217), Swisher (.192), A-Rod (.192), Cano (.172), and finally Russell Martin (.154). That’s a sad state of affairs when the opportunity to score runs is highest.

Both Granderson (.357) and A-Rod (.417) have gotten on base at a quality clip, but walks aren’t quite as valuable with runners in scoring position. Power can be valuable, though, and Nick Swisher has brought that with a .270 ISO. Teixeira (.226) and Ibanez (.333) have also hit for power with ducks on the pond. But beyond those few exceptions, the Yankees haven’t gotten much at all done when they put men on base. They rank ninth in the AL with a .247 BA with RISP, which is 14 points lower than the league average. Their only saving grace is power; their .416 SLG ranks fourth in the AL.

Overall, the Yankees have fared much better in terms of offense. Their .274 BA ranks third in the league, while their .343 OBP ranks second as does their .465 SLG and 115 OPS+. Yet their overall OPS is 51 points higher than their OPS with RISP. That’s quite the reverse of other OPS leaders Texas and Boston, both of which feature quite higher OPSs with runners in scoring position. Both, in fact, feature significantly better numbers with runners in scoring position. That’s a big reason why, obviously, they lead the AL in runs per game.

We can take some solace in the knowledge that the Yankees will get better in this department. Remember last year when we complained of the Yankees RISP woes, particularly early in the season? They finished hitting .273 in those situations, which ranked fifth in the AL; the leaders, Texas, hit .284 as a team in those situations. The Yankees also led the league in SLG with RISP. Given their superior overall numbers, it’s a near certainty that things will turn around in crucial situations; they almost always do.

On the other hand, it’s a bit troubling that the biggest bats have failed when runs were there for the taking. Derek Jeter, who leads the team in so many categories, is just 5 for 21 with no extra base hits with RISP. Robinson Cano and A-Rod have only five hits as well, and they’ve seen quite a few more situations with RISP; they have three extra base hits between them. Swisher, productive as he’s been with those 12 RBI, also has only five hits. At least three of his, including two homers, have gone for extra bases.

If the Yankees start hitting just to the league average rate with runners in scoring position, we could see a dramatic spike in runs scored. They put more men on base than any team other than Texas. Once they start to cash in those runs, we should see them jump in the standings. That does little to curb our collective frustration when they do fail with RISP, but that won’t last forever. It never does.

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RISP: Where Yanks big guns go to die

(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

The Yankees have been without Brett Gardner for nearly three weeks now as a bone bruise and right elbow sprain have kept him on the sidelines. His defense in the outfield is very sorely missed and given the club’s recent offensive struggles, has bat has been missed as well. Gardner put together a .321/.424/.393 batting line (.384 wOBA) in 34 plate appearances before hitting the DL, a small sample-size performance that has been missing from the lineup nonetheless.

As you know, Gardner’s offensive game revolves around getting on base and using his legs. He owns a career .355 OBP with 137 steals in 165 chances, an 83% success rate that is well above the break-even point (68-70% these days). Gardner is never going to hit for power, but that’s alright as long as he does everything else expected of him. As far as number nine hitters go, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better one that the Yankees’ regular left fielder.

Now just because he gets on base at a strong clip, steals bases, and plays elite defense doesn’t mean Gardner is without his warts. He doesn’t hit for power like I said, he can be hesitant stealing bases at times, and he has an amazing knack for staring at pitches right down the middle for a called strike three. More than seven percent (7.2%, to be exact) of his career plate appearances have ended with a called strike three, well above the ~4.5% league average. Strikeouts come with the territory when you work counts like Gardner, but I’ve always felt he was a bit too passive and would often work the count just for the sake of working the count rather than trying to get on base.

Anyway, I bring this up because yesterday I was reading David Laurilia’s interview with Nick Johnson, the former Yankee and like Gardner, a noted worker of counts. Johnson has become something of a punchline given his injury problems, but the guy came into the season with a .401 OBP in over 3,100 career plate appearances, and that’s damn impressive. I highly recommend reading the entire interview, but this quote in particular caught my attention…

“Sometimes, when you’re seeing a lot of pitches, you can get too passive. I think there’s a fine line with that. But I like seeing pitches. The more pitches I see, the more comfortable I get throughout the at bat. I don’t mind hitting with two strikes.”

Johnson goes on to say that seeing more pitches allows him to pinpoint the pitcher’s release point, get an idea of how they want to pitch to him, stuff like that. There is a fine line though, and Gardner seems to  walk it more than anyone. He gets away with it in part because he’s one of the best in baseball at simply getting the bat on the ball. Since breaking into the league, Gardner has made contact on 94.8% of the swings he’s taken against pitches in the strike zone (18th best in baseball) and on 90.5% of his swings overall (14th). He may have a knack for staring at strike three, but opposing pitchers will tell you he also has a knack for fouling off pitches. That’s a pretty great skill to have given the type of player he is.

Johnson says he doesn’t mind hitting with two strikes and we don’t know of the same is true for Gardner, but you’d have to think he’s not afraid of those spots given how often he winds up in them, no? For what it’s worth, Brett is a .216/.300/.293 career hitter in two-strike counts. That sounds absolutely horrible, but the league as a whole hit .180/.247/.272 with two strikes last year. Gardner’s an above average hitter in two-strike counts and when you think about it, getting on base 30% of the time when you have just one strike to spare is pretty awesome.

The Yankees should get their regular left field back sometime this week — Gardner played in his first minor league rehab game last night — and he’ll increase the offense they get from the bottom of the lineup. I don’t think Brett is a great player by any stretch, but he’s definitely a very good player who derives almost all of his offensive value from working the pitcher and getting on base. There’s nothing more frustrating than taking strike three and that will continue to be one of Gardner’s biggest flaw, but it shouldn’t subtract from the things he does well. He’s a second leadoff hitter in the nine spot that makes works deep counts, fouls off the ton of pitches, and isn’t an auto-out with two strikes.

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Brett Gardner & Deep Counts

(REUTERS/Dave Kaup)

Aside from yesterday’s blowout win, the Yankees slogged through a dreadful offensive slump last week that saw them score just 13 runs in six games. Six of those 13 runs came in Friday’s game, so the other seven were spread across five games. The lineup came back to life on Sunday, scoring ten runs in the win over the Royals thanks in part to the return of Nick Swisher, who homered after sitting out most of the week with a low-grade left hamstring strain.

Obviously Swisher’s presence alone did not account for the offensive outburst, but it didn’t hurt. He’d hit six homers with a .408 wOBA in 93 plate appearances before the injury, joining Curtis Granderson as the club’s second best bat behind the resurgent Derek Jeter in the early going. A player performing like that was going to be missed no matter what, but even moreso when seemingly everyone else in the lineup was battling through some kind of slump, either recent or extended. It was hard not to notice the big gaping hole in the offense last week.

Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, and Mark Teixeira have shown flashes of breaking out recently, but nothing more. Swisher’s return adds a little more thump to the offense and I think the Yankees should consider bumping him up in the lineup, at least temporarily. Batting order doesn’t mean much over 162 games, but in an individual game — especially when the 3-4-5 hitters as a whole haven’t been producing — it can make all the difference. Moving Swisher to, say, cleanup will put him in position to do more damage given how Jeter and Granderson are setting the table. Once the usual 3-4-5 guys get going, they can return to their regular lineup spots.

Just to be clear, I don’t think simply rearranging the batting order will spark A-Rod‘s, Cano’s, and Tex’s bats. I don’t buy into the idea that players perform better in specific lineup spots. I believe those three will improve their offensive performances (to various degrees) in the coming weeks, but right now they’re not getting it done. Swisher has been and moving him a little closer to Jeter and Granderson could actually lead to some more sustained rallies in lieu of stranded runners and frustration. It’s a crazy concept, I know.

The Yankees do a great job of remaining patient and avoiding knee-jerk moves these days, but at the same time they don’t have to ignore little tweaks. It’ll suck seeing Teixeira making $22M+ to bat sixth, but is that really worse than watching him make outs in big spots with men on base? I certainly don’t think so. Winning the division is too important this year for the Yankees to go through another week or two like last. Moving Swisher up will create a little more continuity among the team’s best hitters and hopefully leads to more runs on the scoreboard. If not, then no big deal. Real easy to go back to the way things were.

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The Importance of Nick Swisher

Miss the good version of Cano. (Al Bello/Getty Images)

Given how dominant he’s been the last two seasons, I think it’s fair to say Robinson Cano has been the most disappointing player on the Yankees this season, at least on the offensive side of the ball. Expectations were relatively low for Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, and Russell Martin, but I think everyone assumed Cano would continue to be the hitter he’s been over the last two years. Needless to say, a .255/.308/.367 batting line (.297 wOBA) after the first month of the season is a surprise.

Everyone is going to have a theory about why a player is slumping when they’re slumping. Some resort of old diatribes like “he can’t hit good pitching” or “he can’t hit breaking balls” while others write it off as part of the typical ups and downs of the 162-game season. Occasionally we’ll get an actual answer, whether it be a nagging injury we didn’t know about or a mechanical issue or something else entirely. During last night’s broadcast, Jack Curry he spoke to hitting coach Kevin Long about Cano, and he indicated that he’s not getting his hands in the right place before swinging. Sounds reasonable, who am I to disagree?

Whether or not the hand issue is the root cause of the problem isn’t for us to decide. Whatever’s ailing Cano is causing him to hit a ton of ground balls, 52.9% to be exact. That is the 30th highest ground ball rate out of 184 qualified hitters and comes after a four-year stretch with a 46.2% ground ball rate and a two-year stretch with a 45.4% ground ball rate. Just to drive home the point, here’s the day-to-day graph…

Grean is grounders, red is line drives, blue is fly balls.

A 6-8% difference isn’t a huge red flag, but it does help explain why Cano has hit for so little power — .112 ISO — this season. Robinson’s not a ground ball/singles hitter, he’s a guy that rips line drives all over the field for extra bases. We’ve been watching hi do it for years, but he we have yet to see that guy in 2012 and who knows why. Maybe he really can’t hit good pitching or maybe it’s just some stupid little mechanical issue that will be ironed out in time. Your guess is as good as mine.

The Yankees scored just three total runs during a three-game series at home against the Orioles, and part of the reason why is Cano’s anemic bat. He’s gone 30 plate appearances without an extra-base hit — since the Yu Darvish game — after averaging one extra-base hit for every 8.9 plate appearances during the last two seasons*. For whatever reason, he simply has not been hitting the ball with much authority in recent weeks and it’s incredibly frustrating. We all want to assign blame when the Yankees lose, and right now some of that blame definitely falls on Robinson’s shoulders.

* He also hasn’t drawn a walk in 38 plate appearances after drawing eight in his first 70 plate appearances of the season, but that isn’t terribly surprising. Cano’s never been a fan of ball four.

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Robinson Cano’s ground ball problem