River Avenue Blues

Game 110: Just Win

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“I hate baseball.” (Leon Halip/Getty Images)

So this whole losing thing is starting to get pretty old. The Yankees are just 6-12 in their last 18 games despite outscoring their opponents by six total runs, which you can blame on the eight (!) one-run losses. I mean … c’mon guys. Let’s get this done. Here’s the starting nine…

SS Derek Jeter
RF Nick Swisher
2B Robinson Cano
1B Mark Teixeira
DH Eric Chavez
CF Curtis Granderson
C Russell Martin
LF Ichiro Suzuki
3B Casey McGehee

LHP CC Sabathia

Tonight’s game starts a little after 7pm ET and can be seen on YES. Enjoy, or at least try too.

Jim Hendry, the front office jack of all trades

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Two years ago the Yankees employed former Padres GM and current Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers as a special advisor, using him as what amounts to a front office jack of all trades. The Yankees hired former Cubs GM Jim Hendry for a similar position this past offseason, and Dan Barbarisi wrote about his role with the team and his relationship with Brian Cashman.

Like Towers, Hendry does a little bit of everything, including internal evaluations of the club’s prospects and scouting prior to the amateur draft. He also played a role in the Casey McGehee trade — he drafted developed McGehee with the Cubs — and handled negotiations with first round pick Ty Hensley. It’s a short but really interesting read, so check it out.

Dellin Betances and Wasting Time

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(AP Photo/David Goldman)

This has been a very poor year for the farm system, mostly due to injuries. High-end prospects like OF Mason Williams (shoulder), LHP Manny Banuelos (elbow), and RHP Jose Campos (elbow) suffered season-ending injuries, the latter two before the calendar even flipped to June. OF Tyler Austin missed about a month with a concussion, and OF Slade Heathcott (shoulder) and C Austin Romine (back) didn’t get into their first games until June and July, respectively. Add in the usual array of miscellaneous injuries to lesser prospects, and you have one ugly season on the farm.

One player who has managed to avoid the injury bug this year is RHP Dellin Betances, which is somewhat ironic because he was spending time on the DL with arm-related injuries every year earlier in his career. Instead, Betances has seen his prospect stock take a hit because of his performance. Never known for his command, he walked 69 batters in 74.2 innings with Triple-A Empire State (8.3 BB/9 and 19.0 BB%) before being demoted down to Double-A Trenton. Betances has been better with the Thunder — 3.8 BB/9 and 9.6 BB% in 44.2 innings — but still has a long way to go in his development.

VP of Baseball Ops Mark Newman told Mike Ashmore yesterday that Betances is likely to spend the rest of the season in Trenton, which makes sense. Newman reiterated that he, and presumably others in the organization believe the right-hander can start long-term, but that’s no surprise. Even if they don’t believe that at all, they wouldn’t say so. After a little back-and-forth with Ashmore, he mentioned that he believes the Yankees are just wasting time by not sticking Betances in the bullpen now, and that got me thinking a bit about the plan for the righty going forward.

First of all, we have to understand what the problem. Betances isn’t just having trouble with his command this year, he’s having trouble with basic strike-throwing ability, especially during his time in Triple-A. This isn’t a case of a guy being unable to hit the corners, Dellin hasn’t been hitting the strike zone at all. Is that something that will click with a move to the bullpen? It’s possible, but I believe that he’s going to need as many innings as possible to iron things out. As Keith Law and Kevin Goldstein recently explained, it’s a mechanical issue more than anything. Despite his size — listed at 6-foot-8, 260 lbs. — Betances is not all that athletic and has trouble repeating his delivery.

Secondly, the Yankees do have time on their side. Betances isn’t a kid anymore, he’ll turn 25 in Spring Training next year, but the club still holds one more minor league option for next season. They can send him down to Triple-A again to work on whatever he needs to work on, which apparently is a lot. The conversion from starting to relieving isn’t the most difficult thing in the world — guys often say the biggest adjustment they have to make is to their warm-up routine. With a little less than a month to go in the minor league regular season plus a potential playoff run (Trenton has an eight-game lead in the division and should have no problem qualifying for the postseason), Betances has at least another five starts left to make this summer, likely more. Those innings are valuable.

The Yankees have given Betances 113 minor league starts and nearly 500 minor league innings to improve his ability to hit the strike zone, and so far it hasn’t happened. He still misses bats (8.6 K/9 and 20.3 K% this year), throws hard, and actually has two very nice offspeed pitches in his curveball and changeup, but he has yet to harness that stuff. I think that unless some kind of light bulb clicks over the next few weeks, Dellin should go into next year as a regular old short reliever to see if he can make it work just by going out and letting it fly for one inning at a time. I respectfully disagree with Ashmore that they’ve been wasting time by not putting him the bullpen yet, but starting next spring they have to focus on extracting value from Betances however possible. A shift to relief is the next logical step.

Josh Norris & Mike Ashmore interview Mark Newman

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VP of Baseball Ops Mark Newman visited the Double-A Trenton squad last night, and beat writer extraordinaires Josh Norris and Mike Ashmore spoke to him at length about a variety of topics. You can read the entire thing right here.

In addition to discussing guys like RHP Dellin Betances, LHP Vidal Nuno, and RHP Brett Marshall, Newman also spoke about all of the injuries the farm system has suffered this year. Not so much the specific injuries, but how the organization deals with them and continually tries to improve their rehab and injury prevention methods. I’ve been saying for a while now that durability is the latest market inefficiency — it’s not just about having the best players, it’s about having the best players on the field for the majority of the time. Anyway, check out the interview, it’s a must read.

A month-by-month look at Phil Hughes

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(REUTERS/Rebecca Cook)

This has been a very … unique season for Phil Hughes. I really don’t know how else to describe it. The 26-year-old right-hander is coming off a disastrous and injury-plagued 2011 campaign, one that spurred him to (finally?) take his conditioning more seriously during the winter. Hughes looked like the best Yankees’ pitcher in Spring Training by no small margin, but he opened the season with a dud April before settling into a grove in May.

Since the calendar has flipped over to May, Phil has pitched to a 3.58 ERA (4.44 FIP) in 18 starts and 115.2 innings. The elephant in the room is his propensity to give up the long ball, though he’s managed to curtail that ever so slightly as the season has progressed. Still, I (and I’m sure many of you) get uncomfortable watching his starts — especially close games — just because I know a homerun could be coming at any moment. It’s a very uneasy feeling, like you’re watching a game while walking on eggshells or something.

Anyway, Hughes had one of his worst starts in quite some time last night, laboring particularly in the fourth and fifth innings. It was the first time he allowed more than three earned runs in a start since late-June and in 34 starts since coming off the DL last year, he’s allowed more than two earned runs just 12 times. That’s getting the job done, but I do want to focus on this year and not so much last year. Here is a month-by-month breakdown of Phil’s core statistics…

TBF ERA FIP FB% CB% CH% K% BB% HR/CON Whiff%
April 81 7.88 6.52 73.7% 14.5% 11.8% 21.0% 7.4% 8.9% 8.0%
May 157 4.66 4.47 67.8% 20.9% 11.3% 20.4% 4.5% 6.0% 7.7%
June 132 2.67 4.59 73.0% 20.4% 6.6% 24.2% 6.1% 7.6% 9.4%
July 141 3.09 4.51 64.6% 28.9% 6.5% 18.4% 5.7% 5.6% 9.5%
August 49 1.35 3.95 71.3% 21.5% 7.2% 10.2% 4.1% 2.4% 6.7%
2012 560 4.10 4.72 69.4% 21.8% 8.8% 20.0% 5.5% 6.3% 8.5%

HR/CON is homers per plate appearances with contact, so HR/(TBF-BB-K-HBP). That’s a far more accurate way to measure a pitcher’s ability to limit dingers than something like regular old HR/9. The AL average this season is 4.0% HR/CON.

Other that the decision to essentially cut his changeup usage in half at the outset of June, Hughes hasn’t changed his pitch selection much this season. His walk rate has dropped considerably since April and as I mentioned this morning, the strikeout rate has been trending downward a bit as well outside of that June spike (interleague play!). Obviously the August numbers are a tiny two-start sample, so don’t spend too much time focusing on them. The progress in the homerun department is encouraging, but again we’re still talking about someone giving up dingers at ~150% of the league average rate. At least it’s not almost 230% like it was in April.

Other than the homers, my one big concern going forward is durability. I don’t mean injuries or anything like that, I’m talking about Hughes getting fatigued down the stretch. He threw just 91 total innings last year (Majors plus minors plus playoffs) and is already at 131.2 innings this year. This is only the third time in his career that Hughes has exceeded the 130-inning plateau, joining 2006 (146 IP) and 2010 (192 IP). Coming off the shoulder issue last year, I think it’s fair to be concerned about his ability to remain effective through the end of the regular season and into the postseason. For what it’s worth, his fastball velocity has held relatively steady so far this summer, though that isn’t exactly definitive proof of anything.

Assuming the Yankees get their collective heads out of their behinds at some point and get back to winning games consistently, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to give Hughes a little rest in September. Maybe skip a start or two just for a late-season breather. Of course that depends on Andy Pettitte coming back healthy and Ivan Nova not pitching like one of the least effective hurlers in the league. The Yankees showed a little faith in Hughes by installing him as the number three starter and they remained patient through April, and for the most part he has rewarded them with three strong months at midseason. Staying effective through the end of the season and potentially into the playoffs is the next challenge.

Feliciano close to appearing in minor league rehab games

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Via Erik Boland, indications are that left-handed reliever Pedro Feliciano will begin a minor league rehab assignment this Friday with the Rookie Level Gulf Coast League Yankees. “He might become someone who’s available to us (this season) … We’ll have to see,” said Brian Cashman.

Feliciano, 35, had surgery to repair a torn capsule and rotator cuff in his shoulder last September. He’s yet to throw a meaningful pitch for the Yankees since signing a two-year, $8M contract prior to last season. Feliciano started throwing full bullpen sessions in late-June and has been facing hitters in live batting practice sessions for the last few weeks according to Boland. Assuming he comes through the minor league rehab assignment well — a massive, huge, gigantic if — he’d be a nice add as the third lefty specialist when the rosters expand in September.

Thoughts after another one-run loss

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(Leon Halip/Getty Images)

The Yankees slogged through yet another one-run loss last night, their eighth such defeat during this 6-12 stretch that dates back to the start of the West Coast trip in Oakland. They went from having a 13-9 record in one-run games to a 13-17 record in the span of two weeks. It’s unbelievable how they continue to fall short in tight games like this, it really is. I suppose the good news is that they haven’t been getting blown out of the water during this ugly 18-game stretch, but that really doesn’t make me feel any better.

Rather than put together an organized, reasonable, and well-thought-out post on the Yankees’ struggles, I’m just going to riff a bit. This seems more therapeutic.

* While the Yankees are busy embarrassing themselves in one-run games, the friggin’ Orioles are now 23-6 (!) in those affairs following last night’s extra-innings win. They’ve won a dozen straight extra-inning games, dating back to their first home series of the season when the Yankees beat them in extras twice. Maybe it’s luck, maybe it’s just good timing, maybe they’re just oh so clutch, but whatever it is it sure is annoying. At some point the other shoe will drop, and hopefully it will happen before next season.

* You know what else is annoying? The Yankees’ pitchers seem to give back every run the offense gives them in the span of an inning these days. Phil Hughes did it last night, Ivan Nova did it the night before, Nova did it again in spectacular fashion in his last start before that … the whole “shutdown innings” thing seems to have gone out the window. This has become one unwelcome habit. Maintaining a lead for more than one inning should not feel like a miracle.

* Last night’s start notwithstanding, Hughes has pitched pretty well for the last three months or so. I’m going to have a little more on him later today at some point, but for now I’m just going to post a slightly scary graph…

That is Phil’s strikeout rate as the season has progressed, and as you can see it’s been trending downward. I didn’t expect him to flirt with a whiff-per-inning all season, but after last night’s showing he’s down to 7.66 K/9 (20.0 K%). It wasn’t that long ago that he was among the AL’s top five with a 4.00 K/BB ratio, but it’s now down to a still strong 3.61. It keeps going down though.

* The Yankees have absolutely missed Alex Rodriguez, who even in his declining state serves as a steady contributor in the middle of the lineup. But did you know that during his absence, a span of 12 games, the replacement third basemen have hit a combined .359/.409/.744 with four homers? Obviously it’s a small sample, but damn. That’s pretty awesome. Only problem is that most of the other positions are hitting like they’re blindfolded.

* Eric wrote about this last week, but I can’t help but look around the league at the trade deadline. Every other AL contender — the Angels, Rangers, Tigers, and White Sox — all improved themselves in significant ways via trade. The Yankees got Casey McGehee and the reanimated corpse of Ichiro Suzuki. I despise the whole “the best trade they could make is getting their own players back and healthy” idea, it seems to lazy. I want to think that 40-year-old Andy Pettitte will come back to reinforce the pitching staff and that 37-year-old A-Rod to will return to anchor the lineup, but I just don’t buy it. Settling for Ichiro may hurt more than it helps.

* I think my ideal lineup right now would have a top five of Derek Jeter, Nick Swisher, Robinson Cano, Mark Teixeira, and Curtis Granderson. The more I think about Granderson leading off the less I like it only because his power is wasted with Ichiro and the catcher batting ahead of him. Plus it’s not like Curtis has been doing a great job of getting on-base himself these last few weeks. The lineup doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but I am a fan of tinkering. It could mean a lot in an individual game.

* Of course, my proposed top of the lineup means a whole bunch of lefties will be stacked in the lower third, and the baseball universe might collapse upon itself if that happens. Seriously though, who cares? With McGehee, Andruw Jones, and Jayson Nix, the Yankees have right-handed pinch-hitters aplenty on the bench. Having a strong group of reserves is only an advantage if you’re willing to use them liberally.

* The lead in the division is down to five games in the loss column over Baltimore, the smallest it’s been since the end of June. Five games is a scary number because it seems so small compared to the nine and ten-game leads New York held a few weeks ago, but five games is pretty significant. Do you know when the Yankees held their first five-game lead last year? September 19th, after their 152nd game of the season. The magic number to clinch the division is just 49. Losing 12 of 18 and still being able to have a lead that size is pretty awesome … if that’s the right word.