NY Yankees News, Information & Community

Game Six: End of the Homestand

April 3, 2019 by Mike

The season is only five days old and already it feels like the Yankees are struggling to keep their heads above water. That’s against the Orioles and Tigers too. Two teams projected to lose a combined 195 games this year. The Yankees have been hit hard by injuries and several players who are healthy aren’t contributing much, especially offensively.

“We need to string together some quality at-bats. We’re swinging at some stuff out of the zone and not really sticking to our plan,” said Aaron Judge following last night’s loss. Aaron Boone added: “The guys we have in there are certainly capable of scoring runs. We’ve just got to continue to grind away and find a way right now when we are a little depleted.”

As expected, Jonathan Loaisiga has been recalled to make this afternoon’s start. He is subbing in as the fifth starter while CC Sabathia works his way back. The season is not even a full week old and Loaisiga will already be the 27th different player to appear in a game for the Yankees this year. I’m not liking where this is going. Here are this afternoon’s lineups:

New York Yankees
1. 3B DJ LeMahieu
2. RF Aaron Judge
3. DH Luke Voit
4. C Gary Sanchez
5. 2B Gleyber Torres
6. 1B Greg Bird
7. LF Clint Frazier
8. SS Troy Tulowitzki
9. CF Mike Tauchman

RHP Jonathan Loaisiga

Detroit Tigers
1. 2B Josh Harrison
2. RF Nick Castellanos
3. DH Miguel Cabrera
4. CF Niko Goodrum
5. DH Jeimer Candelario
6. LF Christin Stewart
7. C John Hicks
8. SS Jordy Mercer
9. 2B Gordon Beckham

LHP Matt Boyd

It is a splendid afternoon in the Bronx. The sun is out, the sky is blue, and temperatures will be in the 60s. Pretty great day for a ballgame, even if it is crazy windy. Today’s series finale will begin at 4:05pm ET and you can watch on the YES Network locally and MLB Network nationally. Enjoy the game.

Injury Updates: Luis Severino (shoulder) is still long-tossing. Boone did not have a firm date for Severino to throw his first bullpen session but it is expected to be soon … Sabathia is on track to join the Yankees next homestand. He’s got another minor league start coming up this weekend, and it sounds like he’ll return after that as long as everything goes well … Luke Voit (hand) will have his hand wrapped today after that hit-by-pitch last night. Postgame x-rays came back negative, but it is sore, so he’ll have a wrap and a pad to protect it today.

Roster Move: Sabathia was reinstated from the suspended list and placed on the 10-day injured list with what was officially announced as “rehab from cardiac surgery.” Loaisiga has been recalled to get the Yankees back to a full 25-man roster. Playing a man short the last few days was no big deal because they were missing a starting pitcher who wasn’t scheduled to start.

Chad Green is still trying to develop his splitter into a reliable weapon

April 3, 2019 by Mike

The new season is a week old and gosh, there’s a lot of noise out there. It’s difficult to know what’s meaningful and what is, well, noise. DJ LeMahieu is 6-for-12 (.500) at the plate right now. When LeMahieu does that later this year, in June or July, we won’t think twice about it. When it happens at the start of the season, omg what a great signing!

It’s easy to get carried away in the early days of a new season but much of what we’ve seen is lies. It’s just the usual randomness of baseball. One of the few things we do know for certain right now is Chad Green is still trying to develop a pitch to play off his fastball. His fastball will always be his bread-and-butter. He needs something else to keep hitters honest though.

Since arriving for good two years ago, the slider has been Green’s primary secondary pitch. It’s not any good, but it seems to be the secondary pitch he is most confident in. Since last August though, Green is working to reincorporate his splitter into his arsenal. He shelved the pitch following the move into the bullpen and he’s now trying to bring it back. Look:

Green has made two appearances this season and thrown 31 total pitches: 25 fastballs, four splitters, two sliders. He threw three of the four splitters to one batter, the lefty hitting Rio Ruiz, in his season debut Saturday, and the locations were, uh, not good. Even with the typical splitter movement, these are fat pitches out over the plate:

The top splitter was fouled away. The middle splitter generated a swing and a miss. The bottom splitter was sliced down the left field line for a double that led to an insurance run. Leave enough splitters up and over the plate and you’re going to pay eventually, and Green did.

Monday night Green threw his only other splitter of the season and it had good enough tumbling action, but was taken for a ball. We certainly haven’t seen Green throw many pitches that move like this since he arrived for good in 2017:

The results of four individual pitches early in the season are irrelevant. The important thing is Green is still trying to make that splitter work. He brought it back in the second half last season, when it became apparent the fastball only approach was losing effectiveness, and it is something he’s sticking with now. This experiment remains in progress.

For Green, the goal is not so much to develop the splitter (or slider or whatever) into a legitimate putaway pitch, though that would be very cool. The goal is to create something to keep hitters off the fastball. Put something else in the back of their minds so they can’t sit on the heater, which showed diminishing returns last year.

Can the splitter be that pitch? Geez, I hope so, but this isn’t a new pitch — Green threw the splitter regularly during his time as a starter — and I’m not sure how much improvement can be expected. Maybe the Yankees can help him improve the splitter in a way the Tigers couldn’t. Not much we can do now other than wait and see.

As good as he’s been the last two years, Green’s profile is not built especially well for the long haul. Fastball velocity and spin rate matter to him much more than most guys, so any normal age-related losses could have a significant impact on his effectiveness. It’s been clear he needs something else to continue being this effective. The splitter is his latest attempt to develop that something else.

Clint Frazier’s big opportunity has finally arrived

April 3, 2019 by Mike

The 2019 season is not even a week old and already the Yankees have five times as many players on the injured list as they do wins. They are 2-3 through five games and later today CC Sabathia will become the tenth Yankee on the injured list. His five-game suspension is over and he’ll continue what is essentially his Spring Training in Tampa.

The Yankees are not missing bit players either. Including Sabathia, the ten guys on the injured list combined for nearly +25 WAR last season and nearly +23 ZiPS projected WAR this year. Look at some of the players the Yankees are without right now:

Miguel Andujar (starting third baseman)
Dellin Betances (ace setup man)
Didi Gregorius (starting shortstop)
Aaron Hicks (starting center fielder)
Luis Severino (ace starter)
Giancarlo Stanton (starting designated hitter)

That’s rough. Andujar (labrum tear), Gregorius (Tommy John surgery), Hicks (back soreness), and Stanton (biceps strain) aren’t expected back anytime soon either. Stanton seems to be the closest and he’ll be shut down ten days, then reevaluated. The Yankees will be short in their lineup for a while.

The Yankees had to scramble to acquire Mike Tauchman following the Hicks injury and they had to scramble again after Stanton got hurt over the weekend. They called up Clint Frazier, who is essentially their top prospect even though he’s exceeded the rookie limits, and he went 0-for-3 with a sacrifice fly to drive in his team’s only run in his season debut last night.

Frazier did not have a good Spring Training at all (.143/.228/.245) and the plan was to send him to Triple-A so he could play every single day after losing so much time to a concussion and post-concussion migraines last year. He needs regular at-bats and he was going to get them in Scranton. Now he’ll get them in the Bronx.

“I think it was just trying to be comfortable in the box again,” Frazier said to Brendan Kuty when asked about his poor spring. “I just went back to being as simple as I could and trying to be as athletic as I can in the box (after being sent to minor league camp) and the results were immediate.”

Last year’s concussion issues robbed Frazier of a chance to play everyday while Aaron Judge was sidelined with his broken wrist. Those seven weeks of outfield playing time instead went to Shane Robinson and Neil Walker, and later Andrew McCutchen. The timing was very unfortunate. That was a big lost opportunity for Frazier.

This year’s injuries give Frazier another opportunity to show he belongs in the big leagues and show why he was once the fifth overall pick in the draft and a highly regarded prospect. Stanton’s going to be reevaluate in ten days, and even if all goes well, he’ll still have to get back into game shape. I’m thinking Giancarlo is at least three weeks from returning.

Three weeks isn’t that long when you play a 162-game season, but it’s not nothing either, and it’s what Frazier has right now. His little run as an everyday guy two years ago was interrupted by the All-Star break and then an oblique injury. This time around Frazier can experience the daily grind. He can be a normal baseball player, basically.

In a perfect world Frazier would go to Triple-A and mash and make up for the time he lost last year, then come up in a few weeks and begin to wrestle the left field job away from Brett Gardner. Instead, the injuries mean Frazier is going to play a bunch for the Yankees right away, without all those Triple-A at-bats to get back up to speed. Not ideal, but what can you do?

History has a way of repeating itself. One week into last season Brandon Drury went down with migraines and blurry vision, opening the door for Andujar. Miggy ran with it. Frazier won’t replace Stanton, but the Stanton injury does give Clint a chance to show he belongs and is worth keeping around. Andujar took advantage. Now Frazier will try to do the same.

“This is the opportunity I wanted last year,” said Frazier to Ken Davidoff two days ago. “… Right now, I’m feeling the best I felt at the plate in a long time, so I think that extra couple of days in Tampa is going to be very beneficial to myself to come up here and try to make the most of every opportunity I get.”

Tigers 3, Yankees 1: Chapman gives it up in the ninth as the offense continues to scuffle

April 2, 2019 by Mike

The 2019 Yankees are starting to feel a little too 2013 Yankees-ish to me. On a night in which one-third of the starting lineup wasn’t on the roster a week ago, the Yankees made 2019 Jordan Zimmermann look good, and were held to three runs or less for the third time in the last four games. Tuesday’s final score was 3-1. The Yankees are 2-3 through five games.

Masahiro Bends But Doesn’t Break
In the early innings the Tigers definitely hit a few scary fly balls against Masahiro Tanaka. Fortunately they were all caught for outs on or near the warning track. The cold really helped him Tuesday. The ball wasn’t carrying at all. Tanaka helped himself out as well. He escaped a first-and-third with one outs situation in the first inning with a strikeout and a grounder, and escaped a first-and-third with no outs situation in the fourth. A shallow fly ball and a beautifully turned 1-6-3 double play did the trick.

It wasn’t until the sixth inning that the Tigers got to Tanaka and they needed a little luck to do it. Jeimer Candelario hit a ground ball along the first base line that hit the bag and popped over Luke Voit’s head, and went into right field for a double. What can you do about that? Just a bad luck play. Tanaka leaving a first pitch slider over the plate to the next batter, John Hicks, wasn’t bad luck. It was a bad pitch and a legit double to drive in the tying run.

Tanaka’s final line: 6.2 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K on 87 pitches. I thought Tanaka had better stuff but worse location than his Opening Day start. The slider and splitter were biting, no doubt about it, but there were a few more pitches left up and out over the plate. For the most part, Tanaka got away with them. He didn’t on the Hicks double and that’s about it. Two starts, two strong outings for Tanaka.

A Taste Of Their Own Medicine
Jordan Zimmermann anti-fastballed the anti-fastball Yankees on Tuesday night. He’s been a 50/50 fastball/breaking ball guy the last few years, but, in his first start of the new season last week, he threw 44 breaking balls and 25 fastballs against the Blue Jays. In this game it was 57 breaking balls and 36 fastballs. Specifically, Zimmermann threw 36 sliders and 21 curveballs. Worked like a charm too.

The Yankees scored one run in 6.2 innings against Zimmermann and, unexpectedly enough, the replacement players got the job done. DJ LeMahieu singled on a ground ball through the left side with one out in the second, then Mike Tauchman poked a ground-rule double into the left field corner. I mentioned Tauchman was an all-fields guy last week. He showed it with that swing. Drove one of those rare Zimmermann fastballs the other way.

Clint Frazier, in his first at-bat of the new season, drove in LeMahieu from third with a productive out. He hit a sacrifice fly to deep left field. Single, double, sac fly. That qualify as a manufactured run? The Yankees had exactly one scoring opportunity against Zimmermann after that. Tyler Wade singled and stole second in the fifth, Aaron Judge was intentionally walked with two outs, and Voit struck out to end the inning. Womp womp.

The Yankees managed six hits in 6.2 innings against Zimmermann and one of the six didn’t leave the infield. That was LeMahieu’s fourth inning infield single to third. He has been living the good BABIP life in the early going. Ten balls in play and six hits. Between all the injuries (and Gary Sanchez sitting) and Zimmermann throwing nothing straight, the Yankees again had a tough time generating offense.

Lost In The Ninth
The good news? Aroldis Chapman hit 99.5 mph in the ninth inning. His velocity’s improving. The bad news? The Tigers jumped on Chapman for two runs. He walked Niko Goodrum with one out, setting up Dustin Peterson for the booming go-ahead double to left field. Peterson’s first career hit. Chapman left a fastball up just enough and Peterson drove it over Tauchman’s head for a 2-1 lead. Jordy Mercer followed with a ground ball single for a 3-1 lead.

Chapman gets saddled with loss but good grief. The offense gave the pitching staff zero margin for error. Five singles, one double, one walk, one hit batsmen, all scattered. The Yankees are without four regulars (Miguel Andujar, Didi Gregorius, Aaron Hicks, Giancarlo Stanton) and it is really showing. Three runs Monday night, one of which came courtesy of a dopey error by the left fielder, and one run Tuesday night. The lineup is really, really short right now.

Leftovers
Judge (single, walk) and LeMahieu (two singles) reached base twice. Tauchman (ground-rule double), Wade (single), and Austin Romine (single) reached base once. Voit took a pitch to the hand but seems to be okay. The Yankees went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position and the big problem there is the three, not the zero. Not nearly enough traffic on the bases. Waiting around for guys to get healthy doesn’t seem like a good idea, but what else can the Yankees do?

Adam Ottavino is just ridiculous. He faced four batters and struck out three. The other grounded out. Ottavino entered into a tie game with a runner on second and two outs in the sixth inning, so that was another fireman situation. Sure seems like the Yankees are using him as their Moment of Truth guy. They want him on the mound in the biggest spots.

And finally, what a complete failure by Aaron Boone in the ninth inning. Down two runs and Tauchman bats while Sanchez ends the game standing on deck waiting to pinch-hit? I know Tauchman doubled earlier in the game and ideally Gary would bat with a man on base, but come the hell on, get your best players in the game when you’re down to your last three outs.

Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
For the box score and video highlights, go to MLB.com. For the updated standings, go to ESPN. Here’s our Bullpen Workload page and here’s the loss probability graph:

Source: FanGraphs

Up Next
The Yankees and Tigers will wrap up this three-game series Wednesday afternoon. That’s a weird 4:05pm ET start. Jonathan Loaisiga and Matt Boyd are the scheduled starting pitchers. Loaisiga will added to the roster once CC Sabathia goes from the suspended list to the injured list.

Game Five: Win it for Miggy

April 2, 2019 by Mike

Despite the win, yesterday was a tough day for the Yankees. They lost Giancarlo Stanton and Miguel Andujar to injuries, and the Andujar injury is especially serious. He has a “small” labrum tear and may need season-ending surgery. Andujar and the Yankees will see how he responds to treatment and rehab over the next few weeks before making the surgery decision.

“That’s a tough one, especially the labrum. Anything in the shoulder is pretty complicated. We’ll see how it turns out. He’s a tough individual. He’ll fight through it, no matter how long it is and come back stronger than ever,” Aaron Judge said to Bryan Hoch and Coley Harvey yesterday. “Guys just step up. That’s it. We got a deep farm system, a deep organization, and when guys go down, everyone’s ready to step up and fill their spot.”

The Yankees have a ready-made replacement for Andujar in DJ LeMahieu. Stanton will be replaced by Clint Frazier, who wasn’t available to replace Judge last year. That was a big missed opportunity for Clint. Hopefully he capitalizes on Stanton’s absence and solidifies his long-term place with the Yankees. Here are tonight’s lineups:

New York Yankees
1. CF Brett Gardner
2. RF Aaron Judge
3. 1B Luke Voit
4. SS Gleyber Torres
5. 3B DJ LeMahieu
6. LF Mike Tauchman
7. DH Clint Frazier
8. 2B Tyler Wade
9. C Austin Romine

RHP Masahiro Tanaka

Detroit Tigers
1. 2B Josh Harrison
2. RF Nick Castellanos
3. DH Miguel Cabrera
4. 3B Jeimer Candelario
5. 1B John Hicks
6. LF Christin Stewart
7. CF Dustin Peterson
8. C Grayson Greiner
8. SS Jordy Mercer

RHP Jordan Zimmermann

It is cold and cloudy in the Bronx and there are some light showers in the forecast later this evening. Doesn’t look like anything that will significantly delay or impact the game. They might play through some rain drops in the late innings, if anything. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35pm ET and you can watch on the YES Network. Enjoy the game.

Injury Updates: CC Sabathia (knee) threw four innings in an Extended Spring Training game yesterday. He’s going to throw five innings with High-A Tampa on Sunday, and if all goes well, he could make his next start after that with the Yankees … Dellin Betances (shoulder) threw a bullpen session today and will face hitters next … Luis Severino (shoulder) is still long-tossing and hasn’t thrown a bullpen session.

Misc. Notes: Greg Bird took ground balls at third base this afternoon, something he’s done many times in the past, though Aaron Boone confirmed Bird is the emergency guy at the hot corner with Andujar down. “It’s not that far-fetched,” said the skipper … As expected, Jonathan Loaisiga will start tomorrow’s series finale. He’ll be the corresponding move when Sabathia is activated off the suspended list and placed on the injured list.

Minor League Notes: Roster Moves, Culver, AzFL, Franklin

April 2, 2019 by Mike

The 2019 minor league regular season begins Thursday and the Yankees announced their Opening Day rosters a few days ago. They never publicly released them that far in advance. Pretty cool. Here are the minor league coaching staffs and here are some miscellaneous notes as the season approaches.

Yankees release 22 minor leaguers

As is the case every season with every team, the Yankees released several minor leaguers at the end of Spring Training. There are only so many innings, at-bats, and roster spots to go around. Here are the 22 minor leaguers the Yankees released in recent days, according to Robert Pimpsner and Matt Eddy:

Catchers: Carlos Rodriguez
Infielders: Griffin Garabito, Jesus Graterol, L.J. Mazzilli, Oscar Sanabria
Outfielders: Devyn Bolasky, Andy Diaz, Jordan Scott
Right-Handed Pitchers: Carfred Espana, Jairo Garcia, Gabriel Gonzalez, Chase Hodson, Kyle Johnson, Jean Luna, Bringnel Mendez, Daison Manzano, Christian Morris, Garrett Mundell
Left-Handed Pitchers: Marcos Arguello, Justin Kamplain, Dallas Martinez, Nestor Oronel

Mazzilli (Lee’s son), Bolasky, and Kamplain came up from minor league camp and spent some time with the Yankees as extra bodies for Grapefruit League games this spring. The Yankees simply ran out of full season roster spots for them. Mundell had some sleeper potential as a hard-throwing reliever and Scott was a tools guy who never really figured it out. Just about everyone else is a Dominican Summer League or rookie ball kid.

Culver worked out for Yankees as a pitcher

Former Yankees first round pick Cito Culver worked out for the team as a pitcher during Spring Training, reports Robert Pimpsner. Here’s some video. Culver, now 26, hit .227/.299/.314 (58 wRC+) with four homers as a Double-A and Triple-A utility infielder with the Marlins last season. He signed with the independent Rockland Boulders a few weeks ago and their press release indicates he’ll play the infield, not pitch.

Culver pitched in high school — the video is long gone now, but I remember MLB.com’s draft video was Culver pitching rather than hitting and playing the infield — and his throwing arm was his best tool as a position player. As his bat failed to develop, the possibility of moving to the mound always lingered, though it never happened. The Yankees wouldn’t take a look at Culver this spring if they didn’t have some interest in signing him. This might be something that gets revisited down the line.

MiLB announces rule changes

Minor League Baseball announced new rule changes and revisions last week that align closely with the rule changes coming to Major League Baseball the next two years. Here are the announced changes:

Three-batter minimum for pitchers at Double-A and Triple-A unless the inning ends.
Extra-innings tiebreaker rule revised so pitchers no longer serve as a designated runner.
Mound visit limits reduced (now five in Triple-A, seven in Double-A, nine in Single-A, no limit in rookie ball).

Josh Norris notes rehabbing big leaguers are exempt from the three-batter minimum, which will otherwise be largely inconsequential. Matching up rarely happens in the minors. Even pitchers who project as matchup specialists long-term are used for full innings so they can try to improve against batters of the opposite hand. J.J. Cooper looked at last season and found only a handful of Triple-A pitching appearances that would’ve been affected by the new rule.

The extra-innings tiebreaker rule took effect at all levels last season and I am totally cool with using it in the minors. There’s no reason to risk injuries and push young developing players deep into extra innings. The minors are about development, not wins and losses, and protecting players should be a priority. The rule was revised this year so that pitchers no longer have to serve as the designated runner to start the inning, which has zero impact on the Yankees because they use the DH. The batter who made the last out of the previous inning serves as the runner. If it was a pitcher, the batter before him runs. Easy peasy.

MLB announces AzFL chances

Two weeks ago MLB announced a series of changes to the Arizona Fall League. Most significantly, the season has been moved up a few weeks. The 2019 AzFL season will begin September 17th and end October 26th. In the past the season started in early-October and ended in mid-November. Now there’s much less downtime between the end of the minor league season and the start of the AzFL season. That’s an obvious plus. Expecting players to stay sharp without game action for a few weeks was kinda silly.

Furthermore, teams will now be able to send any player under contract to the AzFL. In the past teams could only send one player who spent the regular season below Double-A, so the league was heavy on Double-A and Triple-A players. Now anyone can go. The AzFL press release doesn’t say anything about players with MLB service time — players with a full year of service time were ineligible for the Fall League — so I assume that rule no longer applies. Sensible changes and good news all around.

Longtime coach, manager Tony Franklin retires

Longtime minor league coach and manager Tony Franklin retired following Spring Training, according to Mark Didtler. It was his 50th (!) Spring Training in professional baseball. “I enjoyed every minute of it,” Franklin said. Franklin, 68, had a nine-year minor league career as a speed-and-defense infielder with the Reds, Cubs, and Expos from 1970-78.

By 1979, Franklin was coaching in the minors, and he joined the Yankees in 2007. Franklin managed Double-A Trenton (2007-14) and Rookie Pulaski (2015), then moved into a rehab coach role in Tampa. He led Trenton to three league championships (2007, 2008, 2013). Franklin was a baseball lifer and incredibly popular with his players and within the organization. Congrats to him on a great career.

Miscellaneous links

And finally, here are some stray links to check out as we wait for minor league Opening Day to arrive:

The MLB.com crew listed one breakout prospect for each team. RHP Deivi Garcia was their pick for the Yankees. “Garcia is so polished that he finished his third professional season in Double-A at age 19. The Yankees love high spin rates, and he has them with his curveball and 91-96 mph fastball. He also shows promise with a fading changeup,” says the write-up. Didn’t Deivi break out last year?
Jonathan Mayo spoke to farm system head Kevin Reese about the system. Reese mentioned RHP Tanner Myatt and OF Josh Stowers as guys who stood out in Spring Training. “He has a really even-keeled personality. You don’t see him get too up or down. His at-bats feed off of that. He has good strike zone knowledge and it seems like he knows when it’s time to let it fly and he knows when it’s time to sit back and put the ball in play, so that’s been impressive,” Reese said of Stowers.
Sam Dykstra posted a Q&A with Reese about all the pitching in the system. “I don’t think there’s anyone that we’ve brought from 89-91 all the way to 97 with any secret sauce or anything like that. But we’re trying to maximize in the weight room. We’re trying to maximize nutrition. We’re trying to maximize all those of things to allow guys to hit their ceilings,” Reese said regarding the Yankees’ ability to help pitchers to add velocity.

Aroldis Chapman’s reduced velocity isn’t something to worry about just yet

April 2, 2019 by Mike

The Yankees beat the Tigers last night and the ninth inning was over in the blink of an eye. Aroldis Chapman needed only seven pitches to get a pop-up to first, a grounder to second, and a strikeout to nail down his first save of the new season. The only number that seemed to matter: 97.0 mph. That was Chapman’s average fastball for the night.

“Obviously, he was really efficient,” Aaron Boone said to Dan Martin following the game. “It looked like there was good life on his fastball. I wasn’t overly concerned with it (but) it was good to see him come in and start to push it up a little bit and look like his stuff was crisp.”

Chapman’s trademark velocity was noticeably down in Spring Training, sitting mostly 94-95 mph on the television radar gun. He averaged 95.0 mph in his first regular season appearance last Thursday and topped out at 97.8 mph. In a vacuum, that’s very good velocity. For Chapman, it’s definitely down.

“It’s something we’ll keep an eye on. We’ll see as we get into the season and it gets warmer,” pitching coach Larry Rothschild told Dan Martin and George King over the weekend. Chapman said he’s healthy and feels great physically, which is good even though it’s hard to trust athletes when they talk about their health (they always say they’re healthy).

Chapman turned 31 in February and velocity loss is part of life for a pitcher. His average fastball velocity was lower last year than the year before, and that year was lower than the year before it. Remember those 105 mph fastballs everyone fell in love with? Chapman hasn’t thrown a pitch that hard since August 2016. That historic velocity was never going to last and, really, it’s pretty amazing it lasted as long as it did.

It’s easy (and understandable) to freak out about reduced velocity these days and there’s no doubt a 104 or 105 mph fastball is more effective than a 96 or 97 mph fastball. At 104-105 mph, Chapman is a dominator. At 96-97 mph, the outs don’t come quite as easy. The good news is we’ve already seen some improvement in his two appearances …

March 28th: 95.0 mph average and 97.8 mph max
April 1st: 97.0 mph average and 98.3 mph max (on a very cold night)

… and Chapman has shown us he can make adjustments. Last year he incorporated his slider more than ever before and that happened even before it was clear his velocity was down and staying down. He came out of the gate throwing more sliders, which tells us the plan going into the season was more sliders. It just so happened to coincide with the first significant velocity loss of his career.

While I enjoy a good velocity freakout as much as anyone (actually, I don’t), we don’t know whether Chapman’s reduced velocity is actually a problem yet. He’s only made two appearances and both went fine (admittedly against terrible teams), and his velocity ticked up the second time out. It could be that Chapman needs a few weeks to reach his maximum velocity and begin touching 100 mph again.

“What makes Aroldis so unique and so special (is) his kinetic chain is so freakish,” Boone said last week. “I think once that gets really dialed in, I think the velocity will follow. Now, is it 103s and 102s? I don’t know. I would expect him to slowly start to tick back that way.”

Right now, four games and two Chapman appearances into the new season, I consider his velocity something to watch more than something to worry about. Will he be the overwhelming dominator he was in his prime at 97-98 mph instead of 104-105 mph? No, probably not, but that doesn’t mean Chapman can’t be very effective either. He was a deserving All-Star last year despite the velocity drop.

We need more information, basically. Let’s see whether the velocity gradually increases in the coming weeks and let’s see how effective Chapman remains without the triple-digit heater. If the velocity gain we saw last night stops or even reverses, and he starts getting knocked around the park and/or walking everyone, then it’ll be time to worry. Right now, it’s still not clear whether the reduced velocity hurts him. All we know is his velocity is down. We can’t dismiss the velocity loss. We also can’t make any definitive conclusions yet either.

The important thing is health. As long as Chapman’s healthy — and he does look healthy — he has a chance to increase his velocity as the season progresses and the weather warms up, and he has a chance to make adjustments too. You can’t do either of those things when you’re hurt. Chapman’s healthy and we’ve already seen some velocity uptick. Chances are those 104s and 105s are never coming back given normal age-related velocity loss. Chapman can still have success at 97-98 mph, which is down for him and excellent for everyone else.