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How confident are you that the Yankees will make the postseason?

February 11, 2019 by Joe Pawlikowski

(Rob Carr/Getty)

I’m at 92%. You might be a bit above or a bit below that, depending on how you feel about how the team is constructed. No matter where you are, the important thing is to arrive at a number. Look around the league. What would have to go wrong for the Yankees and right for everyone else for them to miss the postseason? It doesn’t seem too likely.

Would signing Bryce Harper or Manny Machado much improve your confidence of the Yankees making the postseason? Probably not, since it’s high already. I go from 92% to 98% — it would take a whole ton going wrong in the Bronx combined with enough going right in Anaheim, Tampa, or Minnesota to topple the Yankees in this scenario.

Making the playoffs 98 times out of 100 rather than 92 on the surface suggests that signing Harper or Machado might not be the best use of resources. Why take on that level of risk for only a marginal improvement in your chances?

The goal, of course, isn’t simply to make the playoffs. Let’s extend this exercise.

How confident are you that the Yankees will win the AL East? This has value, as we witnessed the last two years in the Wild Card game. It absolutely affects the confidence you’d have in the Yankees progressing to the ALDS, which de facto affects your confidence in them making or winning the World Series.

Right now I’m at 55%. The Red Sox have some holes and probably won’t be as good as they were last year. Maybe 55% is a bit high, maybe it should be 52%, with the Red Sox at 45% and the Rays at 3%. But I’m sticking with 55% for the moment. If they signed Harper or Machado, however, I’d be at 67%. This can make a big difference going forward.

Technical mumbo jumbo
Without walking through all the steps, once I account for my confidence both of them winning the division and making the playoffs I can run them through similar exercises for the playoffs. Quickly: if I have them winning the division 55 times that means I have them winning the Wild Card 37 times. If I’m 65% confident of them winning the WC game (perhaps too confident here), then they win 24 times. That’s 79 times in the ALDS, and at a 60% confidence of winning that they make the ALCS 47 times, and even at 55% confidence they win that they make the World Series just 26 times, and so win 13 times.

After running each scenario through my various confidences in them winning at each stage, this is where I arrive:

Confidence
Without H/M With H/M
Make postseason 92% 98%
Win AL East 55% 67%
Win AL Pennant 26% 29%
Win World Series 13% 15%

Is shelling out a long-term $300 million contract worth a two-percentage-point increase in their chances of winning the World Series?

Hell yes.

For starters, it’s not just two percentage points this year. Signing one of these free agents will add to the team’s confidence in winning the World Series for years to come. That is, every year for the next — say five, at least — you’ll have more confidence that the Yankees will win the World Series than you would if they don’t sign one of them.

Second, percentage points don’t tell the whole story here. By nature your confidence in any one team winning the World Series won’t be that high. The field is too large and baseball too unpredictable. Increasing a low number by two percentage points, though, can be significant in terms of relative increase. For instance, signing Harper or Machado increases my confidence that they’ll make the postseason by six percentage points, which in this case amounts to 6.5%. Going from 13% to 15% confidence they win the World Series is a 15% increase. That’s pretty significant.

Incidentally, using Cot’s payroll projection of $211,742,500, signing Harper or Machado would likely represent a 15% increase in payroll.

A 15% increase in payroll for a 15% increase in confidence they’ll win the World Series? Seems equitable to me.

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: Bryce Harper, Manny Machado

Having to pay the core in a few years is not a good enough reason to pass on Machado and Harper

February 11, 2019 by Mike

(Presswire)

The Yankees open Spring Training on Wednesday and, barring a massive surprise, neither Manny Machado nor Bryce Harper will be in Tampa. They remain unsigned partly because the Yankees opted to spread the money around this offseason rather than go for one or two huge signings. You can win that way. Rarely do you regret signing a star-caliber player in his mid-20s though.

Anyway, with Harper and Machado still on the market, Hal Steinbrenner was asked about signing the duo last week, and gave a bit of a defensive answer centered around the team’s expenses. “(There’s) no discussion of our costs, that’s always the problem. I hear everything about our revenues, I hear nothing about our cost,” Hal said to Ron Blum. Unless the Yankees open their books (lol), we’ll never know their expenses. C’est la vie.

As part of the Harper and Machado discussion, Steinbrenner gave another payroll-related reason to pass on the two: The Yankees will have to sign their homegrown core at some point. From Blum:

“I have to look at the big picture, and it is my responsibility — that my family expects, my partners expect — not just to look at the present but to look at the future, too,” he said. “Three, four, five years from now we get a lot of homegrown kids that we love, our fans love, that are going to be coming up for free agency.”

Of course ownership has to keep an eye on future payroll, and yes, the homegrown core is about to get expensive. Luis Severino reached arbitration for the first of four times as a Super Two this offseason. Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez will hit arbitration for the first time after 2019 and then Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres (Super Two) after 2020. The kids grow up fast, man. A few thoughts on this.

1. Are we really supposed to believe this? Let’s be real here. “We have to sign our core in a few years” is a pretty lame excuse to not pursue Machado or Harper or whoever else. It will sound especially silly if Machado or Harper wind up taking short-term contracts, which is possible, but I don’t think likely. A short-term contract would render this excuse completely moot. Some facts:

  • Hal is arguing the Yankees can’t sign 26-year-old Machado and Harper now because they’ll have to pay 31-year-old Judge and 30-year-old Sanchez down the line, among others.
  • The Yankees walked away from 31-year-old Robinson Cano, at the time the best second baseman in baseball and at his absolute peak, even though he was a homegrown star of the first order.
  • The Yankees have one contract on the books beyond 2021 (Giancarlo Stanton) and potentially only two beyond 2020 (Stanton and Adam Ottavino) depending how a few opt-out clauses and vesting options play out.

Also, who’s to say these guys will be worth signing in a few years anyway? Severino could break down (pitchers are known to do that), Sanchez and Andujar could be designated hitters, who knows how Judge will age at that size, so on and so forth. I know we’re supposed to be all optimistic about young players but damn man, things take a turn for a worst all the time. That’s the harsh reality of baseball. The 2015 rookie position player WAR leaderboard:

  1. Kris Bryant: +6.1 WAR (he’s awesome!)
  2. Matt Duffy: +4.4 WAR (huh)
  3. Francisco Lindor: +4.0 WAR (he’s awesome too!)
  4. Odubel Herrera: +3.8 WAR (oy)
  5. Jung Ho Kang: +3.7 WAR (eep)

Two outta five ain’t bad, I guess. But do you see why it’s not a great idea to make decisions based on payroll hypotheticals three or four years down the line? Especially when you’re a win-now team and on the very short list of legitimate World Series contenders? I’ll be sick to my stomach if the Yankees waste this window because future payroll took priority over putting the team in the best possible position to win right now.

2. Why not sign them to extensions? This is the other thing. The Yankees could give themselves long-term cost certainty right now by signing some of their young players to extensions. And maybe they’re trying. Spring Training is typically extension season. That’s usually when we see clubs lock their guys up long-term, so get ready for a flurry of extensions across the league in the coming weeks.

Perhaps the Yankees will be among the teams to sign one of their core young players long-term before Opening Day. Would be kinda cool. The Yankees have been very stingy with extensions over the last 20 years, however. They have signed one (1) player to an extension several years prior to free agency this century. That is Robinson Cano’s four years (plus two club options) deal in February 2008, when he had just short of three years of service time. That’s the only one.

The Yankees signed Brett Gardner (February 2014), Javy Vazquez (January 2004), Derek Jeter (February 2001), and Andy Pettitte (January 2000) to multi-year extensions this century but those four were all one year away from free agency at the time of their deal. It was time to act, you know? The Yankees signed Cano four years prior to free agency. He was where Judge, Sanchez, and Severino are right now as far as years of control go.

The Cano extension was a smashing success. The Yankees never regretted it for a second. That doesn’t mean they all work out well, of course. A Chien-Ming Wang extension in February 2008 would’ve been a disaster. Someone could always go all Grady Sizemore on you. Signing anyone long-term involves risk and the Yankees avoiding extensions all these years tells us they want to avoid that risk. The tend to push the big payday off as long as possible.

To be fair, the Yankees haven’t had many young players worth extending over the years. There was Gardner and, uh, David Robertson? That’s about it. The Yankees definitely have young players worth extending now though, and if being able to sign them down the road is truly a big enough concern to pass on Harper and Machado*, then gosh, getting these guys signed as quickly as possible (potentially at a discount) seems worthwhile, no?

* The unwillingness to sign Harper and Machado because the kids will eventually need be signed does not jibe at all with the Nolan Arenado stuff we’ve heard, but I digress.

Given the state of free agency, waiting to sign young players long-term makes total sense to me because that big free agent payday might not be there down the road. That’s the entire point of an extension, right? To lock a young player up now at a salary lower than what he’d make as a free agent. Well, those free agent paydays are disappearing, so why take the risk? If Severino breaks down or Judge forgets how to hit, the Yanks can walk away no strings attached. That’s not possible with an extension.

Current contract commitments are not really an issue. All those free agents the Yankees signed this winter signed relatively short-term deals. Masahiro Tanaka’s and Jacoby Ellsbury’s huge contracts go away in two years. Stanton, who could opt out in two years but probably won’t given the state of free agency, is the only long-term contract on the books. It’s impossible to look at the roster and think the Yankees will be held back by onerous deals in a three years given their current commitments.

For all intents and purposes, Hal told us the Yankees won’t sign Harper and Machado because they want to make sure they can have an aging and expensive core in a few years. That’s what it boils down to, right? Can’t sign those free agents now because we’re really looking forward to paying Judge $35M a year from ages 31-35! Give me a break. And what happens with the young players in a few years? I’m looking forward to hearing the Yankees can’t sign Judge in 2021 because they’ll have to pay Everson Pereira down the road.

More than anything, I hate that the young players are being used as an excuse to pass on Harper and Machado. The kids have done absolutely everything asked of them. It’s been remarkable and fun. Now they’re a reason to pass on great players? How unfair. I was under the impression that one of the benefits of having cheap young (great) players is being able to use the available payroll space to supplement them with more high-end talent. Guess that was my mistake.

It is more clear than ever before that avoiding big money deals is a top priority — that applies to every team, not only the Yankees — and any excuse will do. Having many great young and cheap players is now being cited as a reason not to spend on free agency. How in the world did baseball get here?

Filed Under: Hot Stove League Tagged With: Bryce Harper, Manny Machado

Fan Confidence Poll: February 11th, 2019

February 11, 2019 by Mike

2018 Regular Season Record: 100-62 (851 RS, 669 RA, 98-64 expected record), second in ALE
2018 Postseason Record: 2-3 (22 RS, 29 RA), won WC Game, lost ALDS

Top stories from last week:

  • The Giants have “talked about” Jacoby Ellsbury, though it’s unclear whether they’ve engaged the Yankees in trade talks.
  • Injury Updates: Didi Gregorius (Tommy John surgery) has started a throwing program. Gary Sanchez (shoulder surgery) will be eased into Spring Training games.
  • The Yankees announced their 2019 minor league coaching staffs. They hired several analytically inclined coaches out of the college ranks.
  • MLB and the MLBPA exchanged a series of rule change proposals. Some would affect the Yankees more than others.
  • I posted my 2019 Preseason Top 30 Yankees Prospects List.

Please take a second to answer the poll below and give us an idea how confident you are in the Yankees. You can view the interactive Fan Confidence Graph anytime via the Features tab in nav bar above, or by clicking here. Thanks in advance for voting.

Given the team's current roster construction, farm system, management, etc., how confident are you in the Yankees' overall future?
View Results

Filed Under: Polls Tagged With: Fan Confidence

The Last Bench Spot

February 10, 2019 by Matt Imbrogno

Wade. (Presswire)

This coming Wednesday, Feb. 13, the Yankees’ season unofficially kicks off with pitchers and catchers reporting. For a brief time, it’s tremendously exciting, then barely anything happens until Grapefruit League games start, but given a long winter without baseball, we’ll gladly take it. And barring any surprises, the Yankees’ roster is about done, with, as Mike noted here, there are three spots open: two in the bullpen and one on the bench. I agree with him that Tommy Kahnle and Luis Cessa–both out of options–will get those two bullpen spots for convenience’s sake. That bench spot–the last spot–is the one up for discussion. Let’s take a look at some options.

There isn’t necessarily an obvious candidate for this spot, given the way the Yankees already shake out. Their DH–Giancarlo Stanton–is a generally capable outfielder, so playing with him as the de facto fourth outfielder is certainly possible. Additionally, with DJ LeMahieu (apparently) and Gleyber Torres both capable of playing multiple infield positions, and the presence of Troy Tulowitzki, there isn’t a glaring need for an infielder, either. I think, however, we can eliminate two players from consideration almost immediately: Clint Frazier and Greg Bird.

This dual elimination may seem ironic, given that they’re better players than the group of NRIs, but both would be wasted in a bench role. Both need to prove health, first of all, and both need to prepare to possibly take over a starting role deeper into the season. Frazier, in his own estimation, is poised to take the starting left field job from Brett Gardner and if all goes right this year, that’s what should happen. Bird, meanwhile, needs to prove he’s worthy of getting his job back after injuries and poor performance gave the first base position to Luke Voit, who took that bull by the horns. For both Frazier and Bird, everyday reps are more useful than playing irregularly from the bench.

Others we can eliminate for developmental reasons are Estevan Florial, Kyle Holder, and Trey Amburgey. The former is the team’s top prospect and there’s obviously no way they’ll rush him. Holder, though ready defensively, needs some offensive work in a relatively consequence free environment. Amburgey hasn’t played above AA. Despite a good year at AAA last year–15 homers–I don’t see Mike Ford getting an MLB call up, as he only plays first base.

That leaves NRIs Billy Burns, Gio Urshela, and Matt Lipka as the remaining options, as well as 40-man player Tyler Wade, whose presence has been mostly overlooked this whole offseason. Of those four, Tyler Wade makes the most sense.

Urshela has the most recent Major League experience of the other three, but can only play third. Burns hasn’t played in the Majors since 2017 and Lipka never has. There isn’t much from either player that suggests they deserve a shot in the bigs, even as bench players. Moreover, all three of those players would require a roster move; are you gonna cut someone for the sake of Gio Urshela, Billy Burns, or Matt Lipka? Absolutely not.

Tyler Wade has mostly disappointed at the plate in his Major League time. However, there’s still some room to grow. His defense plays well in the infield and the Yankees have experimented with him in the outfield. He may not be the most position flexible player in the world, but he’s more flexible than the other options the Yankees have and he wouldn’t require a roster move. This may be his last, but Wade should get a shot at the last spot.

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: Clint Frazier, Greg Bird, Tyler Wade

Luke Voit Might Just Be The Real Deal

February 9, 2019 by Bobby Montano

(Mike Stobe/Getty)

The Yankees find themselves in unfamiliar territory: their first basemen have been among the worst in baseball for the past three years, worth only 1.9 fWAR. Tied for 26th in the league with the Angels, that ranks ahead of only the Orioles, Mariners and Rockies— a steep drop off for a franchise that once wrote one of Don Mattingly, Tino Martinez, Jason Giambi or Mark Teixeira into its lineup every night for three decades. Despite this, the Yankees have displayed remarkably little interest in adding a new first baseman this offseason, but that’s because Brian Cashman may already have found a worthy replacement in Luke Voit.

Acquired from the Cardinals at last year’s trade deadline for Gio Gallegos and Chasen Shreve, Voit seemed to be another AAAA player destined for a perpetual shuttle between Scranton and the Bronx. That’s exactly what he was in the beginning, hitting just .222/.263/.222 in 18 at-bats across 7 games. But then he got hot, hitting two home runs in a late August Friday matchup at Camden Yards, and he never looked back.

The Friday matchup was a springboard for Voit, who slugged .333/.405/.689 (194 wRC+) with 14 home runs in 148 plate appearances for the Yankees down the stretch. Many of those home runs either tied a game or gave the Yankees the lead (that was true for 5 of his first NYY 7 home runs), and his towering triple in the Wild Card Game against Oakland sealed the victory for the Yanks.

The Yankee front office is among the most analytically advanced in baseball, and it’s particularly skilled at identifying seemingly forgettable players it believes are poised for a breakout—that’s how Didi Gregorius and Aaron Hicks came to the Bronx virtually for free—and Voit himself had long been a target. A recent track record of front office success like that, coupled with those eye-popping numbers, is almost enough to make you forget that his success came in only 148 plate appearances.

Small sample sizes, especially during critical moments down the stretch, often hide flaws and trends that will only be exposed over the long-term, like a hole in a swing or an abnormally high batting average on balls hit in play (BABIP). Look at Voit’s 2018 numbers, and you’ll see that he struggled to hit high-velocity fastballs and sported a .381 BABIP—two trademarks of inflated performance. Nobody reasonable expects Voit to put up a 200 wRC+ in 2019, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he is wholly a product of a small sample size. Look further behind the curtain and what you’ll find is a hitter with a foundation for future success.

The most common explanation we hear for a high BABIP is that a higher percentage of grounders are finding their way through holes or weak fly balls land in unmanned areas, but that’s not the only reason. Another reason is that a player might be consistently making the sort of contact that generally results in hits, hitting the ball hard and at the right angle off the bat. Voit’s publicly-available Statcast data shows that the latter is true for him.

Voit put exactly 100 balls in play (BBE) last year, and 54 percent of them left his bat at 95 mph or greater—good for 3rd in the league among all players with a minimum 100 BBE, behind only Miguel Cabrera and Aaron Judge.

Hitting the ball hard is only half of the job, though, and Voit also excelled at elevating those balls that he hit hard. The technical term for such contact is a barrel, and it’s considered the optimal outcome for an at-bat; batters hit .822 with a 2.386 slugging percentage on barrels in 2016, underscoring that the type of contact made is a more important factor than anything else in predicting success.

Voit produced barrels in 12.4 percent of his at-bats down the stretch, a mark that was tops in the league among all batters with a minimum 100 BEE. These figures help explain why 19 of Voit’s 44 hits (43 percent) went for extra-bases, and why 14 of those went for home runs: these weren’t cheap hits. Alongside those results was complementary patience, as Voit saw more pitches per plate appearance than league average and walked in 10 percent of his plate appearances. The eye-test supports this data, as Voit rarely looked overmatched.

Again, it’s a small sample—but a player can only produce in the opportunity he’s given, and there’s no arguing the fact that Voit’s offensive successes in New York were well-earned.

What this all means for 2019 is hard to say. Repeating the success he found in September is highly unlikely unless you believe that Voit is suddenly, at age 27, one of baseball’s best hitters. But his batted ball data does suggest that Voit has the potential to give above-average production at first base for the Yanks—something that hasn’t happened in three years—and that he can be another power-hitting force in baseball’s most powerful offense.

For what they’re worth, the projections on him are varied. Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA optimistically casts him the 22nd best hitter in baseball, which would be great but feels entirely too optimistic. Fangraphs’ Steamer, by contrast, suggests a more down-to-earth but still productive 115 wRC+. Both would make Voit the Yanks’ most productive first baseman since 2015 Mark Teixeira, and even a 115 wRC+ would be quite remarkable for a player following Voit’s career trajectory.

Perhaps both projections are too optimistic; after all, 148 plate appearances is not a lot, and perhaps his vulnerability to high-velocity fastballs will catch up to him or he was just simply hitting AAAA September pitching hard, inflating his numbers. But even with the requisite red flags and sample size warnings, there is more than enough evidence to suggest that Luke Voit is for real, and that Brian Cashman has found yet another hidden gem.

Filed Under: Players Tagged With: Luke Voit

2019 Preseason Top 30 Yankees Prospects

February 8, 2019 by Mike

(Presswire)

Up until about four years ago the Yankees had a thoroughly unproductive farm system that failed to produce low-cost complementary players, nevermind impact big leaguers. Brett Gardner and David Robertson were the best the farm system had to offer from 2006, the year after Robinson Cano arrived, to 2014, the year before Luis Severino arrived. Gardner and Robertson are forever cool with me, but yeah. The system was not productive.

The Yankees overhauled their player development system in 2014 and, since then, they’ve become a star factory. Severino in 2015, Gary Sanchez in 2016, Aaron Judge in 2017, Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar in 2018. Impact player after impact player. That doesn’t include guys like Chad Green, Jordan Montgomery, and Jonathan Holder either. The Yankees were desperate for a Montgomery type from 2006-14. Now he’s almost an afterthought.

Due to graduations and trades the Yankees currently have a weakened farm system that is heavy on pitching and heavy on players in the lower minors. It’s not a bad system, necessarily, it’s just short on potential impact talent close to the big leagues. The Yankees have a lot of high-end prospects below High Class-A, which is both exciting and scary. Exciting because another wave of talent is on the horizon. Scary because lower level prospects are high-risk.

This year’s top 30 prospects list includes eight teenagers. Last year’s had five. Eleven of last year’s top 30 prospects are not eligible for this year’s list. They’ve either graduated to the big leagues or are no longer in the organization. Four others dropped out of the top 30 for development/performance reasons. That means half the top 30 has turned over. Exciting! New names are fun. At the same time, it’s a reminder the great farm system of a year or two ago is no more.

I have now been ranking Yankees prospects here at RAB for 13 years (!) and I swear, it gets harder each year. The game is constantly changing and it can be difficult to keep up. Ranking prospects is all about preference. Upside or probability? Tools or performance? Everyone balances those things differently, and once you think you’ve figured it out, some prospect comes along and changes your mind. There is no correct way to rank prospects. Prospect lists are glorified opinion columns.

Obligatory reminder: I am not an expert and I most certainly am not a scout. I’m just a guy who reads a lot and has opinions, and has decided to share those opinions with you on my free-of-charge blog. I’m wrong about players and prospects all the time. I mean, all the time. I once ranked Aaron Judge as the fourth best outfield prospect in the system. True story. Make sure you bookmark this post and laugh at it repeatedly, otherwise what’s the point?

Anyway, all of my top 30 lists are right here. I use the MLB rookie limits of 130 at-bats and 50 innings to determine prospect eligibility. I don’t worry about service time because it’s too much of a headache to track. All headshots come from MLB.com or MiLB.com unless noted otherwise. This year’s top 30 prospects are after the jump. Enjoy.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Minors Tagged With: Top 30 Prospects

RAB Live Chat

February 8, 2019 by Mike

Filed Under: Chats

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