River Avenue Blues

Got a dozen questions for you in this week’s mailbag. Remember to use the RABmailbag (at) gmail (dot) com email address to send us anything. We got a lot of submissions each week and I can only pick so many (the ones I know the answers to!), so don’t be discouraged if yours doesn’t get picked.

Charles asks: We’ve heard so much about being sellers at the deadline, but theoretically who would you target specifically if they were to get back into the Wild Card/Division hunt?

I haven’t thought too much about this, to be honest. The Yankees definitely need another bat — they really need like two or three bats, but one step at a time — and they could use another starter as well. Theoretically, the Yankees could make one trade with the Athletics to satisfy their major needs at the deadline. The three A’s I’d target:

• Josh Reddick: Hitting .301/.380/.445 (123 wRC+) with six homers and nearly as many walks (27) as strikeouts (29) in 59 games around a broken thumb. (He got hurt sliding into second in a game against the Yankees back in May.) Reddick’s an excellent defensive right fielder too.
• Danny Valencia: Hitting .298/.349/.478 (124 wRC+) with 12 homers in 72 games. He’s a brutal defensive third baseman but he can play first. Despite his productive season, the A’s have started cutting Valencia’s playing time to get a look at younger players. Susan Slusser says they may end up designating him for assignment because there’s so little trade interest.
• Rich Hill: Hill missed a month earlier this season with a groin strain, and he had to leave his last start after only five pitches with a blister. The nagging injuries stink, but Hill has a 2.25 ERA (2.54 FIP) with a ridiculous 28.9% strikeout rate in 14 starts and 76 innings. He’s pitched like an ace since resurfacing with the Red Sox last year. Hill would be a worthy rotation addition, assuming he gets over the blister soon.

Of course, this plan would require the Yankees to basically release Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez, and that would surprise me. Yeah, I suppose it’s possible, but it would surprise me. Carlos Beltran slides to DH full-time, Reddick takes over in right, and Valencia takes over at first. Hill replaces … someone in the rotation. Ivan Nova or Nathan Eovaldi, probably.

Reddick and Hill are impending free agents and will almost certainly be traded before the deadline. Valencia would remain under team control as an arbitration-eligible player next year, but it sounds like no one really wants him. Either way, these are three available players who would fill immediate needs for the Yankees. I love A-Rod and Teixeira, but replacing them with Reddick and Valencia down the stretch would be a massive upgrade.

What would it take to get these three? Beats me. The A’s have made some terrible trades recently (Josh Donaldson, Drew Pomeranz, etc.), so perhaps not as much as we think. They’ve had interest in Rob Refsnyder before, and their trades always seem to be more quantity than quality. Maybe they’d take something ridiculous like Refsnyder, Chad Green, Aaron Hicks, and Wilkerman Garcia. Laugh if you want, but this is the same team that traded Donaldson for Brett Lawrie and stuff.

Aside from the Oakland three, others players the Yankee could target in a hypothetical “buyers” scenario include Jay Bruce and Andrew Cashner. Maybe Carlos Gonzalez, though he’s under contract at big money next year. Offense is a must. The Yankees have been one of the worst hitting teams in the AL this year, and they’re not going anywhere without another bat. You can only win so much when you struggle to score four runs a night in Yankee Stadium.

Nicholas asks: would there even be a little market for Nova? He’s not good-but it is a sellers market for starters. He has no future with the team- they have to try to trade him.

Oh yeah, I definitely think so. There’s always a market for pitching, and Nova figures to come cheap. Another team would surely be willing to scoop him up as a fifth starter/depth starter type. Last deadline Joe Blanton and Mat Latos were traded. Tommy Milone and Felix Doubront were dealt at the deadline the year before. There’s always a market for these cheap back-end starter types. The Yankees won’t get anything exciting for Nova, but they’ll get something, and that’s better than getting nothing when he leaves as a free agent after the season.

Bill asks: I read recently that the White Sox are looking for center field help. Is there a match with the Yankees and Brett Gardner as the center piece of any deal heading to the White Sox?

Yeah I think it’s possible. There are two questions that have to be answered to make a deal work. One, do ChiSox want another lefty leadoff hitting outfielder when they already have Adam Eaton? They may want a bigger bat. And two, does Chicago have enough pieces to make it work for the Yankees? No veteran outfielders with two and a half guaranteed years left on their contracts like Gardner have been traded in recent years, so we don’t have a good trade package benchmark.

Here is MLB.com’s top 30 White Sox prospects list. Their system isn’t necessarily bad, though they do lack depth beyond the top few guys. I assume righty Carson Fulmer is off-limits, and righty Spencer Adams may be as well. Would the Yankees be wrong to ask for two prospects for Gardner? Say, righty Jordan Stephens and infielder Jake Peter? That seems a little light for a productive player like Gardner. My trade proposal sucks. I do think the White Sox could have interest in Gardner though, for sure. It’s just a matter of finding a match.

Mark asks: The new stadium is beautiful, but the lack of majestic upper decker shots makes it feel lackluster. Has anyone actually hit an upper deck shot in the new stadium? Do we have to endure 100 years of no upper deck homers?

I haven’t seen every game played in the new Yankee Stadium, but I have seen most of them, and the only upper deck shot I can remember was hit by Russell Branyan (duh) off Javy Vazquez (also duh). You can see it at the 0:37 mark of this video:

I seem to remember someone — I think it was Raul Ibanez when he was a Yankee — hitting a homer into the suite level, but I can’t find the video. Branyan showed that upper deck shots are not impossible at the new Yankee Stadium, but they are going to be incredibly rare. That’s the only one I know of in the park’s seven and a half seasons of existence.

Update I: Commenter Dr. Martin van Nostrand points out Brandon Allen hit a home run into the upper deck off Bartolo Colon back in 2011. Here’s the video. There’s a bonus Hideki Matsui on the A’s cameo:

Update II: Found that Ibanez homer into the suite level I was talking about. You can see it at the 1:33 mark of this video:

Jeff asks: If any, what are the differences between Rookie ball and Short Season ball (both technically and skill-level)?

The game itself is the same. It’s not like there are different rules or anything like that. The key difference is the level of competition. Rookie ball is generally for kids new to pro baseball who are very raw and need a lot of instruction. We’re talking teenagers fresh out of the high school and recent international signings. The travel is generally easier too. In the Gulf Coast League they bus out, play a game, and return home later that day. The GCL and Arizona League are the two true rookie ball complex leagues. The level of competition is low and travel is Spring Training-esque.

The other short season leagues, like the Appalachian League (Pulaski) and NY-Penn League (Staten Island), are for players who are a little more advanced, like recent college draftees or young players with a year or two or rookie ball under their belt. They also play a traditional schedule with three and four-game series, long bus rides and road trips, things like that. The Appy League is technically rookie ball while the NYPL is technically Single-A. As far as the Yankees go, the GCL is the lowest level of domestic baseball in the system. Pulaski is a notch above that and Staten Island is about two notches above that.

Anonymous asks: Michael Pineda‘s cutter. Why doesn’t he ever throw it in on the hands of lefties? Can we start a petition to have Mo teach him that tactic?

For starters, it’s very hard to do. Most pitchers have trouble locating precisely to the glove side and Pineda is no exception. Mariano Rivera was able to do it consistently and that’s why he’s going to the Hall of Fame. I agree Pineda (and Eovaldi) need to do a better job pitching inside — I’m not saying they have to hit guys, just stop them from looking out over the plate all the time — but it’s also not easy. If it was, everyone would do it.

Travis asks: Is there a way to see the ground ball percentage for minor league pitchers? If so, can you rank the top 5 or 10 best ground ball pitchers in the Yankees system? I’m sure Will Carter is up there somewhere.

As far as I know, there’s nowhere to find easily sortable minor league ground ball rates. When I cite grounder rates in DotF, I go to the player’s page on MLB Farm and do the quick math myself based on the batted ball totals. Here’s Carter’s page. He has 126 grounders with 40 line drives, 25 fly balls, and one pop-up. That equals a 65.6% ground ball rate (126 ÷ (126+40+25+1)).

For all ground ball rates in the system, you can go to MLB Farm’s team pitching stats page, import the data into Excel, then run the numbers yourself. The only problem is player stats are listed by level, so there’s a Vicente Campos in High-A and a Vicente Campos in Double-A, for example. I did the gory math and combined everything that needed to be combined. Here’s the top five grounder rates in the system this year (min. 50 IP):

1. RHP Will Carter: 65.6%
2. RHP Kyle Haynes: 57.6%
3. RHP Cale Coshow: 56.7%
4. RHP Cody Carroll: 54.7%
5. LHP Ian Clarkin: 52.8%

Not a surprise to see Carter at the top and by a large margin. I have no idea what he looks like as a starter, but I saw him throwing 97 mph sinkers out of the bullpen with Staten Island last year. Nice arm for a 14th round pick. Some other notables: RHP Domingo Acevedo (47.2%), RHP Luis Severino (45.7%), RHP Chance Adams (42.9%), RHP Vicente Campos (40.9%), and LHP Dietrich Enns (38.5%).

Among pitchers to throw at least 50 innings this year, the lowest grounder rate in the system belongs to RHP Eric Ruth. He’s at 34.4%. One thing to keep in mind is minor league grounder rates are not very predictive. Most top pitching prospects will post sky high ground ball rates — Phil Hughes was over 60% in his minor league days, for example — because they’re so good and they overwhelm so many hitters. You also have to remember many pitchers are working on things and doing stuff they wouldn’t normally do, like, say, throw 25 changeups per start. I wouldn’t say these numbers are useless, but don’t obsess over them either. Campos won’t necessarily be a 40% grounder guy at the next level.

Paul asks: Hypothetical- let’s say Betances stays a set-up man for his career, but has a lengthy career doing what he’s doing now. Let’s give him 12 total years of this. Total domination, all-star appearances, but basically no saves. Does he get into the HOF?

You know, I think it would be possible, though I think it would have to be 12 years of this Dellin Betances plus another few years just to compile strikeouts and innings and all that. A 12-year-career is awfully short for a Hall of Famer. Billy Wagner played 14 full seasons and was basically the left-handed Betances — he threw 15-20 fewer innings per year but also had all those saves — and he received only 10.5% of the vote last year, his first on the Hall of Fame ballot. It seems voters are more aware of the importance of bullpens, and if Wagner’s voting percentage increases steadily in his final nine years on the ballot, it could be a good sign for Betances.

Dellin is basically going to have to be the Mariano Rivera of setup man to make the Hall of Fame, and by that I mean be consistently excellent. There were always three or four closers each year who were statistically similar (or better!) than Rivera, but Mo did it year after year after year. He’s going to the Hall of Fame because of his dominance and longevity. There will be setup men who pitch as well as Betances each year, but if he keeps doing this for a decade, I think he’ll get Hall of Fame support. Dellin won’t be Hall of Fame eligible for at least another 12 years, which gives the voting body a lot of time to warm up to setup relievers.

Nick asks: Over the past several weeks, many organizations have been sending high ranking scouts and officials, in person, to watch mainly the back end arms of the bullpen. Why with all of the advantages of today’s technology do teams continue to send these sorts of professionals to watch what could probably be more efficiently broken down via digital video, etc.?

Oh they do video scouting too, for sure. I’ve seen folks ask people like Keith Law and the Baseball America crew this question in their chats, the answer is always “there are things you can see in person that you just can’t pick up as well in video.” What things, exactly? I have no idea. I’m no scout. I totally buy there being nuances that you can see up close and in person that you can’t pick up in video though, especially from behind home plate.

Nick asks: It has been a frustration of mine for a while that the team very rarely provides updates on injuries to players in the Minors (Judge, Kaprielian, Lindgren to give a few current examples). Is this team policy or is it simply that the beat reporters aren’t that interested and so aren’t asking for updates?

This isn’t unique to the Yankees. Most teams are tight lipped with minor league injuries — in yesterday’s Scouting the Market: Cubs post I mentioned pitching prospect Dylan Cease is currently hurt and no one knows what’s wrong with him — and believe me, they’d love to remain keep MLB injuries secret too, but the Collective Bargaining Agreement says all injuries must be disclosed. Yes, it’s very frustrating to be kept in the dark all the time, but the clubs have no obligation to disclose minor league injuries, so they don’t. I don’t blame them. The less medical information that is out there, the better.

Nate asks: Watching the All-Star game one of the broadcasters said that Daniel Murphy credits Kevin Long with his offensive improvements. He is not the first player to openly credit KLong with helping them. With the dismal offensive output of our beloved Yankees, do you think they made a mistake by letting him go? I think I remember reading here that KLong was the necessary scapegoat. In KLong’s last year with the Yankees the offense was pretty bad. Was his approach to coaching more/less/equally impactful to that of any other batting coach?

Yes I thought it was a mistake and I’m pretty sure I wrote that when Long was fired. It was an obvious scapegoat firing. The Yankees had just missed the postseason for the second straight year, so someone had to take the fall, and the hitting coach made sense because the offense stunk. Turns out giving 1,600+ plate appearances — more than 25% of the team’s total! — to the reanimated corpses of Derek Jeter (76 OPS+), Ichiro Suzuki (89 OPS+), Brian Roberts (86 OPS+), and Alfonso Soriano (71 OPS+) in 2014 was bad for the offense. Who knew?

“Kevin is an exceptional hitting coach. He did a tremendous job. The players trust him,” said Brian Cashman after Long was fired, which was weird. Long has a history of getting hitters, especially lefties, to not just reach their power potential, but exceed it. He did it with Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano here, and with Daniel Murphy with the Mets. Long was blamed for turning Teixeira and Brian McCann and whoever else into dead pull hitters when that’s who they were all along. It’s impossible to quantify hitting coach impact, but the players swore by Long and there are several examples of players he made by through subtle adjustments.

Williams: Would Kyle Hendricks be a good best case scenario projection for Dietrich Enns? I just refuse to believe Enns’ numbers can’t translate. Hendricks has a similar repertoire, had success in the minors and relies on weak contact.

That would be the absolute best case scenario. I really underrated Hendricks. He has a 2.27 ERA (3.33 FIP) this year and a 3.13 ERA (3.34 FIP) in 371.1 career big league innings, so this dude is really good. Hendricks might have true 80 command on the 20-80 scouting scale — it’s at least a 70 command — which allows his 86-88 mph sinker play up. It also helps that he has a great changeup and plays in front of a great defense.

Enns is not a true soft-tosser — he’s mostly 88-92 mph with both a slider and changeup — but he doesn’t have Hendricks’ command or out-pitch changeup. Very few do. It’s not unheard of for players to jump a grade or two in command in their mid-to-late-20s — Cliff Lee did it and became an ace — but it’s not something you can count on either. I think Enns could maybe be a servicable swingman type for a few years. Not many can do what Hendricks does though. It’s a very unique profile.