River Avenue Blues

George Steinbrenner not voted into Hall of Fame by Today’s Game committee

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(AP)

There are two new members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Earlier tonight the Hall of Fame announced Harold Baines and Lee Smith have been voted into Cooperstown by the 16-person Today’s Game committee. Harold Baines? Harold Baines. Congrats to Baines and Smith, the latter of whom very briefly played for the Yankees in 1993.

George Steinbrenner was on the ten-man Today’s Game ballot this year and he did not receive enough votes for induction. Not even close. He received fewer than five votes. Twelve are needed for induction. This was George’s fourth appearance on a Hall of Fame ballot and the fourth time he failed to get in. He’ll be up for another vote again in a few years.

Warts and all, I believe Steinbrenner is a Hall of Famer. He is a key figure in baseball history — I don’t mean to dump on Baines, who was a very good player for a very long time, but you can skip right over him in the story of baseball history and you can’t skip George — and I don’t think we should ignore the parts of history we don’t like. Steinbrenner is a baseball icon.

Anyway, Albert Belle, Joe Carter, Will Clark, Orel Hershiser, Davey Johnson, Charlie Manuel, and Lou Piniella were the others on the Today’s Game ballot this year. Piniella, a former Yankees player and manager, received eleven votes. One vote short of induction. Everyone else on the ballot received fewer than five votes.

The Today’s Game committee is one of four eras committee that replaced the old Veterans Committee a few years ago: Today’s Game (1988 to present), Modern Era (1970-87), Golden Days (1950-69), and Early Baseball (pre-1950). The committees are made up of Hall of Famers, executives, and historians.

Staying Sonny in the Bronx: A Case for Keeping Sonny Gray

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(USA Today)

In a season four episode of “Mad Men,” the principal characters’ firm is about to go under thanks to the exit of a big account. When confronted with this, they have to put up a personal stake as collateral for the bank. Upon telling this to his wife, Pete (played by Vincent Kartheiser) gets the following response from his wife, Trudy (played by Alison Brie), “You bet big and lose, you don’t double down.” It’s likely sound advice, but, just for today, I’m proposing the Yankees go against it and making a case for keeping Sonny Gray around.

The Yankees bet (fairly) big to bring Gray to the Bronx at the trade deadline in 2017, trading away prospects Dustin Fowler, Jorge Mateo, and James Kaprielian to the A’s. Gray was good down the stretch in 2017, but was an absolute disaster in 2018. He was such a disaster that Brian Cashman has publicly stated the team’s desire to trade him and done so rather bluntly. The only thing offsetting just how bad 2018 was for Gray is the fact that the players for whom he was acquired didn’t fare too well either. Fowler was inconsistent with the As; Mateo is floundering in the minors; and Kaprielian hasn’t pitched in two years.

For full disclosure’s sake, I’m not totally into the idea I’m pitching here (pardon the pun). But with the Yankees missing out on Patrick Corbin and Nathan Eovaldi (on whom I wasn’t too high anyway) and me not being enamored with the other options, I’m just spitballing here. Cost-wise, keeping Gray is a fine move. He’s cheap as a third year arbitration guy, his $9.1M projected salary lower than the price of a free agent’s AAV. And since he’s already on the team, he obviously doesn’t cost any prospects like a trade would. Given how (annoyingly) cost-conscious the Yankees have been lately, this might appeal to them. There’s also room for improvement on Gray’s part.

In his career, Gray has been good more often than he’s been bad. And last year, he was way more bad than he had been before, enough that it might be fluky and there’s some rebound potential. His BABIP in 2018 was .326, the highest he’s ever given up and 42 points higher than his career norm. His home run numbers were also off from his career trends, but that’s likely a product of being in Yankee Stadium full time instead of the Coliseum in Oakland.

On a pitch-by-pitch basis, his slider in 2018 was not the pitch it’s been for his career, generating fewer ground balls than normal. This gets fleshed out in his pitch values as well, with even the pitches that were positive for him this year being worse than normal per 100 pitches.

On more of a surface level, Gray’s ERA was 4.90 (113 ERA-…ERA+ but in reverse), but his FIP–4.17–was better than average (94 FIP-). Granted, his DRA at Baseball Prospectus was a 5.00, signalling he may have been closer to the 4.90 than the 4.17.

Again, I’ll admit to all of this being mostly a stretch. It’s likely best for the Yankees and Gray if they’re parted by a trade. But part of me thinks there’s no way Gray could be as bad as he was in 2018 again. Part of me thinks that his true talent level is too good and, paired with the talents of Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, and James Paxton, that could make one hell of a rotation, especially with CC Sabathia anchoring the back. The likelihood of that, though, is near infinitesimal.

Signing Manny Machado is the Best Path to a Dominant Rotation

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They’re talking about winning the World Series in the Bronx. (Getty Images)

The Yankees did not sign this year’s top free agent starting pitcher: Patrick Corbin will instead have six tries to help the Washington Nationals win their first playoff series. Many Yankee fans, myself included, believed that Corbin represented the Yanks’ best path to creating a dominant rotation—but the reality is that he was never the only option. The Indians are reportedly “increasingly motivated” to move Corey Kluber (and another very good but not-to-be-named starter) and the Yankees should do everything they can to acquire him.

That will not be easy. The Yankees once stacked farm system has depleted significantly over the last several years—and even if that depletion was for all of the right reasons, it significantly complicates any effort to trade for an ace. But it is not impossible. If the Yankees decide to flex their financial muscles and sign Manny Machado, it will make available precisely the type of talent needed to trade for a pitcher of Corey Kluber’s status. Let’s break this one down step-by-step.

Signing Machado

Dreaming of NYC. (Maddie Meyer/Getty)

The case to sign Machado, of course, is a simple one to make. The 26-year-old should be one of the most coveted free agents in MLB history, boasting a career .282/.335/.487 (120 wRC+) line in just over 4,000 plate appearances. Like Bryce Harper (who they should also sign), he is just now entering his prime—meaning he should, in theory at least, be as good as he’ll ever be in the next four seasons or so.

That alone should put him on every team’s radar. The fact that he has posted a wRC+ greater than 130 in three of the last four seasons (with the fourth being a down year in 2017 that was clearly an outlier) ought to only sweeten the deal. In each of those seasons, he has hit at least 33 home runs. And last year, when he hit .297/.367/.548 (141 wRC+) with 37 home runs, was the most productive of his career.

Machado is about as good as it gets offensively. Defensively, the story is a bit murkier—but it doesn’t have to be. He switched positions from third to short in 2018 with mixed results. He struggled with the analytically-inept Baltimore Orioles but, if the data is to believed, he seemed to benefit from better positioning in Los Angeles. As a third baseman, though, Machado is as impressive a defender as I can remember seeing, an observation supported by most defensive metrics.

Even though he prefers shortstop (his natural position), Machado is reportedly willing to shift back to the hot corner if it meant playing in the Bronx. That is exactly what the Yankees should insist, and not just the Yanks are loaded with groundball pitchers and struggle with infield defense. Doing so would also allow the Yankees to slide Gleyber Torres to short until Didi Gregorius returns while slotting Machado in at third—opening up Miguel Andújar to be the centerpiece in a package for a top-shelf starting pitcher like Corey Kluber.

Saying Goodbye to Miggy Mantle

Don’t worry: you’ll be reunited at the ASG. (Jim McIsaac/Getty)

The case to trade Andújar, unlike signing Machado, is a bit more difficult to make. Miggy Mantle burst onto the scene in 2018, hitting .297/.328/.527 (128 wRC+) with 27 home runs in just over 600 plate appearances. His ability to make hard contact on almost any pitch and drive it is a rare offensive skill—and it is the reason why he hit so many balls for extra bases in 2018. Andújar quickly became one of my favorite Yanks, and it is hard to imagine what the 2018 squad would have been like without Andújar’s steady performance.

But that does not mean that it would not make sense to say goodbye. Andújar’s defense is a work in progress to put it kindly, and that was enough to have him be replaced in the 6th (!) inning of the Wild Card Game this October for defensive reasons. That the team didn’t start or pinch hit him in the deciding game of the ALDS suggests that these worries may run deep in the front office—even if that decision, in my opinion, was an obvious tactical blunder.

Andújar will start 2019 at age 24—but Machado will begin the season at age 26. In fact, replacing Andújar with Machado is one of the few ways where the Yankees would get a significant defensive upgrade in the infield without sacrificing any offensive value, and Machado is an even better hitter than Andújar to boot.

Miggy’s trade value figures to be about as high as any player in the league—any 23 year-old who put up those offensive numbers at the league minimum salary will get teams interested. Even with his obvious defensive warts, another team may see a way to improve his defense at the hot corner, or perhaps they see a future for him in left field ala Ryan Braun or at first base. But in any case, Andújar is the type of talent who commands a large return.

Welcoming Corey Kluber

His number has some meaning. (Sean M. Haffey/Getty)

The pertinent question, now, is if a package based around Andújar would be enough to entice Cleveland to say goodbye to one of the best pitchers in baseball. The 32-year-old ace has won two of the last five AL Cy Youngs—finishing no lower than 3rd in overall voting with one win in the last three years—and it is clear why. Since 2014, Kluber has posted a 2.85 ERA (152 ERA+) with a 2.84 FIP over 1091.1 innings. He has struck out more than 10 batters per 9 in that with less than 2 walks per 9 innings across that stretch, with a WHIP just barely over 1. There are few signs of decline: he is just one of the best pitchers in the league.

If Cleveland will be cheap enough to ship him off in a trade while in the middle of their own (alleged) title run, then the Yankees should simply do everything they can to bring him to the Bronx—even if that means trading one of the league’s most exciting young pieces. Cleveland has a very good infield as it is, but they did just trade for Josh Donaldson last year, so they have been willing to add offense to that infield as recently as last summer.

On the Yankees side, the need is obvious. Adding Kluber as the final piece of a rotation that already includes Luis Severino, James Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka and CC Sabathia would position the Yankees to have a truly dominating staff in 2019 and 2020. To me, that’s easily worth the haul it would take to get him, which would likely be Andújar+. Always trade your prospects for dominating starting pitchers. Just look a bit to the north to see why.

Will it Happen?

To sum up, this plan involves shelling out a significant sum of money (likely more than $300 million) on Manny Machado and then turning around and trading one of their most exciting young (and thus cheapest) players. It still isn’t clear that the Yankees are willing to take on that much salary—though Kluber would be a steal at his current contract, especially compared to Patrick Corbin.

But what is clear is that this path is out there and isn’t that far-fetched. The Yankees have always had interest in Machado, and he’d take all of the sting away from losing Andújar. Meanwhile, the team would be in a position to get a starting pitching upgrade beyond any of our wildest dreams even eight weeks ago.

As Yankee Twitter’s Thought Leader and Official Friend of RAB™ put it the other day, a path like this is really the easiest and most straightforward way to create a roster that would likely be the World Series favorites on Opening Day. And if the Yankees spend as they can, they have the chance to add two prime-aged generational talents alongside one of the league’s best starting pitchers to their already loaded roster. It’s been a decade since the Yankees have won the championship, and now the only thing standing between them and their best shot since 2009 is Hal Steinbrenner’s willingness to spend.

Yankees announce 2019 Spring Training schedule; pitchers and catchers report February 13th

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Soon, but not soon enough. (Presswire)

Mark your calendars folks, the full Spring Training schedule has been announced. Earlier today the Yanks announced pitchers and catchers will report to Tampa to begin the 2019 season on Wednesday, February 13th. That is 68 days away. Seems so close and yet so far, doesn’t it?

Here are the important Spring Training dates:

  • Wednesday, February 13th: Pitchers and catchers report.
  • Monday, February 18th: Position players report.
  • Tuesday, February 19th: First full squad workout.
  • Saturday, February 23th: Grapefruit League opener at Red Sox.
  • Monday, February 25th: Grapefruit League home opener vs. Blue Jays.
  • Monday, March 25th: Exhibition schedule finale at Nationals Park.
  • Thursday, March 28th: Opening Day vs. Orioles.

Wow, gonna be weird for Bryce Harper to make his return to Nationals Park during one of those token end-of-spring exhibition games, huh? I kid, I kid. But also the Yankees should totally sign Bryce Harper. Would be cool.

Anyway, the Yankees have 31 Grapefruit League games plus the one exhibition game in Washington on the spring schedule next year. Here is the full spring schedule. Spring Training tickets are not yet on sale. Spring season tickets should be on sale soon and individual tickets usually don’t go up for sale until January. The various television networks will announce their Spring Training broadcast schedules in late January or early February. I’ll pass along that info as it’s released.

Dingers, Bad Weather, and that Terrible New Score Bug [2018 Season Review]

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Too many homers? Not enough, I say. (Getty)

After seven weeks and 38 posts, our 2018 Season Review series finally comes to an end today. It was a good run. Time to put 2018 in the rear-view mirror and look ahead to 2019 and beyond. If you missed any of the season review posts, or simply want to check them out again, there’s a link in the sidebar.

Anyway, there are still a few stray miscellaneous 2018 items I want to cover as part of the season review series, so we’re going to lump them together in this smorgasbord post. Here’s the last little bit of “what you need to know” from this past season.

Dingers. So many dingers.

If you’re a fan of home runs — I sure am! — this was the season for you. The Yankees set a new Major League record with 267 home runs this season, three more than the 1997 Mariners. They did that even though Aaron Judge missed seven weeks, Gary Sanchez missed two months (and was pretty bad when healthy), and Giancarlo Stanton had a down year. With a healthy Judge and a typical Stanton season, the Yankees might’ve hit 300 homers in 2018. Golly.

The raw home run total is impressive. How the Yankees did it is downright staggering. Prior to 2018 only five teams in baseball history hit at least 250 homers in a season, and all five had at least one 40-homer guy plus another 30-homer guy. The list:

  • 1997 Mariners (264): Ken Griffey Jr. (56), Jay Buhner (40), Paul Sorrento (31)
  • 2005 Rangers (260): Mark Teixeira (43), Alfonso Soriano (36)
  • 1996 Orioles (257): Brady Anderson (50), Rafael Palmeiro (39)
  • 2010 Blue Jays (257): Jose Bautista (54), Vernon Wells (31)
  • 2016 Orioles (253): Mark Trumbo (47), Chris Davis (38), Manny Machado (37)

The Yankees had neither a 40-homer guy nor multiple 30-homer guys. Stanton led the team with 38 homers. Judge, Miguel Andujar, Aaron Hicks, and Didi Gregorius all tied for second with 27 apiece. The Yankees did have 12 different players hit at least ten homers this year though. That’s a record. Also, 24 times a Yankee hit multiple home runs in a game in 2018. That ties the record.

Perhaps most amazingly, the Yankees received at least 25 homers from eight of the nine positions — they received at least 30 homers from six positions — and at least 20 homers from all nine lineup spots. Check it out:

Homers by Position
Catcher: 30
First Base: 34
Second Base: 25
Shortstop: 33
Third Base: 26
Left Field: 19
Center Field: 30
Right Field: 38
Designated Hitter: 31
(Plus one as a pinch-hitter)

Homers by Lineup Spot
1. 27
2. 39
3. 27
4. 44
5. 35
6. 26
7. 23
8. 26
9. 20

Twenty homers from each lineup spot is insane. Absolutely insane. That’s the attack the Yankees had this season. They didn’t have that one guy who had a monster season. They had a lot of guys who had really good seasons. I mean, 20 homers from each lineup spot? Twenty-five homers from each position? A dozen different players with double-digit homers? This was the Year of the Dinger and it was glorious.

Bad Weather & Bad Travel

The Yankees had a rough weather year this season, starting with a home opener snowout. Second time in three years the home opener had to be postponed. And with the home opener scheduled for March 28th next year, it might be three postponements in four years. Anyway, the Yankees had nine games postponed this year plus another game suspended. The list:

  • April 2nd vs. Rays: Made up the next day (home opener).
  • April 14th at Tigers: Made up during a June 4th doubleheader.
  • April 15th at Tigers: Made up during a June 4th doubleheader.
  • May 15th at Nationals: Suspended after five innings and completed June 18th.
  • May 16th at Nationals: Made up during the June 18th one-and-a-half-header.
  • May 31st at Orioles: Made up during a July 9th doubleheader.
  • June 3rd at Orioles: Made up during an August 25th doubleheader.
  • July 22nd vs. Mets: Made up on August 13th.
  • July 27th vs. Royals: Made up during a doubleheader the next day.
  • September 18th vs. Red Sox: Game “postponed” from 1pm ET to 7pm ET.

The September 18th game was officially “postponed” rather than “delayed” because a postponement allowed fans to exchange their tickets for the Yom Kippur game. Anyway, that is nine postponements (eight if you don’t count September 18th) plus one suspended game. This season the Yankees played four doubleheaders and one one-and-a-half-header to complete the suspended game, and they gave up four off-days to makeup dates. The Yankees went 5-5 in the nine makeup games plus the suspended game, by the way.

Furthermore, the Yankees had to threaten to boycott ESPN to make their travel less hectic. ESPN flexed the July 8th game between the Yankees and Blue Jays into their 8pm ET Sunday Night Baseball slot. So the Yankees would’ve had to play in Toronto on Sunday night, then play a doubleheader in Baltimore on Monday. The doubleheader was scheduled long before ESPN flexed the game too. They knew about the doubleheader and tried to get the Yankees to play Sunday Night Baseball anyway. The Yankees said move the game or we’ll ignore your reporters and refuse to cut promos, and that took care of that. The fact they had to do that to get the game moved was ridiculous.

The Yankees had some travel problems in addition to all the postponements this season too. After that May 16th rainout, the Yankees spent the night at Dulles International Airport due to the bad weather and a mechanical issue with the plane. They didn’t leave for Kansas City until the following morning. On May 23rd the Yankees left Dallas after a game with the Rangers but had to return to the airport shortly after takeoff due to mechanical problems. They didn’t takeoff for home until six hours later. And finally, on June 3rd, the Yankees were stuck on the tarmac for a while because of a radar issue. Sheesh.

Back In The Attendance Lead

It takes some time for team performance to result in noticeable attendance and ratings changes. Those changes usually don’t show up until the next season, in fact. People aren’t out there saying “hey, the Yankees went 20-10 this month, let’s go buy a bunch of tickets” or anything like that. I mean, that does happen a little bit, but it takes some time to see a meaningful change in attendance and ratings.

In 2016 the Yankees went 84-78 and missed the postseason. They sold at the trade deadline, in fact. In 2017 the Yankees went 91-71 and fielded a young up-and-coming team that went to Game Seven of the ALCS. In 2018 the Yankees went 100-62 and lost the ALDS in four games. A very good but ultimately disappointing season relative to expectations. Now, the attendance numbers:

  • 2016: 3,063,405 (37,820 per game)
  • 2017: 3,154,938 (38,950 per game)
  • 2018: 3,482,855 (42,998 per game)

Last season’s winning and general excitement helped the Yankees increase attendance roughly 10% and draw more than 4,000 more fans per game in 2018 than 2017. It was their best attendance season since 2012 (3,542,406 total and 43,733 per game). The Yankees led the AL in attendance this year — they led the league in attendance every year from 2003-15 before slipping behind the Blue Jays in 2016-17 — and were second in MLB behind the Dodgers (3,875,500 total and 47,043 per game).

As for primetime ratings, Maury Brown passed along Nielsen numbers, which show the Yankees were again the most watched team in baseball. By a mile too. Ratings for Yankees games were 57% higher than Red Sox games, the second most watched team. YES Network ratings were the highest since 2012. Primetime Yankees games on YES outdrew the eleven highest rated primetime entertainment shows combined in the New York market. Attendance and ratings went up this year. Big time. (Wouldn’t it be cool if some of that extra revenue was put into the roster?)

The New Score Bug

The worst part of the 2018 season was not watching the Red Sox win the World Series, or Judge getting hurt, or Sanchez forgetting how to hit, or Luis Severino going all Sonny Gray in the second half. No, the worst part of the 2018 season was the YES Network changing their score bug in the middle of the season (I may be exaggerating). This is the old score bug:

Nice and concise. Tells me all the essentials in one easy to read box. The score, the baserunners, the inning (top or bottom!), the count, the outs, and the pitcher’s pitch count all clear and easy to see. The pitch velocity showed up in the pitch count box after each pitch and was easy to read. It was beautiful in a way only baseball score bugs can be beautiful. Then this monstrosity showed up on August 30th:

What in the world is that? I kept looking at the outs box to see the pitcher’s pitch count. I’m a simple man. I have a 36-inch television and a cramped New York apartment. My couch isn’t that far from the television, but I constantly had to squint and strain my eyes to see the pitcher’s pitch count in that little box under the score bug. Oh, and that line with the pitch count? That’s where the pitch velocity shows up, so you have to strain your eyes to see that too.

And what’s up with the batting average? I don’t need to see that. You showed it to me before the at-bat! I don’t need the constant reminder. To be fair, the batting average is replaced by the player’s game performance in subsequent at-bats. It’ll say he’s 1-for-1 or 0-for-4 or whatever, which is nice, but there’s no additional information (homer? walk? etc.), and it’s still clutter. There’s too much to look at there.

I’m not normally someone who complains about change. I am embrace change. New and interesting things happen all the time and I want to know all about them. This new score bug though? No. No no no. I applaud the folks at the YES Network for trying to improve the viewer’s experience. There’s just too much going on here and important information like the pitch count and velocity — stuff I look at after literally every pitch — is too difficult to read. The old score bug was fantastic. Simple, easy to read, didn’t take up much real estate. I miss it.

After the Goldschmidt trade, the Yankees should check in with the Cardinals about Jedd Gyorko

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(Dilip Vishwanat/Getty)

The hot stove is starting to get real hot, folks. Within the last week we’ve seen Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz get traded to the Mets, Jean Segura land with the Phillies, Patrick Corbin sign with the Nationals, and Nathan Eovaldi re-sign with the Red Sox. The Winter Meetings begin next week and already some Very Big Things have happened.

The Cardinals got in on the action earlier this week when they acquired Paul Goldschmidt, arguably the best first baseman on the planet, from the Diamondbacks for youngsters Luke Weaver and Carson Kelly, prospect Andy Young, and a competitive balance draft pick. Kelly’s a personal favorite, but I’m not sure there’s a future stud in that package. Seems more quantity over quality.

Anyway, St. Louis plans to put Goldschmidt at first base (duh) with Matt Carpenter shifting back to third base, where he has been a consistently below-average defender in his career. This isn’t quite moving Miguel Cabrera to third base to accommodate Prince Fielder, but it’s close. The Cardinals will live with the defensive hit at third to add Goldschmidt to the middle of their lineup. I would too.

Adding Goldschmidt gives the Cardinals a surfeit of infielders. They have Goldschmidt and Carpenter on the corners, Paul DeJong and Kolten Wong up the middle, Jedd Gyorko and Yairo Munoz on the bench, and top 20 organizational prospects Ramon Urias, Max Schrock, and Edmundo Sosa all slated to return to Triple-A next season. Infield depth is good. Gotta have it.

St. Louis has enough infield depth that trading an infielder to address other roster needs is doable if not inevitable. Gyorko is believed to be the most expendable — that was the case even before the Goldschmidt trade — and that makes sense seeing how he’s the oldest and most expensive among the non-starters. Spending $9M on a bench guy might be too much even for the Cardinals.

The Yankees need an infielder to replace Didi Gregorius, and now that Goldschmidt presumably makes Gyorko even more expendable than he was coming into the offseason, I think it makes sense for the Yankees to reach out to St. Louis about a trade. Another right-handed hitter doesn’t help balance the righty heavy lineup, I know, but Gyorko brings other stuff to the table makes up for it. Let’s talk this out.

1. The Yankees have had interest in Gyorko in the past. Specifically at the 2015 trade deadline. Jon Heyman reported the Yankees offered then top prospect Jorge Mateo to the Padres for Craig Kimbrel and Gyorko, but San Diego said no. Gyorko’s contract was underwater at the time. It was one of those “we’ll take on that bad contract if you give us that good player” trades a la Cano/Diaz. The Padres dumped Gyorko on the Cardinals a few weeks later and he turned his career around. St. Louis got good value from the contract. Point is, Gyorko was on New York’s radar at one point.

2. Gyorko can hit. Not exceptionally well but at an above-average rate. Over the last two seasons Gyorko has produced a .268/.343/.447 (111 wRC+) batting line — his wRC+ in his three years with the Cardinals: 112, 112, 110 — with good walk (10.3%) and strikeout (20.6%) rates, and 31 homers in 883 plate appearances. He’s annihilated lefties (150 wRC+) and been league average against righties (98 wRC+). A solid if not serviceable bat.

The downside here is Gyorko’s declining contact quality. His ISO has dipped from .253 to .200 to .154 the last three years and the contact he’s made suggests that’s no fluke. The numbers:

Exit Velocity Hard Hit Rate Barrel Rate xwOBA
2016 87.7 mph 36.1% 10.2% .342
2017 86.5 mph 31.4% 8.2% .332
2018 87.3 mph 31.3% 7.6% .322

(Here’s the definition of a Barrel. In a nutshell, it is the best possible contact in terms of exit velocity and launch angle. The MLB average barrel rate is 6.1% of plate appearances.)

A clear downward trend. The Yankees love their exit velocity, they fully buy into it as an evaluation tool, and Gyorko might not meet their standards. He is more or less league average (and trending down) when it comes to driving the ball. The walks and the on-base skills and the ability to mash lefties are nice, and hey, unimpressive contact quality doesn’t necessarily rule Gyorko out as trade candidate. It’s just something to be considered.

The bottom line here: How comfortable are the Yankees (or any team, for that matter) projecting Gyorko to be an above-average hitter in 2019? Can he maintain the 110-ish wRC+ he’s posted the last few seasons another year? If he declines, can he still be league average? Steamer projects Gyorko has a .248/.321/.421 (103 wRC+) hitter in 2019, for what it’s worth. That seems like something you can live with from an eighth or ninth place hitter.

3. He can play all over the infield. Gyorko is a third baseman by trade and and a good one at that. Good enough that the Padres and Cardinals have been comfortable playing him at second base and even shortstop. Over the last three seasons he’s been a +6 DRS defender at second and a +24 DRS defender at third. Shortstop didn’t go so well (-3 DRS) and I wouldn’t want him playing there full-time anyway. In a pinch? Sure. Full-time? Nah.

The Yankees could stick Gyorko at second base while Gregorius is out with Gleyber Torres shifted over to shortstop. Then, when Gregorius returns, the Yankees could either move Gyorko to third base (his best position) and move Miguel Andujar elsewhere, or use Gyorko as a utility guy who plays all around (he’s also played some first base). That’s something you worry about when the time comes though. For now, Gyorko can capably step in at second base while Gregorius is sidelined. That’s the key here.

(Dilip Vishwanat/Getty)

4. The money works. Holy cats does the money work. Including the $1M buyout of his $13M club option for 2020, Gyorko will be paid a total of $14M in 2019. Do you know what his luxury tax hit will be in 2019? $920,000. Well, it’ll be $916,666.67 to be exact, but yeah. Gyorko will have a six-figure luxury tax number next season. Let me explain.

Back in the day the Padres signed Gyorko to a six-year contract worth $35.5M. The average annual value of that contract (and thus luxury tax hit) is a mere $5,916,666.67. Let’s call it $5.92M to make life easy. The Padres were so motivated to unload Gyorko three years ago that they agreed to pay $2M of his $6M salary in 2017, $2.5M of his $9M salary in 2018, and $5M of his $13M salary in 2019.

The Collective Bargaining Agreement makes this clear: Any portion of a player’s salary paid by another team is subtracted from his luxury tax hit in that season. You just can’t receive credit against the luxury tax if the salary paid by the other team exceeds the player’s luxury tax hit. (There’s a special provision for opt-out clauses. That’s why things work differently for Giancarlo Stanton and the $30M the Marlins will pay him down the road.) Here’s part of the relevant text from Article XXIII(C)(2)(b)(iii) of the CBA:

Any cash consideration that is included in the Actual Club Payroll of the payor Club shall be subtracted from the Actual Club Payroll of the payee Club in the same Contract Year in which it is added to the payor Club’s Actual Club Payroll. Notwithstanding the foregoing, an assignee Club may not receive an aggregate credit against its Actual Club Payroll(s) for cash consideration received in an assignment that exceeds the sum of (a) the total amount of the acquired Player(s) Salaries that are included in the Club’s Actual Club Payroll(s) following the assignment, and (b) any cash consideration paid by the assignee Club to another Club in a subsequent assignment of the acquired Player(s) that is attributable to those Players.

The $5M the Padres are paying Gyorko in 2019 is subtracted from his $5.92M luxury tax hit, hence the $920k luxury tax number for 2019. Pretty cool, huh? This means nothing to the Cardinals because they won’t come close to the $206M luxury tax threshold next year. It’d mean a lot to the Yankees though. If the Yankees trade for Gyorko, they’d owe him $9M in real money ($13M salary plus $1M buyout minus $5M from Padres) but he would only count $920k against the luxury tax payroll, and that’s the number the Yankees seem to be most focused on.

(The low luxury tax number makes it an easy move to back out of too. If the Yankees trade for Gyorko and he stinks, releasing him and eating a $920k luxury tax hit is much easier to swallow than releasing a guy making $5M or something like that. It’d be a relatively low risk move.)

5. What would it take? This is always the hardest part. I honestly have no idea. The Padres traded a mid-range prospect (Enyel De Los Santos) to get one year of Freddy Galvis last offseason. The Blue Jays traded two mid-range prospects (Jared Carkuff and Edward Olivares) to get one guaranteed year of Yangervis Solarte plus two club option years last offseason. Do those trades work as benchmarks for a Gyorko trade? I dunno.

The money could be a significant factor in a potential Gyorko trade. The Cardinals opened each of the last three seasons with a payroll in the $150M range and right now, after the Goldschmidt trade, they’re at $149.5M when you include projected arbitration salaries and all that. St. Louis might be very motivated to unload the $9M in Gyorko and thus willing to salary dump him for a minimal return. If not, giving up a mid-range prospect or two (Nick Nelson? Garrett Whitlock?) would be a-okay with me.

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I should note that keeping Gyorko would make sense for the Cardinals. Carpenter is a poor defender at third and Gyorko would be a good defensive caddy. Wong could also play his way out of the lineup again, which has happened a few times over the years. That would open up second base for Gyorko. The Cardinals want to contend and keeping Gyorko as a (expensive) bench piece might not be a bad idea, especially because he mashes lefties and Jon Lester, Cole Hamels, Jose Quintana, Josh Hader, and Felipe Vazquez all pitch for division rivals.

For all I know the Cardinals might be willing to up payroll next season in an effort to win the NL Central or at least get back to the postseason as a Wild Card team. They have a lot of money coming off the books next winter (Gyorko, Goldschmidt, Marcell Ozuna, Michael Wacha, Luke Gregerson) and it could be they’re open to running a high payroll in 2019 before getting things back in order in 2020. I dunno. If not, and Gyorko’s salary stands in the way of doing other things this winter, I think the Yankees would be smart to swoop in and try to work out a trade.