Archive for Boone Logan
No issues for Joba, Feliciano during bullpen sessions
Posted by: | CommentsVia Marc Carig & Chad Jennings, Joba Chamberlain‘s bullpen session went just fine today. The right-hander said his mechanics were a-okay and he feels 100% following his strained oblique. Assuming he doesn’t wake up in crippling pain tomorrow, chances are his next pitching appearance will come in a game. Good news.
Elsewhere on the bullpen front, Pedro Feliciano downplayed his dead arm – now being termed triceps tightness – and said it was nothing more than normal Spring Training soreness. The lefty tested his moneymaker at 80% effort in the bullpen this morning. Everything went well and he’ll throw another in a few days. Boone Logan, meanwhile, will pitch in tomorrow’s game, so the back spasms weren’t bad at all.
Bullpen Injury Updates: Mitre, Joba, Feliciano, Logan
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(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
We’re inching closer and closer to Opening Day, so minor injuries are starting to become a little bit more of a concern. Here’s the latest on what’s going on with the walking wounded out in the bullpen, courtesy of Marc Carig and Chad Jennings…
- Sergio Mitre is scheduled or three or four innings this afternoon, so it’s safe to say his oblique issue is a thing of the past.
- Joba Chamberlain‘s strained oblique was well enough that he threw long-toss yesterday, and tomorrow he’s scheduled to throw a bullpen session. Assuming that goes well, he should get back into a game sometime next week.
- Pedro Feliciano is dealing with a dead arm, but Joe Girardi downplayed the extent of the fatigue and just called it “extra rest.” The only reason this is a concern is because Feliciano is 34 years old and has made like 900 appearances in each of the last four years, but dead arms are pretty common this time of year.
- Boone Logan went through a dead arm phase of his own recently, but now he’s dealing with back spasms. He did pitch in last night’s game, so the back stuff is pretty fresh. “As long as they’re just back spasms, it’s usually four or five days,” said Girardi. “They’re no fun, I know that.”
Wouldn’t that be something; more than $9M tied up between three lefty relievers, and they all start the season on the disabled list? Yikes. Hopefully that won’t come to fruition.
2011 Season Preview: Feliciano and Logan
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(Charlie Neibergall/AP)
Throughout the 2000s the Yankees could not find a suitable lefty reliever. They went through such middling arms as Felix Heredia, Gabe White, C.J. Nitkowski, Buddy Groom, Wayne Franklin, Alan Embree, Ron Villone, and Mike Myers. It wasn’t until they acquired Damaso Marte in 2008 that they had a quality lefty in the pen, but even that was short-lived. Assuming he misses the whole season, he’ll have pitched just 53.1 innings for the Yankees, though that does include his masterful World Series innings. This year, for what feels like the first time in forever, the Yankees will open the season with two lefties in the pen, Boone Logan and Pedro Feliciano. Can they be better than the clown car of lefties the team has employed in the past eight years?
Best Case
Lefties make my arm hurt. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP)
While neither Logan nor Feliciano screams lockdown lefty, each has considerable upside. We saw that in effect last year with Logan, at least following his mid-July recall. From that point on he pitched 21.2 innings while striking out 25 and walking eight, leading to a 2.08 ERA against a 3.16 FIP. It might have been the most successful stretch of baseball in his major league career.
In the best case scenario Logan becomes a lefty who can pitch a full inning. That is, he can take both the lefties and the righties in the lineup with aplomb. That necessarily means relying more on his changeup, since the slider carries a large platoon split. But best case, Logan feels more comfortable throwing the changeup to righties, which makes his 93 mph fastball a bit more effective.
Logan’s ability to take on a setup role would allow Pedro Feliciano to match up against lefties only, which is likely his optimal role at this point. Even in his best years Feliciano hasn’t handled righties particularly well. Now that he’s 34 there’s little chance that he suddenly develops the skill. He has, of course, thoroughly dominated lefties. Even in 2008, his worst season since returning from Japan, he struck out 34 of 119 lefties faced while walking only eight. He might be good for only a batter, or two with an intentionally walked righty in between, but if he can shut down the league’s best lefty hitters the Yankees will have a quality return on their $8 million investment.
Worst Case
This is where things get ugly. While Logan impressed in the second half, his first half left plenty to be desired. At that point he looked like the Logan who had spend most of 2009 in AAA. He walked 12 in 18.1 IP while striking out just 13. Since the success we’ve seen from Logan comes in a very small sample, it’s entirely possible that he reverts to his walk-happy, homer-happy ways. That would leave the Yanks in a bind, since he’s out of options. Do they wait around for his stuff to return to second-half 2010 levels? Or do they cut bait and start the Scranton bullpen shuttle?
With Feliciano the worst case is a bit tougher. If he’s healthy it’s tough to see him performing poorly against lefties, since he has thoroughly dominated them. Instead, his worst case involves the Yankees paying the price for the Mets’ heavy usage. Who leads the majors in appearances during the last three years? That’s Feliciano, with 28 more innings than the next closest reliever, Carlos Marmol. In fact, there are only three other relievers within 50 appearances of Feliciano’s three-year total. While he ranks 49th during that span in terms of batters faced, he still warmed up and got into all those games. That has to take a toll on the arm.
Feliciano has developed a reputation as a guy with a rubber arm, but we’ve seen some of those guys go down in recent years. Scot Shields provides the most prominent example. That is to say that arms of rubber do eventually break. Feliciano is getting to an age where that might become a concern. While injury is a legitimate risk for every pitcher, it seems to be a greater risk for a 34-year-old pitcher who has appeared in at least 86 games in each of the last three seasons.
What’s Likely To Happen
If both Logan and Feliciano stay healthy they’ll likely both provide options against the tough lefties in the lineup. Maybe the lesser of the two can take two lefties, separated by a righty, towards the bottom of the order, while the greater takes the Adrian Gonzalez or the Travis Snider (he’s going to have a big year) of the lineup.
It’s not likely that Logan figures out righties, both because of his fastball-slider repertoire and his history of abysmal performances against them. His fastball can make you dream about him mowing down Carl Crawford, Dustin Pedroia, and Adrian Gonzalez 1-2-3, but his history does not suggest it. Chances are he and Feliciano would go about it similarly: pitch to Crawford, pitch around Pedroia, and attack Gonzalez inside.
While the Yankees do have two quality lefties in the bullpen to open the season, they are still LOOGYs. That limits bullpen flexibility. The Yankees do have four solid righties behind them, which helps, but it still doesn’t make Logan or Feliciano any more effective against righties. The Yankees figure to get plenty of use out of them, but don’t expect them to pitch full shutdown innings. Nothing to see here: they’re just here for the lefties.
Who has minor league options left (and how many)?
Posted by: | CommentsMinor league options are one of baseball’s weird little quirks. Every player gets three, and they’re used whenever a guy on the 40-man roster is sent to the minors. Once you burn all three, the player has to pass through waivers to go back to the minors. Oh, and sometimes a player can qualify for a fourth option depending on some special circumstances. Yeah, it’s weird like that.
A player can only use one option a year, regardless of how many times they go up and down. That’s why you’ll see them referred to as “option years.” If a player is in the minors for more than 20 total days in a single year, it counts as an option. Anything less and it does not. To learn more about this stuff, I recommend Keith Law’s classic Death, Taxes and Major League Waivers post at Baseball Analysts. I’ll let him bore you with the details.
Obviously, options are important because they can dictate who can and who can’t be sent back to the minors. That information isn’t publicly available, at least as far as I know, so I figured I’d compile it myself. We don’t need to look at everyone on the 40-man roster simply because a bunch of guys aren’t ever going back to the minors, like CC Sabathia and Alex Rodriguez. A few others are on the bubble, so let’s recap them and a could of notable young regulars…
(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Andrew Brackman
Although 2011 will be his fourth full season since signing his Major League contract out of the draft, Brackman still has two minor league options remaining. He signed right on the August 15th deadline in 2007 but did not spent the required 20 days in the minors because the (minor league) season ended. The Yankees then carried Brackman on the 60-day disabled list all year in 2008 (Tommy John surgery), so he collected a year of service time instead of using a minor league option. His first option was used in 2009 and his second in 2010. Brackman will qualify for a fourth option because he will have used his three original options within his first five pro seasons. That’s one of those weird rules/ So yeah, the Yankees can send him down to the minors in each of the next two seasons without consequence.
Joba Chamberlain
Joba has all three options left. He was added to the 40-man for the first time in August 2007, when he was called up to the big leagues, and he hasn’t gone back to the minors since.
Colin Curtis
The Yankees added Curtis to the 40-man for the first time this past July, when he was summoned to the big leagues because the team was dealing with injuries and needed an extra position player during the NL park stretch of their interleague scheduled. Lil’ CC hung around a while but was eventually sent back down. He remained in Triple-A for more than a month later in the year, using his first option. He has two left.
Robert Fish
Added to the 40-man roster for the first time this offseason as a Rule 5 Draft pick, Fish has all three options left. Doesn’t matter though, he’ll be offered back to the Angels before the end of Spring Training.
Brett Gardner
After starting the 2008 season in Triple-A, the Yankees called Gardner up and added him to the 40-man roster for the first time that June 30th. He was with the team for about a month, ultimately sent down on July 26th because they had to make room on the active roster for the just acquired Xavier Nady. Gardner stayed in the minors until August 15th, so he was there for exactly 20 days. That’s not an accident, it prevented an option from being used. Gardner hasn’t been back to the minors since (not counting a very brief rehab stint in 2009), so he has all three options remaining.
Steve Garrison
Claimed off waivers from the Padres last year, Garrison was added to the 40-man (by San Diego) for the first time last (2009-2010) offseason. He used an option in his injury-riddled 2010 season, so he’s got two left.
"You might be using that last option this year, Greg." (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Greg Golson
Golson’s been around the block, having first been added to the 40-man roster by the Phillies after 2008. He spent basically all of 2009 and 2010 in the minors (save for the occasional cup-of-coffee, nothing major), using up his first two options. Golson has one left, which will inevitably be used this season.
Phil Hughes
Called up as a 20-year-old in what really was an act of desperation by the Yankees, Hughes was added to the 40-man for the first time in April 2007 and then went back to the minors after blowing out his hamstring. He spent a little more than three weeks in the minors that July but it was a rehab assignment, so it didn’t count as an optional assignment. The Yankees called him back up in August, so they didn’t burn an option that season.
Hughes began the next year with the big league team, but eventually hit the disabled list and then did the rehab thing again. The Yankees kept him in the minors for close to 40 days, however the first 30 were the rehab assignment. He did not eclipse the 20-day limit and did not use a minor league option in 2009. Hughes did use his first option in 2009, when he began the year in Triple-A and was called up in late April. He hasn’t been back to the minors since and has two options remaining.
Boone Logan
Logan’s out-of-options. He was first added to the 40-man by the White Sox in 2006, when they took him north out of camp because he had a great Spring Training despite having a total of 5.1 innings at the Single-A level to his credit. Yep. Boone spent considerable time in the minors in 2006, 2009, and 2010, burning all three options.
Justin Maxwell
Joel Sherman confirmed that Maxwell has one option remaining when he was acquired last month.
Sergio Mitre
The Experience has been out-of-options for a year now.
No need to look over your shoulder David, you aren't going back to the minors anytime soon. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
David Robertson
Called up and added to the 40-man roster for the first time on the same day as Gardner, Robertson went back to the minors on August 28th (in favor of Al Aceves) and then resurfaced 16 days later, preserving an option. He bounced up and down in April and May of 2009, burning an option. Robertson hasn’t been back to the minors since late May of 2009, so he still has two options at his disposal.
Romulo Sanchez
Chad Jennings confirmed with the Yankees this past December that Romulo is out-of-options.
Daniel Turpen
Same exact deal is Fish, so just re-read his comment and change “Fish” to “Turpen” and “Angels” to “Red Sox.”
Frankie Cervelli
Believe it or not, the Yankees added Cervelli to the 40-man roster for the first time after the 2007 season. That’s when he was first eligible for the Rule 5 Draft, before he ever got out of A-ball. Anyway, he spent most of 2008 in the minors, burning one options then spent the first five weeks of 2009 in the minors, burning another option. Frankie hasn’t been back to the minors since, so he still has that one option remaining.
Ramiro Pena
Pena was added to the 40-man roster for the first time in 2009, when he surprisingly broke camp with the big league team as the utility infielder. He went back to the minors for 43 games that summer, burning one option. Ramiro hasn’t been back down since, so he has two left.
* * *
Dellin Betances, Brandon Laird, Melky Mesa, and Ryan Pope were all added to the 40-man roster for the first time this offseason, so all three guys have all three options remaining. Hector Noesi, Ivan Nova, Reegie Corona, Eduardo Nunez, and Kevin Russo were each added to the 40-man roster for the first time last offseason, and since they all spent most of 2010 in the minors, they all have two options left.
Standard disclaimer here: I can’t guarantee the accuracy of the above info. MLB has some weird rules, and what is and what is not an optional assignment is one of them. I do feel pretty confident though, the only real question is Gardner. Does exactly 20 days in the minors count as an option, or does it have to be more? Either way, it shouldn’t become an issue. Fish, Turpen, and Romulo are goners and probably soon, before the end of camp. That’ll free up three 40-man roster spots, at least one of which will go to Jesus Montero at some point. Let’s hope he never uses any of his minor league options.
Hughes, Joba, Logan all agree to one year deals
Posted by: | CommentsVia Jon Heyman, the Yankees have avoided arbitration with both Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain. The former gets $2.7M, the latter $1.4M. I had Hughes getting around $3.5M and Joba about $1.8M, so I clearly need to sharpen my arb skills. Both players were eligible for arbitration for the first time, and they’re still pretty underpaid compared to what they’d get on the open market.
Update: Boone Logan signed for $1.2M according to Heyman. I pegged him for a $1M salary or so. Unlike Hughes and Joba, it was Logan’s second time up for arbitration, though he’s a Super Two and gets four cracks at the process.
These three plus Sergio Mitre were the only Yankees eligible for arbitration this winter. Mitre signed back in December, so it all got taken care of without a hearing(s). Good stuff.
Arbitration Case: Boone Logan
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(AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
As we sit and wait for the Yankees to make some kind of transaction this month (just to liven things up for cryin’ out loud, forget about strengthening the team at this point), there’s some in-house stuff to be taken care of behind the scenes. Teams and players are currently in the process of filing for arbitration, and will exchange salary figures six days from now. Brian Cashman recently told Chad Jennings that the team always looks to have a contract in place before a hearing (just like everyone else), but they’re not afraid to go to one if they feel the player is asking for unfair compensation. Chien-Ming Wang learned this the hard way back in 2008.
The Yankees have just three arbitration-eligible players this winter, and we’ve already covered Phil Hughes’ case as well as Joba Chamberlain’s. That leaves Boone Logan, who has already been usurped as the club’s primary lefty reliever by Pedro Feliciano this offseason. This is actually Logan’s second time through the arbitration process since he’s a Super Two. That just means he’s eligible for arbitration four times instead of three because he’s going to fall a few weeks short of qualifying for free agency in a couple of years. It’s just a way of making that extra three-fourths of a year of team control slightly more fair to the player. Logan pulled down $590,000 in 2011, not all that much more than the league minimum. He’ll get a decent raise this offseason after a fine second half that saw him strike out 25 batters and hold opponents to a .247 wOBA in an admitted small sample of 21.2 IP.
Remember, arbitration cases are built on old school stats that are simple for the three-person panels to understand, so that’s what we’re going to stick with here. It was real tough to find comparables for Logan, since lefty relievers come and go like buses at rush hour. I did the best I could, and here’s who I came up with…
So yeah, they aren’t perfect comparables, but that’s life. If we apply the 137.6% average raise (which is weighted by innings pitched) to Logan’s 2010 compensation, we get a projected 2011 salary of $811,840, which is still dirt cheap. Because he was so good late in the season, I’m willing to bet he gets a slightly larger raise than that, and frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up making a million bucks or so this coming summer.
Logan’s arbitration case will be little more than a nuisance to the front office given the relatively small amount of money at stake (less than one percent of the payroll even if he beats them in a hearing), but it’s a sizable raise for him. It does a good job showing you how much the arbitration process keeps salaries down though, because he’s going to earn about a quarter of what Feliciano will for similar work and what could easily be similar performance.
All told, the Yankees are looking at about $7M in 2011 payroll obligation through their three arbitration cases this winter, about $5.5M more than what Hughes, Joba, and Logan earned in 2010. I thought it would be a lot less than that coming into the offseason, but that’s because I didn’t have a firm grasp on the salary scale. Given how much money the team is paying some its older stars, getting cheap production from players like this is imperative to balance out the payroll and keep spending in check.
What Went Right: Boone Logan’s Second Half
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(Paul Sancya/AP)
Real quick: take a look at Boone Logan’s 2010 numbers. They look pretty spiffy, no? You can’t ask much more from a young lefty reliever. What made Logan look even better was the value he provided. Although he faced just 169 batters in 40 innings, he still produced 0.4 WAR, which was 0.6 more than the other player the Yankees acquired from the Braves last winter. Since Logan provided more value this year and will continue to provide more in the future, we can accurately term this the Boone Logan Trade. But it wasn’t always that way.
Because the Yankees started the season stocked with bullpen arms, Logan started the year in AAA Scranton. He made his way to the big league club early on, and made his first appearance on April 20. Things didn’t go so well during that first stint. Logan faced 49 batters in 10.2 innings and walked seven batters while striking out six. It led to six earned runs, a 5.06 ERA. The Yankees optioned him, but then recalled him again in mid-June, though that didn’t exactly go well either. This time Logan faced 33 batters in 7.2 innings, striking out seven and walking five. The results were better, but he clearly still had control issues.
Logan’s 3.93 first half ERA didn’t look so bad, but his walk issues made it hard to trust him against tough left-handed hitters. He finished the half with 12 walks in 18.1 innings, leading to an opponent OBP of .390. He threw 314 pitches to 82 batters, almost four per. Clearly something would have to change if he was going to stick in the second half. By the time the Yankees recalled him for the third time in the season, something had.
The second half didn’t open ideally for Logan, as he allowed a run in 1.2 innings against the Rays. The good news is that he didn’t walk a batter, and he threw 15 of 23 pitches for strikes (65%). He continued to throw strikes in subsequent appearances, and it paid off. He walked just eight in 21.2 second-half innings, a marked improvement over his first half numbers. It led to a mere .264 opponents’ OBP. Hitters also had trouble making solid contact, as his BABIP went down to .235. This was due, in large part, to a mere 8 percent line drive rate, down from 25 percent in the first half.
How did Logan accomplish this mid-season transformation? Part of it was certainly throwing more strikes. In the first half he threw 60 percent of his pitches for strikes, while in the second half that was up to 63 percent. That might not seem like a huge increase, but it can make a big difference when you’re often working one batter at a time. But it doesn’t account for the entire difference. The biggest change, as most of us can probably intuit, was pitch selection and effectiveness.
In the first half Logan was extremely fastball heavy, throwing it 70.9 percent of the time. He got a meager 8.9 percent whiff rate on it, leading to a 21.5 percent in play rate. In the second half he started leaning on his slider a lot more, using it 32.4 percent of his time. Opponents put it in play just 10.2 percent of the time, while whiffing 27.8 percent of the time. The pitch ended up being his best per FanGraphs’ Pitch Type Values, 3.8 runs above average overall, and 2.34 per 100 pitches. All it took was him using it more and commanding it better.*
*Looking at the PitchFX numbers, Logan got -0.07 inches of vertical break and -1.13 inches of horizontal break on the slider in the first half. In other words, it darted downward and towards a right-handed batter. In the second half it was 2.02 inches of vertical break and -0.29 inches horizontal. That might seem like less movement, but I have a pet theory on this. It basically goes that Logan was letting the slider fly more in the first half and was a bit more careful with it in the second half. He might have had more movement in the first half, but he was wild with it. In the second half the lower break figures point to a greater command over the pitch. Again, this is just a pet theory, but I’d love to hear some point-counterpoint on this if anyone is interested.
Just so you can see the difference, here are Logan’s slider plots from the first and second halves.
First half
Second half
Everything was away in the second half, and he buried plenty in the dirt. It’s tough to pick out the subtleties, because he threw far more in the second half than in the first. But I do think it’s clear that he kept the slider below the zone in the second half, while he was low and away in the first half. This probably led to the pitch being a lot more effective.
Given his second half performance, it’s hard to not like Logan as the primary lefty in 2011. He showed great improvements, from his peripheral numbers — 10.38 K/9, 3.32 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9 in the second half — to his pitch selection and command. Whether he can maintain these improvements remains to be seen, but he’ll get every chance to do so. With Damaso Marte out for most of, if not all of, the 2011 season, Logan becomes the primary lefty in the pen. Six months ago that would have left me feeling queasy. Amazing what a little improvement can do.
The Boone Logan appreciation thread
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Once upon a time, the thought of Boone Logan’s pitching meaningful innings in high-leverage situations filled me with dread. Through the first two months of the season, Joe Girardi kept deploying the 26-year-old lefty in match-up situations, often in close games, and the results were enough to condemn the process. When he was finally sent down to AAA at the end of May, Logan had accrued 10.2 innings while walking more than he had struck out. Opponents were hitting .310.408/.452 against him. The spare part in the Javier Vazquez deal seemed nothing more than that, and the icing on the cake was, of course, the No More Boone Logan jpeg.
Since Logan’s return to the Majors in late June, though, something has clicked, and yesterday, as I sat in the Grandstand and watched Logan strike out Luke Scott and Felix Pie in the top of the 8th of a one-run game, I marveled at the turnaround. Over his past 27 games spanning 24 innings, Logan has been nothing short of spectacular. He sports a 1.13 ERA with a 26:9 K:BB rate. Opponents are hitting just .195/.278/.264 against him, and his two strike outs yesterday gave him 22 scoreless straight appearances, the third longest streak in Yankee bullpen history. Only some guy named Mariano and Steve Farr have topped that.
Praise for Logan has become the norm amongst Yankee writers and baseball analysts. The guys at The Yankee U highlight just how good the bullpen has been of late, and Mark Simon at ESPN profiles the rise of Boone Logan. Simon explores the differences in pre-demotion Logan and the new and improved Boone Logan 2.0:
The biggest positive to come out of this stretch for Logan is that he’s not walking hitters anywhere near as frequently as he was earlier this season. In his last 14 2/3 innings, Logan has issued just four walks. He was averaging 5.4 walks per nine innings prior to this streak.
Key to that: The effectiveness of Logan’s breaking ball, the one he used to strike Luke Scott out on Wednesday. Inside Edge, which tracks every pitch thrown, by type, has 20 of Logan’s 30 strikeouts this season coming on breaking balls.
Of the 63 breaking pitches that Logan has gotten opponents to swing at, they’ve missed on 35 of them, including 3-of-3 Wednesday. That miss rate (55.6 percent) rates third-best in the majors.
Confidence in a breaking ball plus the ability to throw swing-and-miss pitches are, obviously, paramount to a reliever’s success, and Logan has used his ability to throw in the upper 90s along with his breaking pitches to dominate hitters. While relievers may be a volatile bunch, for the last few months, Logan has been able to harness the stuff that has followed him around since he made his Major League debut in 2006.
For the Yankees, Logan’s emergence as an effective bullpen piece couldn’t have come at a better time. With Damaso Marte shelved, as Joe wrote in July, the left-handed spotlight turned to Logan and shine he did. Filling in for the injured Marte, Logan has limited lefties to a .188 /.278/.219, and he has struck out a third of all left-handed batters. Right now, Joe Girardi has enough confidence in Logan to have him face lefties in any situation and at any point in the game, and the stuff and numbers would back up that match-up.
Still, Logan’s biggest tests are still to come. As the Yankees get their ducks in a row for another playoff run, they won’t have Damaso Marte. Today at the Pinstriped Bible, Cliff Corcoran dispatches the idea that Marte was a revelation last year in the playoffs. He got only one out with the tying or winning run at the plate, and five of his 12 outs recorded came in losing games. Four others came with four-run leads in the 8th inning, and seemingly his biggest out — a Game 4 Ryan Howard K — came with a two-run lead and seven outs left in the game.
Yet, the playoff teams the Yanks could face this year have lefties in key spots in their lineups. Josh Hamilton remains a feared hitter for the Rangers. Joe Mauer, Jim Thome, Jason Kubel and Justin Morneau fill out the Twins’ order, and Carl Crawford, Carlos Peña are formidable foes within the Rays’ order. Boone Logan will inevitably be called upon to face these lefties late in the game.
A few months ago, Boone Logan was the throw-in piece in a five-player trade. Today, he could be the better and more important player as the Yanks stare down 22 games and 11 more wins before they can claim a 28th World Series championship trophy. No more No Boone Logan.
Injury Updates: Derek Jeter, Damaso Marte
Posted by: | CommentsUpdated (6:19 p.m.): Hitting just .276/.338/.390, Derek Jeter has struggled through 2010, and now we learn that he’s battling injuries as well. According to Yanks’ manager Joe Girardi, Jeter has been playing through some tendinitis in his left leg and that’s why Jeter rested on Monday. “His leg has been a little sore,” Girardi said tore porters. “It doesn’t really hurt him or bother him except to slow him down a little bit…He’s been dealing with it for a little bit, but we’ve managed it.” Jeter, never one to admit injury, parried with his manager. “I’m fine. I don’t even know what he’s talking about,” the Yanks’ captain said. A little spot of rest could do Jeter wonders.
In other injury news, Damaso Marte, out since July 7 with a sore shoulder, was supposed to throw a bullpen session yesterday but in the end, he did not. According to Joe Girardi, Marte’s shoulder is still sore, and although the clock is ticking on the season, the Yanks still expect him back before the end of the year. Since signing a three-year, $12-million deal with the Yanks prior to the 2009 season, Marte has spent significant time on the disabled list and has thrown just 31 mediocre innings in the majors. He struck out five in 2.2 innings of work against the Phillies in the World Series last year but has been supplanted as the team’s LOOGY by Boone Logan. His return would give the Yanks’ pen some left-handed depth for the stretch drive.
Boone Logan’s big chance
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Photo credit: Kathy Willens/AP
Just after the All-Star break the Yankees placed reliever Damaso Marte on the 15-day DL with inflammation in his left shoulder. The move sounds more like a precautionary maneuver than anything; the Yanks remember how greatly Marte helped in the World Series and want him fully healthy for the stretch run. Still, he was the only lefty in the bullpen, and if Joe Girardi has made anything clear during his tenure it’s that he wants a lefty available. That meant only one thing, the recall of Boone Logan from AAA Scranton.
The season hasn’t gone so well for Logan. He had two previous stints with the big league club, both of which resulted in far too many walks and hits. In fact, those seem to be Logan’s calling cards. He has a career BB/9 rate of 4.25 and a career BABIP of .350. A pitcher who puts so many men on base likely won’t find long-term MLB success. Maybe he’ll get lucky for a while and find favorable situations in which he can help the team. But over time he’ll probably remain ineffective. Yet I remain optimistic about Logan.
Maybe it’s because of his demeanor. He’s a big dude, 6’5″, but has this goofy streak that makes him quite the affable character. Plenty of players take themselves too seriously, but that’s clearly not the case with Logan. And with good reason. It’s easy to forget that he’s only 25 years old. It might seem like he’s been around forever, but that’s because he broke into the league as a 21-year-old in 2006 and pitched a full season, 50.2 innings, as a 22-year-old in 2007. Now that he’s entering his prime I think the Yankees might get some use out of Logan.
One thing we often hear discussed on broadcasts is how hard Logan throws. According to the Baseball Info Solutions velocity data presented on FanGraphs, Logan’s fastball averages 93.3 mph this year, which is about on par with his short 2009 stint with the Braves. It is also a tick higher than his velocity in 2007, which is so far his best full season in the majors. I’m not sure what one has to do with the other, but the uptick in velocity also moves in step with his increased fastball usage. He’s throwing it 72.1 percent of the time this year while using his slider just 18.9 percent. In 2007 he used the slider 37.9 percent and in 2008 he used it 41.5 percent.
The FanGraphs pitch type values aren’t perfect, since they don’t consider the pitch sequence. In other words, maybe a pitcher is retiring plenty of batters with the curveball, but that ignores how he set them up with the fastball. Yet it still tells us whether hitters did or did not hit the pitch well. For his career Logan’s fastball rates as -1.65 runs per 100 pitches, while his slider rates as a positive 0.38. This year Logan’s fastball is getting hit, -2.5 runs overall, while his slider, +1.9 runs, and his changeup, +1.0 runs even though he throws it just 9 percent of the time, have worked well. Perhaps, then, sequencing has become an issue. Might Logan find more success by going to the slider and changeup more and using his fastball in a different manner?
Maybe it comes down to figuring out exactly what he did yesterday. He came in to start the seventh inning of a one-run game and pitched as well as anyone could have expected. The first lefty he faced, Bobby Abreu, flied out to center on a 3-2 fastball that he set up with two two-strike sliders. Logan then worked the count 2-1 on Torii Hunter before leaving a changeup right over the middle of the plate. But then, with the tying run on base, he slung two fastballs, 94 and 95 mph, over the outside corner to get ahead of Hideki Matsui 0-2. In this count he has gone to his slider 61 percent of the time this year, but yesterday he went even further outside with a 95 mph fastball, getting Matsui to swing and miss.
Will that happen every time? Absolutely not. Can the Yanks trust Logan as a primary setup man? Not now, and probably not at any time this year. But considering the state of the bullpen, I don’t see how he’s any worse an option than Chan Ho Park, Dustin Mosely, or Chad Gaudin. The Yanks need help, and if they’re going to acquire an arm or recall one from AAA I’d far rather see those three go before Logan at this point. He’s no great shakes, but he’s young and showing signs of improvement. Unless the Yanks are running out an elite relief corps, I think Logan should have a place in the pen.
