Dellin Betances Archives - Page 3 of 33

The Yankees and Aaron Boone are being rewarded for their patience with Dellin Betances

June 12, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

If nothing else, Aaron Boone has shown he is relentlessly positive in his few short months as a big league manager. He enjoys wins and seems to quickly turn the page on losses, which are good managerial traits. The Yankees seem loose, they look like they’re having fun, and they’re winning lots of baseball games. The first few months of the Aaron Boone era have gone very well.

Boone has also shown that he has his players’ backs at all times, even when everyone else is throwing a dude under the bus. There is no better example of this than Dellin Betances. Betances completely lost the strike zone late last year and was unusable in the postseason. Then Dellin gave up a home run in his first appearance this season, and the second time out Kevin Pillar stole his way around the bases. It was ugly.

Many fans were ready to run Betances out of town. Saw it with my own eyes on social media and our comments. Boone? Boone stuck with Dellin the entire time. “We’ll continue to work with him, continue to believe in him, and continue to need him in big situations,” said Boone after the ugliness of the opening series in Toronto. It was easy to laugh at that given what was happening on the field, but Boone meant it.

Fast-forward to June, and now Betances has reestablished himself as the Eighth Inning Guy™ and is once again a dominant setup man. The 3.54 ERA leaves something to be desired, but, in 24 games since that opening series in Toronto, Betances has a 2.88 ERA (1.87 FIP) with 44.6% strikeouts, 9.9% walks, and 51.1% ground balls. He struck out the side on eleven pitches Saturday and you can see his confidence is back. The swagger is back.

“That’s probably the best I’ve felt … ever,” said Betances to Randy Miller following Saturday’s game. “I think my fastball is good, my breaking ball is good, and I’ve said it a couple times already: Even when things weren’t going as good (in April) when I was giving up a couple runs, it’s probably the best I’ve felt in a while.”

Betances credited bullpen coach Mike Harkey for helping spur on the turnaround — “Harkey is a guy who I rely on and I try to repeat everything that he tells me to do when I’m out there. I think I’ve been listening a little more,” he said — and chalked it up to improved fastball command, fewer breaking balls, and a better game plan.

“I felt like earlier on I probably wasn’t throwing my fastball as good command wise,” he said. “… At times I was throwing too many breaking balls. I think I’m doing a better job of mixing my pitches and having a better game plan and kind of trusting everything I have … Earlier in the year I felt like I was going out there and just throwing anything. My game plan wasn’t as good.”

There is no mystery with Dellin. He’s a fastball/curveball pitcher and, for a long time, it has been basically a 50/50 split. This all predates the team’s anti-fastball philosophy too. Betances was curveball heavy long before it was cool to be curveball heavy. His pitch usage over the years:

Two things stand out to me so far this season. One, Betances is throwing more strikes. I mean, duh. He’s thrown 51.1% of his pitches in the zone this year, up from 46.7% last year and 45.0% the year before. The MLB average is 48.0%. And two, more pitches in the zone means hitters have to actually swing against Betances. Last year he was so wild they stopped swinging and let Dellin work himself into trouble. That is no longer the case.

It sounds obvious — and it is — but gosh, throwing strikes makes a world of difference, especially for a dude like Betances. His stuff is so good that the hitter is on the defensive even in non-two-strike counts. How many times have we seen hitters buckle at the curveball and swing late on the fastball? When he’s right, Dellin can make hitters do funny looking things at the plate, and we’ve seen hitters do more funny looking things lately.

With Betances, it always feels like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, especially these last two years. We’ve seen him do the “great early in the season and bad late in the season” thing multiples times now, and it is entirely possible he’ll do it again. There’s not much else we can do other than wait and see how the season plays out. I know two things though. One, Betances has been awesome lately and he’s helping the Yankees win games. Good Betances is really good.

And two, if Dellin were as much of a headcase and as mentally weak as so many people seem to think, he wouldn’t have rebounded from last year to be this good again. The headcase and mentally weak stuff is straight garbage. Lazy trope by those unwilling to look for a real answer. Betances has a history of mechanical issues and control problems who had mechanical issues and control problems last year. And so far this year, he’s fixed whatever ailed him, thanks in part to the team’s patience.

Yankeemetrics: Beasts of East battle in the Bronx (May 8-10)

May 11, 2018 by Katie Sharp Leave a Comment

The Good Giancarlo
The Yankees epic and historic romp through the beasts of the AL continued in the series opener with another white-knuckle, drama-filled win over the Red Sox. Through Tuesday, it was their 16th win in the last 17 games (dating back to April 21), a run that is even more remarkable considering that all six teams they’ve faced during this extended stretch were in first or second place in their division at the start of the series.

Giancarlo Stanton sparked the offense early, homering in his first two at-bats to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead after four innings. The home runs couldn’t have been more different, too. The first one was a laser shot he scorched down the left field line and over the fence. It had a launch angle of 17 degrees, the lowest for any of his home runs this season. The second one was a majestic opposite-field shot that left his bat at an angle of 31 degrees, the highest for any homer he’s hit this year.

While Stanton has suffered through an inconsistent start in 2018, he’s had a few outbursts of offensive production, and this was the third time he’s launched two or more homers in a game so far. He’s just the fourth Yankee ever to have three multi-homer games within the team’s first 35 contests, joining A-Rod (2007), Roger Maris (1960) and Mickey Mantle (1956). Oh, and if those names/years sound familiar, it’s because each of the previous three guys went on to win the AL MVP that season.

After the Red Sox battled back to tie the game at 2-2, Aaron Judge took over the hero role when he laced a tie-breaking RBI single in the seventh inning off newest Yankee villain Joe Kelly. Prior to that at-bat, Judge was 0-for-6 with three strikeouts in his career against Kelly. And, though it’s hard to believe, that single was the first time Judge delivered a go-ahead hit in the seventh inning or later at Yankee Stadium.

As the Yankee bats were mostly silent aside from Stanton’s fireworks, Luis Severino shined on the mound, dominating the Red Sox with his ace-like stuff. Overcoming a shaky defense behind him, Sevy struck out 11 and walked none while allowing just two runs across six innings. He became the first Yankee with at least 11 strikeouts and no walks in a game against the Red Sox since Mike Mussina’s memorable near-perfecto on September 2, 2001.

Severino’s slider was nasty as usual (11 whiffs, 9 strikeouts), but more impressive was the increased usage and effectiveness of his changeup. He threw a season-high 24 changeups, showing excellent command of his offspeed stuff. As you can see below, he located nearly all of those changeups in the strike zone or just off the plate, keeping the hitters off-balance while generating six swings-and-misses and six foul strikes with the pitch.

Gritty, Gutty Brett Gardner
The unstoppable pinstriped freight train kept chugging along on Wednesday night, as the Yankees comeback mojo propelled them to yet another wild and crazy victory. It was their 17th win in their last 18 games, and over that span they’ve outscored their opponents by a whopping 65 runs. The only other years that the Yankees had an 18-game run that included at least 17 wins and a run differential of plus-65 or greater were 1953 and 1947 — and both of those seasons ending with a World Series celebration.

You really can’t describe these wins as shocking or stunning anymore — no lead is safe against this Yankees juggernaut. After erasing a 6-5 deficit with four runs in the eighth, this was their AL-best fourth win when trailing at the start of the eighth inning, and all four came in the last two weeks.

Perhaps the most impressive part of their scorching-hot run was that there was a different hero nearly every night. Through Wednesday, during the eight-game win streak, seven different players produced the game-winning run:

May 1: Gary Sanchez go-ahead homer in top of ninth
May 2: Giancarlo Stanton two-run homer in top of first
May 3: Aaron Judge go-ahead RBI groundout in top of ninth
May 4: Miguel Andujar walk-off single in ninth
May 5: Ronald Torreyes reaches on error in fifth, go-ahead run scores
May 6: Gleyber Torres walk-off homer in ninth
May 8: Judge go-ahead bases-loaded walk in seventh
May 9: Brett Gardner go-ahead triple in eighth

Gardner’s heroics capped off a huge breakout game for the struggling leadoff hitter — who entered the game with a .127/.256/.127 line in his previous 18 games (79 plate appearances) — and then went 3-for-5 with two doubles and a triple. He was 1-for-6 with five strikeouts against Craig Kimbrel before knocking in the game-winning run on Wednesday.

#FunFact No. 1: The last Yankee (before Gardner) with a go-ahead triple in the eighth inning or later was Johnny Damon on June 20, 2006 against the Phillies.

#FunFact No. 2: Here’s a list of Yankees with at least three extra-base hits, including a triple, in a game against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium: Gardner, Bobby Brown (9/24/1948), Snuffy Stirnweiss (8/11/1946) and Charlie Keller (5/23/1941).

Judge then tacked on a couple insurance runs in that inning with a titanic two-run blast to center, sending the ball 429 feet with an exit velocity of 117 mph into Monument Park. It was the hardest-hit and the second-longest batted ball allowed by Kimbrel since Statcast tracking began in 2015.

Bittersweet ending
The Yankees comeback mojo finally went dry on Thursday night, losing the series finale to the Red Sox despite the inevitable late-game rally. This time, however, they couldn’t overcome another bullpen implosion as their eight-game win streak and historic three-week stretch came to an end. The Yankees also had their 11-game home win streak snapped, which was their longest at the current Yankee Stadium.

Dellin Betances wore the goat horns in the loss, surrendering the game-losing homer to J.D. Martinez in the top of the eighth after tossing a perfect seventh inning. It was the fourth home run Betances has allowed in 16 innings this season — he gave up just three longballs in 59 2/3 innings last year. This was also the third time this season that Betances had come out for a second inning, and the results have been ugly: in the second inning of work, he’s allowed six runs on six hits across those three games. However, last year, in those same situations, he allowed zero runs in six games when coming out for a second inning of work.

CC Sabathia was rocked by the Red Sox in his worst start of the season, coughing up four runs on nine hits across four innings before the rain delay. The large lefty had been in vintage ace-like form for much of the season before this clunker, and entered the game riding a slew of favorable trends:


	Starts	ERA	IP	ER	Runs
Thursday vs Red Sox	1	9.00	4	4	4
Entering the game
Since April 19	4	0.39	23 1/3	1	4
At Home in 2018	4	1.33	20 1/3	3	6
Vs Red Sox Since 9/29/16	5	1.08	33 1/3	4	4

Jonathan Holder was the unsung hero of the game, taking over for Sabathia after the rain delay and keeping the game within reach as he retired all six batters faced. Since being recalled from Triple-A on April 21 (when Adam Warren went on the DL), Holder has been terrific out of the ‘pen. In 8 2/3 innings, he’s allowed just one unearned run on two hits with seven strikeouts and a walk. In his first three appearances of the season before being sent down, he was rocked for an ugly .467/.500/.733 line, giving up seven runs and seven hits in 2 2/3 innings.

The good and bad of Dellin Betances so far in 2018

April 24, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

Coming into this new season Dellin Betances was the biggest unknown on the Yankees’ roster. He struggled throwing strikes late last year and it rendered him unusable in anything other than an emergency in the postseason, and no one really knew what to expect in 2018. Would he fix himself like he did after late struggles in 2016 and 2017? Or continue to have problems?

Through 21 team games the answer is … kind of both? Betances has had some good outings and bad outings, with the bad outings leaving a bigger dent in his season numbers. So far Dellin has a 6.23 ERA (5.26 FIP) with 15 strikeouts in 8.2 innings. To me, Betances does appear more comfortable and in control on the mound. There were times late last season he looked completely lost. I haven’t seen that yet this year.

In those 8.2 innings there are good signs and bad signs. Reasons to believe Betances will be just fine — better than fine, really, since it’s not like he was a generic middle reliever from 2014-16 — and reasons to believe more trouble is on the way. Four things stand out to me so far.

The Good: He’s throwing strikes

Betances has only walked three of the 38 batters he’s faced so far this season (7.9%) and he’s yet to hit a batter — Dellin hit eleven batters last season, seventh most in baseball behind six starters — so he’s been around the plate more often. It’s appeared that way to me watching the games and the numbers bear that out.

	2016 Zone %	2017 Zone %	2018 Zone %
Fastball	51.9%	48.7%	58.3%
Breaking Ball	43.3%	44.9%	48.5%
Overall	47.0%	46.7%	51.6%

Throwing only 51.6% of your pitches in the strike zone sounds crummy, but the league average is only 47.7% this year, so it’s really not. (Last year the league average zone rate was 47.3%.)

It’s early. We’re only talking about 8.2 innings worth of pitches right now. So far though Betances has been more around the plate with both his fastball and breaking ball, and that was his big problem late last season. He didn’t have command problems last season. He had basic strike-throwing problems. Forget painting the corners. Dellin couldn’t throw the ball over the plate. He’s done a better job of it in the early going this year.

The Bad: He’s been homer prone

Betances has allowed three home runs in his 8.2 innings this year. He allowed three home runs in 63.2 innings last year, including the postseason. Now he’s allowed three in 8.2 innings this year. Hmmm. Here’s the weird thing: Betances has allowed three fly balls all season. All three have gone over the fence. HMMM.

Here are the three home run pitch locations and their game situations:

(Yes, I know Candelario is on the Tigers. I forgot to change TOR to DET before uploading the image and I don’t feel like putting it together again. My bad.)

Three fastballs out over the plate, two when the hitter was ahead in the count, and two that had no real impact on the outcome of the game. All three to the first batter of the inning too. After the Pillar homer Betances said he was “ambushed … just trying to groove one in there, and I didn’t think he would swing.” He retired the next three batters, so no harm no foul.

The three homers — the only three fly balls Betances has allowed this season — had a combined exit velocity of 108.4 mph, which is a good little poke. Last year Dellin allowed an average 89.5 mph exit velocity on fly balls and only two individual fly balls with an exit velocity over 100 mph. This year he’s already allowed three.

I’m not sure what to think about the home runs. We’re talking about three pitches here, and no, Betances won’t carry a 100.0% HR/FB rate all year. At the same time, is there something beyond general baseball randomness that explains the uptick in hard hit fly balls? Given that we’re talking about 8.2 innings here, I’m going to stamp this as “need to see more” before making any conclusions.

The Good: He’s getting swings and misses

Fifteen strikeouts in 8.2 innings is both excellent and not an out of the ordinary number for Betances. He has a 39.5% strikeout rate this year. It was 38.3% last year. The year before it was 42.1%. The year before that is was 39.5% and the year before that it was 39.6%. The strikeout rate is regular old Dellin and that’s a good thing. He’s still missing plenty of bats. The numbers:

	2016 Swing % (Whiff %)	2017 Swing % (Whiff %)	2018 Swing% (Whiff %)
Fastball	47.3% (31.8%)	38.0% (33.0%)	41.7% (24.0%)
Breaking Ball	38.0% (50.2%)	31.6% (43.6%)	34.3% (50.0%)
Overall	42.0% (41.1%)	34.5% (38.2%)	37.1% (38.9%)

The swing-and-miss ability is still there in the early going. That’s good. Even after only 8.2 innings, I’d be pretty worried if any pitcher suddenly lost his ability to get swings and misses when his entire game is built around getting swings and misses. Betances is still generating empty swings like few others. He’s throwing more pitches in the zone too, remember. Pitches in the zone are easier to hit, yet his swing-and-miss hasn’t suffered. Good news.

The Bad: His fastball spin rate is down

For all the talk about Dellin’s velocity being down this year, his fastball is averaging 97.2 mph and it’s topped out at 99.7 mph. Last April he averaged 97.4 mph and topped out at 99.2 mph. The year before it was 97.2 mph and 100.0 mph, respectively. The velocity is right where it always is this time of year. Betances tends to reach his peak velocity in the summer months like most pitchers. We’ll see more 99s and 100s in a few weeks.

Spin rate is another matter though. Dellin has had a truly elite fastball throughout his career because he combines big velocity with a high spin rate. The more spin, the more “life” on the pitch, and the harder it is to square up. Here are his fastball spin rates:

	April Spin Rate	Full Season Spin Rate
2015	2,402	2,402
2016	2,497	2,505
2017	2,557	2,430
2018	2,294	N/A

The league average fastball spin rate has hovered right around 2,200 rpm since Statcast became a thing in 2015, and from 2015-17, Betances was well above that mark. So far this year his fastball has been essentially league average.

In 2015 and 2016, Dellin’s fastball spin rate in April basically matched his overall season spin rate. Last year though, there was a big decline, and that’s a red flag. Here are the month-by-month numbers:

April: 2,557 rpm
May: 2,512 rpm
June: 2,415 rpm
July: 2,406 rpm
August: 2,381 rpm
September: 2,354 rpm

Well that doesn’t look good. The spin rate on Betances’ fastball has declined every month since last April and the trend has continued this year. A low spin rate isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Low spin is conducive to ground balls. You don’t want to be league average though, where Dellin sits right now. You either want high spin (swings and misses) or low spin (grounders). Nothing in the middle.

Betances is 30 years old now with over 1,000 innings on his arm, plus he had some arm problems earlier in his career, most notably Tommy John surgery in 2009. The drop in spin could simply be a wear-and-tear thing. Or it could be a mechanical issue. I’m not sure. The drop in spin could explain the homers — again, all three came on heaters — though it’s still so early. The spin rate issue is definitely a #thingtowatch going forward.

* * *

Late last season Betances was untrustworthy because he couldn’t throw strikes. It wasn’t a command issue. It was a basic strike-throwing issue. He couldn’t get the ball over the plate all. This year Betances has been around the zone more often in the early going, and he’s still getting plenty of swings and misses. His spin rate is down though, and for whatever reason he’s been homer prone. Four weeks into the season, red flags still exist with Dellin, but there are some positives too.

Yankeemetrics: Escape from rainy Motown

April 16, 2018 by Katie Sharp Leave a Comment

Survive and Advance
The Yankees slow dance with mediocrity continued on Friday as they moved back to .500 with a 8-6 win over the Tigers. Fourteen games into the season and they haven’t lost more than two games in a row or won more than two games in a row, and they’ve been within a game of .500 following 12 of their 14 games played.

In his second game since coming off the DL, Aaron Hicks stole the show with a historic performance at the plate. In the second inning he drilled a hanging changeup to deep right-center, and as the ball caromed off the wall at an odd angle, Hicks motored around the bases and slide safely (with a big smile on his face) into home for his first career inside-the-park homer.

It was the first inside-the-parker by a Yankee since Curtis Granderson on August 21, 2011 at Minnesota. The last Yankee to hit one against the Tigers was Bill Robinson on June 4, 1967 in the Bronx, and the last Yankee with an inside-the-park homer in Detroit was Roy White on May 18, 1966 at the old Tiger Stadium.

But Hicks wasn’t done yet! In the sixth inning he went deep in the more traditional way with a majestic 417-foot shot into the right field bleachers to give the Yankees a 6-1 lead.

He became the first Yankee with an inside-the-park homer and an outside-the-park homer in the same game since Hank Bauer on May 30, 1956 in the second game of a doubleheader against the Senators at Yankee Stadium. Bauer was a tough, hard-nosed player (before joining the Yankees, Bauer won two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts as a marine in World War II), and the most notable stat of his baseball career is that hit safely in an MLB-record 17 straight World Series games from 1956-58.

The last time a Yankee player had a multi-homer game that also included an inside-the-parker on the road was August 13, 1939 at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, when Babe Dahlgren and Joe DiMaggio both pulled off the feat in a 21-0 (!) win over the A’s. That game, by the way, remains the largest shutout win in franchise history.

Hicks also was the fifth Yankee to hit two-or-more homers in a game this season — joining Gary Sanchez, Giancarlo Stanton, Tyler Austin and Didi Gregorius — making the Yankees the first team in major-league history to have five different players with a multi-homer game this early into the season (14th game).

Miguel Andujar also powered the offense with a double and a triple, his first extra-base hits of the season. And even better, he earned our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series: The last Yankee, who had less than 15 big-league games on his resume, to hit a double and a triple in the same game was a 22-year-old rookie named Bernie Williams in 1991.

Not good, Dellin, not good
The Yankees nearly blew the game after another shaky outing by Dellin Betances, who gave up a solo homer and three runs in the eighth inning. It was the third home run he’s allowed this season, equaling the total he gave up all of last year. Important note: he’s faced 24 batters this season and faced 261 last year.

While the three home runs so far might be a fluke — he’s allowed three flyballs this season and all three have gone over the fence, which is an unsustainable 100 percent homer-to-flyball rate — there is little doubt in the numbers that he’s getting hit much harder this year compared to the past. The homer crushed by Jeimer Candelario on Friday had an exit velocity of 110.6 mph, the hardest-hit batted ball off Betances since Statcast began tracking that stuff in 2015. Overall, he’s allowed an average exit velocity of 91.3 mph, a huge jump from the 84.1 mph mark he allowed last year.

Digging deeper, the three dingers each came off his four-seam fastball, which has lost both velocity and spin this year, even when comparing to April last year.

**Dellin Betances Fastball**
	Velocity (mph)	Spin Rate (rpm)
2018	96.8	2,285
2017	98.3	2,430
April 2017	97.6	2,570

Keep in mind that the league average spin rate for four-seamers is 2,250, and high-spin fastballs result in more whiffs while low-spin correlates to more groundballs. Generally, the worst type of spin is average — which is exactly where Betances’ four-seamer is this year. The results have been ugly, too: Batters are 7-for-12 (.583) and slugging 1.333 (3 homers, 4 singles) when putting his fastball in play this season; last year opponents hit .200 and slugged .325 off Betances’ fastball.

One possible explanation for his diminished heater this season is that the vertical release point when throwing his fastball has dropped nearly five inches compared to last season, leading to a slower and flatter pitch. Betances, however claims that his pitches feel good coming out of his hand and his mechanics are sound. Speaking to reporters after Friday’s debacle:

This is the best I’ve felt in a while. Both (my fastball and curveball) I felt real good with and they just found holes with everything. The first guy got me good, but after that everything I threw was just hit. Even if I picked up the rosin (bag) and threw it, it was going to get hit. It was just one of those days. But I’ve got to continue to stay positive. Like I said, I haven’t felt like this good in a while. I like how I felt stuff wise, but they just had good hits.”

For the Yanks, the bullpen has been an unexpected weakness early in 2018

April 2, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

Today, for the first time this season, the Yankees’ bullpen did not allow a run. And that’s only because the home opener was snowed out. The home opener has been rescheduled for tomorrow, assuming the weather cooperates. Whenever the Yankees play next, they’ll look to get the first scoreless game from their bullpen in 2018.

Here are the combined bullpen numbers through four games: 13.1 IP, 12 H, 11 R, 11 ER, 5 BB, 18 K, 4 HR. Yikes. Only three relievers in the eight-man bullpen have yet to be charged with a run: Chad Green (still awesome), Jonathan Holder (allowed an inherited runner to score), and Chasen Shreve (hasn’t pitched yet). David Robertson has already allowed as many runs this year (four in two innings) as he did with the Yankees after the trade last year (four in 35 innings). Not great.

The Yankees are built to win games like the two they lost. Tie game in the late innings like Saturday? The bullpen holds it down until someone on offense smacks a dinger. Three-run lead with three innings to go like Sunday? It’s supposed to be in the bag. Alas, things don’t always go according to plan, and the bullpen has been scored upon in all four games thus far. A few thoughts about this.

1. Dude, it’s four games. Obligatory small sample size reminder. Extremely small sample size, at that. Regardless of your opinion of the Josh Donaldson intentional walk, at some point we have to acknowledge Justin Smoak had a monster at-bat against Robertson. Nine pitches, fouled away a bunch of great curveballs. It really was a great at-bat. Sometimes you just get beat. I didn’t like the intentional walk, but credit Smoak for that battle.

Anyway, as long as everyone is healthy, I feel pretty confident the key late inning relievers — specifically Green, Robertson, and Tommy Kahnle — will be excellent. Green’s been great so far as it is. Also, getting Adam Warren back from his ankle bruise will help as well. Bullpens have bad series. It happens. When it happens in the first series of the regular season, it feels more meaningful even though it’s really not. The talent is still there.

“It’s gonna be a strength, I am confident in that,” said Aaron Boone following Sunday’s game. “Everything is a little bit magnified, obviously, in the early days, good and bad. I’m really comfortable over time that those guys will continue to do their thing and it will continue to not just be a strength, but I think an overwhelming strength for this club.”

2. Boone has to be more judicious with Betances. I expect Green, Robertson, Kahnle, Warren, and Aroldis Chapman to be fine going forward. Dellin Betances is a different animal, for better or worse. He’s given up two home runs in two appearances — his second homer came in his 56th appearance last year — which is unusual and annoying. Then again, every pitcher seems more homer prone these days. It’s happening to everyone.

Betances has only walked one of the 13 batters he’s faced so far (and he was squeezed a bit), which is encouraging after last year, but it’s 13 batters. The larger point here is that while having confidence in your players is a good thing, Dellin is at the point where he has to earn back trust, and Boone has to be more selective with him. Eighth inning with a five-run lead on Opening Day? Perfect. Pushing him for a second inning in the late innings of a tie game Saturday? Eh.

I’m a Betances believer. I think he’ll have a typical Dellin season, which means gobs of strikeouts and not much in the way of hard contact. Boone obviously expects Betances to dominate as well. Until he shows he can consistently though, Boone has to pick his spots with him. Use him for an inning at a time and in lower leverage spots. Dellin was a multi-inning monster from 2014-16. Those multi-inning days are pretty much over.

3. Eight relievers is one too many. Still not a fan of the eight-man bullpen. I get it, I totally do. Teams don’t want to overwork anyone early in the season and they’re terrified of running out of arms. And yet, four games into the season Shreve has yet to pitch, Warren has faced three batters, and Holder has faced two batters. It’s not like the starters have pitched super deep into games either. CC Sabathia went five innings and Sonny Gray went four.

The presence of the eighth reliever creates some sense of obligation to actually use him from time to time. The Yankees hadn’t played since Monday when Holder was brought into Saturday’s game, and I think that factored into the decision to use him. He needed work! Want to improve the bullpen? Get rid of the weakest link. If things go haywire and a fresh arm or two is needed the next day, you call them up. Eighth relievers, man. Teams want them but they’re never really all that useful.

4. If the Yankees have to make changes, they will. It’s still way too early to freak out about the bullpen. Can we at least give them a homestand first? Please? If the sample grows and the struggles continue, and the Yankees have to adjust their bullpen personnel, they will. They did last year. Maybe that means call-ups, maybe it means trades. If the current group doesn’t do the job the Yankees will make changes.

The bullpen at the end of the season very rarely looks like the Opening Day bullpen. Injuries and poor performance inevitably lead to roster changes throughout the season and nowhere on the roster is that more applicable than in the bullpen. Relievers are inherently volatile. If changes are necessary, changes will be made. Right now, it’s way too early to say changes are necessary. Bullpens have bad series now and then, even great ones. The Yankees’ vaunted bullpen just had a bad series, and right now, it’s too early to say it’s anything more than that.

Yankeemetrics: Welcome back, baseball (March 31-April 1)

April 2, 2018 by Katie Sharp Leave a Comment

It is high, it is far, it is Gian
For the first time since 2011, the Yankees celebrated a season-opening win as they blasted the Blue Jays on Thursday, 6-1. The last time the Yankees won on Opening Day, the winning pitcher was Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera got the final out of the game… yeah, it’s been a while, eh?

[On the other hand, some things never change … the starting leftfielder and leadoff man in the 2011 was opener was Brett Gardner, who was in that same position and batting spot in 2018. It was Gardner’s seventh Opening Day start in left field, tied with Babe Ruth for the second-most in franchise history; only Roy White (9) has more.]

The winning formula was a perfect blend of power and pitching, as the Yankees banged out seven extra-base hits — their most in a season-opener since 1963 — and held the Blue Jays to just two hits — their fewest allowed in a season-opener since 1967.

Giancarlo Stanton cemented his True Yankee™ status on his very first swing in pinstripes, drilling a laser shot into the right-centerfield seats in the first inning to give the Yankees an early 2-0 lead. The ball exploded off his bat with an exit velocity of 117.3 mph, the hardest-hit ball recorded at Rogers Centre. And never before had an opposite-field homer measured by Statcast rocketed off the bat that fast.

But Stanton was merely heating up with that early longball… he capped off the win with a solo dinger to dead-center in the ninth inning, producing a remarkable Opening Day effort and a near-unprecedented Bronx Bomber debut:

Stanton is the fourth Yankee since 1950 with a multi-homer game in the team’s season opener, a list that also includes Joe Pepitone (1963), Roger Maris (1960), Mickey Mantle (1956).
Stanton joined Maris (1960) as the only players ever to go deep twice in their first game played as a Yankee.
Stanton and Barry Bonds (2002) are the lone players in major-league history to follow-up a 50-homer campaign with a multi-homer game on Opening Day of the next season.
Including his fifth-inning RBI double, Stanton finished with three extra-base hits, three runs scored and four RBI, becoming the first player in franchise history to reach each of those thresholds on Opening Day.

The new guy’s ridiculous performance overshadowed a stellar outing for Luis Severino, who surrendered one hit across 5 2/3 scoreless innings while striking out seven. He is the only Yankee starter since at least 1908 to give up no more than one hit on Opening Day.

And, most impressively, the 24-year-old joined Bob Feller (1940) and Walter Johnson (1910) as the only major-league players under age-25 to pitch more than five innings, allow one hit or fewer and strike out at least five guys on Opening Day.

The Drury and Wade Show
On Friday night it was another pinstriped newbie who provided the big hits, while a familiar “ace” dazzled on the mound en route to a 4-2 victory in Toronto.

Perhaps the most encouraging numbers from Friday’s game were 0 and 12 — Stanton, Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez combined to go 0-for-12 with four strikeouts — and the Yankees still added a ‘W’ to the ledger because their number eight and nine hitters (Brandon Drury and Tyler Wade) combined to drive in all four of the team’s runs.

Both of Drury’s RBI hits — a double in the second and a single in the fourth — gave the Yankees the lead. Per Fangraphs’ win probability added (WPA) metric, Drury’s performance at the plate increased the Yankees chances of winning by 25 percent. This was his 291st career game, and only seven times has Drury contributed more WPA in a team win.

The biggest storyline, though, of the first two games was the excellence of the pitching staff. Their three runs allowed in games one and two are the fewest for the Yankees in the first two games of the season since 1996 (insert emoji of choice here).

The starters — Severino and Masahiro Tanaka — were both stellar, and Tanaka’s one-run, three-hit, eight-strikeout effort somehow the lesser of the two pitching lines. The last time the team’s first two starting pitchers of the season each gave up no more than one run was 2003 (Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte); and the last time Yankee starters each had seven-plus strikeouts in the first two games of the season was 1932 (Lefty Gomez, Red Ruffing).

Tanaka and Severino are the first pair of starters in franchise history to each allow no more than three hits in the team’s first two games of the season.

Clutch Austin, Disaster Dellin
The dream of a 162-0 regular season ended on Saturday with a frustrating 5-3 loss. The lone bright spot in the lineup was Tyler Austin, who single-handedly kept the Yankees in the game with a couple of booming game-tying homers. A two-run shot in the fifth and a solo bomb in the seventh added to his growing legend as a clutch masher.

Those were his eighth and ninth career homers, and of the nine, eight have tied the game or given the Yankees the lead. For his career, he is hitting .348/.360/1.000 in high-leverage situations, with five homers in 25 plate appearances. Since his debut in 2016, he owns the highest OPS (1.360) and slugging percentage (1.000) of any player with at least 25 high-leverage plate appearances over the last three seasons.

CC Sabathia wasn’t as dominant as Severino and Tanaka, but still gutted through a solid five innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on five hits. It was enough to extend the rotation’s record-setting season-opening performance: since earned runs became official in the American League in 1913, this is the first time that each of the Yankees’ starters allowed no more than one earned run in the first three games of the season.

The Yankees’ hopes of a trademark comeback victory were squashed thanks to an eerily familiar meltdown in the eighth inning by Dellin Betances. The trouble began when he gave up a 455-foot tie-breaking homer to the leadoff batter, Yangervis Solarte, the longest homer he’s allowed in the Statcast era (since 2015). That’s two homers allowed in two appearances for Betances, who last year didn’t surrender his second homer until September 4 in his 56th outing of the season.

And somehow coughing up the go-ahead homer was only the second-most gut-wrenching thing in the inning.

Kevin Pillar reached on one-out single, and then ambushed Betances by swiping second base, third base and home to give the Blue Jays a two-run lead. It had been nearly 90 years since a player stole three bases in an inning against the Yankees.

The last guy to do it was a Tigers shortstop named Jackie “Rabbit” Tavener on July 25, 1928, and the Yankee pitcher on the mound was rookie Archie Campbell. Incredibly, it was the second straight season Tavener stole second, third and home in an inning against the Yankees (he also did it on July 10, 1927)! He had 46 career stolen bases, and six of them came in those two innings against the Yankees.

Betances allowed four total steals in that inning (Luke Maile also stole second), a feat that’s been done by only one other Yankee pitcher in the last 40 years: Mariano Rivera, who did it twice during his career, on September 26, 2010 against the Red Sox and September 5, 2011 against the Orioles.

Smoak’d
Four games into the season and we already have an early leading candidate for Worst Loss of The Season. The bullpen imploded for the second consecutive day in Sunday’s 7-4 loss, and the Yankees ended up with a disappointing series split. The Yankees still haven’t won a series at the Rogers Centre since August 2015, their longest current drought at any AL East ballpark.

For all of the crushing losses the Yankees suffered last season, they didn’t experience one quite like they did on Sunday. Last year they were 56-0 when leading by at least three runs entering the seventh inning. This season they are now 2-1 in such games, after Tommy Kahnle and David Robertson choked away a three-run lead in the seventh and eighth innings.

In a surprising twist, it is the starting rotation which has shined while the bullpen has been a train wreck:

	Starters	Relievers
IP	20 2/3	13 1/3
ER	3	11
HR	1	4

Four outs away from a victory, Robertson loaded the bases in the eighth inning via an intentional walk to Josh Donaldson and then surrendered a heart-breaking grand slam to Justin Smoak to seal the defeat. That was Smoak’s second career grand slam, and the other came on August 8, 2015 against… the Yankees.

The inevitable question is whether Robertson should have simply pitched to Donaldson in that situation. While there is certainly a ton of statistical and non-statistical factors to consider with the matchup, here’s one pair of numbers to think about:
1. The small sample-size data — Smoak was 0-for-5 with four strikeouts in his career vs Robertson while Donaldson was 3-for-8 with two homers — suggested that giving Donaldson a free pass to face Smoak was a good option.
2. But the large sample-size numbers — Smoak’s 31 homers vs. right-handers last season were the third-most by a lefty against a righty in the majors — screamed that pitching to Donaldson was a better choice.

Regardless, the end result was a crushing defeat, leaving the Yankees at .500 or worse through four games of the season for the seventh straight year.

Update: Yankees announce 2018 Opening Day roster

March 29, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

March 29th: The Yankees officially announced their Opening Day roster this morning. It is as expected, only with Tyler Austin replacing the injured Greg Bird. The roster has been updated below. Also, Tyler Wade and Jonathan Holder have new numbers. Wade will wear No. 12 (had been No. 39) and Holder will wear No. 56 (had been No. 65)

March 24th: The Yankees have not yet made an official announcement, but the 2018 Opening Day roster is set. Domingo German was optioned out Saturday, and Brian Cashman told Pete Caldera that Jonathan Holder will be in the Opening Day bullpen as the eighth reliever. Here is the Opening Day roster:

CATCHERS (2)
Austin Romine
Gary Sanchez

INFIELDERS (6)
~~Greg Bird~~ Tyler Austin
Brandon Drury
Didi Gregorius
Ronald Torreyes
Tyler Wade
Neil Walker

OUTFIELDERS (4)
Brett Gardner
Aaron Hicks
Aaron Judge
Giancarlo Stanton

STARTING PITCHERS (5)
RHP Sonny Gray
LHP Jordan Montgomery
LHP CC Sabathia
RHP Luis Severino
RHP Masahiro Tanaka

RELIEF PITCHERS (8)
RHP Dellin Betances
LHP Aroldis Chapman
RHP Chad Green
RHP Jonathan Holder
RHP Tommy Kahnle
RHP David Robertson
LHP Chasen Shreve
RHP Adam Warren

DISABLED LIST (3)
Greg Bird (ankle, 10-day DL retroactive to March 26)
Jacoby Ellsbury (oblique, 10-day DL retroactive to March 26)
Clint Frazier (concussion, 7-day DL retroactive to March 26)

Cashman said German is going to Triple-A Scranton to remain stretched out as a starter. German and Luis Cessa are presumably the sixth and seventh starters in whatever order. Usually when a sixth starter is needed, it’s more about who’s available to pitch that day rather than who the team wants to pitch that day though.

Anyway, there are no surprises with the Opening Day roster. We were just waiting to find out the identity of the eight reliever. Wade played well in Spring Training and won a roster spot, and the Drury trade and Walker signing all but guaranteed Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres would begin the season in Triple-A. They’ll be up soon enough.

Obligatory reminder: The Opening Day roster and the end-of-season roster tend to look very different. Here is last year’s Opening Day roster, for example. Holder is keeping a roster spot warm for Ellsbury, who has already resumed playing in Grapefruit League games. He could be back soon. Frazier’s concussion looks to be more long-term, unfortunately.

The Yankees begin the season against the Blue Jays on Thursday, March 29th. There are still five days to go before the season opener, so the Opening Day roster could change if someone gets hurt — example: Drury taking a pitch to the elbow yesterday, though he escaped with a bruise — but hopefully that won’t be the case.