Via Joel Sherman, the Yankees are looking everywhere for left-handed bullpen help, but they’re “probably not” interested in Royce Ring. Ring just opted out of his minor league contract with the Mariners and pitched with the Yankees briefly last season. Boone Logan has improved over the last ten days or so and Pedro Feliciano is now throwing (lightly) off a mound in Tampa, but they can’t really count on him coming back. Certainly not anytime soon.
Ring opts for free agency
Via Anthony McCarron, lefty reliever Royce Ring has elected to become a free agent, which is his right after being outrighted off the 40-man roster earlier this week. Ring spent most of the season with Triple-A Scranton and wasn’t able to grab hold of the second lefty reliever’s job in a brief September tryout (2.1 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 2 BB, 2 K). Make sure you check out our Organizational Depth Chart to see where the roster presently sits. It’s pretty bleak at the moment.
Yankees remove Gaudin & Ring from 40-man roster, add Mesa
Via Marc Carig, the Yankees have outrighted reliever Chad Gaudin and Royce Ring from the 40-man roster. Gaudin elected to become a free agent, and as far as I know Ring didn’t. High-A outfielder Melky Mesa was added to the 40-man, protecting him from this winter’s Rule 5 Draft. I’m not sure he’d be able to stick on a big league team’s 25-man roster all season in 2011, but okay. Gaudin and Ring were both on borrowed time, they were going to be cut one way or other at some point. Yay hot stove news.
Update: Mesa was scheduled to become a minor league free agency, that’s why they added him and the move came so quickly. Makes sense.
Do the Yankees need Burnett at all in the ALDS?
As you surely know by now, the ALDS schedule lines up in a way that allows the Yankees to use just three starters, the same formula that helped bring home World Championship #27 last year. CC Sabathia gets the Ball in Game One and then again in Game Four on short rest, with Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes taking Games Two, Three, and Five (on regular rest) in some undetermined order. That leaves A.J. Burnett in a precarious position, and the best solution might be to leave him off the ALDS roster all together.
A fourth starter isn’t necessary obviously, and the Yanks will carry presumably at least one long man from a group that includes Dustin Moseley, Ivan Nova, Chad Gaudin, and Sergio Mitre (Javy Vazquez isn’t even an option, sadly). If Burnett were to be included on the playoff roster, you’ve basically got a guy that won’t be needed to start or even be used in relief since the setup crew of Kerry Wood, Joba Chamberlain, David Robertson, and Boone Logan figure to do as much of the heavy lifting between the starter and Mariano Rivera as humanly possible. Yeah, there’s always the possibility of extra innings or blowouts, but that’s what the guys in the first sentence are for.
It comes down to what is more useful for the Yanks against the Twins, Burnett or a more strategic reliever like Royce Ring, a second lefty for Minnesota’s lefty heavy lineup. Granted, we’re not debating between filet mignon and lobster here, it’s more like we’re on line in the McDonald’s drive-thru trying to pick stuff off the dollar menu. Chances are it’ll all make you just as sick in the end, kinda like A.J. and Ring.
Seriously though, Ring hasn’t been very impressive over the last several weeks, retiring just five of the nine lefties he was brought in to face. It was a brief but underwhelming audition, yet with Damaso Marte’s injury* he’s the best option for a second bullpen lefty. Both Jim Thome (.477 wOBA vs. .334) and Jason Kubel (.341 wOBA vs. .297) have considerable platoon splits, so perhaps it’s worth it to have that second matchup lefty for low-leverage work even if it’s a five-piece nuggets like Ring. Sometimes the low arm slot alone is enough to throw a batter off.
It’s entirely possible that we’re overthinking things here. Considering his sheer velocity, the best option might be to just carry Burnett and let him air it out one relief inning at a time. There’s no holding back, he wouldn’t have to worry about getting through the order two or three times. It could be one of the most electric things we’ll ever see on a baseball field, or it could blow up in everyone’s face.
I’ve never been a fan of carrying a lefty reliever just because he was a lefty reliever, I’d rather take the X best pitchers regardless of handedness, but in a short series there’s a definite tactical advantage. The tenth and eleventh arms on the staff aren’t likely to see much action in a short series because of all the off days anyway, not unless something goes horribly wrong or wonderfully right, but in the off chance that one is needed, another southpaw against a lineup like that could be mighty handy.
Aside: Seriously, how awesome would it be to have both Logan and Marte in the pen in this or any other series? For shame.
The battle no one wants to win
With a lineup of All Stars (plus Brett Gardner) and the starting rotation all but set (not necessarily the order), the Yankees don’t have too many decisions to make before the the playoffs begin. The core setup crew is set, so the only thing left to sort out is the spare relievers and the bench. The bench isn’t too big of a deal since those regulars will (should) play every inning in October, but the bullpen isn’t necessarily that easy.
Jack Curry tweeted last night that the team intends to carry an 11-man pitching staff in the playoffs, which is fine. They could probably get away with ten, but there’s certainly no need for a dozen in a short series. Nine of those 11 spots are accounted for: CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, A.J. Burnett, Phil Hughes, Mariano Rivera, Kerry Wood, Joba Chamberlain, David Robertson, and Boone Logan. That leaves five guys fighting for those final two spots: Sergio Mitre, Chad Gaudin, Ivan Nova, Javy Vazquez, and Dustin Moseley. We should probably throw Royce Ring into that mix as well since a second lefty specialist would be far more useful than a second longman.
Joe Girardi’s been riding Gaudin really hard the last two weeks (he’s appeared in six of the last twelve games), so it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the righty is getting every opportunity to win one of those spots. Mitre has pitched twice in the past 26 days and as far as I know he didn’t even warm up in last night’s rainy game (in fairness, I suppose Girardi was holding him back in case he needs a longman tonight). One of those two times he pitched came in the last Sabathia-David Price game, and that was only after all the other bullpen options were used up. Moseley is far too hittable (10.7 H/9 career) and doesn’t miss nearly enough bats (4.3 K/9 this year) to warrant any kind of action in a playoff spot, so there’s no sense in even carrying him on the roster.
Javy, well at this point he shouldn’t be pitching any kind of meaningful innings. It’s not that he can’t handle the pressure or anything stupid like that, it’s just that his stuff has deteriorated so much that you can’t trust him to get outs with it. I know he’s pitched well in his few long relief outings late in the year, but I think there’s also too much of a stigma there to take him. That’s probably not fair to him, but it is what it is. The nothingball will be the scapegoat.
Given how well he’s pitched early in his outings, Nova’s going to get one of those last two bullpen spots almost by default, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. He’s been extremely effective early in his outings (.563 OPS against the first time through the order, .731 the second, .952 the third) which suggests he could be effective in one or two inning relief stints. Perhaps he takes over the job as that trusty righty outside of the normal setup crew that Girardi is trying to force feed Gaudin. World Championship teams always have an unexpected reliever step up big in October (hellooo Damaso Marte), so maybe Nova’s that guy this year. We can dream.
In the end, I’d expect Nova and Gaudin to get those final two spots, though a case could be made for Ring as a second lefty (assuming he gets in some more games and pitches well over the next week-and-a-half, of course). Once the Yanks clinch a playoff spot, which will hopefully happen before everyone returns to work on Monday, don’t be surprised if they lift Nova from the rotation and have him pitch out of the bullpen two or three times in the final week of the season just to get acclimated to the role.
So far no one has really stepped up and grabbed one of those spots by the horns. They’re trying their best to give it to Gaudin, but he doesn’t seem to want it (13 baserunners, six runs, three homers in his last 5.2 IP). Mitre can’t even get into a regular season game, never mind a playoff spot, and every time Moseley pitches he shows why the Angels non-tendered him last season. In reality, whoever the Yanks ends up taking probably won’t see much action in the postseason and will be of little consequence, but stranger things have happened.
The Forgotten Relievers
As predictable as it was, the trio of Kerry Wood, Joba Chamberlain, and David Robertson have emerged as Joe Girardi’s trusted righthanded setup crew over the last few weeks while Boone Logan has taken advantage of Damaso Marte’s injury to become his go-to-lefty. With the Yankees still in the division race and a few wins away from clinching a playoff spot, he’s leaned heavily on those four plus Mariano Rivera in the late innings of close games. Heck, even Chad Gaudin seems to emerged as that next guy, the one who’s just outside of the regular setup crew that sees plenty of work in what we’ll call “various” situations.
It’s still September though, and the Yanks have a full arsenal of relievers on hand aside from those six mentioned above. They’ve called up three extra arms this month, and remember, they had a 13-man staff before that with Lance Berkman on the disabled list. The call-ups and spare long men haven’t seen much action at all (as you’d expect), so let’s recap where each of those guys stand…
Jon Albaladejo
The Triple-A relief ace hasn’t appeared in a game since Sept. 12th, which is when he worked the final 1.1 innings of a game in which the rest of the team was busy getting shut down by Cliff Lee and the Rangers. Since being recalled at the start of the month he’s appeared in four games, throwing three innings and allowing a pair of hits and a walk while striking out three. Those three baserunners each reached in his last appearance, so the three before that were pretty solid except for some hit by pitches. Albie seems to be the favorite among the extra, sparsely used relievers, probably because he has seniority.
Sergio Mitre
Girardi’s love affair with Mitre always seemed questionable at best, especially since their relationship dated back to their time in Florida and Serg never really did anything on the field with the Yanks to stand out. He last appeared in a game on Sept. 13th, when he gave up the walk-off homer to Reid Brignac, the only batter he faced. Prior to that he had appeared in just one game since August 27th, and two since August 20th, so that’s three total appearances in the last 32 days. Clearly, he’s just a “break glass in case of emergency” long man right now.
Dustin Moseley
To be perfectly honest, I had completely forgotten that Moseley existed until Ben mentioned his name last night. The last time he pitched was his start in Texas against Lee, the same date as Albie’s last game, when he pitched admirably for six innings before turning back into Dustin Moseley in the seventh. His only other appearance this month came on Sept. 4th, which is when Girardi brought him in with runners on the corners and two outs against the Blue Jays only to watch him give up a double to Lyle Overbay to tie the game. You remember that, it was the mother of all second guess moves.
Royce Ring
Recalled last Wednesday, Ring has yet to appear in a game for the big league team. The lefty last pitched on Sept. 9th, when he faced two batters in Game Two of Triple-A Scranton’s playoff series with Columbus. He walked one and got the other to ground out. Ring is the definition of a LOOGY, so his appearances-to-innings pitched ratio is well below one this year. At some point Girardi will call on him to get a lefty out, maybe even tonight since Logan has faced multiple batters in each of the last two games.
Romulo Sanchez
Sanchez was promoted over the weekend and Girardi hasn’t called on him yet. Before that he was recovering from an apparently minor elbow injury that had him on the Triple-A disabled list, so he hasn’t pitched in an actual game since August 24th, his only outing in the last 32 days. For a guy that’s wild as it is, I can’t imagine that’s a good thing. Luckily he won’t be seeing any high leverage work anytime soon.
Javy Vazquez
Oh Javy, how the mighty have fallen. It’s seems like ages ago that the righty posted a 2.75 ERA during an 11 start stretch from mid-May to mid-July, but now he’s so out of favor that he’s nothing more than a highly paid mop-up man. Vazquez hasn’t pitched since starting in Texas on Sept. 10th, when he allowed four runs in five innings of work. He has warmed up a few times since then, but Girardi seems completely disinterested in using him. Given his disappearing fastball and hit-me-breaking ball, can you blame him?
* * *
The Yanks’ magic number to clinch a playoff spot is down to just five, so any combination of Yankee wins and Red Sox losses totaling that number will put the Yanks in the postseason for the 15th time in 16 years. Barring another epic slump, they’ll clinch that spot by the end of the weekend, giving Girardi a chance to rest his regulars and line up his rotation and all that. That’s when Albaladejo and Ring and Mitre will really start to see some action, and chances are Moseley and Vazquez will make some spots starts as they try to line up CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, A.J. Burnett, and Phil Hughes for the ALDS.
Yankees recall Royce Ring, designate Chad Huffman for assignment
Joe Girardi finally has his second lefty reliever. Royce Ring was recalled from Triple-A Scranton today, with Chad Huffman getting the axe to make room on the 40-man roster.
Ring, 29, spent the year working out of SWB’s bullpen, where he held lefty batters to a .202 batting average against. He struck out 26 and walked just seven in 24 innings of work. Boone Logan is likely unavailable today after working in four of the last five days, so at least now they’ll have someone to match up with Carlos Pena, Matt Joyce, et al in the late innings. The move may also mean that Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner are doing well following their cortisone shots, since Huffman likely would have been insurance should either miss more time.