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Yankeemetrics: Crash Landing in Houston (April 8-10)

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(Getty)

April 8: Bullpen Bummer
The Yankees road trip continued to Houston and the series began with a familiar story: another wasted another gem by Masahiro Tanaka as the much-hyped bullpen blew a late lead and instead the Yankees end up with a painful loss.

Since joining the Astros in late-summer 2017 — and prior to Monday — Justin Verlander had dominated the Yankees, allowing just two runs in 30 2/3 IP (0.59 ERA). Somehow the Yankees finally made him look human, scoring three runs in six innings off him. Aaron Judge had two hits — including an opposite-field laser shot into the rightfield seats — and a walk; entering this series, Judge was 0-for-13 with seven strikeouts against Verlander, his worst 0-fer vs any pitcher.

Tanaka was stellar in holding the Astros to one run on three hits in six innings. His 1.47 ERA is easily the best of his MLB career through this first three starts. It’s also a near-360 reversal from his notable early-season struggles in recent years, when he had a 5.19 ERA last year and a 8.36 ERA in 2017 after three turns.

Adam Ottavino allowed the go-ahead run after issuing a one-out walk and consecutive singles by Michael Brantley and Carlos Correa, the latter a dribbler towards first base that went 22 feet and had an exit velocity of 28.9 mph. Prior to that meltdown, Ottavino had not allowed a hit or run in his first five appearances of the season.

(USA Today)

April 9: Bullpen Bummer II
Another day, another game, another brutal and crushing loss thanks another bullpen implosion.

Luke Voit staked the Yankees to an early 1-0 lead with a solo homer to dead-center field. We know Voit has big muscles, and one good use for those big muscles is destroying baseballs to the farthest reaches of the park, notably deep center field. Since the start of last season (through Tuesday), 384 players had hit at least 40 balls to center; Voit’s 1.065 slugging percentage on batted balls to center ranked first in that group.

On Tuesday it was Jonathan Holder and Chad Green’s turn to play the starring roles in the late-inning collapse. Holder allowed the game-tying run in the seventh on back-to-back doubles by Alex Bregman and Michael Brantley.

Bregman’s double was the result of a bad defensive misplay and awkward dive by Clint Frazier. Per Statcast tracking, the ball had a catch probability of 95 percent. (Catch probability is defined as the likelihood that a batted ball to the outfield will be caught, based on four data points: 1. How far did the fielder have to go? 2. How much time did he have to get there? 3. What direction did he need to go in? 4. Was proximity to the wall a factor?)

Through Tuesday, Frazier had three batted balls hit to him with a catch probability of less than 99 percent (routine play) but greater than 50 percent (50/50 play). He missed the catch on all three of those defensive plays.

Green took the loss, charged with the three runs allowed in eighth. It was the first appearance of his career that he gave up at least three runs and got fewer than three outs.

Knowing that it’s still super-early into the season and that the following stats get the small-sample-size warning, here are some numbers to chew on (through Tuesday’s games):

  • Three blown saves and four bullpen losses were both tied for the MLB lead
  • Two losses (Monday and Tuesday) when leading at the end of the sixth inning; only Cubs and Rockies had more (3). Yankees last year had only five such losses, tied for fewest in MLB.
  • Four losses when tied at the end of the seventh inning, the most in MLB this season. Yankees had only seven last year.
(Getty)

April 10: Paxton Pummeled
At least there was no lead for the bullpen to blow on Wednesday night. That’s about the only “positive” thing you can say about the terrible 8-6 loss they suffered as the road trip came to a depressing end in Houston, capping the first-ever series sweep by the Astros over the Yankees. Is this a good time to mention that there are still 150 games left in the season?

The Yankees and its fans were feeling pretty good three pitches into the game when Gardy went Yardy for his 15th career leadoff homer but those good feelings were quickly erased when James Paxton coughed up a solo homer to Jose Altuve and an RBI triple by Yuli Gurriel in the bottom of the frame. Paxton dominated the Astros in four starts last year (4-0, 2.05 ERA) and had a 1.89 ERA in eight starts against them from 2017-18, but this game was a complete disaster:

James Paxton vs Astros
IP Runs HR Batters Faces
2019 4 5 2 21
2018 26.1 6 1 105

Despite Paxton’s track record of success against the Astros, this loss was hardly surprising based on more recent team trends:

  • The Yankees fell to 4-6 when scoring first this season. Last year they had the second-best record when scoring first, winning 81 percent of those games. On average, teams that score first go on to win 66 percent of the time.
  • This was the 11th time in 12 games this season that the Yankees held a lead … and they are 5-6 in those games. Last year they had a .797 win percentage in such games. The only other teams this season with a below-.500 record when leading at any point in the game are the Red Sox (3-6) and Royals (2-7).
  • Eight of their 12 games have been decided by two runs or fewer, and they are 2-6 in those games, one of the five worst marks in MLB. Last year the Yankees had a .561 win percentage in those games, seventh-best in the majors.

The Yankees put their rally caps on in the eighth inning and mounted a gutsy near-comeback to pull within a run. But Gary Sanchez, inserted in the lineup to pinch hit for Tyler Wade with two outs and a man on third, struck out to end the inning. In a very small sample, El Gary has been … umm … not good when coming to the plate cold off the bench:

Yankeemetrics: Bronx Bombers invade Baltimore (April 4-7)

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(AP)

April 4: Happy Gleyber Day
The Yankees kicked off their first road trip of the season in Baltimore with a 8-4 win (crazy, eh?), as Gleyber Torres produced a career-best performance that re-wrote the franchise record books.

A happy ending could hardly have been predicted after a horrible first inning in which James Paxton gave up a leadoff homer, two walks, an RBI single, a run-scoring balk and a run-scoring wild pitch, before finally striking out the final two batters to end the inning. 3-0 hole, 24 outs to go … no problem, right?

Yankees #FightingSpirit made its first appearance of the season as they rallied from that three-run deficit to get a much-needed victory. Last year the team won only one game — at Citi Field against the Mets on June 9 — when trailing by at least three runs at the end of the first frame.

Torres started his monster game with a solo homer in the third inning, the 25th of his career. At age 22 and 112 days old, he became the third-youngest Yankee to reach that milestone, behind only Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.

But he was just getting warmed up …

Torres came to the plate in the sixth inning with the Yankees trailing 4-2 and two men on base, and did what he does best — smash a three-run dinger put the Yankees ahead for good. If there is such thing as a clutch gene, Torres might have it, and the numbers in “high leverage” pressure situations give us some data to back it up.

Following that homer, Torres had a .444/.479/.867 line with six homers and 31 RBI in 49 high-leverage plate appearances. That seems … good? Since the start of last year, 232 players (as of Friday) had at least 40 high-leverage plate appearances. Here’s where Torres’ numbers rank among those 232:

BA OBP SLG HR RBI wOBA wRC+
Torres .444 .479 .867 6 31 .560 266
MLB Rank 1st 11th 1st 2nd 1st 1st 1st

His final boxscore stats of four hits (2 homers, 1 double, 1 single) and four RBI put him in the company of a couple pinstriped legends.

  • He is the second Yankee shortstop with at least four hits, including two or more homers, in a game on the road, joining Derek Jeter on May 8, 2011 at Texas.
  • It was his third career multi-homer game; the only Yankee with more before age 23 was Joe DiMaggio (8!)
  • He is the second-youngest Yankee to produce at least 11 total bases and drive in four-or-more runs in a game, behind only a 21-year-old DiMaggio (June 24, 1936).
(UPI)

April 6: Red Thunder is Rolling
The Yankees overcame a messy mix of bad baserunning, bad defense and bad bullpen management to put together their first win streak of the season. (Not)Shockingly, dingers saved the day in their 6-4 win on Saturday.

The most glaring wasted opportunity came in the sixth inning when the Yankees had the bases loaded with no outs … and scored zero runs. In that situation, based on recent historical numbers, a team is expected to score a run 86.1 percent of the time and score an average 2.3 runs after loading the bases with no outs.

Aaron Judge kept the Yankees in the game with his bat, socking two dingers for his eighth career multi-homer game. Did you forget that he loves to smash baseballs vs this team? Four of those eight two-homer games have come against the Orioles. They were also his 84th and 85th career homers, in his 302nd career game; the only player in MLB history to reach 85 homers quicker than Judge was Ryan Howard (283 games).

After the O’s rallied to take a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the seventh, Clint Frazier put on the hero’s cape and saved the day with a ginormous three-run blast in the top of the eighth. Let’s celebrate with this #FunFact:

#TooManyHomers
The Yankees finally pushed above the .500 mark with a dinger-happy 15-3 win to sweep the Orioles in Baltimore. It was the first time since 2003 (at Toronto) that the Yankees swept their first road series of the season (h/t @CharlieRGa). And the win extended their win streak in Baltimore to eight games, their longest road win streak against the O’s since the franchise moved to the Charm City in 1954. But we’re burying the lead here …

The Bronx Bombers lived up to their nickname and put on a fun power show , slugging seven homers, one shy of the team record. Overall, its the fifth time they’ve gone deep at least seven times in a game and the first time since July 31, 2007 vs White Sox at Yankee Stadium. The last time they hit seven-or-more homers in a road game was May 30, 1961 against the Red Sox at Fenway Park. The players with dingers that day: Mickey Mantle (2), Roger Maris (2), Yogi Berra and Bill Skowron (2).

Gleyber Torres got the home run derby started with a solo blast in the first inning to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead. More than half (14) of his 27 career homers have either tied the game or put the Yankees ahead. That’s good, I think.

Clint Frazier was the next guy to join the home run party in the second inning, and then capped off his career-best four-hit day with a ninth-inning shot for his first career multi-homer game. Congrats Clint, you get our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series: The last Yankee outfielder under age-25 with at least four hits, including two homers, in a game was Mickey Mantle on May 18, 1956 vs White Sox.

And we keep burying the lead …

(AP)

Gary Sanchez wins our Gold Star of the game thanks to his historic three-homer, six-RBI effort. This one deserves a bullet-point recap:

  • Youngest Yankee (26 years old) with at least three homers in a game since Bobby Murcer (24 years old) did it on June 24, 1970.
  • First Yankee with at least three homers in a game vs the Orioles since they moved to Baltimore in 1954. The only Yankees to homer three times in a game vs the Orioles/Browns franchise came back when they were known as the St. Louis Browns: Bill Dickey (July 26, 1939) and Joe DiMaggio (June 13, 1937).
  • Third player in Yankees history to hit six homers this early into the season (9 team games), joining Alex Rodriguez (2007) and Graig Nettles (1974).
  • Youngest player in franchise history with three homers and six-or-more RBI in a game on the road. The only player younger than Sanchez to do this in home pinstripes was Ben Chapman (23 years old) on July 9, 1932 vs the Tigers.

And our signature #FunFact of the game — six of his eight total hits this season have gone into the seats for souvenirs:

It’s Time For Gleyber Torres to Hit Leadoff

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(Presswire)

The 2019 Yankees have suffered a full season’s worth of injuries despite the fact that the new campaign is barely a week old. The injuries are significant: with four starting position players, the rotation ace and the bullpen ace on the IL, that adds up to roughly 25 WAR in 2018, using FanGraphs for the batters and Baseball-Reference for the pitchers. The depleted state of the roster gives new urgency to early April games, as the Yankees cannot afford to dig themselves too deep a hole in the early going before returning to full strength in (hopefully) May.

The good news is that the rival Red Sox have started the season even worse than the Yanks: they’re 2-7, having been thoroughly embarrassed in Arizona last night, and they’ve seen their playoff odds drop all the way to 70 percent, per FanGraphs. The Sox are healthy (with the possible exception of Chris Sale, who has yet to garner a swing and miss on a fastball) and will surely bounce back soon, but the Yankees have to be thanking their lucky stars that Boston has scuttled out of the gate. Truthfully, Yankee fans should be, too – imagine the takes if the Sox started 2019 like they did 2018.

In any case, the Yankees cannot rely on their competition playing below expectations. The team won’t be healthy for a while and simply needs to not bury themselves early. They should be up to the task, but it starts with giving their best hitters the most at-bats. That means Aaron Boone should hit Gleyber Torres leadoff, at least until Aaron Hicks returns.

The case for Gleyber is pretty straightforward. Let’s get right into it, starting with what the typical leadoff man has done recently.

What’s The Average Leadoff Hitter Like?

 First, let’s look at how leadoff hitters stack up compared to the rest of their competition. The following table shows the triple-slash and walk/strikeout rate for leadoff batters in the AL and NL, with the third row reserved for the league average in 2018, all per FanGraphs:

There are clear takeaways here, all of which were fairly predictable: the average leadoff batter hits for a higher average, gets on base more, hits for power and strikes out less than the average player in the league, though they walk at virtually the same clip. Leadoff hitters tend to be better, obviously.

That’s not breaking any new ground, and that is how it should be: the top spot in the lineup got 22,631 plate appearances in 2018: that’s 500 more than batters hitting 2nd, 2,000 more than the 5th spot in the order and 4,000 more than the “second leadoff” hitter batting 9th. In other words, teams give more at-bats to better players. Simple enough.

That’s particularly relevant to the Yankees, though, who have often used either D.J. LeMahieu or Brett Gardner in the spot this year—and as much as I think DJLM got short shrift from fans or how much I love Gardner, it’s pretty hard to argue that those two deserve to get the most at-bats in April. They’re not the Yankees best hitters, even among the depleted lineup. Given their scuttling rivals and own struggles, the Yanks simply cannot afford to waste any opportunity to maximize their production. These games are important now, despite the rainy spring weather. 

How does Gleyber Stack Up?

Things brings us to Gleyber. As we all know, Torres was generally the 9th hitter for the Yanks last year and lived primarily in the bottom third of the order. A look at the data clearly shows that it’s time for that to change. Let’s bump that same chart from above here, this time replacing the final row (average hitters) with Gleyber’s 2018 production:

It’s important to remember that Torres was a 21-year-old rookie last year, thrust into a playoff race fresh off a truncated 2017 MiLB season: those numbers show that the kid can play. While he strikes out more than average for the spot, that’s more than made up by the rest of the line: Gleyber hit for higher average, got on base more regularly and hit for significantly more power than the normal leadoff hitter.

A deeper dive suggests that Torres is ready for more plate appearances, too. Torres made contact with 82% of all strikes he swung at (higher than Judge) and swung at balls out of the zone only 30% of the time (about the same as Judge) in 2018. Making contact with balls in the zone and taking the bad stuff is prototypical leadoff material and is the sign of a patient hitter; Torres saw 4.03 pitches per plate appearance last year, backing up that assertion.

Folks, Gleyber Torres is The Real Deal. Turns out there was a reason he was such a highly-touted prospect for so long.

Don’t Waste His Talent Now

But the Yankees and Aaron Boone have not properly used their young stud. In fact, they’re actively wasting his talent so far in 2019. Consider Thursday’s game at Camden Yards. Torres saved the game, slugging two home runs and injecting new life into a struggling Yankee offense. The problem? He was hitting 7th, ahead of Clint Frazier and Tyler Wade—not setting the table for Judge, Voit and Sanchez.

A guy who can change the outcome of a game with one or two swings shouldn’t waste away at the bottom of the lineup, especially now. It’s one thing when the lineup is fully healthy and the Yankees return to their rightful place as one of the league’s most feared offensive juggernaut, but it’s another altogether when Wade, Tauchman, and others are getting significant playing time. Stacking the best hitters at the top of the lineup simply makes sense: think of Boston last year, who masked a poor bottom third of the lineup with a truly fearsome top half. That’s what the Yankees need to do right now.

Again, the Yankees need to tread water (at the very least) before returning to full strength, and the best way to do that is to ensure that the very best hitters on the team get the most opportunities. If Aaron Boone is smart, he will adjust his lineup to reflect the fact that Gleyber Torres has proven that he is more than just a prospect, and he will give Torres the opportunity to do his part to keep the Yankees afloat during the rough waters of early 2019.

Yankeemetrics: Nightmare on River Ave. (April 1-3)

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(AP)

April 1: Three is justenough
Monday started out with the worst possible Not-April-Fools-Joke — Miguel Andujar and Giancarlo Stanton landing on the Injured List — but ended on a much better note with the Yankees gutting through a 3-1 win over the Tigers.

Milestone alert! This was the team’s 500th regular season win at the current Yankee Stadium. Those 500 wins are 13 more than any other team has at their home ballpark since 2009.

Gary Sanchez gave the Yankees an early lead with a solo homer in a the second inning, a monster blast that went 417 feet to straightaway center. It was his second longball in as many games, the first time he’s gone deep in back to back games since August 17-18, 2017. That’s right — he didn’t homer in consecutive games at all last year.

Brett Gardner added an insurance run in the fifth with a solo shot to right-center. The Yankees are now 26-4 since 2017 (including playoffs) when Gardy goes yardy. Gardner still has never hit a true opposite-field home run in his career; the closest he came was a blast over the wall slightly to the left of dead-center at Tropicana Field on May 11, 2015.

Domingo German was the star, pitching the definition of an “effectively wild” game with seven strikeouts, five walks, one hit and one run (unearned) allowed in five innings. Coupled with his brilliant six-inning, no-hit start last May, German delivered this #FunFact: He became the first pitcher in Yankees history with multiple starts of at least five innings and one or fewer hits allowed within his first 30 career MLB games.

(Newsday)

Terrific Tanaka, Terrible Offense
The Yankees trotted out a lineup that included three players who were supposed to be in Scranton this week, and the result was hardly a shocker — a 3-1 loss that included a pathetic offense and little support for another brilliant outing by Masahiro Tanaka.

Still, the Yankees had a chance to win, entering the ninth with the game knotted at one, because of the excellence of Tanaka. He scattered eight hits, struck out seven with no walks, and wiggled out of a few tough jams in coughing up just one run over 6 2/3 innings. Combined with his awesome Opening Day start, Tanaka earned our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series award:

He is the second Yankees pitcher ever to begin the season throwing back-to-back starts allowing no more than one earned run with five-plus strikeouts and no walks in each game (the other guy was Kevin Brown in 2004).

Tanaka filled up the strike zone, throwing 63 of his 87 pitches (72%) for strikes, and his command was stellar in netting 15 called strikes, freezing several Tigers on pitches in the middle of the plate:

Tanaka’s effort was wasted by the Yankees cold bats and a ninth inning implosion by Aroldis Chapman. While the fireballer’s velocity was up from his first two appearances of the season, it didn’t matter as his command was off and he got torched for two runs and three hits by the Tigers. We’ve seen Chapman struggle at times in pinstripes — but not to this extent.

The last time he allowed at least two runs and three hits and took the loss in a game was Sept. 7, 2012 in his first season as a closer with the Reds.

(New York Post)

Breezy day in the Bronx
The Yankees six-game season-opening homestand ended in the most miserable fashion, as they dropped the rubber game of the series to the Tigers, 2-1, and were the victims of a couple awful franchise records in doing so.

They struck out 18 times, the most ever in a nine-inning game by any Yankees team. They now have 65 strikeouts for the season, the highest total through six games in franchise history. Thirteen of those punchouts were by Tigers starter Matthew Boyd, who also limited them to just one run in 6 1/3 innings. Boyd is the first left-hander to strike out at least 13 Yankees and allow no more than one run in a regular-season game at Yankee Stadium (old or new). The only southpaw pitcher to do that in a playoff game in the Bronx was Cliff Lee in Game 3 of the 2010 ALCS.

The one of the few reasons for optimism in the Yankees disastrous 2-4 record has been their starting pitching, which has a 2.32 ERA and has given up one earned run or fewer five times. Only two other Yankee pitching staffs have begun the season with their starters allowing no more than one earned run in five of the first six games — it also happened last year and in 2002.

Overall, they’ve allowed 20 runs, the 33rd time in franchise history they’ve given up 20 or fewer runs in the first six games; twice before they also were below .500 thru six games: 1964 and 1977. The 1964 team went on win the AL pennant and lose in the World Series while the 1977 team was World Series champs.

Some more perspective (don’t jump off the cliff yet?) … This is the sixth time in the Wild Card era that the Yankees have started 2-4 or worse. The results of the previous five seasons it happened:

Missed Playoffs – 1 (2013)
Made Playoffs – 4 (2017, 2015, 2006, 1998)
Won Division – 2 (2006, 1998)
Won World Series – 1 (1998)

Four things we’ve learned about the 2019 Yankees one week into the season

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This guy’s still cool. (Elsa/Getty)

The season is six days old and already we know one thing for certain about the 2019 Yankees: They stink. The stinkiness is probably only temporarily, but yeah, they stink. Losing two of three to the Orioles (!) and Tigers (!!) at home (!!!) while scoring no more than three runs in four of the six games is pretty ugly. It’s not quite the worst possible start to the season, but it’s close.

Six games in and there are some other things we’ve learned about the 2019 Yankees beyond their apparent inability to beat bad teams at home. It can be tricky to figure out what’s real and what’s not one week into the new year. Other times the meaningful stuff can be plainly obvious. Here are four things we’ve learned about the Yankees across their first six games of the new season.

They’ve exhausted their depth

The Yankees have already had so many injuries this season that I don’t know where they’d turn next should another player go down. I really don’t. That is especially true on the position player side. CC Sabathia could be back in next week and that means Jonathan Loaisiga will be stashed in Triple-A as an up-and-down arm. Chance Adams and Joe Harvey are also shuttle candidates.

On the position player side though, geez, the Yankees are pretty much tapped out. They’ve exhausted almost all their 40-man roster depth. Adding players to the 40-man is not necessarily a problem with Didi Gregorius, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Ben Heller available as 60-day injured list candidates. I’m referring to the caliber of player in line to be called up. It ain’t good. Look at who would be the next man up with another injury:

  • Catcher: Kyle Higashioka
  • Infield: Thairo Estrada following a lost season or Gio Urshela
  • Outfield: Billy Burns?

For what it’s worth, Mark Feinsand says Estrada is being recalled to replace Troy Tulowitzki. Tulowitzki will become the 11th Yankee on the injury list later today. What if Greg Bird feels something in his ankle again? Or James Paxton or Masahiro Tanaka go on their annual two-week breather? The injury problem might get worse. Other than Tulowitzki, the guys you’d expect to get hurt haven’t gotten hurt yet.

After six games and seven days, injuries are the story of the season for the Yankees. They’ve lost core players for long stretches of time. They’ve had to call up Clint Frazier, a player deemed in need of Triple-A at-bats, and Tyler Wade, a player deemed not good enough for the Opening Day roster, and there’s not much depth remaining behind them with Triple-A Scranton. Hopefully the injuries pass and the Yankees stay afloat. Right now, we already know they’re stretched very thing.

They need outside help

This ties into the previous point. The Yankees can not sit around waiting for their injured guys to get healthy. Aaron Hicks still has not resumed baseball activities and Miguel Andujar is potentially looking at season-ending surgery. Even if he avoids the knife, Andujar’s best case scenario is being weeks away from rejoining the Yankees. Tulowitzki? Wouldn’t surprise me if we don’t see him again this year.

The last few games have shown there are only so many Mike Tauchman and Tyler Wade at-bats one team can take. Trading for an infielder already feels imperative. Someone to take over a position full-time and push Wade to the bench. Todd Frazier? Asdrubal Cabrera? Starlin Castro? There are some rental salary dump candidates sitting on the market. The Blue Jays are already trading guys (Kendrys Morales, Kevin Pillar). Maybe other teams are willing to move players.

Point is, the Yankees have been hit exceptionally hard by injuries, and many of their top position players are a long ways from returning. Sticking with the in-house replacements is a viable option, sure, but it’s not a good one. The longer the Yankees wait for their guys to return without adding help, the more likely it is they’ll tumble in the standings and face a big uphill climb later this summer. That is apparent six games into the year.

Ottavino is the Moment of Truth™ reliever

This guy’s cool too. (Jim McIsaac/Getty)

Even with bigger names and higher priced pitchers in the bullpen, it is clear the Yankees have identified Adam Ottavino as the guy they want on the mound in the game’s biggest situations. Ottavino has appeared in four of six games so far and in all four games he entered into what can be considered the highest leverage moment. A recap:

  • March 28th: Runner on second, two outs, Yankees up four in the sixth.
  • March 30th: Runner on first, two outs, Yankees down one in the sixth.
  • April 1st: Start of eighth with Nick Castellanos and Miguel Cabrera due up, Yankees up two.
  • April 2nd: Start of eighth with Castellanos and Cabrera due up, score tied.

The Yankees beat up on the Orioles pretty good on Opening Day, so that March 28th appearance wasn’t super high-leverage, but it was the only time in the game it felt like the O’s had something going. Look at those last two games though. Aaron Boone matched Ottavino up against the other team’s best hitters in the late innings of a close game. Textbook relief ace stuff.

With Dellin Betances sidelined, I assumed Zack Britton would take over the eighth inning almost by default. He’s the former shutdown closer and he signed the big contract over the winter, and the Yankees sure do love set bullpen roles. Instead, Ottavino is penciled in as the high-leverage guy, either in a mid-inning fireman role or matching up against the other team’s top hitters. The rest of the bullpen falls in place around him.

I imagine Betances will reclaim the eighth inning role once he returns and is back up to speed. When he’s right, he’s someone the Yankees can throw out there against any three hitters in a close game. That will free Ottavino up for fireman/matchup work earlier in the game. Until then, he is the interim relief ace. The team’s intentions with Ottavino are no mystery after only four appearances.

LeMahieu’s going to be just fine at third base

I had a feeling this would be the case. LeMahieu has excellent defensive tools (hands, range, arms) and he’s a smart, instinctual player. The only thing he lacks at third base is experience. Even without it, LeMahieu has looked very natural at the hot corner in the early going. He’s made good plays coming in on weak grounders and also going both right and left. It’s hard to tell he’s new to the position, isn’t it?

Andujar’s injury means LeMahieu will be The Man at third base for the foreseeable future. It’ll be at least a few weeks. Hopefully Andujar’s shoulder responds well to treatment and rehab and he can avoid season-ending surgery. Even if he does, he’s going to miss several weeks, and the Yankees have a quality third base replacement in LeMahieu. Defensively, he can more than handle it. LeMahieu’s already shown he’s an asset at the hot corner.

Clint Frazier’s big opportunity has finally arrived

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(Joe Robbins/Getty)

The 2019 season is not even a week old and already the Yankees have five times as many players on the injured list as they do wins. They are 2-3 through five games and later today CC Sabathia will become the tenth Yankee on the injured list. His five-game suspension is over and he’ll continue what is essentially his Spring Training in Tampa.

The Yankees are not missing bit players either. Including Sabathia, the ten guys on the injured list combined for nearly +25 WAR last season and nearly +23 ZiPS projected WAR this year. Look at some of the players the Yankees are without right now:

  • Miguel Andujar (starting third baseman)
  • Dellin Betances (ace setup man)
  • Didi Gregorius (starting shortstop)
  • Aaron Hicks (starting center fielder)
  • Luis Severino (ace starter)
  • Giancarlo Stanton (starting designated hitter)

That’s rough. Andujar (labrum tear), Gregorius (Tommy John surgery), Hicks (back soreness), and Stanton (biceps strain) aren’t expected back anytime soon either. Stanton seems to be the closest and he’ll be shut down ten days, then reevaluated. The Yankees will be short in their lineup for a while.

The Yankees had to scramble to acquire Mike Tauchman following the Hicks injury and they had to scramble again after Stanton got hurt over the weekend. They called up Clint Frazier, who is essentially their top prospect even though he’s exceeded the rookie limits, and he went 0-for-3 with a sacrifice fly to drive in his team’s only run in his season debut last night.

Frazier did not have a good Spring Training at all (.143/.228/.245) and the plan was to send him to Triple-A so he could play every single day after losing so much time to a concussion and post-concussion migraines last year. He needs regular at-bats and he was going to get them in Scranton. Now he’ll get them in the Bronx.

“I think it was just trying to be comfortable in the box again,” Frazier said to Brendan Kuty when asked about his poor spring. “I just went back to being as simple as I could and trying to be as athletic as I can in the box (after being sent to minor league camp) and the results were immediate.”

Last year’s concussion issues robbed Frazier of a chance to play everyday while Aaron Judge was sidelined with his broken wrist. Those seven weeks of outfield playing time instead went to Shane Robinson and Neil Walker, and later Andrew McCutchen. The timing was very unfortunate. That was a big lost opportunity for Frazier.

This year’s injuries give Frazier another opportunity to show he belongs in the big leagues and show why he was once the fifth overall pick in the draft and a highly regarded prospect. Stanton’s going to be reevaluate in ten days, and even if all goes well, he’ll still have to get back into game shape. I’m thinking Giancarlo is at least three weeks from returning.

Three weeks isn’t that long when you play a 162-game season, but it’s not nothing either, and it’s what Frazier has right now. His little run as an everyday guy two years ago was interrupted by the All-Star break and then an oblique injury. This time around Frazier can experience the daily grind. He can be a normal baseball player, basically.

In a perfect world Frazier would go to Triple-A and mash and make up for the time he lost last year, then come up in a few weeks and begin to wrestle the left field job away from Brett Gardner. Instead, the injuries mean Frazier is going to play a bunch for the Yankees right away, without all those Triple-A at-bats to get back up to speed. Not ideal, but what can you do?

History has a way of repeating itself. One week into last season Brandon Drury went down with migraines and blurry vision, opening the door for Andujar. Miggy ran with it. Frazier won’t replace Stanton, but the Stanton injury does give Clint a chance to show he belongs and is worth keeping around. Andujar took advantage. Now Frazier will try to do the same.

“This is the opportunity I wanted last year,” said Frazier to Ken Davidoff two days ago. “… Right now, I’m feeling the best I felt at the plate in a long time, so I think that extra couple of days in Tampa is going to be very beneficial to myself to come up here and try to make the most of every opportunity I get.”

Yankeemetrics: Orioles Deja Vu (March 28-31)

by

(New York Times)

March 28: The Legend of Luke
One down, 161 to go. For the second year in a row, the Yankees kicked off their schedule with a win, 7-2 over the Orioles. It marked the first time in more than a decade they’ve had back-to-back season-opening victories, since winning four in a row from 2005-08. The seven runs scored were their most in a win on Opening Day since 2007 when they beat the Rays 9-5.

Luke Voit got the party started early with a three-run first-inning dinger, crushing an 87 mph hanging slider 428 feet into the centerfield seats. Last year he struggled to drive breaking pitches, posting an average exit velocity of just 88 mph while whiffing on 40 percent on those offerings. He saw 217 curves and sliders in 2018, and cranked just one of them out of the park.

Thursday’s home run gave him 15 homers in his first 40 regular-season games with the Yankees — a 162-game pace of 61 homers. He added another RBI when was plunked with the bases loaded in the fifth. #FunFact alert! Voit is the third Yankee cleanup hitter with at least four RBI on Opening Day, joining Alex Rodriguez (2006) and Yogi Berra (1956).

Masahiro Tanaka, making his fourth career Opening Day start (the most by a Japanese-born pitcher), was solid and efficient in his 83-pitch outing, allowing two runs (one earned) while striking out five and walking none in 5 2/3 innings.

He earned our Obscure Yankeemetric of the game for that effort, becoming one of three Yankee Opening Day starters to give up no more than one earned run with at least five strikeouts and no walks. The others: Catfish Hunter (1977) and Mel Stottlemyre (1968).

(Newsday)

March 30: Too little, too late
There will be no perfect season in the Bronx. Bummer. Cold bats and sloppy defense are a good recipe for a loss, and the Yankees followed that script to near perfection on Saturday afternoon in 5-3 defeat.

Despite putting 16 runners on base, the Yankees scored only three runs. As frustrating as the team’s situational hitting was last year, they produced that poor combo — more than 15 baserunners and three or fewer runs in a game just once (5-3 loss to Braves on July 2).

The newcomers provided most of the highlights as DJ LeMahieu got his first hit and RBI as a Yankee, Troy Tulowitzki smoked his first home run in pinstripes and James Paxton had a strong debut on the mound.

Paxton showed off his impressive fastball in holding the Orioles to two runs (one earned) on four hits with five punchouts in 5 2/3 innings. He kept the pitch away from the heart of the zone, getting a bunch of called strikes on the edges with the four-seamer while also elevating his heater for swinging strikes.

(source: Statcast)

Last year Paxton ranked ninth among starters (min. 500 pitches) with a 25.6 percent swing-and-miss rate on his four-seam fastball — and he matched that number on Saturday as the Orioles swung at 32 of his four-seamers and whiffed eight times (25.0%).

Tulowitzki’s longball was a rare 358-foot opposite field solo shot in the ninth inning. Tulo has plenty of pop — he is one of seven players in MLB history with at least 200 homers as a shortstop — but most of that has been pull-side power in recent years: 45 of his 48 homers from 2015-17 went to left field.

(AP)

March 31: Rinse, repeat, RISPFail
With a chance to salvage a series win against the Orioles on Sunday afternoon, the Yankees again failed miserably in clutch situations and suffered another disappointing loss, 7-5. This is the second straight season they dropped an early-season series at the Stadium against the Orioles.

Over the last two seasons, they are 2-5 vs the Orioles in April and 11-4 vs them in May thru September. The Yankees are also 5-7 at home vs the Orioles since the start of last season, the only team they have faced at least five times and have a losing record against in the Bronx.

In losing the final two games, the Yankees went 5-for-21 with runners in scoring position and stranded a combined 25 baserunners (11 on Saturday and 14 on Sunday). It was their most in a two-game span since June 12-13, 2017 when the also left 25 guys on base in the first two games of a series against the Angels. They actually split those two contests, so to find the last time the Yankees stranded 25-plus men in a two-game stretch and lost both games, you have to go back nearly three years to April 15-16, 2016 against the Mariners. Gross.

One player who has avoided the RISP-fail plague to start the season is DJ LeMahieu, who had two hits and an RBI for the second straight day. That effort earned him our Obscure Yankeemetric of the game, becoming part of an eclectic group of six players to have two-plus hits and at least one RBI in each of their first two games with the Yankees. The other five legendary names: John Olerud (2004), Don Slaught (1988), Hector Lopez (1959), Joe DiMaggio (1936) and Pat Collins (1926).

Giving up three homers to the O’s didn’t help the winning cause, either, as J.A. Happ was tagged for two of those longballs and Stephen Tarpley coughed up his first career homer as a major-leaguer. In 69 2/3 innings with the Yankees (including playoffs), Happ has given up 13 homers, or a rate of 1.68 per nine innings pitched. If he posted that over an entire season, it would be the second-highest homer rate by a Yankee pitcher that qualified for the ERA title (highest is 1.77 by Masahiro Tanaka in 2017).