River Avenue Blues

Scouting the DFA Market: Blake Swihart and Brad Miller

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Swihart. (Getty Images)

Two American League division favorites designated a potentially useful bat for assignment in the last couple days. If the Yankees were fully or nearly healthy and performing, there wouldn’t be a role for either Blake Swihart or Brad Miller. The 2019 Yankees, however, may have the room for another offensive player.

So let’s see how Swihart and Miller stack up and could fit for the Yankees:

Blake Swihart

Despite an OK start at the plate, catcher/utility man Blake Swihart was DFA’d by the Red Sox on Tuesday before the first Yankees-Sox game of the season. Swihart has been in no man’s land for the last year, out of options but without a clear path to playing time despite the promise in his bat.

The 27-year-old backstop ranked 17th in Baseball America’s prospect rankings before the 2015 season (18th by MLB Pipeline) and it was his third time in BA’s rankings. Swihart looked like he could be a switch-hitting catcher who could be the full package on both sides of the ball. He was the No. 1 Red Sox prospect and No. 1 catching prospect in all of baseball.

After five seasons of getting jerked into different roles, Swihart finally got some semblance of normalcy as the backup catcher this season. He had six hits in his first 12 at-bats before an 0-for-14 skid ended his time in Boston.

His 88.3 mph exit velocity is right around league average, though his .364 xwOBA and 42.1 percent hard-hit rate indicates there may be more in his bat. He strikes out about a fourth of the time while sporting a walk rate near seven. Despite his switch-hitting, he should be a strict platoon bat as he fails to hit near average against left-handed pitching.

His defense leaves something to be desired. He has gotten better as a pitch framer and is league average, but Boston chose to upgrade defensively with Sandy Leon.

If we were a little later in the year, the Yankees’ poor record could help them in waiver priority, but as we are still in the first 30 days of the season, waivers go by last year’s standings. Oh well. There are enough team with questionable catching situations and the opportunity to let Swihart sink or swim that he should be claimed if the Red Sox can’t find a trade suitor.

Boston isn’t trading him to the Yankees. It’s not a tremendous loss, as the Bombers with a fully healthy Gary Sanchez don’t have a spot for him. If Sanchez were to miss an extended period, Swihart would be an upgrade over Kyle Higashioka at the plate and could enter into a platoon with Austin Romine. No, he’s not an improvement on Romine, at least not based on what he’s shown in the majors thus far. It’s a pipe dream that he’d join the Yankees, but hey, it’s not the craziest thing to happen.

Miller. (Getty Images)

Brad Miller

Miller, on the other hand, could actually find his way to pinstripes. That’s just my speculating — there hasn’t been reported interest on the Yankees’ part as of now — but the veteran infielder would be a temporary improvement for New York’s lineup.

The Indians DFA’d Miller with Jason Kipnis getting healthy, though Cleveland also did it in order to only give Miller the prorated portion of his $1 million contract instead of fully guaranteeing it by rostering him for a few more weeks. Miller’s 97 OPS+ and .742 OPS ranked third for the Indians’ paltry offense.

Cleveland was playing Miller at second base — he’s played everywhere on the infield in his career — but the Yankees wouldn’t have a need for him there. He doesn’t have the glove to man the middle infield all that well and is best confined to first base. He’s three years removed from hitting 30 homers for the Rays as a poor fielding shortstop.

Well, the Yankees have an opening at first. Greg Bird’s injury led to a call-up for Mike Ford, who has the potential to catch fire for a little while but is unlikely to last. Miller, meanwhile, has been a near-league-average hitter with some pop and has played a passable first base in his career. That’s not a ringing endorsement, but it’s an improvement over Bird’s lackluster season.

Miller would be available for $1 million via waivers or near league minimum in free agency and there aren’t many suitors for his services outside of the Yankees. There are enough DH at-bats (or first base ABs if you place Luke Voit at DH) free until the Yankees’ get healthy that he’d have a role right away.

There’s no need to wait for him to get back like another free agent signing. If he doesn’t hit or enough of Hicks/Stanton/Andujar/Sanchez get healthy, Miller could be jettisoned as quickly as he came in. But he does provide some upside as a former 30-home run hitter who does just enough with the bat to justify his lack of glove.

Yankees 8, Red Sox 0: Big Maple in the Big Apple

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Every once in a while everything comes together and you remember just how good the 2019 Yankees can be, even while dealing with all those injuries. James Paxton thoroughly manhandled the Red Sox in Tuesday night’s 8-0 series opening win. What a performance. Fun game. Would watch again.

(Presswire)

Big Game James
Earlier this week, James Paxton mentioned special advisor Carlos Beltran told him he was tipping his pitches against the Astros last week. Specifically, he had a tell that allowed the runner at second to pick up the pitch type, and then relay it to the hitter. A problem? Sure. It also kinda sounded like he was making excuses given how few runners were actually at second base in Houston.

There are no excuses needed after Tuesday night. Paxton was brilliant in his fourth start as a Yankee and in his first start against the Red Sox as a Yankee. That’s a pretty big deal. Paxton threw gas all night — his fastball averaged 97.0 mph and topped out at 99.2 mph — and he used his fastball a ton. Here’s the pitch breakdown:

  • Four-seamers: 80
  • Cutters: 25
  • Curveballs: 5

It takes a special fastball to dominate a game while throwing 72% heaters. That just doesn’t happen. Paxton mixed in enough cutters to keep the Red Sox honest — it wasn’t until the seventh and eighth innings that he broke out the curveball — but, generally speaking, he stuck with the fastball all night because the BoSox could not hit it. They swung and missed at his heater ten times and and, when they made contact, the average exit velocity was 86.8 mph.

Paxton mentioned that he watched some video following his last start and realized he wasn’t driving off the mound as much as he should, so he corrected things in the bullpen, and was able to let it rip Tuesday. Again, his fastball averaged 97.0 and topped out at 99.2 mph. In his first three starts it averaged 95.4 mph and topped out at 98.2 mph. That little bit of extra velocity can make a huge difference.

The game’s big moment came in the fourth inning, immediately after the Yankees took a 2-0 lead. Paxton walked Mookie Betts and allowed a double off the tippy top of the right field wall to Xander Bogaerts, putting runners at second and third with no outs for the 3-4-5 hitters. Paxton stranded both runners with two fly balls — Aaron Judge held Betts at third both times with his arm — and a strikeout. He’s a pretty quiet guy, but he showed some emotion after escaping the jam.

Paxton’s final line: 8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 12 K on 110 pitches. These days throwing 110 pitches is noteworthy, though outside that fourth inning mess, Paxton did not not throw a stressful pitch. Six of his eight innings were 1-2-3 innings and it wasn’t until the Yankees had broken the game open that he allowed his second base hit. By Game Score, this was one of the four best starts by a Yankee in the last 16 years:

  • April 16th, 2019: James Paxton vs. Red Sox (89 Game Score)
  • July 24th, 2018: Masahiro Tanaka vs. Rays (89 Game Score)
  • July 26th, 2005: Randy Johnson vs. Twins (89 Game Score)
  • August 17th, 2003: Mike Mussina vs. Orioles (90 Game Score)

The 12 strikeouts are the most by a Yankee against the Red Sox since Joba Chamberlain (!) in 2009. It is one short of the most strikeouts ever by a Yankee against the Red Sox (13 has been done several times) and it is the second highest strikeout total of Paxton’s career, trailing only his 16-strikeout game last season. Do we like this guy yet, or what? What a brilliant performance. Everything the Yankees needed and then some.

(Presswire)

Score Early, Score Often
For the Red Sox, I suppose the good news is Chris Sale showed (by far) his liveliest fastball of the season Tuesday night. He averaged 95.5 mph and topped out at 97.5 mph with his heater. Sale had not thrown a pitch that hard since last August, in the start immediately before he landed on the then-disabled list with a shoulder problem. The velocity was good. Everything else? Bad.

Sale cruised through two innings before things started to fall apart in the third. Brett Gardner roped a leadoff double to right field and later scored on DJ LeMahieu’s two-strike, two-out, single to right. Sale threw LeMahieu several elevated fastballs in his first two at-bats — he struck him out on one in his first at-bat, in fact — but this time LeMahieu was ready for it, and he bounced it through the infield.

Judge walked and Luke Voit plopped a single to center later in the inning to give the Yankees a two-run lead. Judge would’ve been thrown out at second before LeMahieu crossed the plate on Voit’s single — Judge took too wide a turn around second — but Eduardo Nunez could not handle Jackie Bradley Jr.’s short-hopped throw. The Yankees have been shooting themselves in the foot with sloppy mistakes this year. Finally, someone out-sloppy-ed them.

Three straight Yankees reached base with two outs to push across two runs in that third inning. Stringing together that many baserunners feels impossible against vintage Chris Sale. In the fourth inning, Clint Frazier added a solo home run and Mike Tauchman doubled into the corner to score Austin Romine from first base. Can’t say I saw that last part coming. Some numbers on Sale:

  • First time through lineup: 1 for 9 (.111) with one double and three strikeouts
  • Thereafter: 6 for 13 (.462) with one double, one homer, one walk, and three strikeouts

Sale called his performance “flat-out embarrassing,” and he is now the proud owner of a 8.50 ERA (6.36 FIP) through four starts and 18 innings. He’s allowed 17 runs in 18 innings. Last season he allowed his 17th run in his 63rd inning. That dude is clearly not himself right now. The velocity was up Tuesday but is still not back to where it was last year, his command stinks, and hitters are comfortable in the box. Hate to see. (Note: I don’t hate to see it.)

The Replacements
Paxton is the story of this game, clearly. If it weren’t for him, this would be The Mike Tauchman game. Tauchman doubled in that fourth inning run against Sale and officially turned this game into a laugher with a three-run home run against Erasmo Ramirez in the sixth inning. First career homer to cap off a 2-for-4 night.

Tauchman was in the lineup because Greg Bird went on the injured list earlier in the day. He joins a very fun list of players to hit their first career MLB home run as a Yankee against the Red Sox. Others include Kyle Higashioka, Gary Sanchez, Rob Refsnyder, Andy Phillips, Don Mattingly, and Phil Rizzuto.

Frazier homered and he was in the lineup because Giancarlo Stanton went on the injured list two weeks ago. Gio Urshela? He was in the lineup because Miguel Andujar is out injured. Urshela went 1-for-4 with a double Tuesday night, but most notably, he stole a base hit (maybe an extra-base hit) away from Mookie Betts with an insane play at third.

Here’s the video. Urshela slipped on the grass and managed to make a strong and accurate throw over to first base while falling backwards. Again, that is Mookie Betts running, and he is not not slow.

Frazier, Urshela, and Tauchman combined to go 4-for-12 (.333) with two doubles, two homers, and five runs driven in. Tauchman’s double could’ve easy been scored a triple since he was already around second base when they throw was made from right field. Either way, great night for the injury replacements. Aaron Boone mentioned Tauchman is finding a groove after back-to-back starts, so I wonder if he’ll be in the lineup again Wednesday. We’ll see.

Leftovers
Voit’s third inning single extended his on-base streak to 27 games. That is the second longest active streak in the big leagues — Tommy Pham is up to 48 games with the Rays — and the longest by a Yankee since Judge had a 32-gamer in May and June of 2017. Voit struggled for a good seven or eight games immediately following his big Opening Day. He’s looked much better at the dish the last few games.

Every starter had at least one hit. Gleyber Torres hit an opposite field solo homer — it was good to see him and Frazier go the other way after getting a little pull happy following that big series in Baltimore — and Judge (two singles) and Tauchman (double, homer) had two hits each. Judge drew a walk as well, and Gardner had a double and a walk. It was a great night up and down the lineup. It really was.

Paxton’s eight innings gave the bullpen a rest, though it really wasn’t needed after the off-day. Still, I’ll take it. Joe Harvey threw 14 pitches in the ninth inning and pitched around an infield single. Good night all around. Great team win.

Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
MLB.com has the box score and video highlights and ESPN has the updated standings. Here’s our Bullpen Workload page and here’s the win probability graph:


Source: FanGraphs

Up Next
The second game of this quick two-game series. Current Yankee J.A. Happ and former Yankee Nathan Eovaldi are the scheduled starting pitchers. That’s another 6:35pm ET start. Wasn’t it nice to have a Yankees vs. Red Sox game over at 9pm ET? Let’s do that again.

DotF: Garcia homers twice, Schmidt struggles in Tampa’s loss

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The Yankees have signed OF Omar Carrizales and assigned him to Triple-A Scranton, report Kegan Lowe and Conor Foley. The former Rockies prospect (another former Rockie!) hit .229/.289/.376 (84 wRC+) with seven homers and eleven steals in 90 Double-A games last season. Carrizales took 1B Mike Ford’s spot on the roster. Ford was called up to replace the injured Greg Bird. Just a warm body move to help get through the injuries. Nothing more.

The Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders were rained out. They’ll play a doubleheader tomorrow.

Double-A Trenton Thunder (7-6 win over Akron in ten innings, walk-off style)

  • 2B Hoy Jun Park: 1-5, 2 R, 1 2B, 2 RBI, 2 K — holding his own in Double-A so far
  • SS Kyle Holder: 0-4, 2 K, 1 HBP
  • RF Ben Ruta: 0-6, 2 K, 1 SB
  • PR-1B Brandon Wagner: 1-1, 1 RBI — he pinch-ran for 1B Chris Gittens in the late innings, then provided the walk-off single
  • CF Rashad Crawford: 1-5, 1 RBI, 1 K
  • RHP Trevor Stephan: 3 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 1/2 GB/FB — 50 of 72 pitches were strikes (69%) … his first three starts this year haven’t gone too well … hopefully he turns things around soon
  • RHP Domingo Acevedo: 1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 1/1 GB/FB — eleven pitches, nine strikes

[Read more…]

Game 16: Just a game between two sub-.500 teams

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(Presswire)

So, who had the Yankees and Red Sox being a combined eight games under .500 when they met for the first time this season? Not me, certainly. The Yankees are 6-9 and the Red Sox are 6-11. This is the first time the Yankees and Red Sox have met with sub-.500 records this deep into the season (at least 15 games) since 1992. Neither team’s season has gone according to plan.

“I don’t really get caught up in what (the rivalry) means. I certainly understand it. I’m doing everything I can to get us in the right place to go out and get a W,” Aaron Boone said this afternoon. “… I know we’re up against a good team that’s off to a tough start, similar to us. We know what they’re capable of and we know we have to play well to beat them.”

There would be no better way to snap out of this early-season slump than a quick little two-game sweep over an AL East rival. That applies to both teams. The Yankees want to keep burying the Red Sox and start climbing up the standings. You know Boston wants to do the same. One game at a time though. Gotta win the first one before you can win both. Here are tonight’s lineups:

New York Yankees
1. 2B DJ LeMahieu
2. RF Aaron Judge
3. 1B Luke Voit
4. SS Gleyber Torres
5. DH Clint Frazier
6. 3B Gio Urshela
7. CF Brett Gardner
8. C Austin Romine
9. LF Mike Tauchman

LHP James Paxton

Boston Red Sox
1. RF Mookie Betts
2. SS Xander Bogaerts
3. LF J.D. Martinez
4. DH Steve Pearce
5. 1B Mitch Moreland
6. 2B Eduardo Nunez
7. 3B Rafael Devers
8. C Sandy Leon
9. CF Jackie Bradley Jr.

LHP Chris Sale

It has been a beautiful day in New York. A little on the chilly side, but the sky is clear. It won’t last. There is rain in the forecast later tonight, around 11pm ET or so. Hopefully the game is over before the rain starts. Tonight’s game will begin at 6:35pm ET and you can watch on WPIX locally and MLB Network nationally. Enjoy the ballgame.

Injury Updates: In case you missed it earlier, Greg Bird has been placed on the 10-day injured list with a torn plantar fascia. He will be in a walking boot for two weeks, then be reevaluated. The Yankees expect him to miss at least a month. Saturday was the first time it really became a problem, apparently … Aaron Hicks (back) will remain with the Yankees through the end of the homestand before heading back to Tampa. He feels 100% and did more running, throwing, and hitting today. He’s a day or two away from taking batting practice … Miguel Andujar (shoulder) has increased his hitting and throwing. He’s still early in the process and they aren’t much closer to answering the “surgery or no surgery?” question than they were two weeks ago … Dellin Betances (shoulder) is no longer stuck in Tampa. He’s with the Yankees in New York. Nothing new to report though. He’s still early in the shutdown phase following last week’s cortisone shot … Troy Tulowitzki (calf) hit in the cage and did some running on the field today. It’s the first time he’s done any real baseball activities since landing on the injured list.

4/16 to 4/17 Series Preview: Boston Red Sox

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Always Betts on Mookie. (Getty Images) 

Which is a worse sign: Playing poorly with your same team as last year or playing poorly with a similar team that is riddled with injuries? Welcome to Yankees-Red Sox 2019.

Their Story Thus Far

After winning 108 games and the World Series a year ago, the Red Sox slump into Yankee Stadium with a 6-11 record. They have the worst run differential in the AL at -32 runs and have given up 6.24 runs per game. Their bullpen has actually been middle of the pack while their starting pitching has let them down with a 7.17 ERA, the worst in baseball. Only David Price (3.79) has an ERA under 7.98 within their regular rotation.

Meanwhile, Boston’s lineup has been disappointing. J.D. Martinez is, more ore less, duplicating his results of a year ago while Xander Bogaerts and Mitch Moreland are both off to hot starts. However, Mookie Betts hasn’t been his All-Star/MVP self (more on that below) while Jackie Bradley Jr. hasn’t hit a lick. In total, the offense that set the world on fire in 2018 in 23rd in the league with an 83 wRC+.

Player Spotlight: Mookie Betts

Through 17 games, Betts hasn’t quite hit like himself. For Boston, that’s OK; it’s only mid-April. The question, however, is whether Betts will return to his 2016/2018 MVP-esque level or will be the 2015/2017 All-Star deserving version of himself.

The 26-year-old outfielder has six extra-base hits and has a .222 average a year after winning the batting title. Part of that is simply BABIP luck: He has a .229 BABIP after a .368 mark a year ago.

Yet, there are some underlying questions. His walk rate is right in between his 2017 and ’18 marks, though it’s still impressive at 12.2 percent. His strikeouts, meanwhile, have continued to rise as a mildly alarming trend. His average exit velocity is down from 92.2 in 2018 to 90.0 mph this season.

Perhaps Betts is just a hot week from re-establishing himself. With plenty of struggling players surrounding him, Boston could use the boost. Five of his eight hits have gone for extra bases in 36 ABs against Wednesday starter J.A. Happ.

Injury Report

Andrew Benintendi (foot contusion) and Jackie Bradley Jr. (flu) were both held out of the Patriots’ Day game and are day-to-day. Brock Holt (scratched cornea) should begin a rehab assignment this week while reliever Brian Johnson is on the 10-day IL with elbow inflammation.

Potential Lineup

  1. Andrew Benintendi, LF (.293/.364/.448, 117 wRC+)
  2. Mookie Betts, RF (.222/.324/.413, 94 wRC+)
  3. Steve Pearce, 1B (.125/.176/.125, -23 wRC+)
  4. J.D. Martinez, DH (.344/.417/.563, 159 wRC+)
  5. Xander Bogaerts, SS (.304/.403/.500, 143 wRC+)
  6. Rafael Devers, 3B (.254/.343/.305, 81 wRC+)
  7. Dustin Pedroia, 2B (.105/.150/.105, -39 wRC+)
  8. Jackie Bradley Jr., CF (.149/.196/.170, -7 wRC+)
  9. Christian Vazquez, C (.195/.233/.415, 58 wRC+)

Though the Yankees are starting two lefties, I doubt Pearce starts over Moreland (151 wRC+) in both games. Bradley’s illness could open the door for Pearce or Martinez to play the outfield and Moreland to man first.

Oh my god! We’re having a fire … Sale. (Getty Images) (They can’t fire me for puns, right?)

Pitching Matchups

Tuesday (6:35 PM ET) James Paxton (vs. Red Sox) vs. Chris Sale (vs. Yankees)

Sale’s dreadful beginning to 2019 has been one of the biggest stories not just for the Red Sox, but for baseball. The lanky lefty received a $145 million extension this offseason and the Red Sox treated him carefully this spring, cutting down on his workload after he ended 2018 later than ever (the Fall Classic will do that) and with shoulder issues.

Boston lined him up to start in this series. The Sox did the same thing a year ago and it was intimidating. Now, with Sale owning a 9.00 ERA, a 7.31 FIP and an alarming drop in swinging strikes, it could be an opportunity for the Bombers.

His velocity on his four-seamer is down 3.4 mph from 2018 to just 91.3 mph in three starts. Now, his velo was down to start 2018, but not nearly this much and hitters have made him pay. He got his first swinging strike on a fastball in his third start and has a 6.5 percent K-BB rate after posting a 31.9 percent mark from 2017-18 to lead baseball by a healthy margin.

It isn’t just the velocity; His command has also been suspect. Rachael McDaniel detailed it well for Fangraphs, but he hasn’t had good location on his slider, leaving it up in the zone. Can he regain his fastball, slider and his season? The Yankees, or what’s left of them, will be a tough test.

Sale (Baseball Savant)

Wednesday (6:35 PM ET) J.A. Happ (vs. Red Sox) vs. Nathan Eovaldi (vs. Yankees)

Just like Sale, Eovaldi had the Yankees’ number a year ago and beat them in the postseason. I don’t need to remind you about ALDS Game 3, right? Good.

Well, Eovaldi has arguably been worse than Sale this season. He’s allowed six home runs in 15 innings, going just five innings in each of his three starts. He has 10 strikeouts and 10 walks, an 8.40 ERA and a 9.22 FIP.

The velocity on his four-seamer and cutter (high and low 90s, respectively) are about the same as last season with his splitter and slider down a couple of mph and curveball up half a mph. Still, batters have beat up on his signature cutter, owning a .941 slugging percentage against his second-most-used pitch.

Again, he was especially good against the Yanks last season, so the matchup favors him, but Eovaldi has had a rough 2019 thus far.

Eovaldi (Baseball Savant)

Bullpen Status

As you likely know, Alex Cora doesn’t have an established closer, instead mining for matchups without Craig Kimbrel under contract. Here’s my best guess as to how the bullpen hierarchy works:

Highest leverage: Ryan Brasier and Matt Barnes

Medium to high leverage: Brandon Workman, Heath Hembree and Tyler Thornburg, in descending order of average leverage index this season

Medium to low leverage: Colten Brewer and Erasmo Ramirez.

Long man/spot starter: Hector Velazquez

Velazquez started and went three innings in Patriots’ Day game Monday, so he’s likely unavailable for series. Brewer and Ramirez, the latter just called up, are newer names and have had mixed results for Boston thus far. (Ramirez has previously served as a starter and can provided length out of the bullpen.) Brasier and Barnes, meanwhile, have been strong, as has Brandon Workman who has yet to give up a run.

Brewer, Workman, Hembree and Thornburg each threw one inning Monday and should be available to relieve Sale on Tuesday if the need arises.

Keys to watch

Sale’s slider

Watching on TV, Sale’s velocity will be a constant topic of conversation. I’d guess it’ll still be hovering in the low 90s. But the focus, at least to me, should be on his slider command. If he can get his back-foot slider going to righties, the left-hander can still be effective at lower velocity. If he can’t locate it, the Yankees should tee off.

Calling on quality

Can the Yankees get a quality start? They’ve gotten three this season and neither Happ nor Paxton have completed six innings.

Quality starts as a stat are clunky, but the lack of QSs underline an issue for New York: They’re getting very little length out of their starters, 4.84 innings per start, to be exact. With Dellin Betances out and Chad Green struggling to perform, the team can’t afford to overload its bullpen, no matter its preseason hype. Six innings from either Paxton or Happ would be an upgrade.

The injury bug and a flashback to 2007

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(Presswire)

Twelve Yankees currently reside on the injured list. Twelve! It’s put a pretty big damper on the start of the regular season, to say the least. Sure, a few players on the shelf aren’t surprises: Didi Gregorius and Jordan Montgomery, to name a couple. The Yankees had time to plan for their absences. However, they could have never anticipated the myriad of injuries that have happened since spring training began. It’s a bit reminiscent of 2007, when a handful of Yankees suffered hamstring strains early in the season. This year, there have been various health issues, but a fair amount of them have been muscle strains, stiffness, or soreness.

Prior to 2007, the Yankees hired Marty Miller as the team’s director of performance enhancement. He lost his job by early May. Injuries piled up within a month of the season beginning and it proved to be Miller’s undoing. Hideki Matsui, Mike Mussina, Chien-Ming Wang, and Phil Hughes all suffered hamstring strains. Johnny Damon played through a calf strain and Andy Pettitte powered through back soreness from a weight lifting mishap. This season, there have been two calf strains (Troy Tulowitzki and Gary Sanchez), Giancarlo Stanton’s biceps strain, Aaron Hicks’s back stiffness, and Luis Severino’s lat strain. Those seem to be related to strength and conditioning issues. To add insult to injury, there have been some bad luck and pitchers break issues too. Miguel Andujar tore his labrum sliding back into third, Severino had shoulder inflammation before his lat strain, and Dellin Betances has a shoulder impingement and bone spurs.

Aside from the litany of maladies, communication has been a problem as well. Hicks, Betances, and Severino have all had setbacks. How many times have we heard that Aaron Hicks is close to ramping up baseball activities? He was suppose to get back into the swing of things before camp ended. The Yankees downplayed Betances’s velocity in spring training, and now we find out that he’s had a bone spur for years. There was no mention of that when he was initially diagnosed with an impingement. Severino, somehow, suffered a new injury (lat strain) while trying to recover from shoulder soreness.

Matt Krause has been the team’s director of strength and conditioning since the 2014 season. Are all of these muscle injuries his and his team’s fault? Who knows. One thing’s for sure: the optics are bad. Back in 2007, the way things looked almost certainly contributed to the team cutting Miller lose. Even so, Cashman declined to blame Miller for the parade to the disabled list:

Last month, when a rash of muscle-related injuries felled five key players in four weeks, Cashman did not blame Miller or his assistant, Dana Cavalea.

“I’m constantly evaluating everything we do,” Cashman said in a telephone interview at the time. “But do I blame Marty and Dana for this? No.”

Cashman had said there were many reasons the injuries to key Yankees could have occurred, apart from Miller’s new strength and conditioning program, in which some players had declined to participate.

That last sentence is telling, though. Players declining to participate in a team’s strength and conditioning program is not a good look! If that wasn’t the final straw, it was definitely alarming.

This year, Cashman hasn’t placed blame on the training staff. Nonetheless, his reaction to Severino’s lat strain makes it easy to wonder if its starting to become the subject of his ire.

Cashman certainly sounds annoyed that the team has no idea how the ace succumbed to a new injury. On one hand, I could see him questioning if Severino did something extraneous to the “protocol” that caused the injury. That would be a hefty and damning accusation to make, though. On the flip side, it’s the training staff’s responsibility to get players back on the field as soon as possible. The fact that they’re in the dark about how this happened, or perhaps the idea that it was never caught in the first place, is significant. Not only is it a physical issue, but it is also a communication deficiency. These kind of mistakes can (and already have) throw the season way off course.

To give the conditioning team the benefit of the doubt, a few of the players who have gotten hurt have a reputation for being injury prone. Tulowitzki and Hicks, in particular. Further, maybe Severino’s ailments are just a symptom of being a pitcher. Whoever or whatever is to blame, it’s been nothing but bad news all around. Fortunately, like that 2007 team, all of these instances have happened very early on in the season. That squad still won 94 games when it was all said and done. For this team to accomplish that, it needs to get its house in order. Part of that is some better fortune moving forward, but also identifying the source of the numerous muscle strains, setbacks, and communication breakdowns.

Yanks place Greg Bird on injured list with torn plantar fascia

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(Presswire)

Another one bites the dust. The Yankees announced this morning that Greg Bird has been placed on the 10-day injured list with a torn left plantar fascia. First baseman Mike Ford has been called up from Triple-A Scranton and Jacoby Ellsbury was put on the 60-day injured list to clear 40-man roster space.

Bird, who is no stranger to the disabled/injury list, is now the 12th Yankee on the injured list, and that’s after getting CC Sabathia back over the weekend. The Yankees are missing five of their nine starting position players, among others. The injured list, for posterity:

  • Miguel Andujar (shoulder)
  • Dellin Betances (shoulder)
  • Greg Bird (foot)
  • Jacoby Ellsbury (hip surgery)
  • Didi Gregorius (Tommy John surgery)
  • Ben Heller (Tommy John surgery)
  • Aaron Hicks (back)
  • Jordan Montgomery (Tommy John surgery)
  • Gary Sanchez (calf)
  • Luis Severino (shoulder)
  • Giancarlo Stanton (biceps)
  • Troy Tulowitzki (calf)

Bird has not hit much at all this year (57 wRC+) or the last three years for the matter (80 wRC+ from 2017-19), so I guess you could say this is not a big loss. Healthy players are better than injured players though, and Bird won’t be able to right the ship on the injured list. A torn plantar fascia? That sounds like a long-term injury. (And also a convenient excuse for his lack of production.)

In hindsight, Bird laboring while running down the line on a ground ball Saturday (the last game he played) probably should’ve been a bigger deal.

The 27-year-old Ford is a local guy from Belle Mead, New Jersey, and he signed with the Yankees as an undrafted free agent out of Princeton back in 2013. He is hitting .410/.467/.897 (235 wRC+) with more extra-base hits (four doubles, five homers) than strikeouts (seven) in ten games with the RailRiders this year. It’s also his third season at the level, so I’d take the numbers with a grain of salt.

Like Bird, Ford is a left-handed hitting bat-only first baseman. He can’t play other positions and isn’t especially nimble around the bag either, plus a platoon partner might not be a bad idea. The Yankees are replacing Greg Bird with an older and unproven version of Greg Bird, basically. Maybe the lefty hitting Ford will give the Yankees a shot in the arm against, uh, Chris Sale tonight.

(The Yankees should trade for Justin Smoak ASAP.)