River Avenue Blues

Yanks acquire Lance Lynn for Tyler Austin, pitching prospect

by Leave a Comment

(Omar Rawlings/Getty)

Even with J.A. Happ on board, the Yankees have decided to add another starting pitcher. Tyler Austin and pitching prospect Luis Rijo have been traded to the Twins for right-hander Lance Lynn, it has been announced. It is a done deal. Officially official. Jon Heyman says the Twins are eating half Lynn’s salary.

“It’s the New York Yankees. As a fan of the game growing up, it’s exciting for me as a young kid, seeing them in their heyday winning a lot of World Series championships,” said Lynn to Dan Hayes. “You look at their team now, they’re going for it. I’m excited for that opportunity and that challenge. It’s going to be a different experience. I’m just going to go in there and try to do everything I can to help, whatever that may be.”

The Yankees shipped Adam Warren to the Mariners for international bonus money earlier today, so they essentially swapped Warren for Lynn on the roster. It breaks down like this:

  • Yankees get: Lynn and $1.25M in international bonus money
  • Yankees give up: Warren, Austin, Rijo

Lynn, 31, has a 5.10 ERA (4.73 FIP) with 21.3% strikeout rate and a 50.8% ground ball rate in 102.1 innings this season, all as a starter. His walk rate (13.2%) is way too high. It’s been high his entire career (career 9.4% walk rate), but never this high. Free passes are bad news, though at least Lynn mitigates them with strikeouts and grounders.

For what it’s worth, Lynn has pitched better since an ugly April — seems like all the free agents who signed late started slow this year — throwing 78.2 innings with a 4.12 ERA (4.16 FIP). Walk rate (11.1%) is still too high, though the strikeouts (21.0%) and grounders (50.6%) have been there. Clearly, the Yankees are banking on track record here. Lynn owns a career 3.54 ERA (3.74 FIP).

The Yankees presumably swapped Warren for Lynn because they believe Lynn is better capable of stepping into the rotation, if necessary. I don’t disagree with that. Lynn does have bullpen experience, though it’s been a while. The Cardinals regularly used him out of the bullpen in the postseason during their glory days from 2011-15.

Austin was made completely expendable by the recent Luke Voit pickup. They’re both 27-ish year old right-handed hitting first basemen. Austin will be out of minor league options after the season. Voit will not. So there you go. Voit replaces Austin as the up-and-down platoon first baseman going forward.

When Greg Bird was hurt earlier this year, Austin stepped up and hit .290/.362/.629 (166 wRC+) with five home runs in April. He wasn’t so good after that, finishing with a .223/.280/.471 (111 wRC+) line with eight homers and 40.2% strikeouts in 132 big league plate appearances before being sent to Triple-A. Austin was good when the Yankees needed him. Props.

Rijo, 19, has a 2.77 ERA (2.47 FIP) with 19.5% strikeouts and 1.8% walks in 39 rookie ball inning this season. He is not among MLB.com’s top 30 Yankees prospects and he wasn’t going to be on my upcoming post-draft top 30 prospects list. The Yankees literally have more pitching prospects than rotation spots in the minors. They’re loaded with kids like Rijo. No surprise they dealt from that depth.

As for the financials, the Warren trade combined with the Twins eating half Lynn’s salary makes this effectively cash neutral for the Yankees. They’re still about $3M under the $197M luxury tax threshold, give or take. Some of that needs to be saved for injury call-ups and September call-ups. I think Warren is better than Lynn, but what I think doesn’t matter, plus Lynn can start. Warren can’t. The Yankees added more length to the pitching staff today.

Monday Night Open Thread

by Leave a Comment

The trade deadline is less than 24 hours away. I’m not sure the Yankees will make any more moves before tomorrow’s 4pm ET deadline, mostly because they’ve already added Zach Britton and J.A. Happ, but the Yankees could add another bat (because Aaron Judge is hurt), another catcher (because Gary Sanchez is hurt), and another pitcher (because you can never have enough). I’m glad the Yankees handled their most serious business early. They got that one extra start from Happ by making the trade last week than at the deadline. Not insignificant!

Anyway, here is an open thread for the night. Light baseball schedule today. ESPN will have games at 7pm ET (Phillies at Red Sox) and 10pm ET (Brewers at Dodgers), and that’s pretty much it for nationally televised games. Talk about those games, the trade deadline, or anything that isn’t religion or politics right here. Thanks in advance.

Yanks trade Warren to Mariners for international bonus money

by Leave a Comment

(Hunter Martin/Getty)

Rather than continue to add, the Yankees subtracted from their roster the day before the 2018 trade deadline. Adam Warren has been traded to the Mariners for international bonus money, both teams announced. Mark Feinsand says the Yankees are getting $1.25M. The trade is official.

It is entirely possible, if not likely, there are still other dominoes still to fall here. At the moment, the Yankees essentially salary dumped a reliable and versatile reliever in the middle of a postseason race. Salary dumped him to not just a fellow AL contender, but a team they could very well face in the AL Wild Card Game if they don’t win the AL East. Huh.

Warren, 30, has a 2.70 ERA (3.30 FIP) with 28.9% strikeouts and 9.4% walks in 30 innings around a lat injury this season. Typical Warren, basically. Boring, reliable. He was probably the seventh best reliever in the bullpen, but he might be Seattle’s third best. The Yankees save about $1.1M against the luxury tax in the trade.

Between the recent Warren ($1.25M), Caleb Frare ($1.25M), and Luke Voit ($1M) trades, the Yankees have maxed out their 2018-19 international bonus pool at $8,721,125. They started with $4,983,500 bonus pool and teams are allowed to add an additional 75% through trades. The Yankees have done that. Their pool is maxed out.

Most of the top international prospects have already signed, though top Cuban outfield prospect Victor Victor Mesa remains available. He has not yet been cleared to sign, but, if the Yankees are going to make a run at him, they’re in position to do so. They’ve added as much bonus money as possible. Here are the team’s other international signings.

Yanks working to convert Dermis Garcia into two-way player

by Leave a Comment

(Post and Courier)

Here’s a fun story. In Jon Schwartz’s recent Yankees Magazine feature, it was revealed the Yankees are working to convert power-hitting corner infield prospect Dermis Garcia into a two-way player a la Shohei Ohtani. The process is underway and the hope is Garcia will be ready to pitch an inning in a game sometime in mid-August.

The Yankees gave the 20-year-old Garcia a $3.2M signing bonus as part of their well-intentioned but largely failed 2014-15 international spending spree. Dermis is a .223/.301/.451 (110 wRC+) hitter with 41 home runs in 199 minor league games, none above Low-A. All that power — 41 homers in 199 games is no joke for a kid this young — comes with a lot of strikeouts (33.2%).

Garcia is nominally a third baseman, though he’s been playing first base exclusively since late-June, so that (expected) transition is underway. He does have a third baseman’s arm though — MLB.com gives him a 60 arm on the 20-80 scouting scale — hence the transition to pitching. From Schwartz:

“I think the Shohei Ohtani circumstance shined a light on the capabilities there,” (Brian) Cashman says. “A lot of times, the industry standard is, run the clock out on the one, and then typically another organization will pick up the slack and transition him to a pitcher. I don’t want to be in a position to lose that opportunity, so I was like, ‘Maybe we can do both. Let’s try it.'”

…

“His stride was almost seven feet long,” (pitching coordinator) Danny Borrell says. “A kid his size should have a stride of about six feet.” That extra extension is going to create deception down the line. It will mean the batter will have even less time to react. “The way his fastball goes, and the way his body works, it looks like what a raw pitcher should look like. And it’s easy to dream big on a guy like that.”

Schwartz says Garcia is throwing 85-91 mph in bullpen sessions, though the Yankees only have him throwing at about 70% as he builds his mechanics. The process starts with fastballs only, then they’ll introduce a changeup, then they’ll introduce a breaking ball. Chances are Garcia pitched some as an amateur, so while it probably isn’t entirely new to him, pitching in competitive games is a much different animal.

Teams have been trying to develop two-way players for a few years now, even before Ohtani came over. Ike Davis, Anthony Gose, Brett Eibner, and Christian Bethancourt have all tried it within the last two years. The Rays currently have two prospects, including 2017 fourth overall pick Brendan McKay, working as two-way players in the minors. I’m sure other teams have guys throwing bullpens on the side a la Dermis.

Ohtani has shown the two-way thing can work in the big leagues — he has a 132 wRC+ and had a 135 ERA+ before his recent elbow injury — and I think it’s something that requires long-term commitment. Hard to do it with a guy who’s been exclusively a position player as long as Davis, Gose, Eibner, and Bethancourt. Start him young and let the player develop as a two-way player in the minors, you know? That’s what the Yankees are doing with Garcia.

Will it work? Probably not. Like pretty much everything else that involves prospects, failure is more likely than success. The Yankees have made it clear they were willing to let Ohtani be a two-way player, and I think it’s pretty interesting — and kinda cool — they’re going down that road with Garcia. A corner infielder who can run into a fastball and also toss an inning or two out of the bullpen would be a pretty fun — and pretty useful — player.

Yankeemetrics: Taking care of business (July 26-29)

by Leave a Comment

(AP)

Back to business
The Yankees headed back to the Bronx, and returned to bashing baseballs with a 7-2 victory in the opener over the Royals. Didi Gregorius was swinging the hot bat on Thursday, scoring the Yankees’ first run in the opening frame after belting a one-out double, and then breaking the game open with a three-run homer in the fourth inning.

Those were his 20th double and 18th home run of the season, the third straight year he’s reached those double and homer totals. #FunFact Alert No. 1: Didi and Trevor Story are the only MLB shortstops to put up both those numbers in each of the last three seasons. #FunFact Alert No. 2: Gregorius is the only Yankee shortstop ever with back-to-back-to-back seasons of at least 18 homers and 20 doubles.

(AP)

Sonny Gray continued his dominance of the league’s worst teams but — in a shocking twist — also delivered a solid, homer-free performance in the Bronx. He scattered three hits across five scoreless innings, the first time since joining the Yankees last July that he didn’t allow a run in a start at Yankee Stadium.

This season Gray has made five starts against the AL’s three last-place teams (two vs. Royals, three vs. Orioles, zero vs. Rangers), producing a 1.45 ERA and 0.77 WHIP across 31 innings. Among the 33 players lucky enough to pitch at least 20 innings versus those teams this season (through Thursday), Gray’s ERA ranks fourth-best and his WHIP is second-best.

Zach Britton took the mound in Yankee pinstripes for the first time, needing just 10 pitches to record a perfect inning via two groundouts and a strikeout. After Thursday’s debut outing, his 65.9 percent groundball rate in 2018 was the highest among AL pitchers with at least 15 innings pitched.

(Getty)

Sevy’s slide
Any momentum from the series-opening win was erased after Friday’s rainout, and the Yankees produced an embarrassing and disappointing performance in losing the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader. With the 10-5 loss, the Yankees still haven’t swept a twinbill since April 16, 2014 vs. the Cubs, their longest drought since a 14-doubleheader sweepless stretch spanning the 1969-70 seasons.

The Yankees’ RISP woes were on display again as they went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine men on base. The worst failure came in the second inning when they loaded the bases with no outs and didn’t plate a single run. This season, teams scored at least one run 85 percent of the time in that situation.

The Yankees had another excruciating bases-loaded failure with two outs in the sixth inning when Giancarlo Stanton lined a laser to right field that was caught near the warning track. Based on the combo of exit velocity (102.3 mph) and launch angle (22 degrees), that type of batted ball is a hit 76 percent of the time.

Their terrible clutch hitting was exacerbated by the fact that they were playing from behind the entire game thanks to the continued struggles of Luis Severino. His summer slump extended to four games as the Royals mashed him for six runs on eight hits — including three doubles and a homer — before he was pulled in the fifth inning.

*Hard-hit rate per Fangraphs.com
IP ERA HR GB% K% Hard%*
Last 4 Starts 19.1 8.84 7 32.8% 20.9% 43.3%
First 18 Starts 118.1 1.98 6 45.6% 30.1% 31.8%

This is arguably either the worst or second-worst stretch of his career:

  • Only other time he had four-game span (all starts) with an ERA of at least 8.00 was April 26-May 13, 2016
  • First time allowed at least six runs in back-to-back games
  • First time allowed at least eight hits in three straight games
  • Second time allowed at least four extra-base hits two games in a row (also August 9-14, 2016)

And, sorry, we’ll cap it off with this #NotFunFact: Before Severino, the last Yankee to give up at least six earned runs and eight hits — including at least four for extra bases — in a game was Jeff Weaver in July 2002.

(AP)

Survive and advance
The Yankees avoided what would have been an demoralizing doubleheader sweep thanks to a 5-4 back-and-forth win in the night game of Saturday’s twinbill. There is no doubt that this team has the #FightingSpirit, especially compared to last year’s frustrating late-inning dumpster fire:

Yankees in Games Decided by One Run

  • 2018: Overall 17-11; Home 11-3
  • 2017: Overall 18-26; Home 11-9

Despite a shaky performance by CC Sabathia and a rare implosion from the middle relievers, Yankee pitchers on Saturday night held the Royals to just two hits in 12 at-bats with runners in scoring position while stranding 15 men on base. That’s the most men left on base by a Yankee opponent in a nine-inning game since the Red Sox stranded 16 in a 5-2 loss to the Yankee on August 30, 2011.

And when you factor in that Saturday’s game was a narrow victory, the number of men left on base becomes even more important — and rare. The last time Yankee pitchers stranded at least 15 guys in a nine-inning one-run win was July 25, 1992 against the Mariners. The pitchers in that game: Curt Young, Tim Burke, Rich Monteleone, Greg Cadaret, Steve Farr. (Yes, those guys all pitched for the Yankees in the same game.)

Greg Bird ignited the final rally of the game with a solo shot to lead off the eighth inning that knotted the score at 4-4. It was the first game-tying home run of his career, though he’s had his share of dramatic go-ahead homers in his career.

Aaron Hicks then capped the comeback a few batters later with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly that put the Yankees up 5-4. Hicks earns our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series for his heroics: he’s the first Yankee with a go-ahead bases-loaded sac fly in the seventh inning or later against the Royals since Bernie Williams on May 1, 1998 (hmmm … another #randominterestingstat).

Happ-y day
The Yankees finally did what they’re supposed to do as the second-best team in baseball — take games and series against bad teams. Sunday’s mostly stress-free 6-3 victory capped off another winning weekend in the Bronx, where they have dropped just one series all season (April 5-8 vs. Orioles).

J.A. Happ etched his name in the franchise record books when he stepped on the mound. He became the first guy to start a game for the Yankees and Blue Jays in same season since David Cone in 1995. Cone’s first start as a Bronx Bomber came exactly 23 years ago, on July 29, 1995 against the Twins.

Happ produced an impressive pinstriped debut, holding the Royals to one run on three hits in six innings. A couple #FunFacts to chew on for Happ:

  • The only other left-hander in the last 15 seasons to allow no more than one run and pitch at least six innings in his first game as a Yankee was Randy Johnson in 2005
  • Happ is the first lefty to pitch at least six innings and give up three hits or fewer in his Yankee debut since Jimmy Key in 1993

Aaron Hicks provided the muscle and sparked the offense with a monster game, going 3-for-3 with a homer, double, walk and two RBI. This was his fourth game in the cleanup spot this season, and in those four games he’s 6-for-11 with two dingers, a double, a triple, six walks and five RBI. We love #SmallSampleSizes.

Oh, and the Yankees are still looking for their first hit with the bases loaded since July 11.

2018 Trade Deadline Rumors: Monday

by Leave a Comment

Archer. (Presswire)

The 2018 non-waiver trade deadline is one day away. The Yankees have already made several trades, most notably acquiring Zach Britton from the Orioles and J.A. Happ from the Blue Jays. Lot more early trades than usual this year, no? Not just the Yankees, all around baseball. Manny Machado, Brad Hand, Cole Hamels, Nathan Eovaldi, Jeurys Familia, Mike Moustakas … all traded already. Weird.

Anyway, even after adding Britton and Happ, the Yankees could still make some moves prior to tomorrow’s 4pm ET deadline. Aaron Judge will miss at least three weeks with a wrist injury, so the Yankees could look to bring in another bat. Also, another catcher could be in order too. Gary Sanchez might not return until September. Plus pitching depth. I’m sure they’re still open to adding a controllable starter.

“We haven’t peeled the onion enough to tell you exactly what we will do. If something presents itself that allows us flexibility and makes sense, we can evaluate that,” said Brian Cashman to Joel Sherman following the Judge injury. “I’m sure things will be thrown our way (now that Judge is out). We will see if anything makes sense as we navigate the marketplace before it closes.”

We’re going to keep track of all the day’s Yankees-related trade rumors right here. I can’t promise there were will be many of them because the Yankees have already addressed their most pressing needs with Britton and especially Happ, but I’m sure there will be some. Chat about all the day’s trade deadline rumors and activity right here.

  • 4:48pm ET: It is “not likely” the Yankees will acquire Archer, which doesn’t surprise me. Non-rental intra-division trades can be complicated and so many other teams are in the mix that Tampa shouldn’t have trouble getting a strong offer. [Heyman]
  • 12:22pm ET: The Yankees are among the teams to have shown the most interest in Zack Wheeler. The Mets have set a high price because he’s pitched well lately, though his injury history suggests a smaller return is warranted. [Heyman]
  • 11:30am ET: The Yankees are among the main players for Chris Archer, along with the Padres, Dodgers, and Braves. Tampa Bay had scouts watching Justus Sheffield and Triple-A Scranton on Saturday. [Jon Heyman, Ken Rosenthal]
  • 11:30am ET: Not surprisingly, the Yankees have interest in adding a bat in the wake of the Judge injury. Specifically, they’re looking for a right-handed hitter who can play the outfield. They’re looking, but it’s not considered a pressing need. [Heyman]
  • 11:30am ET: The Braves are among the teams scouting Sonny Gray. The Cardinals, Dodgers, Giants, Indians, and Phillies all had scouts at Yankee Stadium over the weekend. [Brendan Kuty, George King]

Reminder: Your trade proposal sucks.

Fan Confidence Poll: July 30th, 2018

by Leave a Comment

Record Last Week: 4-3 (35 RS, 29 RA)
Season Record: 67-37 (540 RS, 404 RA, 65-39 expected record), 5.5 GB in ALE, 7.5 GU for WC spot
Schedule This Week: Monday OFF; Two games vs. Orioles (Tues. and Weds.); Four games at Red Sox (Thurs. to Sun.)

Top stories from last week:

Please take a second to answer the poll below and give us an idea how confident you are in the Yankees. You can view the interactive Fan Confidence Graph anytime via the Features tab in nav bar above, or by clicking here. Thanks in advance for voting.

Given the team's current roster construction, farm system, management, etc., how confident are you in the Yankees' overall future?
View Results