River Avenue Blues

Game 25: Endgame

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(Getty)

Every day I look at the lineup and wonder how in the world the Yankees will score runs, yet they’ve now won six straight games and eight of their last nine. It’s been fun. They close out their four-game series in Anaheim tonight — this is the endgame, if you will — looking for the four-game sweep.

“We don’t have our big dogs, but we’re finding a way, and it feels good,” DJ LeMahieu told Greg Beacham following last night’s win. “We’ve got a lot of good players. That speaks to this organization. It’s not how we drew it up in Spring Training, but we’re getting wins and having fun.”

Masahiro Tanaka has been excellent in four of his five starts this season and, on paper, the Angels are a bad matchup for him. They have the sixth lowest swing rate (44.1%) and ninth lowest chase rate (27.6%) in baseball. Tanaka’s thing is getting hitters to expand the zone. Here are tonight’s lineups:

New York Yankees
1. 2B DJ LeMahieu
2. DH Luke Voit
3. CF Brett Gardner
4. C Gary Sanchez
5. RF Mike Tauchman
6. SS Gleyber Torres
7. 1B Mike Ford
8. 3B Gio Urshela
9. LF Tyler Wade

RHP Masahiro Tanaka

Los Angeles Angels
1. RF Kole Calhoun
2. CF Mike Trout
3. 1B Justin Bour
4. DH Andrelton Simmons
5. LF Brian Goodwin
6. C Jonathan Lucroy
7. 3B Tommy La Stella
8. SS David Fletcher
9. 2B Luis Rengifo

RHP Trevor Cahill

Another great weather night in Anaheim, I assume. Tonight’s series finale will begin at 9:07pm ET and the YES Network will have the broadcast. Enjoy the ballgame.

Injury Update: Miguel Andujar (shoulder) is tentatively scheduled to play four or five innings in an Extended Spring Training game tomorrow. If all goes well, the Yankees will continue to build him up, and he could be ready to rejoin the team in about a week … Troy Tulowitzki (calf) is a day or two away from playing ExST games and is about a week away as well … Giancarlo Stanton (biceps, shoulder) is shut down for a few days following his cortisone shot but is expected to “ramp up quickly” next week.

Roster Moves: In case you missed it earlier, the Yankees acquired Cameron Maybin in a cash trade with the Indians. He is expected to arrive in time to be in uniform for the game tonight, and Aaron Boone said Maybin will be in the starting lineup the next two days because the Yankees are facing lefty pitchers (Madison Bumgarner and Derek Holland). Clint Frazier (ankle) was placed on the 10-day injured list and Jonathan Loaisiga was sent down. Maybin and Joe Harvey were added to the roster in corresponding moves. Also, Luis Severino was transferred to the 60-day injured list to clear a 40-man roster spot for Maybin.

Thursday Notes: Franchise Values, Roki Sasaki, Mock Drafts, Broadcast Rights

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(Ezra Shaw/Getty)

The Yankees continue their nine-game, three-city West Coast trip with the series finale in Anaheim later tonight. Until then, here are some miscellaneous links and notes to check out.

Yankees again ranked MLB’s most valuable franchise

Once again, Forbes has ranked the Yankees as the most valuable franchise in baseball. The franchise is valued at $4.6 billion right now, up from $4 billion last year. The Dodgers are a distant second at $3.2 billion. The gap between No. 1 and No. 2 is the same as the gap between No. 2 and No. 8. Here’s part of the write-up:

The New York Yankees are the most valuable team ($4.6 billion) and had local revenue of $712 million last year, the most in MLB and more than the bottom six teams (Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays, Oakland Athletics, Kansas City Royals, Cincinnati Reds and Baltimore Orioles) had combined. The Dodgers ($3.3 billion), Boston Red Sox ($3.2 billion), Chicago Cubs ($3.1 billion) and San Francisco Giants ($3 billion) round out the list of teams worth at least $3 billion.

Forbes estimates the Yankees’ revenue at $668M and operating income at $28M last year. If you believe the Yankees (or pretty much any team, for that matter) only made $28M in profit last year, I have a few bridges for sale in Brooklyn. Forbes has been compiling their estimated franchise values more than 20 years now, and the Yankees have topped the list every single year. If they ever slip into second place, someone’s doing something wrong.

Yankees among team scouting Roki Sasaki

According to Yahoo! Japan (via NPB on Reddit), the Yankees are among the many MLB teams scouting hard-throwing Japanese high schooler Roki Sasaki. Sasaki’s fastball was recently clocked at 101 mph, according to Dylan Hernandez, which broke Shohei Ohtani’s national high school record. Here’s some not great video of the kid in action. Sasaki reportedly throws a slider, curveball, and splitter. No word on the quality of his secondaries or his command.

Japanese high school players can sign with MLB teams as international free agents after they graduate, though it never happens because Nippon Pro Baseball would freak out. They want the best Japanese players to play in Japan before coming to MLB. MLB goes along with it to help maintain a good working relationship between the two leagues. Will Sasaki change that? Who knows. Is he even good? Who knows! Teams are already scouting him though. They’re starting to build the information bank.

Baseball America’s mock draft v1.0 and v2.0

Draft season is heating up and Baseball America (subs. req’d) posted their first and second mock drafts in recent weeks. For whatever reason they’ve decided to have one mock draft page that gets updated, not separate pages for each mock draft version. That’s … weird. Also kinda inconvenient.

Anyway, both mock drafts have the Orioles taking Oregon State C Adley Rutschman with the top selection. He’s such a stud. Switch-hitting catcher with a .420/.584/.821 batting line who projects to be an above-average defender. Baseball America had the Yankees taking New Jersey HS RHP Jack Leiter in their first mock draft and Florida HS 3B Rece Hinds in their second mock draft.

Imagining Hinds playing in Yankee Stadium in a few years is fun, and New York’s gamble on a previous large, righthanded-hitting power hitter with swing-and-miss concerns paid off nicely—RE: Aaron Judge.

Leiter is indeed Al’s son and he’s arguably the best prep pitcher in the country. Not huge velocity, but great secondaries and excellent command. The question is signability. Leiter is strongly committed to Vanderbilt and he and his family presumably do not need the money. The Yankees have a big bonus pool and can offer a huge overslot bonus, but it may not matter. Leiter may be an impossible sign.

I have no real opinion on Hinds at this point. He does fit the Yankees’ profile as a very athletic and very toolsy high schooler with unteachable power though. It’s a little too early to start matching teams and targets, especially late in the first round. Instead, I recommend sifting through MLB.com’s top 50 draft prospects list. Southern California kids are always a good place to start with the Yankees.

MLB wants to gain control of local broadcast rights

According to Ron Blum, Major League Baseball has put in a bid to purchase regional sports networks from Disney in an effort to gain control of local broadcasting rights. The Yankees have right of first refusal and already have a deal in place to buy back controlling interest in the YES Network. MLB is trying to purchase the remaining networks. From Blum:

“There’s tremendous revenue disparity in our game, and I think that if we had more of a national model closer to where the NFL is it would solve a lot of those competitive issues for us, kind of level the playing field.” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Wednesday. “I think that all of the difficult issues for baseball, if you took that revenue disparity out of the picture, would be easier.”

Long story short, MLB wants to pool all the local television money together, then distribute it evenly among the 30 teams. That’s how the various national television contracts (FOX, ESPN, etc.) work and that is the long-term goal locally. Doesn’t seem all that close to happening, but MLB is working on it. The good news? Such a broadcast model would likely mean the end of local blackouts. That would be a huge plus for cord-cutters everyone.

Yankees’ bonus pools set for the 2019 draft and 2019-20 international signing period

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(MLB)

We’re well into April now and the weather is starting to heat up, which means we’re approaching draft season and the annual international signing period. I don’t anticipate much draft or international free agency coverage here given our looming shutdown (sorry), but here is this summer’s amateur bonus pool information, via Carlos Collazo and Ben Badler.

2019 Draft Pool: $7,455,300

Despite finishing with the third best record in baseball last year and thus picking near the end of the first round, the Yankees have the 20th largest draft bonus pool this summer after adding a pick in the Sonny Gray trade. Going from the 27th largest pool to the 20th largest pool with the trade ain’t too bad. Last year the Yankees had no extra picks and the sixth smallest pool at $6,115,100.

As always, the bonus pool money is spread across picks in the top ten rounds. Here is slot bonus value assigned to each of the Yankees’ picks this year:

30. $2,365,500 (first round)
38. $1,952,300 (Competitive Balance Round A — pick from Sonny Gray trade)
67. $976,700 (second round)
105. $554,300 (third round)
135. $414,000 (fourth round)
165. $309,500 (fifth round)
195. $241,000 (sixth round)
225. $190,100 (seventh round)
255. $160,800 (eighth round)
285. $148,900 (ninth round)
315. $142,000 (tenth round)

Teams can take money from one pick and spend it on another, and the Yankees (and pretty much every team) have done that aggressively the last few years. They take college seniors with no negotiating leverage in rounds 6-10, pay them small bonuses ($10,000 or so), and use the savings on other players. Fail to sign a player and you lose the slot money associated with the pick, however.

Penalties for exceeding the draft pool are pretty harsh. Exceed your pool by 5% or more and you have to give up next year’s first round pick, and the penalties only get worse from there. The Yankees have routinely exceeded their draft pool right up to that 5% threshold (last year they exceeded their pool by 4.8%) which incurs a 75% tax on the overage. Their “maximum” pool this year (bonus pool plus 4.9% overage) is $7,820,609.

The Diamondbacks have the largest pool this year at $16,093,700. That is more than $2M more than any other team. Arizona gained extra picks for losing Patrick Corbin and A.J. Pollock to free agency, and also for failing to sign last year’s first rounder. The Red Sox have the smallest draft pool at $4,788,100.

2019-20 International Bonus Pool: $5,398,300

Unlike the draft pool, international bonus polls are based on market size. Teams get dropped into one of three buckets (small market, medium market, large market) and each bucket carries its own bonus pool size. The Yankees are of course in the large market bucket, so they get the smallest bonus pool. The international pool is a hard cap, though bonuses no larger than $10,000 do not count against the bonus pool.

Teams can trade for additional bonus pool space — they used to be able to add an additional 75% of their bonus pool, though this year it drops to 60% — and the Yankees have aggressively traded for international bonus pool space the last few years. They traded for the maximum and I expect them to do the same this year. The additional 60% means the Yankees can max their bonus pool out at $8,637,280 this signing period.

The 2019-20 international signing period opens July 2nd and the Yankees have already been connected to two high-profile prospects: Dominican OF Jasson Dominguez and Dominican OF Jhon Diaz. Dominguez is said to be a significant prospect, so much so that the Yankees are expected to give him a $5M bonus. That would be the largest international bonus they’ve ever given out, and also the largest bonus of the hard cap era overall.

Small market teams have a $6,841,200 pool this year. The Phillies, Dodgers, and Nationals have smaller pools than the Yankees because they forfeited bonus money to sign qualified free agents over the winter. Also, the Braves are limited to $10,000 bonuses the next two signings periods as part of the penalties for past international signing period violations.

Update: Yankees acquire Cameron Maybin from Indians

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(Presswire)

2:59pm ET: The Yankees have announced the trade and it is as reported: Maybin for cash. Severino was indeed moved to the 60-day injured list to clear a 40-man roster spot. The Yankees added Maybin to their big league roster and he is on his way to join the team.

12:20pm ET: According to Jack Curry, the Yankees have acquired veteran outfielder Cameron Maybin from the Indians. Jon Heyman says it’s a cash trade, and George King notes the Yankees had interest in Maybin after Aaron Hicks got hurt in Spring Training. The Yankees haven’t announced the trade yet.

Maybin, 32, has a .216/.388/.275 (94 wRC+) batting line through 14 Triple-A games this year. He put up an 88 wRC+ as a fourth outfielder with various MLB teams in both 2017 and 2018, and that’s pretty much what we should expect going forward. Below-average bat, slightly above-average glove.

The Yankees have been decimated by injuries this season, especially in the outfield, so Maybin is a warm body to help get them through the next few weeks. Here is the current outfield depth chart:

  1. Aaron Judge (out with oblique injury)
  2. Giancarlo Stanton (out with biceps/shoulder injury)
  3. Aaron Hicks (out with back injury)
  4. Brett Gardner
  5. Clint Frazier (out with ankle injury)
  6. Mike Tauchman

Maybin gives the Yankees three actual outfielders — natural infielder Tyler Wade started in left field the last two days — so hooray for the bare minimum. The Yankees have some interleague games coming up in National League parks and there was no way they could go into those with two real outfielders.

Earlier today the Yankees put Frazier on the injured list and called up Joe Harvey, and also optioned Jonathan Loaisiga to Triple-A Scranton. Loaisiga is the move to get Maybin on the roster. I assume Luis Severino will be transferred to the 60-day injured list to clear a 40-man roster spot.

The Three Most Important Yankees Stories of the RAB Era

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Sabathia & Burnett. (Nick Laham/Getty)

As we prepare to close RAB’s internet doors next Monday, we’ve spent some time recently looking back at the last 12+ years of Yankees baseball. We looked at my favorite games, prospect rankings, and some random players as well. We’ve seen a lot of cool stuff these last dozen years.

Like all sports, there are short-term and long-term events in baseball. Someone has a great game or a hot streak and it’s a one or two or five-day story. There are also the grand overarching themes that take years to develop and play out. Those are the stories that define a franchise. Those are the stories we’re going to look at today.

I think we can split the 12 years of the RAB era into three distinct periods, each of them important in their own way, and each of them featuring countless smaller stories. Here, in my humble opinion, are the three most important big picture stories in recent Yankees history.

The 2008-09 Offseason

To fully understand the 2008-09 offseason, you have to go back to the 2007-08 offseason. The 2007 Yankees won 94 games and went to the postseason, though they were woefully short on pitching, and Joe Torre was shown the door following the season. The Yankees brought in Joe Girardi to manage and had a chance to add a significant piece to the rotation: Johan Santana.

Santana, then 29, was an impending free agent coming off four straight Cy Young caliber seasons. The Twins were not going to be able to keep him and his availability was no secret. The Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets were among the most serious suitors. The Yankees reportedly offered Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera, and Jeff Marquez for Santana, and stood their ground. They set a deadline for trade talks and wouldn’t raise their offer, so Johan wound up in Flushing.

“The deadline is the deadline. I extended it a few hours more, and that was it. So it’s done,” Hank (not Hal) Steinbrenner told Tyler Kepner after Santana was traded to the Mets. “I’m very pleased. We got Andy Pettitte back, and everything I wanted to accomplish at the beginning of the off-season has happened. We got Pettitte, (Alex) Rodriguez, (Jorge) Posada, and (Mariano) Rivera back. We’ve got our young pitchers. I’m very glad we didn’t have to lose Hughes and Cabrera. Everything is copacetic.”

Santana was brilliant in 2008 while the Yankees struggled, partly do to injuries but mostly because they didn’t have enough pitching and simply weren’t that good. The Yankees missed the postseason in 2008 for the first time since 1993. After the season, the Yankees enacted the plan that led to them passing on Santana a year prior. They wanted to keep their young players and sign CC Sabathia, who was then only 27. (Easy to forgot how young Sabathia was when the Yankees signed him, isn’t it?)

It was a high-risk plan, to be sure. There were no guarantees Sabathia would sign with the Yankees — there was lots of chatter about Sabathia wanting to play close to home in California and staying in the National League because he wanted to hit — or even become a free agent, plus the Brewers ran him into the ground late in 2008. We had a little “freak out about Sabathia’s workload” period here at RAB.

Ultimately, the Yankees wooed Sabathia with what was then the largest pitching contract in baseball history, a seven-year deal worth $161M. The contract included an opt-out clause following the third season that would allow Sabathia to escape should he not enjoy New York. Brian Cashman later admitted they signed Sabathia not only because he was a great pitcher, but because they felt they needed his presence in the clubhouse.

Sabathia was the key to the 2008-09 offseason plan. He was not the only part of the plan, however. The Yankees also signed A.J. Burnett to a five-year contract and straight up stole Nick Swisher from the White Sox, giving them added rotation depth and a middle of the order bat, respectively. Then, on December 23rd, the Yankees swooped in to sign Mark Teixeira, who appeared set to join the Red Sox.

“Without a doubt, this was a deviation from our plan. We felt he was a rare, exceptional opportunity,” Cashman told the Associated Press after the Teixeira deal. The Yankees added to the rotation in a big way with Sabathia and Burnett, and Swisher was penciled in as the starting first baseman with Xavier Nady in right. Cashman convinced ownership to splurge on Teixeira, and once the Steinbrenners signed off, a deal came together quickly.

The Yankees got to have their cake and eat it too during the 2008-09 offseason. The Santana/Sabathia plan worked, they added Burnett and Swisher, and then capped it all off with Teixeira. The Yankees did all that while retaining their top young players as well. Hughes was the team’s ace setup man in 2009, Melky was their regular center fielder, and Marquez was used to acquire Swisher.

The 2008-09 offseason paved the way for the 2009 World Series championship. Teixeira was the MVP runner-up en route to 103 regular season wins, Sabathia was an ace from April through November, Burnett was an above-average innings guy, and Swisher was maybe the best “eighth best player on the team” in baseball history. Those moves contributed greatly to the 2009 World Series as well as ALCS trips in 2010 and 2012.

It’s been ten years now and it can be easy to forget just how much doubt was involved with that 2008-09 offseason. Was passing on Santana the right move? Would Sabathia sign with the Yankees? Would Burnett stay healthy? Would Swisher rebound from a rough 2008? Would the Yankees splurge for Teixeira? Were the young players worth keeping? Across the board, the answers were a resounding yes. It was a franchise-altering offseason.

The 2016 Trade Deadline

Gleyber & Clint. (Presswire)

You have to give the Yankees credit. Even as baseball’s post-competitive era began to take shape in recent years, they refused to throw in the towel and tank. Even when things fell apart in 2013, the Yankees tried like crazy to stay in the race, hence the Alfonso Soriano trade. They added Chase Headley, Martin Prado, and Brandon McCarthy weeks before the July 31st trade deadline in 2014 because they couldn’t wait any longer for help.

The 2015 Yankees faded badly in the second half — they were six games up on trade deadline day and finished the season six games back — and their sluggish play carried over into the first half of 2016. On the morning of July 31st, the Yankees were a fourth place team at 52-51 with a -31 run differential. They weren’t truly awful, but they weren’t good, and they were old. Roster turnover was required.

It had been nearly three decades since the Yankees last sold at the trade deadline. You had to go back to 1989, when they traded Rickey Henderson, John Candelaria, and Ken Phelps within the span of a few weeks. The 2016 Yankees had several valuable trade chips on expiring contracts and Cashman later admitted he wanted to sell at the deadline all along. It was a matter of convincing ownership to sign off.

“I think it influenced the people above me more. The inconsistency of our club reared its ugly head. A true playoff contender wouldn’t have done that,” Cashman told Andrew Marchand and Brendan Kuty after the Yankees were swept by a crummy Rays team in late July. “… We’ve been contending for a long time, and we’re damn proud of that. That’s a hell of a run. That run of contention and being legitimately considered a team that could win a championship on a year in, year out basis has gone on for a long time. There’s, from my perspective, no shame in anything we’ve tried to address (at the deadline).”

The Yankees had two valuable rentals in Aroldis Chapman and Carlos Beltran, and a slightly less valuable (but still useful) rental in post-Tommy John surgery Ivan Nova. They also had a trump card: Andrew Miller. Miller was signed another two seasons beyond 2016. He was great, he was affordable, he was a long-term add, and the Yankees did not have to trade him.”We wanted a firstborn for Chapman. We needed two twin firstborns for Miller,” Cashman told Marchand.

The Yankees controlled the bullpen market at the 2016 deadline. Cashman had all the leverage. The trade deadline moves:

  • July 26th: Traded Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs for Gleyber Torres, Adam Warren, Billy McKinney, and Rashad Crawford.
  • July 31st: Traded Andrew Miller to the Indians for Clint Frazier, Justus Sheffield, Ben Heller, and J.P. Feyereisen.
  • August 1st: Traded Carlos Beltran to the Rangers for Dillon Tate, Erik Swanson, and Nick Green.
  • August 1st: Traded Ivan Nova to the Pirates for two players to be named later (Tito Polo and Stephen Tarpley).

(The trade deadline was August 1st that year because July 31st landed on a Sunday.)

Two things about the 2016 deadline activity. One, it took about a year for baseball and the bullpen market in general to reveal just how well the Yankees did in the Chapman and Miller trades. Those deals were a perfect storm. The Yankees had two elite relievers to peddle and there were two contenders desperately trying to end very long World Series droughts and willing to pay big to get the bullpen help they needed.

The Yankees turned two relievers — excellent relievers, but still relievers, one of whom was due to become a free agent after the season — into eight players, including three top 100 prospects and an above-average big league reliever. Chapman’s Cubs and Miller’s Indians met in the World Series that year and the series went to extra innings in Game Seven. It was a bonkers series. Cashman leveraged his trade chips and Chicago’s and Cleveland’s desperation expertly.

And two, the full impact of the 2016 deadline is just now being realized, three years out. Torres, despite his recent slump, is an absolute stud and already one of the best middle infielders in the game. Frazier is starting to establish himself at the big league level after some injury injuries. Sheffield and Swanson became James Paxton. Tate was part of the Zack Britton trade. McKinney was part of the J.A. Happ trade. Polo was part of the big Todd Frazier/Tommy Kahnle/David Robertson trade. Crawford, Heller, Feyereisen, Green, and Tarpley remain in the organization.

For all intents and purposes, the Yankees turned Miller and three rentals into two long-term lineup keepers (Torres and Frazier) and two years of a high-end starting pitcher (Paxton), plus miscellaneous pieces. Also, while it was not a trade, releasing A-Rod was part of the general “dump veterans and go young” movement in 2016. The trades and A-Rod being released opened playing time for Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge, Tyler Austin, and Chad Green down the stretch. That’s not nothing.

“We’re winning because of the moves we made,” Cashman told Tyler Kepner in September 2016. “Gary Sanchez wouldn’t have gotten up here if we don’t make the moves that we made. Gary went off and did his stuff. He’s had the biggest impact of them all, but there was no way to get Gary up unless we made trades.”

Keep in mind the Yankees made moves designed to improve the team immediately at the 2016 trade deadline as well. This goes back to the whole “never tearing it down” thing. Warren was part of the Chapman trade and the Yankees added Tyler Clippard in a trade with the Diamondbacks. They wanted to remain competitive. Sure enough, the Yankees had a 52-51 record (-31 run differential) before the trade deadline and a 32-27 record (+9 run differential) thereafter.

From 2013 through the 2016 trade deadline, the Yankees were largely trying to hang around and figure out ways to remain in contention even though it was pretty obvious the roster needed to be turned over. They were surviving rather than thriving. The 2016 deadline marked the changing of times. That’s when the Yankees and ownership admitted change was needed and change was enacted. It was a watershed moment. A long overdue change in the franchise’s direction.

The Youth Movement

Judge & Sanchez. (Presswire)

Obviously, the 2016 trade deadline contributed to the youth movement that helped the Yankees get to Game Seven of the 2017 ALCS and makes up the bulk of their current roster (when healthy, anyway). The youth movement started a long time ago though. Long before the 2016 trade deadline. As much as those trades helped, guys like Sanchez and Judge and Luis Severino were already in the organization at the time.

Late in 2013 and throughout 2014, Hal Steinbrenner called for what was essentially an audit of the player development system. What’s working? What can be improved? How do we get ahead of the game? Things like that. A massive farm system overhaul followed. Most notably, longtime farm system head Mark Newman was ushered into retirement, with top Cashman lieutenant Gary Denbo taking the reins. Other player development changes included:

  • Many new coaches and coordinators hired. There was a lot of turnover in 2015.
  • Renovated the minor league complex in Tampa. It is now state of the art.
  • Created a dedicated data analysis group for the minor league side.
  • Added two additional rookie ball affiliates (Pulaski and a second Gulf Coast League team).

“Yes, we took a good hard look at player development and scouting, and we made changes and added key personnel,” Hal Steinbrenner told Joel Sherman in January 2014. “There will be more changes to come. We think the draft from a year and a half ago and six months ago were both good. But we have to continue to stay on it because we haven’t had players come through that we felt could contribute.”

With the exception of the Cito Culver and Dante Bichette draft picks, which came during the team’s thankfully short-lived “makeup > talent” era, the Yankees were very good at talent acquisition during the RAB era. They brought in high-upside players with athleticism, both through the draft and internationally, but they struggled to help those players turn their natural talent into baseball skills. It was a development problem, not a talent acquisition problem.

It is impossible to know exactly how much of the team’s recently player development success can be attributed to the farm system overhaul from 2013-14. Perhaps players like Sanchez and Severino and Judge are just so talented that they were going to make it no matter how much the Yankees tried to screw up their development. It’s possible. Is it likely? No, I don’t think so, but sure, it’s possible.

I know this much: The Yankees struggled to develop even complementary players for a long time in the 2000s and early 2010s. How desperate where the Yankees for a Domingo German from, say, 2004 to 2014? Very. They were very desperate for a guy like German. Now German probably doesn’t even crack the top five when looking at the most impressive young players on the Yankees’ roster (when healthy).

The Yankees aren’t just getting youngsters to the big leagues either. They’re producing impact players who, well, have an impact right away. Severino in 2015, Sanchez in 2016, Judge in 2017, Torres and Miguel Andujar in 2018. They’ve hit the ground running in the big leagues. Also, the Yankees have developed lots of prospects into trade chips too, especially late rounders like Josh Rogers (11th), Dustin Fowler (18th), and Phil Diehl (27th).

The 2016 trade deadline would not have had the impact it has without the Yankees figuring things out on the player development side. They’re not perfect, no one is when it comes to developing prospects, but they are so much better at it right now than they were the first seven or eight years of the RAB era. It’s not even close. For much of my life, the Core Four Five was the Yankees, and understandably so. That era is over and a new one with a new homegrown core has begun. It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened, and that’s the most important thing.

* * *

On a more micro scale, other notable stories during the RAB era include CC Sabathia’s late career reinvention, Curtis Granderson becoming a 40-homer guy almost literally overnight following a mid-season swing change, Robinson Cano developing into one of the game’s truly elite players, the various milestones (Jeter’s 3,000th hit, A-Rod climbing the home run leaderboard, etc.), and the various farewells (Jeter, Rivera, etc.)

My least favorite stories to cover over years? The Biogenesis scandal and fallout, and the various luxury tax plans. Easy, easy calls for me. I am so over the performance-enhancing drug faux-outrage. What a giant waste of time. The luxury tax talk? Completely sick of it. Sick of writing about the Yankees adhering to the luxury tax threshold and sick of what it’s doing to baseball overall, or at least what it’s become an excuse for owners to do. I will not miss PEDs or luxury tax at all once RAB shuts down. Everything else? That was all pretty cool.

Thoughts while the Yankees are out on the West Coast

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Miss this guy. (Sean M. Haffey/Getty)

The Yankees are three games into their nine-game West Coast trip and there are only five more days to go in the RAB era, including today. Barring a surprise development (with the Yankees, not RAB), this is probably the last thoughts post. It was a good run. Let’s get to it.

1. I don’t have much to say about Chad Green being demoted to Triple-A. His performance had become untenable and something had to be done. I don’t think it was odd Aaron Boone said the Yankees weren’t planning to send Green down following Tuesday’s game either. That was minutes after the game and he has to back his player. The actual conversations about sending Green down happened later. I thought Green would land on the injured list because how could a healthy Chad Green possibly be this bad? Instead, he’ll go to Triple-A Scranton and try to figure out what’s wrong. The Yankees can get him lots of work down there — there’s no need to wait for a low-leverage spot to pop up every few days, he can pitch and pitch and pitch with the RailRiders — and that’s what Green needs more than anything right now. To pitch. To pitch and not be worried about being sent down because, well, he’s already been sent down. Green’s fastball velocity is down a tick but his spin rate is fine, so the underlying numbers look okay. Clearly though, he’s not okay. This is one of those situations where the minor league numbers might not tell us much, because Chad Green with his C+ fastball instead of his A+ fastball can still dominate Triple-A hitters. Hopefully this is a quick fix and Green returns soon. The Yankees are at their best with a productive Green in their bullpen, not with Stephen Tarpley or Joe Harvey to Domingo Acevedo or whichever minor league reliever happens to have shiny stats at the time. (Using Clint Frazier’s injured list stint to recall Joe Harvey before his ten days in the minors were up rather than Green tells you the Yankees don’t believe this is something he can fix at the MLB level.)

2. A few years back, when David Price was on the trade block, I wrote that he was the platonic ideal of a Yankees pitcher. Lefty, durable, succeeded with a high velocity fastball he could command to both sides of the plate. If you could build a pitcher in a lab, the Yankees would’ve built 2010-15 David Price. In 2019, I’m pretty sure the Yankees would build James Paxton in that lab. They are a velocity and spin rate organization and Paxton offers both. He’s left-handed, he racks up strikeouts, and his secondaries are good enough to get outs and make hitters respect the fastball. Paxton doesn’t have peak Price’s command or durability, so 2019 Paxton is more like a poor man’s 2010-15 Price, but 2019 Paxton is really good. So it took him three starts to settle in this year. Big deal. He’s been lights out his last two starts. That’s a guy the Yankees can send out there in Game One of a postseason series and expect dominance. Paxton checks all the boxes analytically and the results on the field have been very good overall, especially lately. The question is health. As long as Paxton stays healthy, he’s going to be very good, and he’s healthy right now. He has been as advertised one month into his Yankees career.

3. I was planning to write something on Aaron Judge’s relative power outage before he had a homer and a double over the weekend, then landed on the injured list. Judge is hitting .288/.404/.521 (145 wRC+) on the year, so he was awesome before getting hurt, though it never did feel like he was truly locked in at the plate. Am I wrong? That’s what it felt like to me. To me, it seemed like Judge was really focusing in going the other way to right field, possibly because he is one of the few right-handed hitters who sees the infield shift regular. The numbers back up that opposite field approach:

Judge was still smashing the ball, but yes, his pull rate was down and his opposite field rate was up. Quite a bit too. Was this a conscious thing or just small sample size noise? We won’t know the answer to that for a while now that he’s injured. As good as he’s been, Judge has been unlucky to some degree this year. His .394 wOBA is quite a bit below his .442 xwOBA, and he lost base hits to great plays like this 111.2 mph rocket and this 110.4 mph scorcher. I reckon Judge wasn’t far away from a monster hot streak prior to the injury. Anyway, it did seem to me that Judge was focusing on the opposite a bit early this season, and the numbers do back it up. Was it a small sample fluke? Maybe. If it was a conscious decision, I don’t like it. Like the big man eat. Aaron Judge shouldn’t focus on serving the ball to the opposite field. Focus on maximum damage, and he does the most damage when he pulls the ball.

4. The more I watch him, the more I think the Yankees should leave Gleyber Torres at shortstop long-term. He looks so much more comfortable and natural at short than he does at second, and that makes sense, because he didn’t start playing second base full-time until last year. Torres has played only 136 career games at second base between the minors and the big leagues. Not even a full season. Of course he doesn’t look as comfortable there as he does at shortstop. Everything at shortstop looks easy. Actions are clean, arm is accurate, and his clock is great. Never rushed or too lackadaisical. In a vacuum, keeping Torres at shortstop long-term is an easy call. This isn’t a vacuum though. Didi Gregorius exists, and the best possible Yankees roster moving forward has Torres and Gregorius on the middle infield, not Torres and DJ LeMahieu or Tyler Wade or Thairo Estrada. It is really hard to acquire above-average two-way middle infielders and a Gleyber-Didi double play combo gives the Yankees two players like that. Do the Yankees re-sign Gregorius and move Torres back to second? I think that is the most likely outcome right now. What about re-signing Gregorius and moving him to second base though? Sir Didi turns 30 in February and eventually he’ll lose a step in the field, and there’s always a chance his arm won’t come all the way back following Tommy John surgery. It is not far-fetched to think the best defensive alignment going forward is Gleyber at short and Gregorius at second. Would the Yankees actually do it? I don’t think so, not unless Gregorius struggles in the field after elbow reconstruction. Torres definitely seems more comfortable at short than he does at second though. It is his natural position and it shows.

5. Both teams were hit hard by injuries, but there are two key differences between the 2013 Yankees and the 2019 Yankees. One, the 2019 Yankees started with a much higher talent baseline, and two, the quality of the replacements. The 2013 Yankees did not have a Clint Frazier to call up. Tyler Wade may never hit, but he can play the hell out of the middle infield, far better than dudes like Luis Cruz and Brent Lillibridge and Chris Nelson. The 2013 Yankees didn’t even have a Gio Urshela type, that 20-something (Urshela is 27) who isn’t too far removed from prospect status and could be counted on for above-average production on one side of the ball (defense) while offering a little upside on the other (offense). We could even drop Mike Tauchman in that bucket as well. It is so much easier to buy into Domingo German as a viable big league starter than it was David Phelps or Vidal Nuno. Also, the 2019 Yankees are way better at player development than the 2013 Yankees. It’s not just that they have more young talent than the 2013 Yankees — the 2013 team relied on waiver claims and veteran castoffs — it’s that they know what to do with it too. The injury situation is comical. It really is. Thirteen guys on the injury list, including six starting position players as well as the staff ace, yet the Yankees have won six straight and eight of nine. Sure, the Yankees have more resources than any other team, but Urshela and Tauchman and guys like that were not “the Yankees outspent everyone to get them” pickups. It is crazy impressive the Yankees are still racking up wins with their roster this depleted. These last few weeks could’ve sunk their season. Instead, the replacements are keeping them afloat.

What’s my name? Mike Fooooord. (Sean M. Haffey/Getty)

6. This sorta ties into that last point, but, for as long as I can remember, the Yankees have had the ability to overcome adversity and survive crisis. There has always been this “they’ll figure out a way” trait to the Yankees. I’ve joked about the Fighting Spirit for years now but tell me it’s not true. Even their lean years haven’t been all that lean recently. The absolute worst Yankees team we’ve seen in the last quarter-century still won 84 games. That’s been the worst case scenario, 84 wins, and that ain’t so bad. The payroll excuse? The money helps, no doubt, but the Red Sox have finished in last place multiple times with sky high payrolls in recent years. The Phillies bottomed out. The Giants are doing it right now with a high payroll. Money helps but it doesn’t guarantee success. Besides, how many high-priced players are on the active roster right now? Masahiro Tanaka, Aroldis Chapman, and J.A. Happ are the only active roster players making more than $13M. Zack Britton and DJ LeMahieu are the only other active Yankees making more than $9M. My quick math puts the current active roster payroll at $125.8M. (According to Ron Blum, the average Opening Day roster payroll was $135.7M this year.) Figure out a way to stay competitive during tough times once or twice, and it may only be luck or that proverbial one good year. Do it consistently across 25 years, no matter whether we’re talking about a rash of injuries like this year or losing Derek Jeter for six weeks on Opening Day 2003 or Aaron Judge for seven weeks last year, and it makes me think there’s something in the water, so to speak. The Yankees have always found a way to keep themselves from completely collapsing. There is an organizational sticktoitiveness that helps them get through bad situations, no matter the personnel on the field. I can’t define it or quantify it, but it exists, and we’re seeing it again this year.

7. Despite all the injuries and all the call-ups and replacement players, the Yankees have received tremendous production from the bottom of the lineup this season. Their 7-8-9 hitters have arguably been the best in baseball. The 7-8-9 numbers going into yesterday’s late night West Coast game:

  • AVG: .292 (first — Twins are second at .283)
  • OBP: .357 (first — Twins are second at .351)
  • SLG: .496 (third — Mariners are at .505 and Twins are at .498)
  • wRC+: 125 (second — Mariners are at 129)

Gio Urshela has been way better than anyone could’ve reasonably expected him to be thus far, Mike Tauchman’s had his moments, and Austin Romine has had his moments too. When all these injuries struck and guys like Gleyber Torres and Clint Frazier had to move into the middle of the lineup, it was reasonable to expect the production at the bottom of the order to sag. Instead, those dudes have been crushing the ball. Timely hits, the occasional #SurpriseDinger, and quality at-bats. I don’t know how much longer the Yankees can count on Urshela, Tauchman et al performing like this, but they’re doing it now, and they’ve helped the Yankees avoid sinking in the standings. Eventually the injured guys will come back and bolster the lineup. We shouldn’t forget what the fill-ins are doing now. They’re coming up big. Real big.

8. I’m not too surprised the Yankees let Gio Gonzalez walk. It always seemed like they signed him more as an emergency option than a clear-cut “we’re going to put this guy in our rotation once he’s ready to go” player. Gonzalez was sitting out there in free agency and he was willing to take a minor league contract, so why not sign him? It was a no risk move, and if more injuries struck the rotation, the Yankees had a capable veteran fill-in already in the organization. No one else got hurt and Domingo German has thrown the ball well, so Gonzalez wasn’t needed. Here’s what Brian Cashman said about the Gio situation during a recent radio interview (transcript via George King):

“He has no interest in being a reliever, and so now we’re staring at this opt-out, where he’s pitched well his last two outings, and I don’t have a starting spot for him. So it’s that or throw him in the bullpen and say hang with him. For an athlete that’s historically, outside of I think twice last year in the postseason run pitching out of the pen for Milwaukee, the dialogue I’ve had directly with him, as well as our own assessments, is it worth it to throw $3M into the bullpen and hope it works out? The contract was kind of prohibitive in that it had so many incentives geared up towards starting, so it wouldn’t have been a tradeable thing for any of these teams that are gonna sign him now as a starter. They’ll repackage or make a new deal, whatever that’s gonna be, but we had to ultimately honor the fact that he was a starter insurance arm for us, and when that insurance policy was expiring, we couldn’t cash in on it because I didn’t have a starting spot for him.”

The Yankees could have added Gonzalez to the roster and said too bad, you signed a contract and we’re going to use you as a reliever whether you like it or not, but that’s not how the real world works. It sounds like it was made clear to the Yankees that Gonzalez only wanted to start, and they entered into the contract with that understanding. When the opt-out arrived, they could’ve reneged on that understanding and put him in the bullpen, though that would’ve damaged their relationship with his representatives (Scott Boras). I have been doing this long enough to know there will be a time later this season when the Yankees need a starting pitcher, and a time when Gonzalez has a nice two or three start stretch (he signed with the Brewers yesterday), and the “should’ve kept Gio!” crowd will come out of the woodwork. They say you can’t predict baseball, but trust me, this is as predictable as it gets. The thing is, the Yankees could not keep Gonzalez around until they need a starter later in the season, whenever that is. The opt-out was this past weekend. That’s when the decision had to be made. With every starter except Severino healthy and German pitching well — there is definitely something to be said for retaining as much pitching depth as possible, but bumping 26-year-old German from the rotation when he’s pitching like this to make room for 33-year-old Gonzalez makes zero sense — plus Jonathan Loaisiga available as the sixth starter (don’t sleep on David Hale as a depth option either, I’ve heard through the grapevine he’s taken well to adjustments suggested by the analytics group and has upped his velocity and spin rates this year), the Yankees did not need another starter, so they let Gonzalez go per the terms of their agreement. There’s not much more to it than that.

9. CC Sabathia is one of my all-time favorite players — seriously, how can anyone not love that guy? — and watching his resurgence these last few years has been a joy. He looked done from 2013-15. Like done done. Then he reinvented himself as a cutter pitcher and went into last night’s start with a 3.68 ERA (119 ERA+) in 491.1 innings since Opening Day 2016. Roughly 20% better than league average from ages 35-38. That is bonkers. During Sabathia’s start last weekend, Lindsey Adler wondered aloud how many veteran pitchers will get a chance to reinvent themselves in a similar manner, and the answer is not many. The free agent market is brutal right now, especially for 30-somethings who have shown signs of decline. 2013-15 Sabathia doesn’t get a chance to reinvent himself in 2019. That said, 2013-15 Sabathia probably only received a chance to reinvent himself in 2013-15 because he was already under contract. It’s not like the Yankees re-signed him and gave him a chance. They didn’t have much choice. The point stands though. Veterans no longer get that last chance to adjust like Sabathia did. That’s why guys like James Shields and Yovani Gallardo remain unsigned. No team will give them a chance to figure it out. I’m curious to see what happens with Felix Hernandez. He’s an impending free agent and is clearly no longer the pitcher he was in his prime. He turned only 33 earlier this week though, so he’s not completely over the hill, plus he possesses an elite combination of natural talent and pitchability. Do the Mariners (or another team) give Felix a chance to reinvent himself and carve out a second phase of his career in his mid-to-late-30s, or is this it? That’d be a bummer. Credit Sabathia for reinventing himself the way he did. Not many guys will get the same opportunity.

Clint Frazier headed to injured list with left ankle strain

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(Presswire)

The Yankees just welcomed one player back from the injured list (Gary Sanchez), so now it’s time to lose someone else. Clint Frazier is heading to the 10-day injured list with a left ankle strain, Aaron Boone announced following tonight’s win. The Yankees believe it is a two-week injury. We’ll see.

“Fraz very much feels like he can play or is close to playing, but the MRI revealed enough in there — I don’t have the exact what it is — but revealed enough of some partial tear and it’s gonna cost him the ten days,” Boone told Lindsey Adler.

Frazier suffered the injury Monday night when he slid back into second base awkwardly. His spike got caught and he rolled over on his ankle. Frazier finished the game, but he was held out of the lineup the last two days because of soreness and swelling. He went for an MRI today. Here’s the play:

The Yankees have been kicking butt the last week or so and Frazier was a big part of that. He’s hitting .324/.342/.632 (150 wRC+) and looking awfully dangerous at the plate. Now this dumb, fluky injury will keep him out at least ten days. The poor kid can’t catch a break.

Boone said the Yankees will use Frazier’s injured list stint to recall Joe Harvey before his ten days in the minors are up. I have to believe another move is coming. The Yankees have five interleague games in National League parks coming up and I can’t see them going into those games without two actual outfielders on the roster.

The easy move would be sending down Jonathan Loaisiga and calling up … Billy Burns? Matt Lipka? Brad Miller? I have no idea. Maybe a minor trade is coming. Third catcher Kyle Higashioka is the only healthy 40-man roster position player not in the big leagues roster now. (The Yankees can put Luis Severino on the 60-day injured list to clear a 40-man spot at this point.)

Frazier is the 15th different Yankee to spend time on the injured list this season. They can’t catch a break. Sanchez returns, Frazier gets hurt. Giancarlo Stanton needed a cortisone shot in his shoulder this week and no one else is particularly close to returning. No mas.