Last offseason the Yankees focused on trades more than free agency, and to me, the most surprising trade was the one that sent Manny Banuelos to the Braves for David Carpenter and Chasen Shreve on New Year’s Day. Trading Banuelos seemed unlikely only because his stock was at an all-time low, and the Yankees figured to hang on to him another year to see what happened as he got further away from Tommy John surgery.
Instead, the Yankees cut bait, and acquired an established big league reliever and a little known left-hander — I am a total baseball nerd and even I had never heard of Shreve — to bolster their bullpen. Shreve, who gained extra exposure as an amateur at the College of Southern Nevada because scouts flocked to see one of his teammates (some kid named Bryce Harper), appeared to be a throw-in. He turned out to be much more.
When Spring Stats Don’t Matter
Shreve, 24 at the time, was pretty much an unknown heading into Spring Training. He did reinvent himself last summer by simply throwing harder — Shreve decided to air it out instead holding back for the sake of location. The result was across the board improvement. The Yankees were convinced the new version of Shreve was here to stay, hence the trade.
The Grapefruit League was not too kind to Shreve. The Yankees used him more like an established reliever than a guy trying to make the team — Shreve was often the first guy out of the bullpen so he could get his work in and head home, that sort of stuff — and he allowed eight runs in 11.1 innings. He was especially bad at the end of camp, when back-to-back-to-back ugly outings in late-March seemed to cost Shreve his Opening Day roster spot.
The Yankees never did see it that way, apparently. Shreve survived every round of cuts and was indeed included on the Opening Day roster, as the third lefty reliever behind Andrew Miller and Justin Wilson. His specific role — lefty specialist? full inning guy? long man? — had yet to be determined, but it always takes time to sort that stuff out anyway.
The main takeaway from spring was that the Yankees thought very highly of Shreve. They didn’t treat him like a kid with only 12.1 big league innings to his credit.
The Last Man out of the Bullpen
Understandably, Joe Girardi used Shreve like a rookie early in the season, wanting him to prove himself before trusting him in important innings. He made his season debut on Opening Day and faced five batters. They went: fly out to center, fly out to center, fly out to left, home run to left, fly out to center. Five fly balls, one of which left the yard. Inauspicious? Perhaps. But it was five batters, so who knows.
Shreve’s next appearance came four days later in that 19-inning marathon loss to the Red Sox. He held the high-powered Red Sox offense — or at least what everyone expected to be a high-powered Red Sox offense — scoreless over 3.1 innings. Shreve struck out four, didn’t walk anyone, and allowed three singles. He was marvelous.
The Yankees brought Shreve back ten days later, as soon as they could, and Girardi continued to use him as the last guy out of the bullpen despite that performance against the Red Sox. Six of his first ten appearances came with the score separated by at least five runs. Two of the other four appearances came deep in extra innings, when no one else was available.
Shreve pitched to a 2.61 ERA (3.18 FIP) with a 25.5% strikeout rate and a 13.2% walk rate in 20.2 innings through the end of May. He was pitching quite well in low-leverage work, and when Miller landed on the DL in early-July, Shreve’s role expanded considerably.
Emergence as a Setup Man
Girardi loves his bullpen roles, and when Miller went down, his eighth inning guy (Dellin Betances) became his closer and his seventh inning guy (Wilson) became his eighth inning guy. That left a void in the seventh inning, and with Carpenter proving unreliable, Shreve got an opportunity to pitch high-leverage innings.
While Miller was on the DL Shreve allowed just two runs in 9.1 innings across ten appearances. He struck out eleven and eight of those ten appearances were scoreless. His best outing came on July 1st in Anaheim, when he inherited a bases loaded situation with one out, escaped without allowing a run, then tossed another scoreless inning as well. As far as seventh inning guys go, Shreve was good as it gets during his month long audition.
Shreve had pitched his way into high-leverage work, which meant when Miller returned in early-July, the bullpen was that much deeper. Girardi has his seventh, eighth, and ninth inning guys, plus another option in Shreve who showed he could pitch in all sorts of situations. Throw in Adam Warren, who had just lost his rotation spot, and the bullpen was mighty deep for a little while there.
Through the end of August, Shreve posted a 1.89 ERA (3.86 FIP) in 52.1 innings across 49 appearances. He struck out 28.1% of batters faced while walking 11.9%. That is pretty damn awesome. Shreve wasn’t Betances or Miller, but he was an excellent setup option. He went from unknown to an integral part of the bullpen in pretty short order. The Yankees like whatever they saw out of Shreve last year and their faith was being rewarded.
Limp to the Finish
The last month of the season was a total mess for Shreve. Actually, it dated back to the start of August, when Shreve’s walk rate spiked big time.
Shreve walked ten batters in 11.2 innings in August — 18.2% of batters faced, which … eek — though he managed to pitch around the danger. He allowed just three runs in those 11.2 innings. The walks were bad but he was getting out of danger, mostly because he was still striking out a ton of batters. Shreve fanned 16 batters in those 11.2 innings.
That was not the story in September. Shreve continued to walk batters in the season’s final month (eight in six innings, and 19.5% of batters faced) and now the home run ball was starting to catch up to him. After allowing six home runs in his first 52.1 innings of the season, Shreve allowed four homers in those six innings in the final month.
All those walks and homers plus a little bad BABIP luck — Shreve had a .522 BABIP (!) in September, leading to 16 hits in those six innings — resulted in nine runs allowed in six innings. Furthermore, Shreve allowed eight of ten (!) inherited runners to score. In his worst outing of the season, Shreve inherited a bases loaded situation and walked in three (three!) runs against the Blue Jays on September 12th.
Even with the disastrous finish, Shreve finished the season with a solid 3.09 ERA (4.92 FIP) in 59 appearances and 58.1 innings. His strikeout rate was very good (25.5%), though he did walk too many (13.2%), especially late in the season. Shreve did generate an average amount of grounders (46.0%) but was crazy homer prone (1.56 HR/9). No bueno.
Split Means Reverse Split
It’s fairly easy for left-handed relievers to get shoehorned into a left-on-left matchup role, especially early in their careers, though Shreve showed he could retire right-handed batters thanks to his nasty split finger fastball. He held righties to .207/.321/.418 (.320 wOBA) line with most of the damage coming late in the season. Shreve was not as effective against lefties (.256/.355/.383, .329 wOBA) but again, most of the damage came late in the year.
None of the scouting reports indicated the splitter was a key pitch for Shreve prior to the season. He was billed as a low-90s fastball guy — that’s after deciding to air it out last year — with an okay slider. Shreve’s splitter averaged 83.2 mph this summer — that’s a 9 mph separation from his 92.2 mph average heater — and both the pitch’s swing-and-miss (19.5%) and grounder (66.7%) rates were above the league average for splitters (14.9% and 47.8%, respectively).
The splitter was nasty but hitters did start to pick up on it later in the season, either because the league adjusted to him or because Shreve simply stopped throwing good splitters. After peaking in May, the swing-and-miss rate on the splitter declined every month of the season:
Shreve’s splitter was a dynamite pitch for the first four months of the season and above average over the course of the full season, but it abandoned him down the stretch and his performance suffered big time. He was fantastic for much of the season before crashing at the end. Story of the 2015 Yankees.
Looking Ahead to 2016
During his end-of-season press conference, Girardi said figuring out what happened to Shreve down the stretch was a priority heading into the offseason. He nearly pitched himself off the postseason roster — Shreve was on the wildcard card game roster, mostly because the Yankees lacked alternatives — and I don’t think he’s assured a spot on the 2016 Opening Day roster right now. Shreve will certainly get a long look in Spring Training and be in the bullpen mix, but, after the late season slide, he’ll have to show he’s back to being reliable before getting a roster spot.