David Robertson Archives - Page 3 of 30

Bullpenning the Wild Card Game

August 26, 2018 by Matt Imbrogno Leave a Comment

In the 2017 AL Wild Card game between the Yankees and the Twins, lightning struck three times. First, Luis Severino, who’d established himself as an ace in the regular season, had nothing and gave up three runs while recording just one out. Second, the Yankees’ offense immediately came back in the bottom of the first. And third, and perhaps most importantly, the Yankees’ bullpen was virtually flawless, going 8.2 innings, surrendering just one run, and allowing only five hits and three walks. While it wasn’t the plan, the Yankees bullpened their most important game of the season to date.

While the Yankees certainly had the bullpen strength to plan that sort of game, it wasn’t what they intended. It happened by necessity and paid off. Had they planned to go the bullpen route, who knows what would’ve happened.

Once again, the Yankees are poised to make the Wild Card game and have a strong bullpen. Their ace has struggled at times, as has his ‘back up’ in Masahiro Tanaka. Should the Yankees employ the bullpen strategy during the Wild Card game?

It’s easy to see the bare bones of how they could do such a thing. Chad Green or Dellin Betances could start the game, using their high-octane stuff against the top of the order. For argument’s sake, let’s say it’s Green who goes first and handles the first two innings. After that, you could throw in one inning of Jonathan Holder against the bottom of the lineup to get you through the third, then Betances for two in the fourth and fifth. From there, David Robertson takes the sixth and seventh with Zach Britton and Aroldis Chapman for an inning each to end it.

Alternatively, the Yankees could have a reliever start the game, throw two innings, and hand the ball to a starter for the next three before he makes way for the back end of the bullpen–Robertson, Betances, Britton, Chapman playing matchups.

This strategy is certainly tempting, but ultimately, I think only the absolute right set of circumstances would need to exist for it to be something the Yankees should try. First, the Yankees would need to be ‘out’ of viable starters. To me, that means that they had to fight for a playoff spot or division title down the stretch and used one of Severino or Tanaka before the Wild Card game. Second, they would need to try it at least once or twice in the regular season. Pitchers tend to be creatures of habit and having them break those habits for the first time before the biggest game of the season would likely be unwise.

Despite any struggles they’ve had this year, I’m much more inclined to trust Luis Severino or Masahiro Tanaka in a big game like the Wild Card game than I am a new strategy, even if it should work in theory. It’s something the pitchers are likely to be unfamiliar with and the playoffs is not the time to make your own players uncomfortable.

Game 126: So long, interleague play

August 22, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

At long last, the Yankees are done with interleague play. Or they will be after tonight’s game. It amazes me there are people who enjoy watching pitchers hit. Hit is being generous too. Pitchers are hitting .113/.142/.144 (-26 wRC+) in 4,078 plate appearances this year. Imagine how many more runs would be scored and how much more excitement there would be with a universal DH.

Well, anyway, the Yankees and Marlins wrap up this quick two-game series tonight. Hopefully this one doesn’t take another 12 innings. The Yankees have won four straight games and tonight they’ll try to accomplish two things. One, clinch their first five-game winning streak since an eight-gamer in early May. And two, set a new high water mark at 34 games over .500. Win a game, win the series, enjoy the off-day tomorrow. Sounds like a plan. Here are the lineups:

New York Yankees
1. LF Brett Gardner
2. RF Giancarlo Stanton
3. CF Aaron Hicks
4. 3B Miguel Andujar
5. 2B Neil Walker
6. SS Gleyber Torres
7. 1B Greg Bird
8. C Austin Romine
9. RHP Lance Lynn

Miami Marlins
1. RF Rafael Ortega
2. C J.T. Realmuto
3. 3B Brian Anderson
4. 2B Starlin Castro
5. 1B Derek Dietrich
6. LF Austin Dean
7. SS Miguel Rojas
8. CF Magneuris Sierra.
9. RHP Trevor Richards

It is a hot summer day in Miami. Very hot and humid. The Marlins Park roof will surely be closed. Tonight’s game will begin at 7:10pm ET and YES will have the broadcast. Enjoy the game.

Injury Update: In case you missed it earlier, Aroldis Chapman was placed on the 10-day DL with left knee tendinitis. Chapman will see the doctor tomorrow for further evaluation. The hope is he’ll miss the minimum ten days. Chance Adams was called up to fill the roster spot … David Robertson (shoulder) is doing better. The Yankees would like to stay away from him with the off-day tomorrow, but it sounds like he is available if necessary.

Rotation Update: The Yankees have not yet announced a spot starter for Saturday’s doubleheader in Baltimore. Aaron Boone mentioned Adams and Sonny Gray as starter candidates. Luis Cessa is lined up to pitch that day as well. So it could be anyone, basically.

2018 Midseason Review: The Bullpen

July 18, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

As expected, the bullpen has been a strength for the Yankees so far this season. The relief crew actually got off to a bit of a rocky start the first week or two, though things have settled down nicely since, and Aaron Boone now has arguably the best and deepest bullpen in the game at his disposal.

Here are the team’s bullpen ranks 95 games into the season:

ERA: 2.69 (first)
FIP: 3.01 (second)
WHIP: 1.08 (second)
Strikeout Rate: 31.6% (first)
Shutdowns: 102 (fifth)
Meltdowns: 37 (first)
WAR: +6.6 (first)

Shutdowns and meltdowns are a neat win probability stat. Shutdowns are relief appearances that increase the team’s win probability least 6%. Meltdowns are relief appearances that decrease the team’s win probability at least 6%. Long story short, the Yankees have had an excellent bullpen this year, and that was the expectation coming into the season. Time to grade the relievers.

Dellin Betances

Midseason Grade: A

Expectations for Betances were pretty low coming into the season. He collapsed down the stretch last year and his control disappeared — Dellin walked eleven batters in his final 12.2 regular season innings — so much so that he was basically persona non grata in the postseason. Use only in an emergency. The Yankees stuck with Betances over the winter when much of the fan base was ready to dump him.

And, coming out of the gate this year, it seemed Betances was still broken. He allowed a homer in his first appearance of the season and Kevin Pillar embarrassed him by stealing his way around the bases in his second appearance. Six appearances into the season, Betances had allowed six runs on ten hits and three walks in 6.2 innings. He allowed three homers in his first 6.2 innings this year after allowing three homers in 59.2 innings last year.

Something funny happened after that: All-Star Dellin Betances returned. The Yankees and Boone said they were going to stick with Betances and get him right, and they did. Since April 14th, Betances has pitched to a 1.56 ERA (1.70 FIP) with lots of strikeouts (44.1%), lots of grounders (48.2%), and a tolerable amount of walks (11.8%) in 34.2 innings. Opponents are hitting .121/.244/.164 against him in those 34.2 innings. The knee-bucklers are back. The swag is back.

With Betances, given his history, it always feels like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Will this be the outing when he hits a batter and walks three? I get it, and it’s not an unreasonable feeling after last season. For now though, Betances has reclaimed the eighth inning setup role and gone back to being a monster strikeout machine. He could’ve gone to his fifth straight All-Star Game this year but did not. That doesn’t diminish his season performance at all.

Aroldis Chapman

Midseason Grade: A

The first year of Chapman’s reliever record five-year, $86M contract did not go according to plan. He got hurt early in the season and lost his closer’s job at midseason before finding it late and dominating in the postseason. This year, Chapman has come right out of the gate looking like the historically great late-inning reliever he’s been basically his entire career.

Through 95 team games Chapman has a 1.35 ERA (1.49 FIP) with his typically excellent strikeout rate (44.2%) and a strong ground ball rate (46.3%). His 10.4% walk rate is a tick below his 11.3% career average. Chapman is 26-for-27 in save chances and, in the one blown save, he didn’t even get hit around. A single, a hit-by-pitch, and two wild pitches pushed a run across. And the Yankees won that game anyway, so who cares?

We are more than halfway through the season now, so we can say for sure Chapman’s trademark velocity is down a tick. He’s averaging a still otherworldly 99.7 mph with his fastball. That’s down from 100.2 mph last year and 101.1 mph the year before. You have to go back to 2013 for the last time Chapman’s average fastball velocity was this low. We still see a few 103s and 104s, though not nearly as frequently as in the past.

Chapman is 30 years old now and he has been pitching basically his entire life, so a little velocity loss is no surprise. It is completely natural. He’s compensated for that velocity loss — again, the dude is still averaging 99.7 mph with his heater, so it’s not like he’s out there slinging mid-80s gas — with more sinkers and more sliders, especially with two strikes. It has worked wonderfully too.

Amazingly, Chapman has pitched this well despite ongoing tendinitis in his left (push-off) knee. He’s been dealing with it for weeks and he’s admitted he’ll probably have to deal with it all season. Chapman is getting regular treatment and it hasn’t stopped him from taking the mound — the knee did force him to leave a game earlier this month, though that had more to do with not wanting to push it with a four-run lead than “I can’t pitch it hurts too much” — so that’s good.

I’m not a big fan of players — especially very important players — playing through an injury, but what I think doesn’t matter, so Chapman will continue to pitch through the knee trouble. The doctors know better than me anyway. Even with the knee trouble, Chapman is having a truly outstanding season, a season that deservedly sent him to the All-Star Game. He’s been a rock in the ninth inning. Hand him a lead and the game is over.

A.J. Cole

Midseason Grade: A+

Cole is that kid whose family moved in the middle of the school year and the teachers at his new school grade him on a curve. The Yankees acquired Cole from the Nationals in a cash trade on April 24th because they needed a long man, and, as a 26-year-old former top 100 prospect, he offered some upside. Cole was terrible with Washington — he allowed 15 runs and 22 baserunners in 10.1 innings before the trade — but he was a low risk pickup. At worst, he’d soak up some innings in a blowout, then be cast aside for the next guy.

Instead, Cole has become the best long man the Yankees have had in quite some time. Probably since 2013 Adam Warren. He’s allowed one run in 18.2 innings around a minor neck injury, striking out 24 and holding opponents to a .172/.243/.234 batting line against. The Yankees, as they are wont to do, have Cole throwing far more sliders than ever before.

The Yankees have such a good bullpen that they haven’t needed Cole to pitch in high (or even medium) leverage situations. His average leverage index when entering the game is 0.53. That’s nothing. That is 33rd lowest among the 324 relievers with at least ten innings pitched this season. Perhaps there will come a time when Cole can audition for high leverage work. Right now, the Yankees don’t need him in that role. He can be a highly effective long man and there’s nothing wrong with that at all.

Chad Green

Midseason Grade: B

Two things are true this season. One, Green has been very good overall. Two, Green has not been as good as last season. Two blowups in two appearances prior to the All-Star break left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth, though, prior to those last two appearances, Green had a 1.91 ERA (2.39 FIP) in 42.1 innings. He was fantastic and he probably deserved to go to the All-Star Game.

Here is 2017 Chad Green vs. 2018 Chad Green:

	IP	ERA	FIP	K%	BB%	HR/9	Fastball Whiff%
2017	69	1.83	1.75	40.7%	6.7%	0.52	37.9%
2018	46	2.74	3.01	31.5%	5.0%	1.17	27.7%

Good numbers overall but also some discouraging trends. Green’s strikeouts are down, he’s not getting as many swings and misses with his trademark fastball, and his home run rate is up. He’s allowed six homers in 46 innings this season after allowing four homers in 69 innings last year, so yeah. That includes two back-breaking homers in his last two appearances of the first half.

I think Green’s step back this season — and by step back, I mean going from elite to merely above-average — has more to do with it being incredibly hard to succeed as a fastball only guy. Green’s slider kinda stinks but his fastball is great in terms of velocity and spin rate. But unless you have Chapman’s velocity, it’s hard to throw fastballs by hitters long-term. Green did it most of the season. Things kinda got away from him those last two outings.

Aside from Chapman, pretty much every reliever in the bullpen has been written off at some point this season. People were ready to move on from Betances, from David Robertson, from Jonathan Holder, so on and so forth. It seems it is now Green’s turn. Fortunately, the Yankees call the shots, not fans, and they’ll stick with Green and work to get him right. And, chances are, he’ll get right soon enough. No, Green has not been as good as last year. But he’s still been very good overall, and I see those last two outings as more of a bump in the road than anything.

Jonathan Holder

Midseason Grade: A

Another reliever who gets an A. Fourth in five reviews so far. Holder was in the Opening Day bullpen as basically the last guy on the roster, though he quickly earned a demotion to Triple-A after allowing seven runs and eight baserunners in his first 2.2 innings of the season. That includes taking the loss in a frustrating 14-inning game against the Orioles on April 6th.

Holder went to Triple-A, resurfaced in late April after Adam Warren went down with a lat issue, and since then he’s been out of this world good. He’s thrown 36.1 innings with a 0.50 ERA (1.99 FIP) since returning, with a good strikeout rate (22.4%) and an excellent walk rate (3.7%). It felt like he “arrived” on June 18th, when he inherited runners on the corners with no outs and a one-run lead against the Nationals, and didn’t allow a run to score.

Holder’s newfound success comes after a change in his pitch mix. He went to Triple-A, scrapped his high-spin curveball, and came back as a fastball/slider/changeup pitcher. He’s always had the slider and changeup, but they took a backseat to the curveball. Now the curveball is taking a backseat to the slider, which he uses against righties, and the changeup, which he uses against lefties.

Goodbye curveball (and cutter), hello slider and changeup. That adjustment has helped Holder make the jump from up-and-down depth arm to reliable middle reliever. In fact, on most other teams, I reckon Holder would be pitching in a traditional setup role by now. But because the Yankees are so deep in quality relievers, Boone is able to use Holder in the middle innings, when the starter bows out early and it’s a little too early to go to Betances and Green. Holder has been invaluable in that role.

Tommy Kahnle

Midseason Grade: F

Tough, but fair. Expectations were high for Kahnle coming into the season because he was so good last year and so effective in the postseason. Instead, Kahnle has been injured and ineffective this year. He’s allowed eleven runs and 16 baserunners in nine big league innings around a biceps/shoulder injury, and, worst of all, he’s walked as many batters as he’s struck out. Ten apiece. Ouch.

The Yankees sent Kahnle to Triple-A in early June — he essentially lost his middle innings job to Holder — and, with Triple-A Scranton, he owns a 2.81 ERA (2.32 FIP) with 37.6% strikeouts and 10.6% walks in 16 innings. That’s good. Certainly better than what he did in his limited big league time this year. So it’s not like Kahnle has suddenly forgotten how to pitch, you know?

The big issue this year is fastball velocity. Kahnle’s heater averaged 98.1 mph last year and 97.0 mph the year before. This season it was down to 95.6 mph. The fastest pitch he threw with the Yankees this year checked in at 97.6 mph. That’s still below last year’s average fastball velocity. Minor league velocity reports can be unreliable, though they have Kahnle sitting 95-96 mph with the RailRiders.

On one hand, 95-96 mph is plenty good enough to get outs at the big league level. Holder’s fastball is averaging only 93.2 mph this season, for example. On the other hand, Kahnle is not exactly blessed with great command. He’s a pure grip it and rip it pitcher, and hey, that works too. Worked great for him last year. But Kahnle at 95-96 mph is a different animal than Kahnle at 98-99 mph. Especially since the velocity on his changeup is unchanged. The velocity gap between the two pitches is smaller and that makes both of them less effective.

Kahnle has been down in the minors long enough to delay his free agency, which I guess is good for the Yankees. I suspect they’d happily trade that extra year of control for a healthy and effective Kahnle at the big league level though. He was part of that big trade last season with the idea that he’d be a long-term bullpen piece. Instead, Kahnle has been a non-factor this season, and it’s unclear whether he’ll regain last year’s effectiveness at some point.

David Robertson

Midseason Grade: B+

Ho hum, another typically strong David Robertson season. He’s basically the CC Sabathia of the bullpen at this point. Still very effective, still lots of folks seemingly ready to call him done any time he stumbles. Robertson had a rough patch in May but has otherwise been very good this season, pitching to a 3.09 ERA (2.47 FIP) with strikeout (30.5%) and walk (8.1%) rates right in line with his career norms. He is the same guy he’s always been.

Betances’ reemergence and Green’s overall effectiveness has allowed Boone to use Robertson in all sorts of situations. He’s brought him into the middle of an inning to escape a jam, used him as a seventh and eighth inning guy, and Robertson has even gone 2-for-2 in save chances on days Chapman was unavailable. Robertson has made 43 appearances this season. Here’s when he’s entered the game:

Sixth Inning: 4 times
Seventh Inning: 13 times
Eighth Inning: 17 times
Ninth Inning: 5 times
Extra Innings: 4 times

That is a man who is not married to a specific inning. Robertson was out of this world good after rejoining the Yankees last season — he allowed four runs in 35 innings after the trade — and he was great in the postseason. He hasn’t been quite that good this year, but he’s been very good overall. As good as he is, I still get the feeling Robertson is underappreciated. He’s a hell of a reliever.

Chasen Shreve

Midseason Grade: D

I suppose you could argue Shreve is meeting expectations. He owns a 4.54 ERA (5.22 FIP) with 28.8% strikeouts and 11.1% walks in 33.2 innings this season. From 2016-17, he pitched to a 4.37 ERA (5.06 FIP) with 26.8% strikeouts and 11.2% walks in 78.1 innings. Shreve is the same guy right now that he’s been the last two years. Unfortunately, that makes him a replacement level reliever.

As the very last guy in the bullpen — and that’s what I think he is at this point, I think Cole has jumped him in the pecking order — Shreve is okay. He’s someone who takes a beating in blowout games, basically. The problem isn’t Shreve, really. It’s that Boone keeps using him in somewhat leveraged left-on-left matchup situations even though Shreve isn’t good against lefties. They’re hitting .239/.364/.556 (.386 wOBA) against him this year. Yuck.

The Yankees clearly like Shreve. He wouldn’t have stuck on the roster this long otherwise. And I get it. He’s a just turned 28-year-old southpaw with a history of missing bats. Guys like that are hard to find. If another team had Shreve and they designated him for assignment, I’d look at him as a potential reclamation project pickup. If Boone stops using Shreve as a left-on-left guy and starts using him as a mop-up man, he’ll be fine. It’d be fine. Just fine.

Adam Warren

Midseason Grade: B

Once again, Warren has been a boringly reliable Swiss Army Knife reliever this season. He did miss more than six weeks with a lat strain, which drags down his midseason grade, otherwise the guy has thrown 24.1 innings with a 1.85 ERA (2.94 FIP) and very good strikeout (28.4%) and walk (8.8%) rates. And he is what, the sixth best reliever in the bullpen? Yeah, that’ll play.

I get the sense Warren will take on increased responsibility in the second half. The injury threw a wrench into things in the first half and it seems Boone is still trying to figure out when exactly to use him. In the second half though, I think Warren will be used for more multi-inning stints in the middle of the game as the Yankees look to control Luis Severino’s workload and also try to shorten games by not letting their starter go through the lineup a third time.

Either way, Warren has again been a reliable bullpen arm who flies under the radar because the Yankees have so many good relievers. Missing all that time with the lat injury stinks, but you know what? It gave Holder an opportunity to emerge, and the Yankees are a better team now because of it. In that sense, Warren’s injury turned out to be a good thing. Now he’s healthy and again an effective do it all bullpen option.

Yankeemetrics: Bronx fireworks spark Bombers (July 2-4)

July 5, 2018 by Katie Sharp Leave a Comment

Choking, silent bats
Monday’s 5-3 loss in the series opener was one of the most frustrating losses of the season, as the Yankees wasted numerous scoring chances and repeatedly failed to bring runners home in key situations. They were 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position, their most hitless at-bats with RISP this season.

Jonathan Loaisiga flashed some dominant off-speed stuff (career-high 13 combined whiffs on his curve and changeup) but really struggled to put away batters. Four of the five hits (including two doubles and the homer) he gave up came with two strikes; in his first three starts, batters were 7-for-35 (.200) with two strikes against Loaisiga.

Aaron Judge gave the Yankees an early lead when he poked an 0-2 cutter over the wall in right field. With a projected distance of 340 feet, it was the second-shortest home run Judge has hit; the only shorter one was a 337-foot shot on May 2 last year. It was also his 12th homer in a two-strike count this season, the most in MLB and two more than any other player through Monday.

Gleyber Torres was only other offensive star with a career-high three hits and two runs scored. At age 21 years and 201 days, he was the youngest Yankee with a three-hit game at Yankee Stadium since a 19-year-old Bobby Murcer on September 25, 1965.

One of those hits was his 10th career double, making him just the third Yankee with at least 10 doubles and 15 homers in his age-21 season or younger. The others? You guessed it, Mickey Mantle (1952, 1953) and Joe DiMaggio (1936). Even more impressive (maybe), he is the only rookie second baseman age 21 or younger in MLB history to hit at least 10 doubles and 15 homers in a season.

David Robertson wore the goat’s horns, coughing up the game-winning homer to Ronald Acuna in the top of the 11th. It was the first dinger Robertson had allowed to a right-handed batter since re-joining the Yankees last summer; Acuna was the 170th righty he had faced in that span.

Survive and advance
Although it might have been the ugliest win of the season, Tuesday’s 8-5 victory still counts the same as the others and — most importantly — helped the Yankees keep pace with the equally scorching-hot Red Sox in the division race.

The Yankees sprinted out to a 6-0 lead thanks to the good ol’ power/patience formula. Aaron Hicks put the Yankees on board in the first inning with a two-run blast, his 15th homer of the season, matching the career-high he set last year. He is the fifth Yankee to hit 15 dingers in 2018, the only team in MLB with that many 15-homer players this year. This is the first Yankee team ever to have five players hit at least 15 homers before the All-Star break.

Kyle Higashioka extended the lead to 3-0 with his second career homer — and second career hit — in the second inning. He became the third player in franchise history to have his first two MLB hits go over the fence, joining Alfonso Soriano (1999-2000) and Joe Lefebvre (1980). Before joining the Yankees last week, he was slugging .328 at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, which ranked 177th out of 198 players with at least 200 PA across all Triple-A leagues this season.

The Yankees scored two more runs in the third inning without a hit, walking five times, including twice with the bases loaded. It was their ninth and 10th bases loaded walks of the season, tied with the Diamondbacks for the most in the majors. They had just seven bases-loaded walks all of last year.

And it was the first time in more than seven years they scored two runs in an inning without getting a hit or reaching on an error, since the third inning of a game against the White Sox on April 28, 2011.

Miguel Andujar reached another milestone when he doubled in the fifth inning, his 40th career extra-base hit. He is the third Yankee to compile 40 extra-base hits in their first 78 career games, along with Bob Meusel and Joe DiMaggio.

Giancarlo Stanton joined the milestone party in the eighth inning with his 20th longball of the year, the ninth time in nine MLB seasons he hit 20 or more homers. He’s the 11th player in MLB history to go deep at least 20 times in each of their first nine major-league seasons, joining this elite group:

Mark Teixeira
Albert Pujols
Darryl Strawberry
Eddie Murray
Frank Robinson
Eddie Mathews
Ralph Kiner
Ted Williams
Joe DiMaggio
Bob Johnson

Happy Fourth of July in the Bronx
The Yankees celebrated Independence Day in style, beating the Braves 6-2 behind a solid effort from CC Sabathia and a dose of power from their relentlessly deep lineup.

Sabathia was in vintage form and delivered another gutsy performance, giving up just two runs in six innings despite putting 10 of the 27 batters he faced on base. At the midpoint of 2018, his ERA is 3.02, on pace to be the second-best by any pitcher in franchise history in his age-37 season or older (min. 25 starts), behind only Spud Chandler’s 2.10 in 1946.

Giancarlo Stanton homered for the second straight day, giving him five homers in his last 11 games at Yankee Stadium; he had six homers in his first 34 home games. Kyle Higashioka lived up to his John Sterling nickname (Kyle Higashioka, the Home Run Stroker!) when he went deep again for his third career homer — and third career hit. He is the ninth player since 1920 to have each of his first three career hits be homers — the only other Yankee on the list is Alfonso Soriano.

Aaron Judge capped off the dinger fireworks with a moonshot in the seventh inning …

The poor baseball left his bat at an angle of 45 degrees, the highest home run of Judge’s career. In the Statcast era (since 2015), only two other Yankees have hit homers with a higher launch angle: Mark Teixeira (48 degrees on July 3, 2016) and Ji-Man Choi (46 degrees on July 7, 2017).

Yankeemetrics: Bronx Rising, Happy Gleyber Day (April 19-22)

April 23, 2018 by Katie Sharp Leave a Comment

Survive and advance
Coming off a pathetic loss to the tanking Marlins, the Yankees badly needed a win in Thursday’s series opener. Although it was far from a memorable and glorious game — one that was highlighted by sloppy defense — the Yankees held on for the 4-3 victory.

On a strict pitch count in his first start since coming off the DL, CC Sabathia played the familiar role of Stopper Ace as he gave up no earned runs (two unearned) on four hits in 4 1/3 innings. Since 2017, he now has a 1.88 ERA in 13 regular-season starts following a Yankee loss, and the team has won 11 of those 13 games (and he is 9-0 as a pitcher).

David Robertson lived up to his Houdini nickname when he loaded the bases with no outs in the eighth inning. No problem for the pitching magician! He struck out the next batter, Kevin Pillar, the 10th guy he’d faced with the bases loaded and no outs in his career. Those 10 plate appearances have resulted in eight strikeouts, one hit and one sac fly.

Overall, Robertson has struck out 43 percent of batters he’s faced with the bases loaded in his career (compared to 32 percent in all other situations). Since his debut in 2008, he owns the highest bases-loaded strikeout rate among the 160-plus pitchers that have faced at least 65 guys in that span.

Gray’d Out
Another game, another dip into the pool of mediocrity. The Yankees followed up their win on Thursday with a frustrating loss on Friday. Back to .500 again for the New York Jekyll-and-Hydes. They coughed up a couple early two-run leads thanks to another shoddy starting pitching performance, and then saw the bullpen throw more gasoline onto the fire as the Blue Jays pulled away for the 8-5 victory.

Sonny Gray’s struggles continued with another dreadful outing. He was pulled in the fourth inning after giving up five runs, and showed a complete lack of command with two wild pitches and four walks. He’s pitched more than four innings in only one of his four starts this season, and as of Saturday morning, he was the only American League pitcher with three starts of four innings pitched or fewer.

There are a ton of ways to slice-and-dice the data and show how terrible Gray has been in his last two starts (last week at Boston: 3 innings, 6 runs, 2 walks, 3 wild pitches). Here’s a couple to chew on:

The only other guy in franchise history to pitch back-to-back starts with at least five earned runs allowed and multiple wild pitches was A.J. Burnett in 2011.
Gray is the first Yankee (since at least 1908) with consecutive outings of fewer than four innings and at least two wild pitches thrown.

And our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series: Gray is the only pitcher in major-league history with back-to-back starts allowing at least five earned runs and throwing two wild pitches while getting no more than 10 outs in each game.

Another alarming stat from his outing was his zero strikeouts and just two swings-and-misses among his 73 pitches. Gray had at least one strikeout in each of his 112 starts with the A’s; he now has two zero-strikeout games in 15 starts with the Yankees. The two swinging strikes are his fewest in any game in his career where he’s thrown at least 20 pitches.

One of his biggest issues was falling behind in the count, as he threw first-pitch strikes to just 6-of-19 batters (31.6 percent), the worst first-pitch strike rate in any game of his career. The Blue Jays swung at only one pitch in an 0-0 count, as most of Gray’s offerings were off the plate:

How important was getting ahead to Gray? He faced 19 batters in the game:

9 of the 13 batters that started 1-0 reach base – via five hits and four walks – while he retired the other six batters that started 0-1 (or put the first pitch in play).

Overall this season, it’s been the same story, especially when compared to league averages:

**2018 Opponent OPS**
	Gray	MLB Avg
After 0-1	.467	.599
After 1-0	1.174	.822

One inning is enough
Sometimes, you can predict baseball. The Yankees continued their seesaw battle with .500, moving one game above the break-even mark (10-9) after their 9-1 win on Saturday.

The game was a nail-biter through the first five frames before the Yankees exploded for seven runs in the sixth inning. It was their highest-scoring inning since putting up a seven-spot against the Rockies on June 14, 2016. Here’s your Believe-It-Or-Not Yankeemetric: Since that date, every other team in baseball had at least one inning with seven-or-more runs scored.

Aaron Judge put the Yankees on the board early with a two-run blast in the third inning. He crushed a 3-0 inside fastball from Marcus Stroman and sent it 443 feet into the second deck in left field — his first career homer on a 3-0 pitch. Over the last three seasons (since 2016), the only other Yankee to homer on a 3-0 pitch was Starlin Castro.

Jordan Montgomery was tough-as-nails in holding the league’s second-highest scoring offense to just one run in six innings. He pitched out of multiple jams, giving up one hit and walking one in eight plate appearances with runners in scoring position. This type of gutty performance has become the norm for Montgomery.

Since his debut last season, Monty has allowed an on-base percentage of .248 with runners in scoring position, the fourth-best mark among pitchers that have faced at least 100 batters.

Merry Gleyber-mas!
The Yankees finally broke through in their frustrating battle with mediocrity, beating the Blue Jays in the series finale to move more than one game above .500 (11-9) for the first time since April 4. Somehow, the Yankees have won two in a row, three of four and six of their last nine games. That sounds good!

The pre-game buzz was focused on the much-anticipated unveiling of uber-prospect Gleyber Torres, who was immediately inserted in the starting lineup on Sunday following his promotion Saturday night. When he stepped on the field, the 21-year-old became the youngest Yankee position player since Derek Jeter in 1995 to make his major-league debut in a game before July 1. And since 1950, the only other Yankee non-pitchers as young as Torres to make their MLB debut as a starter in a game this early into the season (20th team game) are Andy Carey (1952) and Mickey Mantle (1951).

While Torres had a quiet day at the plate (0-for-4, strikeout), it’s worth remembering the debut of another hyped Yankee position player prospect who was called up before the height of the summer: The Captain was 0-for-5 with a strikeout in his first big-league game on May 29, 1995.

The Yankees ultimately were carried by a couple other Baby Bombers on Sunday afternoon, as Miguel Andujar continued his torrid hitting (4-for-4, 2 doubles, RBI) and Luis Severino twirled another gem (7 innings, 3 hits, 1 run, 6 strikeouts).

Andujar’s monster day gets the coveted bullet-point summary treatment:

First, our #FunFact of the series: He is the youngest Yankee with a four-hit game — including two extra-base hits — at Yankee Stadium since Mickey Mantle against the Red Sox in 1954.
He also extended his extra-base hit streak to six games, joining Alex Rodriguez (2006, 2007) and Wade Boggs (1997) as the only Yankee third baseman to pull off that feat in the last 25 years.
Andujar now has 12 career extra-base hits, and is the first Yankee since Joe DiMaggio in 1936 to reach that total within his first 18 career games.

Severino’s ace status was cemented with last year’s breakout performance, so this stat should come as no surprise: Sunday was Sevy’s 19th regular-season start since 2017 giving up zero or one run, the most among all pitchers over the last two seasons, ahead of Max Scherzer (18) and Chris Sale (18). It was also his third outing this season with no more than one run allowed and three or fewer hits allowed. Here’s the list of Yankee pitchers in the Live Ball Era (since 1920) to make three starts like that within the team’s first 20 games: Severino, David Cone (1999), Jimmy Key (1993).

For the Yanks, the bullpen has been an unexpected weakness early in 2018

April 2, 2018 by Mike Leave a Comment

Today, for the first time this season, the Yankees’ bullpen did not allow a run. And that’s only because the home opener was snowed out. The home opener has been rescheduled for tomorrow, assuming the weather cooperates. Whenever the Yankees play next, they’ll look to get the first scoreless game from their bullpen in 2018.

Here are the combined bullpen numbers through four games: 13.1 IP, 12 H, 11 R, 11 ER, 5 BB, 18 K, 4 HR. Yikes. Only three relievers in the eight-man bullpen have yet to be charged with a run: Chad Green (still awesome), Jonathan Holder (allowed an inherited runner to score), and Chasen Shreve (hasn’t pitched yet). David Robertson has already allowed as many runs this year (four in two innings) as he did with the Yankees after the trade last year (four in 35 innings). Not great.

The Yankees are built to win games like the two they lost. Tie game in the late innings like Saturday? The bullpen holds it down until someone on offense smacks a dinger. Three-run lead with three innings to go like Sunday? It’s supposed to be in the bag. Alas, things don’t always go according to plan, and the bullpen has been scored upon in all four games thus far. A few thoughts about this.

1. Dude, it’s four games. Obligatory small sample size reminder. Extremely small sample size, at that. Regardless of your opinion of the Josh Donaldson intentional walk, at some point we have to acknowledge Justin Smoak had a monster at-bat against Robertson. Nine pitches, fouled away a bunch of great curveballs. It really was a great at-bat. Sometimes you just get beat. I didn’t like the intentional walk, but credit Smoak for that battle.

Anyway, as long as everyone is healthy, I feel pretty confident the key late inning relievers — specifically Green, Robertson, and Tommy Kahnle — will be excellent. Green’s been great so far as it is. Also, getting Adam Warren back from his ankle bruise will help as well. Bullpens have bad series. It happens. When it happens in the first series of the regular season, it feels more meaningful even though it’s really not. The talent is still there.

“It’s gonna be a strength, I am confident in that,” said Aaron Boone following Sunday’s game. “Everything is a little bit magnified, obviously, in the early days, good and bad. I’m really comfortable over time that those guys will continue to do their thing and it will continue to not just be a strength, but I think an overwhelming strength for this club.”

2. Boone has to be more judicious with Betances. I expect Green, Robertson, Kahnle, Warren, and Aroldis Chapman to be fine going forward. Dellin Betances is a different animal, for better or worse. He’s given up two home runs in two appearances — his second homer came in his 56th appearance last year — which is unusual and annoying. Then again, every pitcher seems more homer prone these days. It’s happening to everyone.

Betances has only walked one of the 13 batters he’s faced so far (and he was squeezed a bit), which is encouraging after last year, but it’s 13 batters. The larger point here is that while having confidence in your players is a good thing, Dellin is at the point where he has to earn back trust, and Boone has to be more selective with him. Eighth inning with a five-run lead on Opening Day? Perfect. Pushing him for a second inning in the late innings of a tie game Saturday? Eh.

I’m a Betances believer. I think he’ll have a typical Dellin season, which means gobs of strikeouts and not much in the way of hard contact. Boone obviously expects Betances to dominate as well. Until he shows he can consistently though, Boone has to pick his spots with him. Use him for an inning at a time and in lower leverage spots. Dellin was a multi-inning monster from 2014-16. Those multi-inning days are pretty much over.

3. Eight relievers is one too many. Still not a fan of the eight-man bullpen. I get it, I totally do. Teams don’t want to overwork anyone early in the season and they’re terrified of running out of arms. And yet, four games into the season Shreve has yet to pitch, Warren has faced three batters, and Holder has faced two batters. It’s not like the starters have pitched super deep into games either. CC Sabathia went five innings and Sonny Gray went four.

The presence of the eighth reliever creates some sense of obligation to actually use him from time to time. The Yankees hadn’t played since Monday when Holder was brought into Saturday’s game, and I think that factored into the decision to use him. He needed work! Want to improve the bullpen? Get rid of the weakest link. If things go haywire and a fresh arm or two is needed the next day, you call them up. Eighth relievers, man. Teams want them but they’re never really all that useful.

4. If the Yankees have to make changes, they will. It’s still way too early to freak out about the bullpen. Can we at least give them a homestand first? Please? If the sample grows and the struggles continue, and the Yankees have to adjust their bullpen personnel, they will. They did last year. Maybe that means call-ups, maybe it means trades. If the current group doesn’t do the job the Yankees will make changes.

The bullpen at the end of the season very rarely looks like the Opening Day bullpen. Injuries and poor performance inevitably lead to roster changes throughout the season and nowhere on the roster is that more applicable than in the bullpen. Relievers are inherently volatile. If changes are necessary, changes will be made. Right now, it’s way too early to say changes are necessary. Bullpens have bad series now and then, even great ones. The Yankees’ vaunted bullpen just had a bad series, and right now, it’s too early to say it’s anything more than that.

Yankeemetrics: Welcome back, baseball (March 31-April 1)

April 2, 2018 by Katie Sharp Leave a Comment

It is high, it is far, it is Gian
For the first time since 2011, the Yankees celebrated a season-opening win as they blasted the Blue Jays on Thursday, 6-1. The last time the Yankees won on Opening Day, the winning pitcher was Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera got the final out of the game… yeah, it’s been a while, eh?

[On the other hand, some things never change … the starting leftfielder and leadoff man in the 2011 was opener was Brett Gardner, who was in that same position and batting spot in 2018. It was Gardner’s seventh Opening Day start in left field, tied with Babe Ruth for the second-most in franchise history; only Roy White (9) has more.]

The winning formula was a perfect blend of power and pitching, as the Yankees banged out seven extra-base hits — their most in a season-opener since 1963 — and held the Blue Jays to just two hits — their fewest allowed in a season-opener since 1967.

Giancarlo Stanton cemented his True Yankee™ status on his very first swing in pinstripes, drilling a laser shot into the right-centerfield seats in the first inning to give the Yankees an early 2-0 lead. The ball exploded off his bat with an exit velocity of 117.3 mph, the hardest-hit ball recorded at Rogers Centre. And never before had an opposite-field homer measured by Statcast rocketed off the bat that fast.

But Stanton was merely heating up with that early longball… he capped off the win with a solo dinger to dead-center in the ninth inning, producing a remarkable Opening Day effort and a near-unprecedented Bronx Bomber debut:

Stanton is the fourth Yankee since 1950 with a multi-homer game in the team’s season opener, a list that also includes Joe Pepitone (1963), Roger Maris (1960), Mickey Mantle (1956).
Stanton joined Maris (1960) as the only players ever to go deep twice in their first game played as a Yankee.
Stanton and Barry Bonds (2002) are the lone players in major-league history to follow-up a 50-homer campaign with a multi-homer game on Opening Day of the next season.
Including his fifth-inning RBI double, Stanton finished with three extra-base hits, three runs scored and four RBI, becoming the first player in franchise history to reach each of those thresholds on Opening Day.

The new guy’s ridiculous performance overshadowed a stellar outing for Luis Severino, who surrendered one hit across 5 2/3 scoreless innings while striking out seven. He is the only Yankee starter since at least 1908 to give up no more than one hit on Opening Day.

And, most impressively, the 24-year-old joined Bob Feller (1940) and Walter Johnson (1910) as the only major-league players under age-25 to pitch more than five innings, allow one hit or fewer and strike out at least five guys on Opening Day.

The Drury and Wade Show
On Friday night it was another pinstriped newbie who provided the big hits, while a familiar “ace” dazzled on the mound en route to a 4-2 victory in Toronto.

Perhaps the most encouraging numbers from Friday’s game were 0 and 12 — Stanton, Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez combined to go 0-for-12 with four strikeouts — and the Yankees still added a ‘W’ to the ledger because their number eight and nine hitters (Brandon Drury and Tyler Wade) combined to drive in all four of the team’s runs.

Both of Drury’s RBI hits — a double in the second and a single in the fourth — gave the Yankees the lead. Per Fangraphs’ win probability added (WPA) metric, Drury’s performance at the plate increased the Yankees chances of winning by 25 percent. This was his 291st career game, and only seven times has Drury contributed more WPA in a team win.

The biggest storyline, though, of the first two games was the excellence of the pitching staff. Their three runs allowed in games one and two are the fewest for the Yankees in the first two games of the season since 1996 (insert emoji of choice here).

The starters — Severino and Masahiro Tanaka — were both stellar, and Tanaka’s one-run, three-hit, eight-strikeout effort somehow the lesser of the two pitching lines. The last time the team’s first two starting pitchers of the season each gave up no more than one run was 2003 (Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte); and the last time Yankee starters each had seven-plus strikeouts in the first two games of the season was 1932 (Lefty Gomez, Red Ruffing).

Tanaka and Severino are the first pair of starters in franchise history to each allow no more than three hits in the team’s first two games of the season.

Clutch Austin, Disaster Dellin
The dream of a 162-0 regular season ended on Saturday with a frustrating 5-3 loss. The lone bright spot in the lineup was Tyler Austin, who single-handedly kept the Yankees in the game with a couple of booming game-tying homers. A two-run shot in the fifth and a solo bomb in the seventh added to his growing legend as a clutch masher.

Those were his eighth and ninth career homers, and of the nine, eight have tied the game or given the Yankees the lead. For his career, he is hitting .348/.360/1.000 in high-leverage situations, with five homers in 25 plate appearances. Since his debut in 2016, he owns the highest OPS (1.360) and slugging percentage (1.000) of any player with at least 25 high-leverage plate appearances over the last three seasons.

CC Sabathia wasn’t as dominant as Severino and Tanaka, but still gutted through a solid five innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on five hits. It was enough to extend the rotation’s record-setting season-opening performance: since earned runs became official in the American League in 1913, this is the first time that each of the Yankees’ starters allowed no more than one earned run in the first three games of the season.

The Yankees’ hopes of a trademark comeback victory were squashed thanks to an eerily familiar meltdown in the eighth inning by Dellin Betances. The trouble began when he gave up a 455-foot tie-breaking homer to the leadoff batter, Yangervis Solarte, the longest homer he’s allowed in the Statcast era (since 2015). That’s two homers allowed in two appearances for Betances, who last year didn’t surrender his second homer until September 4 in his 56th outing of the season.

And somehow coughing up the go-ahead homer was only the second-most gut-wrenching thing in the inning.

Kevin Pillar reached on one-out single, and then ambushed Betances by swiping second base, third base and home to give the Blue Jays a two-run lead. It had been nearly 90 years since a player stole three bases in an inning against the Yankees.

The last guy to do it was a Tigers shortstop named Jackie “Rabbit” Tavener on July 25, 1928, and the Yankee pitcher on the mound was rookie Archie Campbell. Incredibly, it was the second straight season Tavener stole second, third and home in an inning against the Yankees (he also did it on July 10, 1927)! He had 46 career stolen bases, and six of them came in those two innings against the Yankees.

Betances allowed four total steals in that inning (Luke Maile also stole second), a feat that’s been done by only one other Yankee pitcher in the last 40 years: Mariano Rivera, who did it twice during his career, on September 26, 2010 against the Red Sox and September 5, 2011 against the Orioles.

Smoak’d
Four games into the season and we already have an early leading candidate for Worst Loss of The Season. The bullpen imploded for the second consecutive day in Sunday’s 7-4 loss, and the Yankees ended up with a disappointing series split. The Yankees still haven’t won a series at the Rogers Centre since August 2015, their longest current drought at any AL East ballpark.

For all of the crushing losses the Yankees suffered last season, they didn’t experience one quite like they did on Sunday. Last year they were 56-0 when leading by at least three runs entering the seventh inning. This season they are now 2-1 in such games, after Tommy Kahnle and David Robertson choked away a three-run lead in the seventh and eighth innings.

In a surprising twist, it is the starting rotation which has shined while the bullpen has been a train wreck:

	Starters	Relievers
IP	20 2/3	13 1/3
ER	3	11
HR	1	4

Four outs away from a victory, Robertson loaded the bases in the eighth inning via an intentional walk to Josh Donaldson and then surrendered a heart-breaking grand slam to Justin Smoak to seal the defeat. That was Smoak’s second career grand slam, and the other came on August 8, 2015 against… the Yankees.

The inevitable question is whether Robertson should have simply pitched to Donaldson in that situation. While there is certainly a ton of statistical and non-statistical factors to consider with the matchup, here’s one pair of numbers to think about:
1. The small sample-size data — Smoak was 0-for-5 with four strikeouts in his career vs Robertson while Donaldson was 3-for-8 with two homers — suggested that giving Donaldson a free pass to face Smoak was a good option.
2. But the large sample-size numbers — Smoak’s 31 homers vs. right-handers last season were the third-most by a lefty against a righty in the majors — screamed that pitching to Donaldson was a better choice.

Regardless, the end result was a crushing defeat, leaving the Yankees at .500 or worse through four games of the season for the seventh straight year.