As part of their bullpen overhaul this offseason, the Yankees sent Frankie Cervelli to the Pirates for lefty Justin Wilson, clearing the way for John Ryan Murphy to take over as Brian McCann’s backup. Wilson is one of three lefties New York has acquired this winter, joining Andrew Miller and Chasen Shreve. Miller is going to be a big part of the late innings next year while Shreve will probably be an up-and-down arm, at least at first.
Wilson’s role seems to be something in between Miller and Shreve. Not an automatic high-leverage option but probably not someone who has to fight his way onto the roster in Spring Training either. Wilson does have two minor league options remaining but I don’t get the sense he’s in danger of starting the year in Triple-A either, at least not unless he has a miserable showing in camp. For now, he’s part of the bullpen picture.
Brian Cashman told reporters at the GM Meetings he’s been trying to acquire Wilson for years — “As a matter of fact, I had this discussion with Pittsburgh two years ago. This exact proposal,” said the GM to Brendan Kuty in November — so the Yankees obviously like something about him. He is a hard-throwing lefty and teams love hard-throwing lefties, even if they have control problems. It’s no surprise Cashman had long-standing interest.
The thing is, I don’t know a whole lot about Wilson. A quick glance at the internet tells me he’s 27 and has a 2.99 ERA (3.45 FIP) in 138.1 career big league innings, but there’s more to the story. What does he throw besides a big fastball? Can he get lefties and righties out, or is he strictly a matchup guy? That sort of stuff. So consider this an introduction to the Yankees’ newest lefty reliever. Well, second newest.
The Performance
Wilson, who was drafted out of Fresno State in the fifth round of the 2008 draft, has been in the big leagues for two full years plus one September. He was a starter throughout his minor league career and has been nothing but a reliever in MLB. Through the years, Baseball America (subs. req’d) noted Wilson’s spotty command was likely to land him in the bullpen long-term, and here we are.
During his two full years in MLB, Wilson has improved his strikeout rate while actually performing a tiny bit better against righties than lefties, at when it comes to strikeouts and ground balls. Here’s what he’s done against lefties and righties the last two years (I’m ignoring his September call-up in 2012 because he threw only 4.1 innings):
| LHB wOBA | LHB K% | LHB uBB% | LHB GB% | RHB wOBA | RHB K% | RHB uBB% | RHB GB% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | .233 | 17.9% | 7.4% | 50.7% | .258 | 21.0% | 10.1% | 54.1% |
| 2014 | .306 | 22.1% | 8.1% | 49.2% | .279 | 24.7% | 11.0% | 52.5% |
| Total | .268 | 19.9% | 7.7% | 50.0% | .268 | 22.7% | 10.4% | 53.4% |
Note: I removed intentional walks from the walk rate, hence uBB%. Wilson walked five batters intentionally last year, 23rd most in all of baseball, and all five were right-handed hitters. It was skewing the data.
Okay then, so Wilson’s not just a left-handed specialist. His numbers against righties and lefties have been pretty similar these last two years, though it’s worth noting he faced 181 lefties and 370 righties, so there’s quite the sample size difference. That said, Pirates manager Clint Hurdle clearly didn’t have any reservations about using Wilson against right-handed hitters. Looking at the numbers, it’s easy to see why.
Consistently throwing strikes has always been Wilson’s bugaboo and he hasn’t shown any improvement throughout his career. He walked 10.7% of the batters he faced in Single-A, 11.8% in Double-A, 11.9% in Triple-A, and 10.6% in MLB. Wilson’s not a huge guy, he’s listed at 6-foot-2 and 205 lbs., so it’s not like he’s got a Randy Johnson thing going on where he just has to learn how to control his body. Throwing strikes is hard. That’s all it is.
The good news is that even with those control problems, Wilson is an effective Major League pitcher against both righties and lefties. That’s a pretty valuable skill out of the bullpen. Like fellow offseason pickup Andrew Miller, Wilson is a true one-inning reliever who just so happens to be left-handed. (Jacob Lindgren, last year’s top draft pick, projects to be the same type of pitcher.) That is pretty darn cool. LOOGYs have their place, but lefties who can get anyone out are better.
The Stuff
As mentioned, Wilson throws pretty hard, sitting in the mid-90s regularly with his four-seam fastball. As a matter of fact, 38 left-handed relievers threw at least 40 innings last season, and only Aroldis Chapman (101.2 … lol) had a higher average four-seam fastball than Wilson (96.4). (Jake McGee was also at 96.4 mph.) Wilson throws very hard by southpaw standards.
The four-seamer isn’t Wilson’s only fastball though. He also throws a sinker and a cutter, which averaged 95.9 mph and 90.1 mph, respectively. So he has three fastballs — one that cuts away from lefties/in to righties, one that goes down, and one that stays true. Wilson also throws an upper-70s curveball and an upper-80s changeup, but rarely. PitchFX recorded 1,019 of his pitches last year and 67 were curveballs. Only eight were changeups. That’s less than 8% of his total pitches combined.
Wilson is basically a four-seamer/sinker/cutter pitcher with a show-me curveball. Here’s how the three fastballs have done at getting swings and misses as well as ground balls these last two years:
| FF Whiff% | FF GB% | SNK Whiff% | SNK GB% | CT Whiff% | CT GB% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 11.3% | 41.7% | 9.3% | 65.2% | 12.0% | 66.7% |
| 2014 | 12.3% | 44.6% | 3.5% | 48.8% | 14.4% | 71.1% |
| MLB AVG | 6.9% | 37.9% | 5.4% | 49.5% | 9.7% | 43.0% |
Based on the swing-and-miss and ground ball rates, the sinker is the worst of Wilson’s three fastballs. Or at least it was last year. Back in 2013 it was really good. These things can fluctuate from year to year because relievers inherently work in small samples. That’s part of the reason why they’re so volatile from year to year.
Wilson’s four-seamer and cutter are both above-average pitches based on the swing-and-miss and grounder rates. Comfortably above-average too. Here’s a good look at Wilson’s four-seamer (first and third strikeouts) and his cutter (second and fourth strikeouts) in action:
Wrapping Up
I wasn’t quite sure what the Yankees got for Cervelli other than a reliever with decent numbers in his two MLB seasons. Wilson clearly has pretty good stuff, namely some lively fastballs that miss bats and get grounders, though his shaky control probably means he’ll never be regular in high-leverage spots. Most importantly, he’s not a specialist. He’s shown the ability to get both righties and lefties out.
Wilson has a little Boone Logan in him in that he’s a lefty with velocity held back by shaky command. (Wilson definitely doesn’t have Logan’s slider though.) The Yankees were able to straighten Logan out in his late-20s and get some nice years out of him, which is what they’re surely hoping to do with Wilson. He figures to slot into a middle relief role alongside Adam Warren and David Carpenter, setting up Miller and Dellin Betances, so we should see quite a bit of him in 2015.
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