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End of the Year Thoughts

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(Newsday)

By the end of today, we’ll have made it five days without Yankee baseball happening or to even look forward to. It’s a long way till February and with the LCS’s going on and the World Series on the horizon, it feels even longer. To keep you warm–or cold, depending on how much you’ve recovered from the abrupt end to the season–here are some thoughts.

A Fitting End

The end of the Yankees’ season felt a little bit like the season itself. All year, this was a very good team; it won 100 games, despite what browsing Twitter might make you think. But given the great success and the home run record, the Red Sox had and moments of frustration, it seemed like this team was just one step shy of great. Game three’s disaster aside, the Yankees were close (or winning re: game two) in their losses, and had chances to win, to be great. At times this year, the team was great and probably will be going forward. While this year ended with disappointment, it wasn’t a failure by any means. Next year, however, the expectations should be ramped up a bit more. An ALDS loss in 2019 would be way more disappointing than it was this year.

Sonny Gone Gray

Before this year started, I thought Sonny Gray was going to have a big year. He had some good peripherals in his time as a Yankee in 2017 and he had–still has–great talent. But this year, it just never happened. Any time it looked like he was going to get on a roll, he fell flat on his face again. Despite how hard I rooted for him, I don’t think I’ve ever been more wrong about a player than I was about Sonny Gray in 2018.

During the year-end press conference, GM Brian Cashman didn’t do much to obscure the fact that the Yankees are going to look for trades involving Gray, which is too bad. Sonny seems like a really good guy and took his lumps this year without much noise.

Looking back, it seems that the trade to bring Gray to New York isn’t really working out for anyone, unless Dustin Fowler really turns it on in 2019. Even then, this was a smart trade to make and I’m glad the Yankees did. The process was good even if the results haven’t been. I want to say haven’t been ‘yet,’ still hopeful for some value from Gray, but it doesn’t look like that’s ever gonna happen. A trade is likely the right thing to do here, even if the Yankees don’t get an exact match on value.

Fantasy Roster

With the news of Didi Gregorius’ impending Tommy John Surgery, we all got a little sad. Then, our minds began to wander towards Manny Machado for obvious reasons. The fact that the Yankees are back in a position to spend big also helped that fantasizing, which led to more and more fantasies, like Bryce Harper. I’m on record as saying I’m skeptical that the Yankees will spend big again, but after narrowly missing the World Series in 2017 and getting eliminated early this year, hopefully they pull a 2008-2009 and push themselves over the edge. I let my mind run a little wild with the possibilities and came up with this roster-bated squad that would start the year in Didi’s absence:

C: Gary Sanchez

1B: Miguel Andujar

2B: Jed Lowrie

3B: Manny Machado

SS: Gleyber Torres

LF: Bryce Harper

CF: Aaron Hicks

RF: Aaron Judge

DH: Giancarlo Stanton

BN: Austin Romine, Clint Frazier, Ronald Torreyes, Luke Voit or Greg Bird

SP: Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, Patrick Corbin, JA Happ, CC Sabathia

RP: Dellin Betances, Chad Green, David Robertson, Jonathan Holder, Tommy Kahnle, Stephen Tarpley

CP: Aroldis Chapman

To quote Doctors Jan Itor and Chris Turk, not gonna happen. The chances that the Yankees sign seven free agents (counting CC + Happ + Robertson) is pretty slim, even if they do have bucks to throw around. Additionally, there would definitely be a roster crunch when Didi returned, and I doubt Jed Lowrie would settle for what would be a supersub role come the second half, unless he were paid exorbitantly. Were this to happen, though, you’d put Gleyber back at second, Didi at short, and Lowrie would take Toe’s spot on the bench.

Again, something this drastic won’t happen, but it’d be a lot cooler if it did.

The Task

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(Presswire)

Two down, ten to go. The Yankees have won two of the 12 necessary to hoist their 28th World Series banner and to keep that going, they’ll need to win two of the next three games against their biggest rival, who are in the midst of a historic season. No biggie. The task ahead of them is clear and, based on games one and two, so is the way to accomplish it.

In the first game of the series, Chris Sale pitched well and made it into the sixth inning. JA Happ did not. In the second game of the series, Masahiro Tanaka pitched well and completed five innings. David Price did not. While the Yankees scored against the Boston bullpen in game one, the comeback was halted and incomplete because of Sale’s performance; it’s harder to come back when you’re starting from zero, right?

The Yankee bullpen is superior to the Red Sox’s, but a rest day resets things, even if Boston had to get so many outs from their relievers last night. That makes it all the more imperative that Luis Severino in game three and CC Sabathia in game four make it through five innings, at least keeping the score close. Boston has a great offense and they’re likely to score, even against someone as talented as Severino and as competitive and crafty as Sabathia. If they keep the score close, the Yankees can take advantage of Boston’s bullpen.

Ideally, they’ll keep Boston down enough that the Yankee offense can grab the lead against Rick Porcello and Nathan Eovaldi. If that’s the case, then the Yankees can lean on their superior bullpen to finish the job off in the late innings. If it’s not the case, then Sevy and CC need to hold them down enough to allow for the comeback to start against the non-Craig Kimbrel relievers Boston throws at them.

On the other side of the game, the offense will have to do what it’s built to do, what so heavily signified the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry for so many years: wear down the starter and get to the bullpen. The Yankees have long been built on patience and power, the two things that wear pitchers down the fastest. This team is not so different from that and escaping into the Sox’s bullpen is their primary objective (after, you know, scoring runs); doing so will make victory that much easier to attain. And the quick trigger most managers have in the playoffs combined with the potential power of the Yankee offense makes this goal pretty manageable.

Getting good starting pitching and getting to the other team’s bullpen is hardly some galaxy brain strategy. It’s pretty simple baseball and it’s what good teams have been doing for over 20 years. While it sometimes has mixed results in the playoffs, it’s the way the Yankees are built and going away from it could be unproductive, especially at this point in the year. With the next two games at home, the Yankees have a chance to knock off their rival in a big way in a big year for Boston. Hopefully, the next time I’m writing, it’ll be about how to take down Cleveland or Houston.

Gary and the Terrible, Horrible….Part Two

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(Hannah Foslien/Getty)

A while ago, I wrote a post about Gleyber Torres’ relative struggles at the plate since he came off the DL. From that point on, he’s taken off, hitting .321/.397/.481 (not including Saturday) since that post on August 19. I thought–optimistically–that maybe if I did the same thing for Gary Sanchez, which I did last week, maybe he’d hit a hot streak, too. Looks like lightning didn’t strike twice. There’s still a few games left, of course, but I’m not going to be holding my breath on a turnaround any time soon.

Last week, we took a look at the fact that Sanchez just isn’t hitting the ball hard enough and is struggling against sliders and curves. Today, let’s take a look at how Gary’s plate discipline is doing.

Considering I started last week’s post by pointing out his high walk rate, this seems ironic. At first glance, it may not seem a great place to start. In addition the the walk rate, according to his profile, his chase rate is down from last year’s mark of 32.6 to 29.6. This is part of an overall trend, given that his swing percentage in general is down from 47.9 to 43.5. He’s, seemingly, been more selective this year, swinging at fewer pitches both in and out of the zone. In general, selectiveness at the plate is something we want to see a player demonstrate–especially when he’s seeing fewer pitches in the zone, as Gary is this year–but it hasn’t quite worked out for Sanchez this year. The reason why might not be readily visible in his overall swing profile.

That swing profile is broad and general and won’t differentiate between what good or bad pitches a player swings/doesn’t swing at. A pitch in the zone is in the zone, regardless of if it’s on the outside corner or right over the heart of the plate. Below are Gary’s zone profiles from 2017 followed by 2018. The former will be used as a basis of comparison for the later.

The first thing that sticks out to me is the middle of the zone, in, middle, and out. His swing rates on all three of those seemingly prime hitting locations has dropped by about 3%, 8%, and 5% respectively. Staying in the zone, but moving up, he’s swung at the middle-up and up-and-in strikes much more frequently this year. Both of those pitch locations can be hard to handle and it’s hard to get good lift on those balls to make them line drives or deep fly balls. Going back to the aforementioned Statcast swing profile, there’s an interesting note there. Despite seeing a similar number of pitches labeled as ‘meatballs’ this year as he did last year,Sanchez has swung at 8.6% fewer ‘meatballs’ in 2018.

There have also been jumps in his swing percentage on balls just out of the zone up, middle and away. Again, hard pitches to get on top of and do damage with.

Conversely, the pitches down in the strike zone–where a batter could more easily lift and drive them–have seen fewer overall swings than they did last year. On the plus side, he’s laid off the tempting pitches just below the zone, in, middle, and away.

So while Sanchez’s overall swing profile tells a story of a hitter who’s gotten more selective, when we look at it more closely, we see that his selectivity is being distributed to the wrong places. Obviously, injuries are a big part of why Sanchez’s season has been a disappointment. But the ‘misplaced’ selectiveness and the general lack of hard contact help explain why it hasn’t been a good season for Gary, even in times of health.

Gary and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Season

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(Getty)

What if I told you Gary Sanchez would have an 11% walk rate and a .225 ISO in 2018, and would be on the verge of 20 homers despite missing more than a month of baseball? You’d likely say Gary was having a pretty damn good year.

But given what his season stat line looks like, what can we say about his season other than what’s in the title of this post? Almost nothing has gone right for him this year in terms of both performance and health. The latter does, however, seem to be cleared up, but the performance hasn’t come around like we expected it to earlier in the year. What gives?

In at least one way–his basic batted ball profile–things look fairly similar to 2017. There are hardly any differences in his tendencies to pull, go up the middle, or hit to the opposite field. Some other things that look similar are his ground ball and fly ball rates. Despite those similarities, there are trouble spots.

His line drive rate has plummeted to 14.9%. Predictably, this has led to an increase in infield fly balls as well as a decrease in HR/FB%, the former increasing almost 9% and the latter dropping around 7%. That combination is not a recipe for success for any player who isn’t slashing the ball around the field, using his speed to get on base. Sanchez is not that type of player.

One culprit for the change in results for 2018 has been the slider and his lack of production against that pitch type. In 2017, he hit fairly well against the slider, racking up line drives on 27% of the sliders he put in play, as well as cranking out a homer about 21% of the time he put sliders in the air. Additionally, his pop up percentage per balls in play was low at just under 6%. Things have not gone as well in 2018.

His LD/BIP% has dropped to below 19%. The PU/BIP% has skyrocketed to almost 15%. The HR/(FB+LD)% has dropped to a tragically low 5.56%. Sanchez has also had issues with the slider’s forebear: the curveball.

Gary’s whiffed on 49% of the curveballs he’s swung at. That’s trouble no matter what happens when you actually do hit the ball. But when he’s done that, it’s mostly been weak contact, as he’s rocking a paltry LD/BIP% of under 12% on the deuce.

His Statcast data offers a mixed bag in terms of explanation for what’s going on. On the plus side, Sanchez’s contact profile suggests he’s way underperforming. His real wOBA? .307. His expected wOBA? .364. But on the flip side of that, his performance against non-fastballs has been so dismal that it’s hard to say he ‘deserves’ to be hitting better. Against offspeed pitches, he has a wOBA of just .189 with an xWOBA of .214. Against breaking pitches? wOBA: .203. xWOBA: .285. A lot of the difference in overall wOBA and overall xWOBA is the fact that despite a .388 wOBA on fastballs, he’s underperforming there, too, with an xWOBA of .437.

This has been a worst case scenario season for Sanchez. What could go wrong has gone wrong. Despite that, he still does have an outside shot at 20 homers and does have the rest of September and October to make meaningful contributions. If he does that, all of this will just be noise. Perhaps I’m too much of a Stan for Sanchez, but I have a hard time thinking he’ll repeat this type of season next year.

Masa’s Mastery

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(USA Today)

You’ll never convince me that Masahiro Tanaka isn’t a great pitcher. Sure, none of you reading this are likely to make that argument, but I think he’s a touch under appreciated outside of our pinstripe-tinted bubble. Of all the recent Yankee pitchers, I’ve always enjoyed watching him most. It seems that he never uses the same approach in consecutive games, yet he’s an effective pitcher. He can beat you with sinkers, sliders, and splitters all the same. Yeah, he gives up too many homers, but he counters that with plenty of grounders, good control and command, and a healthy dose of strikeouts. And since August, he’s been (mostly) dominant.

In his seven starts in the last month-plus, he has only one with more than one walk. In his seven starts in the last month-plus, he has had at least as many strikeouts as innings pitched four times. In his seven starts in the last month-plus, he has had a K/BB of at least 4.0 in six of them. He had a clunker of a start on 8/10 against the Rangers, which raised his season ERA to 4.08. Since then, he’s managed to lower it down to 3.61, good for a 122 ERA+, a marked improvement over last year’s below average figure. A big help with this has been his best pitch: the splitter.

Even before this good run, his splitter was his best pitch. It had a whiff/swing rate over 30%; a GB/BIP rate pushing 56%; and had the lost HR/(FB+LD) rate among all of his pitches. Even though his HR/(FB+LD) has climbed in the August-now sample, the other numbers have improved. His whiff/swing rate on the pitch is pushing 38% and he’s getting even more grounders with it at nearly 65%.

This little run is Tanaka at his best: mixing pitches, getting batters to chase, and putting them away with his splitter. It’s coming at a good time, too, just when the Yankees will need to solidify their postseason position. That it is coming now, in relative crunch time, is little surprise, given how well Tanaka pitched in the playoffs last year. With that in mind, is it possible Tanaka’s moved himself into the role of Wild Card Game Starter ahead of Luis Severino? Even a week ago, I would’ve said no, still stubbornly confident in Severino and his ability to turn it around. At this point, though, something is quite up with Severino–likely fatigue–and now I’ve shifted gears towards Tanaka. Of course, this is all recency bias and if Tanaka throws a poor start or two while Sevy does turn it around, my mind could easily change.

Peak Tanaka is just as good as any pitcher in baseball. He’s not always there, but when he is, he’s nearly impossible to beat. Regardless of whether he actually starts the Wild Card Game or not, I trust Tanaka in a big spot and you should, too.

Thinking Ahead to 2019

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(Rich Schultz/Getty)

Before we begin, an early Happy Labor Day to all of you. While you’re winding your summer down this weekend, please take a minute and reflect on the blood, sweat, and tears of the labor movement that made this weekend and so many other things possible.

Last week, I had my first three days of work since June. There weren’t any students, and not even the full staff was there, but it gave those of us who were there a chance to plan ahead. So, in a notebook, I have my units and lessons vaguely planned out up through the three day weekend of Veteran’s Day. Like talking about the Yankees’ roster in 2019 in September 2018, that’s a fool’s errand because so many things can and will come up to disrupt those plans. Regardless, and given that shaker of salt to consider, let’s take a look into the near future.

Starting with departures, the Yankees have a handful of pending free agents. On the pitching side of things, there’s CC Sabathia, JA Happ, Lance Lynn, David Robertson, and Zach Britton. On the position player side of things, there’s Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, Adeiny Hechavarria,  and Brett Gardner (with a $2MM buyout). That would leave the roster looking something like this as this year ends and next year begins.

C–Gary Sanchez, Austin Romine/Kyle Higashioka

1B–Greg Bird, Luke Voit

2B–Gleyber Torres, Ronald Torreyes

3B–Miguel Andujar

SS–Didi Gregorius

LF– Clint Frazier

CF–Aaron Hicks

RF–Aaron Judge

DH–Giancarlo Stanton

SP–Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, Sonny Gray,  Justus Sheffield (hopefully?), OPEN–presumably Jordan Montgomery if/when healthy

RP–Aroldis Chapman, Dellin Betances, Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle, Jonathan Holder, AJ Cole, Stephen Tarpley, Luis Cessa

That in and of itself is a decent roster; with it, the Yankees could easily compete, but there are enough questions that ‘reinforcements’ would be needed, especially on the pitching staff. A backup outfielder is also needed, as this bench is pretty thin.

Starting with, well, the starters, I think it’s almost a no brainer to bring CC Sabathia back. At this point, he’s earned the Andy Pettitte treatment–one year deals until he’s ready to retire. As he finishes out his career, he’s a good option on the back end of the rotation and he would be a great mentor to the younger guys on the staff in Sheffield and Montgomery. Additionally, he sets the tone for the clubhouse and having that around for another year would be valuable for the team in its present and future.

JA Happ has also earned a shot at a second look, at the very least. Having another lefty in the rotation, especially in Yankee Stadium, would be welcomed. His transition to a strikeout pitcher is also promising as his career moves forward. I’m not sure I’d go more than one or two years with him, but I wouldn’t object to him being back at all.

Between those relievers (and Lance Lynn), I think I’d only bring one back, and it would be David Robertson. Zach Britton still seems to be searching for something and while it might be a case of letting him go just as he’s about to figure things out, it’s risky enough that I’d be okay walking away.

As for the position players, all three are probably worthy of starting jobs, but it’s unclear if there would be one for them. Though it’s hard to say this–given he’s basically the position player version of Sabathia at this point, with the added homegrown label–it might be time for the Yankees to move on from Brett Gardner. I’ve loved rooting for him since his time in the minors and he’s been a good-at-times-great player for the Yankees since he came up, but the constant second half swoons and the young, viable replacement that is Clint Frazier make me think a send off is fine.

This, of course, doesn’t factor in outside spending and the Yankees–as every team–will look at the FA market for options, including Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. I, however, am unconvinced that the Yankees will spend big on either one. It would require a lot of moving parts and I don’t think that ownership wants to spend big anymore. While frustrating at times, it is an okay strategy in free agency, especially when the team doesn’t necessarily need big stars, given its construction and production.

Bullpenning the Wild Card Game

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(Presswire)

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.