My biggest fear since the Yankees traded for Clint Frazier is coming true: Frazier is going to get a full-time major league opportunity and realize his potential with a team other than the Yankees.
Since the day the Yankees traded Andrew Miller and received Clint Frazier in return, I have been fearful Frazier would get a full-time major league opportunity and realize his potential with a team other than the Yankees. Between the Yankees’ full roster and lineup, owed salary to established and veteran players, potential trades for starting pitching and Frazier’s own injuries, there has always seemed like too many obstacles in his way of becoming an everyday player for the Yankees.
This was before Frazier decided to pull his disastrous public relations stunt, dodging the media earlier this season following a forgettable Sunday Night Baseball game against the Red Sox. And this was before a roster number crunch made him the odd man out for the acquisition of Edwin Encarnacion. There might not be another team in baseball willing to send down a former first-round pick, who’s now 24 years old and batting .283/.330/.513 with 11 home runs and 34 RBIs, but the Yankees are.
Frazier doesn’t belong in Triple-A. He has nothing left to prove in a league in which he batted .305/.388/.562 in 54 games last year. He’s proven his former draft worth and has displayed the “legendary bat speed” Brian Cashman has raved about since the moment the Yankees traded for him. Unfortunately, for Frazier, the Yankees don’t make roster decisions based on performance.
Frazier’s injuries as a Yankee coupled with roster depth limited his chances to play in an everyday role with the team. Outside of a minor ankle sprain earlier this season, which he valiantly wanted to play through, Frazier has been as close to an everyday player for the Yankees as he’s ever been and he’s performed. He’s played both corner outfield positions (granted, not very well) and has hit everywhere from third to eighth in the lineup. Even in his last game before being sent down on Sunday, Frazier was the cleanup hitter. There were times when he was the best hitter in the lineup, surrounded by a long list of Replacement Yankees, and times when he single-handedly won games with his bat. He was finally (mostly) healthy and on his way to his talent ceiling in his fourth season with the organization.
The Yankees decided to not address their starting pitching issues in the offseason and again recently and now it’s going to likely cost Frazier his Yankees tenure, barring a truly significant injury to Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton or Aaron Hicks by July 31. Even then, Frazier remaining a Yankee might have to come at the cost of significant injuries to two of those three. Brett Gardner would likely go back to an undeserved everyday role after one injury with someone like the unworthy Mike Tauchman becoming the fourth outfielder.
The Yankees gave Gardner a one-year, $7.5 million deal the second free agency opened this past offseason, betting on a soon-to-be 36-year-old coming off the worst season of his career. His seniority and now contract are blocking Frazier from a roster spot in what should be his last season with the Yankees and in baseball, and the Yankees aren’t putting the best possible 25-man roster together or thinking about their future because of Gardner’s presence. A .234/.319/.392 hitter over his last 206 games and 869 plate appearances is sending Frazier to the minors. A late-game defensive replacement is keeping Frazier off this team. It’s not the first time a career resume, history with the team or owed money has been the deciding factor on a roster spot on a team claiming to trying to win the World Series every season, and it certainly won’t be the last.
The Yankees are about to having a starting outfield of Judge, Stanton and Hicks with Encarnacion as the primary designated hitter. There’s no place for Frazier with that setup and no place for him with the team committed to Gardner no matter how long his cold streaks last and how many of them he has. Frazier had his chances with the Yankees, not many of them, and was either injured playing the game hard or demoted for a more established and much older name. Now it looks like he’s out of chances with the Yankees’ inability to address their starting pitching issues in either of the past two offseasons or as recently as two weeks ago.
There’s a good chance Frazier won’t wear the pinstripes again. At least not at this point in his career. Maybe the team will trade for him again in 10 years when they need a right-handed power bat in the lineup to take away the roster spot of their 2029 version of Frazier.
Every sign points to Frazier being moved within the next six weeks and my biggest fear coming true: Clint Frazier is going to get a full-time major league opportunity and realize his potential with a team other than the Yankees.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!
We’re nearly halfway through the season, and overall, James Paxton has been the guy I feared the Yankees trading for aside from a pair of April starts. He needs to better. He has to better.
Back on April 16, James Paxton dominated the Red Sox for eight shutout innings. The game was at the height of the Replacement Yankees era when the team needed pitching to keep them in games, so their makeshift lineup wouldn’t have to do the heavy lifting. Paxton was brilliant, allowing two hits and a walk with 12 strikeouts over 110 pitches.
The following day, I wrote, “That’s the James Paxton the Yankees Traded For” in response to his first big start as a Yankee. I raved about him accepting and welcoming the pressure that comes with playing for the Yankees and his “We want to beat Boston every time” line to the media. I finished by writing the following:
I certainly don’t have to worry about Paxton’s mindset, and after Tuesday’s start, I don’t have to worry about his performance, knowing he has that level of dominance of him.
Well, not even two months later, I’m worried about his performance.
Paxton still has that level of dominance of him, but we have only seen it twice this season: the April 16 game against the Red Sox and his following start on April 21 against the Royals. Paxton pitched 14 scoreless innings over those two starts with 24 strikeouts as those were the only two starts of the season in which he went at least six innings. His other eight starts?
His other eight starts have been a disaster. OK, seven of his other eight starts have been a disaster since there was his return from the injured list on May 29 against the Padres when he threw only 66 pitches over four shutout innings and was treated more like an opener in that game. Outside of his April 16 and 21 starts, Paxton hasn’t gone six innings in any other start. Actually, forget six innings, Paxton has failed to go five innings in five of his 10 starts as a Yankee.
Last year at the trade deadline, I called James Paxton “blah” and in the same category as Chris Archer and Michael Fulmer, pitchers who I didn’t think were worth trading for since they wouldn’t really make the Yankees that much better and certainly worth giving up high-end prospects for. It was hard to find anyone who shared my perspective. His raw stuff wasn’t the reason I referred to him as “blah”, it was his combination of injuries and inconsistency. When Paxton was on, he was among the best pitchers in the world, but he was rarely on in consecutive starts or for any reasonable stretch of time. We have seen that now with the Yankees as well.
My biggest problem with the Yankees acquiring Paxton was the fact he has never pitched more than 160 1/3 innings in a single season and is good for at least one injured list trip per season. I wasn’t necessarily worried about his overall performance since I knew he would dominate at times and also lay some eggs at times. I was worried about his health, and rightfully so, as he landed on the injured in the middle of his seventh Yankees start, and now says his knee injury is something he will have to pitch through and deal with. After his starts against the Red Sox and Royals, I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about his performance, but he’s been hit around by teams like the Orioles, Giants, Blue Jays and Mets and has provided no length, so now I’m more than worried.
After the Yankees won the first game of the Subway Series doubleheader on Tuesday, I figured they would sweep the day. Paxton against the soft-throwing, left-handed Jason Vargas? That’s about as good of a matchup as you can ask for if you’re the Yankees. But Paxton gave up a double, single and three-run home run to open the game and was eventually pulled in the third inning. He put nine baserunners on in 2 2/3 innings and allowed six of them to score. His line: 2.2 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 1 HR. It was his shortest effort of the season and the most earned runs he’s allowed in a game as a Yankee. As he left the game, Michael Kay said, “Not Paxton’s night.” But when is it going to be his night again outside of those two April starts?
The Yankees need Paxton to either be great or give them length. If he’s going to be a five-inning pitcher, something the Yankees have too many of, then he needs to be great for those five innings. If he’s not going to do that then he needs to give them length. The combination of underperforming and going less than five innings isn’t going to work. It’s not just Paxton either, it’s who the Yankees’ rotation has been through 41 percent of the season. The Yankees have now played 66 games and their starters have pitched six innings in 25 of them and have provided 21 quality starts. Paxton has been a problem, though he’s just part of the problem. But given his stuff and ability, he shouldn’t be part of the problem.
The Yankees chose to pass on Dallas Keuchel, who would have offered them durability and length at just the cost of money. Instead, they will have to address their starting pitching performance and depth issues through a trade, considering they are out of in-house rotation candidates, which will likely cost them both money and prospects. And with the way the trade market has historically played out, the Yankees are about six weeks away from upgrading their rotation.
Even if the Yankees do upgrade their rotation, Paxton is still going to be a part of it and he’s still going to be counted on. We’re nearly halfway through the season, and overall, Paxton has been the guy I feared the Yankees trading for aside from a pair of starts against the Red Sox, who are .500, and the Royals, who have the worst record in the majors.
He needs to better. He has to better. He hasn’t been the James Paxton the Yankees thought they traded for.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!
The Yankees have now played 66 games and their starters have pitched six innings in 25 of them and have provided 21 quality starts. That’s not good. If it doesn’t change, they will be back in the wild-card game.
The Yankees won the first game of the Subway Series doubleheader on Tuesday and were set up perfectly to pull off the two-game sweep of the Mets. James Paxton against the soft-throwing, left-handed Jason Vargas? That’s about as good of a matchup as you can ask for if you’re the Yankees. Paxton couldn’t keep runners off base and the Yankees left too many baserunners on against Vargas and they had to settle for the doubleheader expectation of winning one and losing one against their cross-city rival.
Today is the Yankees’ second day off in three days after Monday’s rain out and their second scheduled off day so far in June. Their next scheduled off day isn’t until June 27 when they will have back-to-back days off before playing the Red Sox in London.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees on this off day as usual.
1. Some people complain the Subway Series isn’t what it used to be or that it’s lost its luster, but I still love it. In a 162-game schedule, which features 76 games against only the Red Sox, Rays, Blue Jays and Orioles, it’s nice to have a few games against the Mets. Even if they count the same in the standings, they feel like they count for more. I love the Subway Series, always have and always will.
2. Tuesday we got a full-day reminder of how bad the Yankees’ rotation is. On paper, the rotation seems great, but on the actual field, it’s a disaster.
Masahiro Tanaka put together another lackluster performance in the afternoon game: 6.2 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 1 HR. James Paxton followed that up with his worst start as a Yankee in the night game: 2.2 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 1 HR.
Remind me again why the Yankees passed on Dallas Keuchel? Oh yeah, because they’re cheap. The Yankees let Keuchel sign with the Braves over $3 million. Do you know how insignificant $3 million is to the New York Yankees? Even when you add in the luxury tax for signing Keuchel, it’s still insignificant.
I’m not saying Keuchel should have replaced Tanaka or Paxton. I’m saying he would have provided durability and length to a rotation in desperate need of it. He would have easily filled the void left by Domingo German and would have filled it with an experienced and established veteran. Instead, the Yankees are going to have to fill it with some combination of an opener through Chad Green, Nestor Cortes, Luis Cessa and David Hale or a minor-league option like Chance Adams, who we all saw why the Yankees have been hesitant to give him spot starts in the second game of the doubleheader.
The Yankees have now played 66 games and their starters have pitched six innings in 25 of them and have provided 21 quality starts. That’s not good. I’m not sure what the average or rate around the league is for starters going six innings or providing a quality start, but I don’t care about teams around the league. I care about the Yankees, who are in the middle of a championship window, and who are currently built from a rotation perspective like a team who’s going to end up in the wild-card game again. And if they do end up in the wild-card game again, they won’t be getting Ervin Santana or Liam Hendricks this time. They will be getting Chris Sale.
3. Yes, the Yankees are better now that Didi Gregorius is back and they will be even better when Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton return. But those three only make the Yankees offensively and defensively better. They don’t pitch and they don’t prevent the bullpen from getting worn down and potentially worn out long before October comes.
The Yankees chose to pass on Keuchel, who would have only cost them money. Now they will have to address their starting pitching performance and depth issues through a trade, considering they are out of in-house rotation candidates, which will likely cost them both money and prospects,. And with the way the trade market has historically played out, the Yankees are about six weeks away from upgrading their rotation.
But who are those rotation upgrades going to be? Madison Bumgarner, who has both a no-trade clause involving the Yankees and will likely want to be taken care of financially to waive it, to go along with the destruction of the Yankees’ farm system to acquire him? Marcus Stroman, who doesn’t miss many bats as a groundball specialist and will also cost valuable prospect assets along with a raise from his $7.4 million salary he received in arbitration prior to this season? Or a rental with less ability than Keuchel? No matter who it is, it will cost more than it would have to sign Keuchel and the pitcher most likely won’t be better than him either.
4. German was already facing an unknown innings limit this season and that was before he got hurt. Now that he’s on the injured list, who knows how he will able to help the team for the rest of the season and what role he will have if and when he returns.
German has a history of injuries, like most pitchers do, and it only makes it all the more puzzling as to why the Yankees thought they could get by this season with a rotation whose only non-injured member and only member who has no injury history is the 36-year-old J.A. Happ.
The Yankees have no more pitching depth. Luis Severino remains out, German is now out and Jonathan Loaisiga is injured. The Yankees are going to have to piece it all together with Tanaka, who has never pitched a full season in the majors, Paxton, who has the most lengthy injury history of all Yankees starters, CC Sabathia, who has scheduled trips to the injured list for knee maintenance, Happ, who has been healthy, but inconsistent, and some sort of opener with four blah bullpen arms. The Yankees might be sitting in first place right now, but I have no idea how they plan on staying there over the remaining 96 games with the state of their rotation.
5. Aaron Hicks returned to the Yankees on May 13. Through today, he has been back with the team for 31 days, or one month. The Yankees have played 26 games in the last 31 days, but six of them were a part of a doubleheader. They have had four rainouts and three scheduled off days in the 31 days, which translates to one full week off. Even with that full week off, Hicks has only played in 21 of a possible 26 games.
I only understand this playing schedule because I’m a Yankees fan and realize they will stop at nothing to give their players extra rest and unnecessary time off. They will cite their reasoning with Hicks as they are protecting him from aggravating his back injury, which makes no sense, since if he’s able to play baseball at all, why is it that they think more rest will somehow prevent it?
Hicks gets injured. That’s what he does. He’s never played more than 137 games in a season and in all four seasons with the Yankees he has been on the disabled or injured list at least once. Last season, he spent time on the injured list, the Yankees gave him unnecessary rest, and guess what, he still got hurt in the ALDS and missed postseason games.
The Yankees were rained out on Monday and are off today. You’re telling me Hicks couldn’t play baseball for 18 innings yesterday sandwiched between two days off? So instead of having a switch hitter in the middle of the Yankees order against Jason Vargas in the night game, the Yankees had the left-handed hitting Brett Gardner.
6. Oh, Gardner. Where to begin, where to begin.
Clint Frazier’s career has been marred by injuries and last season he missed almost the entire season due to injury. Knowing Frazier has missed significant development and Hicks has never played a full season in the majors due to injury, the Yankees chose to re-sign Gardner to a one-year, $7.5 million deal the second free agency opened. This after Gardner had just produced the worst season of his career, batting .236/.322/.368 and had lost his place atop the lineup and then lost his role as a starter completely following the acquisition of Andrew McCutchen.
The Yankees’ plan was to have Gardner get significant rest throughout the season because of his history of decline as the season progresses. This was an odd plan considering the Yankees feel every player needs significant rest, so they were signing a player who would turn 36 in the middle of the season and who would also require extra rest. Gardner was also going to serve in somewhat of a platoon role, only facing right-handed starters. This all changed when Hicks, Judge and Stanton went on the injured list and the Yankees needed Gardner to become an everyday player despite his lack of ability at 35.
Hicks has been back for a month and Frazier has also been back for a while from his brief trip to the injured list. But it’s Gardner who continues to play every game, whether the opposing starter is right-handed or left-handed.
Gardner picked up four hits in the doubleheader, including a ball which was misplayed into a triple and a garbage-time home run off the Mets’ version of Luis Cessa. The two multi-hit games were his first in nearly three weeks and the triple and home run did wonders for his sinking OPS, bringing it up 39 percentage points to .745. But Gardner is still batting .234/.316/.390 over his last 202 games and 854 plate appearances and that’s no small sample size.
Gardner’s roster spot will never be in jeopardy. The Yankees will eventually get rid of Cameron Maybin and Kendrys Morales when Judge and Stanton return or they would send Frazier, who has nothing left to benefit from in Triple-A, back down if they had to.
Gardner was supposed to be a role player and the fourth outfielder at best on the 2019 Yankees and was forced into a more regular role. He’s no longer being forced into that role because of a lack of roster depth, but the Yankees keep forcing him into the lineup.
7. Yes, that was another home run for Gary Sanchez on Tuesday, his 20th of the season, as he’s currently on a 68-home run pace over 162 games. When Sanchez nearly stole the AL Rookie of the Year from Michael Fulmer (and should have) in 2016, it was because he inexplicably hit 20 home runs in 53 games. He has 20 home runs in 48 games this season to go along with a .965 OPS.
8. Remember last year when a large faction of Yankees fans wanted Austin Romine to be the team’s starting catcher and wanted Sanchez benched or traded? That was fun.
Romine experienced a career year offensively last season, batting .244/.295/.417 with 10 home runs and 42 RBIs in 77 games and 265 plate appearances. This season, he’s come’s crashing back down, batting a miserable .198/.215/.253 in 27 games and 94 plate appearances. His OPS is currently .468. Mike Trout’s OBP is .460.
I don’t know what the Yankees see in Romine. He must not just be a great guy, teammate and clubhouse presence, he must be the greatest guy, greatest teammate and greatest clubhouse presence of all time because he provides no real value to the team on the field. He doesn’t hit for average or power and doesn’t walk, isn’t great at blocking or framing pitches and can’t really throw any runners out. It’s bad enough the Yankees feel the need to grant extra rest to their players, it’s even worse when it forces Romine into the lineup. Romine has walked twice all season and has one extra-base hit since April 20. There has to be a better backup catcher option for 2020. There has to be.
9. The news that Judge could play in rehab games starting this weekend and could be back with the team for the London trip is exciting and I’m sure Major League Baseball is even more excited than Yankees fans since they don’t want to showcase their two most storied franchises to Europe without the biggest star from the two teams.
I’m not counting on Judge playing in rehab games this week and I’m not going to plan to watch him play against the Red Sox at the end of this month. That’s not me being pessimistic, but rather a product of me being crushed time and time again by the Yankees and their ridiculously inaccurate timetables for their injured players. Last year, we were told Judge would be out for three weeks after breaking his wrist in late July. Three weeks became two months and there was a time when it looked like he might not return for the regular season or postseason.
I was at the game on April 20 when Judge left with a torn oblique and I figured he was done until at least the All-Star break. Now he’s going to be ready two weeks before that? I want that to be true more than anyone, but the Yankees have screwed up injuries for Judge last season and Severino, Hicks, Dellin Betances, Sanchez, Frazier and Stanton this season. It’s hard to believe anything they say regarding injuries.
10. The Yankees are fortunate their recent 4-6 slide hasn’t cost them any real ground in the standings. They do now share the same record and possession of first place in the division with the Rays, but the Red Sox still remain nine games back in the loss column.
My expected record for the Yankees in June is 15-11 and they are now 4-6, so they have a lot of work to do. They will have to go 11-5 for the rest of the month to match my expected record and be 52-30 after the London trip.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!
The Yankees’ bullpen is the team’s strength and gives them the best chance to win the division and avoid the wild-card game. If the super bullpen isn’t used when needed then what’s the point of even having it?
There was more bad injury news for the 2019 Yankees this past weekend when it was announced Dellin Betances experienced soreness while throwing earlier and had to skip his most recent throwing session. Betances was going to return to New York for more tests to find out if his latest setback was only soreness or something more serious.
It’s getting more and more difficult to envision a scenario in which Betances helps the Yankees this season. He has essentially been shut down since spring training with a shoulder impingement and has suffered setbacks both times he looked like he might be nearing a return to the team. I’m sure the Yankees have already planned on not having Betances this season and if he’s able to give them anything it’s an unexpected bonus. But the Yankees have to plan to end their World Series drought with the arms they do have, and those arms should be more than enough.
The easiest way to win the World Series starts with winning your division. Avoid the one-game playoff and using your best starter and elite relievers to remain in the playoffs and advance to the division series. The Yankees are most likely going to be in a division battle all season long with the Rays who aren’t going anywhere as they just took three out of four from the Red Sox in Boston. The Red Sox’ division chances are over and they will most likely be the second wild-card team. The AL East winner will get to line up their rotation as wanted and rest their roster at the end of the regular season. The AL East runner-up will get to face Chris Sale in a one-game playoff.
Too many times this season the Yankees have sacrificed a potential win for the big picture of a 162-game season. I understand the philosophy of sometimes needing to lose a battle to win the war, though it seems like the Yankees are unsure of when they need to win a battle to make sure they can still win the war later. Losing five of their last seven and dropping series to the lowly Blue Jays and the no-offense Indians is bad enough, but the bullpen management this season and especially over the last few weeks has been nonsensical.
On Sunday, the Yankees held a 5-0 lead through five innings after miraculously receiving five shutout innings from Chad Green and Nestor Cortes. Aaron Boone then went to his super bullpen for the last 12 outs of the game, which is what every fan wanted, in an attempt to salvage the final game of the series.
First in was Tommy Kahnle. He entered the game having appeared in only four games over the previous 14 days and faced 14 batters and threw 62 pitches in those two weeks. Kahnle’s first pitch was driven out of the park by the light-hitting Leonys Martin for a solo home run. Two pitches later, Oscar Mercado singled on a line drive. Four pitches after that, Carlos Santana singled on a line drive, and three pitches after that, Mike Freeman belted a three-run home run. Kahnle had thrown 10 pitches, giving up two line-drive singles and two home runs, and the only out he had recorded had been another fly ball to left-center. It was clear he was out of whack with such little real-game work in two weeks and his inability to locate his fastball was rendering his unhittable changeup useless. After Kahnle shook off the initial rust, he settled down to get a strikeout and groundout to end the inning.
Clinging to a one-run lead, Adam Ottavino entered for the seventh. In the last two weeks, the Yankees’ best reliever had pitched in five games and faced 17 batters and threw 68 pitches. He had only appeared in one game since June 1, and despite being the Yankees’ top relief option, he had only pitched in back-to-back games once since May 9-10. Ottavino retired his first batter of the game, but fell behind Jake Bauers 3-0, and Bauers got the green light on 3-0 and destroyed the fourth pitch of the at-bat to deep center for a game-tying home run. It was the first earned run Ottavino had allowed since Easter Sunday on April 21, which is the only other game he’s given up a home run in this season.
For the eighth, Zack Britton came in. Britton had also only been used in two games in June and four games in the last 14 days and his lack of work had popped up four days earlier when he allowed a go-ahead, three-run home run to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in Toronto in an eventual loss. Rather than realize Britton needed work after that home run, he wasn’t used in any of the next three games. Thankfully, on Sunday, he was able to work around a one-out walk to pitch a scoreless inning.
The Yankees took the lead in the ninth and that meant it was Aroldis Chapman’s turn to come in. Chapman had also only appeared in two games in June and had also only appeared in four games in the last 14 days. After watching Chapman for over four seasons now, I know how terrifying it is to watch him pitch when he’s asked to close out a close game on extended rest. When Jose Ramirez singled to lead off the ninth, I basically expected it. I didn’t expect Chapman to throw over to first wildly and allow Ramirez to advance to second with no outs. Then Chapman walked Roberto Perez, a career .209 hitter. I had seen this game many times before and I had a feeling I knew how it was going to end. But with Chapman unable to locate his fastball or slider and clearly rattled on the mound, Terry Francona did the Yankees a favor and had Bauers bunt. Yes, the same Bauers who had crushed a home run off Ottavino two innings earlier. Bauers popped the bunt attempt up for the first out of the inning. Kevin Plawecki then flew out on a ball Brett Gardner ran down, which looked like it was headed for the gap, for the second out. Unfortunately, with two outs, Chapman induced a game-ending ground ball, but Didi Gregorius misplayed it to allow the game-tying run to score. Chapman got out of the inning with a strikeout and the Yankees won the game in 10th when Stephen Tarpley pitched a perfect 1-2-3 inning.
While the Yankees’ top four relievers sat and watched recent winnable games like the series finales against the Royals and Red Sox turn into losses, The Goof Troop (Jonathan Holder and Luis Cessa) was constantly getting work. The Yankees have chosen to give their regular everyday players and elite relievers extra rest this season in favor of playing lesser talent. Earlier this season, it was Mike Tauchman playing every game while the regulars rotated getting days off, and all season in the bullpen, the lesser relievers have been continually used in any and all situations in favor of Kahnle, Ottavino, Britton and Chapman. Need to blow a lead or trail in a tie game or allow some insurance runs or lose in extra innings or get your elite arms warming up in what was once a lopsided game? Then Holder and Cessa are your guys.
Somehow, while the elite arms have sat, Holder has been racking up appearances and nearly all of them have had disastrous results. Before Sunday, Holder had appeared in four of the team’s seven games in June and and nine of the team’s last 15 games. He had faced 39 batters and thrown 151 pitches with a 7.56 ERA and 1.441 WHIP.
Cessa continues to have a roster spot because he’s out of options and the Yankees are scared he will magically figure it out with another organization. After pitching to a 1.59 ERA in his first seven games of the season, Cessa has regressed to his usual self: a pitcher with no set role who isn’t major league material. In his last 11 appearances, Cessa has allowed 22 hits and 15 earned runs in 17 2/3 innings, including six home runs. Batters have a .991 OPS against him in that time and his season ERA is up 5.28 and his WHIP at 1.483. Last season, Cessa pitched to a 5.24 ERA and 1.433 WHIP, so I’m not sure why the Yankees thought he was going to be any better this season just because the calendar turned.
It’s not like the Yankees have been blowing teams out or getting blown out as to why the elite arms haven’t pitched. There have been opportunities for the elite relievers to enter to hold both leads and deficits in close games, but the work has gone to Holder and Cessa or other lesser arms. There’s a fine line between using relief pitchers too much and not enough and the Yankees have done both. There’s no set amount of pitches, batters faced, innings or days off to determine who to pitch and when, but the Yankees think they have somehow figured it all out.
The Yankees’ bullpen is their strength and if they are to win it all this season, it will be because they can shorten games in October and getting five innings from their rotation will be more than enough. Given the state of their rotation and their decision to not address it, five innings is about all you can ask for from the current rotation. The bullpen isn’t only the Yankees’ strength for the postseason, it’s also their strength for the regular season, and the best chance they have to winning the division and avoiding the wild-card game. If the super bullpen isn’t used when needed then what’s the point of even having it? Put the team in the best position to succeed in the current situation and win the game at hand. Worry about tomorrow when you get there. Or there won’t be a tomorrow to play for.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!
The ownership and front office of the Yankees should regret the decision to pass on Dallas Keuchel. But given the way they have operated in recent years, they won’t.
The ownership and front office of the Yankees should regret the decision to pass on Dallas Keuchel. They should regret it the same way they should regret not trading for Justin Verlander by the September 1 deadline in 2017 only to have him single-handedly beat them in the ALCS, and the same way they should regret cutting payroll by $50 million the season after they came within one win of the World Series. Unfortunately, I don’t think the Yankees regret either of those decisions, and I don’t think they will regret this one either.
After the egregious mistakes of Verlander in 2017 and the drastic decrease in payroll in 2018, the Yankees reset their luxury-tax number for the most impressive free-agent class in history. While the disappointing endings to the previous two seasons stung, the Yankees were about to enter the first real season in their current window of opportunity to win a championship and they had set themselves up perfectly to potentially build a dynastic roster. The Yankees were expected to combine their inexpensive core of position players of Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar with one and possibly two 26-year-old generational superstars and give their rotation a boost with a 29-year-old, left-handed strikeout machine. But they didn’t. They passed on all three, settling on much more cost effective options and once again creating a super bullpen, a bullpen they failed to utilize properly in the postseason, the time of the year they built it solely for.
Hal Steinbrenner cited the future need to pay the Yankees’ homegrown core as the reason for not signing any of the Top 3 free agents and his excuse was full of holes. If the Yankees weren’t willing to sign the 26-year-old Bryce Harper or 26-year-old Manny Machado or 29-year-old Patrick Corbin, why would they suddenly be OK with signing Judge, Sanchez, Torres or Andujar at older ages? If the Yankees didn’t want to give out long-term contracts for players into their mid-30s, then how were they going to give any members of their core long-term contracts?
It’s become nearly impossible to believe Hal’s “championship goal” sales pitch because he’s done nothing to prove he’s doing everything to achieve that goal. Are fans supposed to believe the organization’s disastrous Brian McCann-Jacoby Ellsbury-Carlos Beltran offseason more than five years ago was their way of showing they care rather than just a failed attempt to recreate the CC Sabathia-A.J. Burnett-Mark Teixeira offseason which led to a championship? Are fans supposed to think acquiring Giancarlo Stanton was the same as going all out in this past free-agent class when Stanton was essentially handed to the Yankees and his salary was offset by the subtraction of Starlin Castro, the trade of Chase Headley and the Marlins picking up some his tab? The Yankees are making more money than ever before and somehow their payroll isn’t higher than ever before and somehow they aren’t chasing players who will only cost money. Hal has been a broken record when it comes to preaching player development and building a team from within with a strong farm system, yet here he is, failing to go after players who will only cost money and won’t dismantle the team’s farm system.
I understand the Yankees’ decision to pass on Dallas Keuchel during the offseason. He’s on the wrong side of 30 and every important metric to the left-handed groundball pitcher is trending down. It didn’t make sense to give the 31-year-old a multi-year deal when he’s pitching more like a 38-year-old, and when you couple his declining performance and big-money demands with his attachment to a first-round draft pick, he never made sense for the Yankees with the way they currently operate.
But everything changed when Keuchel went unsigned past the draft. He was no longer attached to a first-round pick and he was willing to except a prorated version of the qualifying offer he turned down from the Astros for the rest of the season. The Yankees could get Keuchel as a four-month rental and solidify their rotation with a durable, left-handed arm, and all it would cost them is cash. Somehow, they passed again.
The Yankees have played 61 games. Their starters have pitched six innings in 23 of them and have provided 21 quality starts. That’s not bad, that’s atrocious. The disappointing starting pitching has led to the super bullpen being overused, and as the Yankees’ biggest strength, the super bullpen isn’t going to be so super come October if it keeps needing to get 12-plus outs per night. Keuchel might not be what he was as the AL Cy Young winner in 2015 (20-8, 2.48 ERA) or as an All-Star in 2017 (14-5, 2.90 ERA). The Yankees only needed him to be what he was in 2018 (12-11, 3.74 ERA) and they might not have even needed that kind of performance. They need quality innings and length from durable, experience starting pitcher and Keuchel is exactly that.
Now the Yankees will have to hold off the Rays for 101 games with the injury-prone histories of Masahiro Tanaka, James Paxton and CC Sabathia, the innings limit of Domingo German and the inconsistent performance of J.A. Happ. Maybe they will get Luis Severino back at some point this season and he will be his usual ace self, but counting on the face of the Yankees’ current and future rotation following shoulder and lat injuries is a major risk. If any of the current five members of the rotation should get injured or need to miss a start, which is a certainty, considering Sabathia’s knee-related missed starts are planned, the options are using an “opener” combination of Chad Green, Nestor Cortes, Luis Cessa and David Hale or getting spot starts from Chance Adams or possibly Jonathan Loaisiga if he gets healthy. The Yankees have no starting pitching depth, though not many teams do, and they had a chance to acquire depth for only money: the thing they make more of than any other team.
The Yankees will likely address their starting pitching need between now and the July 31 trade deadline, but it’s going to come at the cost of a trade. They won’t be able to fix their problem with their bank account, they will have to further dismantle their farm system, which has taken a big hit over the last two years with trades for players and pitchers like David Robertson, Todd Frazier, Tommy Kahnle, Sonny Gray, Brandon Drury and Zack Britton. The Yankees might be able to land a pitcher with better abilities than Keuchel, but chances are they are going to land someone with equal or lesser ability at a much greater price.
The Replacement Yankees did their part in April for keeping the team afloat until some of the regulars could return. The Yankees kept it going in May by climbing past the Rays for first place in the East and proving to ownership and the front office how good this team could be once Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Didi Gregorius, Severino and Dellin Betances return. The players have lived up to their end of the bargain by proving their worth as a World Series contender in need of a starting pitcher to avoid the wild-card game for the fourth time in five years. Ownership failed them again by passing on Keuchel. The players should be used to it by now. The fans certainly are.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!
