River Avenue Blues

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The ‘It’s not what you want’ guide to the 2019 Yankees

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It’s not what you want. (Mike Stobe/Getty Images)

The Yankees manager, whether you like the person or not, becomes a part of your life if you follow the team consistently. You begin to understand the way they talk, the nicknames they have for the players and how they handle the team.

Despite all of his accomplishments in New York, Joe Girardi left an imprint on my daily life with one phrase that became synonymous with him: “It’s not what you want.” Life will let you down in ways you can’t control and it will leave you throwing your hands up in the air in despair in the fashion of Girardi, muttering the catchphrase. Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you I say it too often.

INWYW works well with any aspect of random failure. You leave your house in the morning and forget your umbrella? It’s Not What You Want. Your computer gives you the blue screen of death? It’s Not What You Want. Your baseball team loses every single valuable contributor to injury? It’s definitely Not What You Want.

There are also different levels of INWYW. Some issues are minor and cause minimal annoyment while others will introduce severe exasperation.

I decided to rank some of the problems facing the 2019 Yankees on the It’s Not What You Want scale, which ranges from 1-5 Girardis.

Shaky April Bullpen: Two Girardis

Despite coming in with tremendous expectations, the Yankees’ bullpen has had a rocky beginning to 2019. They’ve accumulated innings while not necessarily looking great doing so. Zack Britton, Adam Ottavino and Aroldis Chapman have each struggled. Dellin Betances is out for a while. Meanwhile, Chad Green was optioned to the minors and looked lost beforehand.

It’s not what you want.

But! the Yankees are hardly the only team having bullpen issues. Among contenders, the Red Sox, Dodgers, Brewers, Mets and Nationals are all having some trouble. Furthermore, would you be shocked if the Yankees’ bullpen shapes up? I wouldn’t be. There’s a lot of guys with proven track records and even if Green doesn’t get it together, others will. There’s minimal exasperation.

Aaron Boone’s Managing: 1.5 Girardis

OK, if this is from Girardi’s perspective, this is a five, but Boone is his successor.

Anyway, the complaints about Boone are pretty constant and it’s hard not to quibble with some of his decisions, whether it’s off-days, bullpen management or some strategic inconsistencies. The playoffs put them on the national stage.

However, the role of a modern MLB manager is entirely overblown. The front office hands down a lot of the decisions and Boone isn’t to blame for the spate of injuries or underperformance of others. Feel free to question Boone, but he’s not the main source of the Yankees’ problems. I just can’t get myself too overhyped about managerial decisions.

Oh no, more injuries. INWYW. (Brian Blanco/Getty)

The Injured List: Four Girardis

Oy vey. The Ringer detailed this pretty well, but the Yankees have had a truly historic smattering of injuries to their team. There are some short-term injuries with CC Sabathia and Gary Sanchez making quick returns and there are the long-term, significant ones to Aaron Judge, Luis Severino and Betances. The latter trio is arguably the Yankees’ best hitter, starting pitcher and reliever. The team has lost five (!) outfielders.

I’m genuinely unsure how a team can withstand the blows this team has taken, but they’re over .500 right now and thriving. Perhaps Severino being the only major blow to the rotation thus far has been its saving grace. Regardless, each subsequent IL announcement just gives an overwhelming feeling of despair, cursing the heavens with a INWYW.

The Defense: Two Girardis

The silver lining to the injuries has been everyday time for D.J. LeMahieu and Giovanny Urshela on the infield. Those guys are tremendous. The final groundout from Wednesday’s game would have been a throwing error or just a single with Miguel Andujar But losing Aarons Judge and Hicks, as well as Sanchez’s throwing arm for a time, haven’t help at all. Brett Gardner is still a strong outfielder but he’s best in a corner. We all miss Didi.

Pondering whether this is what you want or not. (Mike Carlson/Getty)

Missing out on Machado/Harper: Three Girardis

This is a special case of It’s Not What You Want: The level of exasperation is high, but the level of consequence is unknown. Would the Yankees have a better record with these guys? Maybe. Will not signing either player cost New York a World Series? Perhaps. It’s hard to know how much this has set back the Bombers and we’ll never truly nail it down. ¯\_(?)_/¯

River Avenue Blues Shutting Down: Five Girardis

This is my last post for the site. This place is the centerpiece to the Yankees Internet to me and there’s a major void without it. Losing this place is … not what you want. The last two-plus years writing here has been a blast. I hope to keep writing in some capacity and will be popping up on YESNetwork.com on occasion. Thanks to Mike, Ben, Joe and everyone who has made this site what it’s been.

A Brief History of the Tech Behind RAB

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Jay has been RAB’s SysAdmin, you can find him on Twitter at @jaydestro.

Keeping RiverAveBlues online has been “a thing” for me over the years.  Whether it’s when I worked at a web hosting provider and was just a fan of Mike’s writing… all the way until today, where I am getting ready to start archiving the site I’ve done my best to keep available.  Back in 2009, I did a ton of technical work for free for the guys to make sure the website stayed online and ran smoothly.  To repay me, they made me a partner in the company — pretty cool, huh?

RAB has run on the WordPress blogging platform since its inception.  Originally on a shared hosting provider, the site was eventually moved to a single VM with Rackspace.  I eventually migrated everything to two dedicated servers: one was a HP DL360 G3 front end server we used for all the web traffic with Apache and the other a SuperMicro generic white box we used for the MySQL database server and memcached.

The hard part was always keeping up with the excitement of the Yankees as the accessibility of the internet exploded on mobile.  Every day we saw the need for more capacity increase as the need for Yankees news at any moment continued to explode.  Mike’s profile began to grow as he took on jobs with MLBTradeRumors and eventually CBS.  People really came to rely on the work Mike did and I took personal responsibility to keep that work online, and for it to reach as wide of an audience as possible.

One moment I always recall as pivotal in making a major overhaul to the RAB infrastructure was the day the Yankees traded for Ichiro.  I was in Oxford, England at a job I had just started.  I had recently moved the website in a “lift-and-shift” manner to AWS and really had not had a chance to do a ton of optimization.  I woke up to a slew of text messages from Mike and Joe telling me they couldn’t get to the site.  I found a free moment to fix the problem I found on total MySQL connections and got the site back online.

I later would learn a ton more about AWS from my friends Lenny Herold, Jeff Kaplan and Tony Tonns (RIP).  I would take this knowledge to eventually fully automate the RAB services to no longer rely on static VMs and moved to an autoscaling platform.  Tony taught me a ton about memcached, tuning MySQL and ensuring reliability through resilient services.  I later configured a number of cache layers and made the W3 Total Cache plug-in an absolute MUST.  I found a lot of success in using the plugin in combination with a memcached service for each cache layer.  This was for object, page and MySQL database cache that ran on RDS.  Auto-scaling the front end also became an easy task so that when our traffic increased, we could easily add capacity automatically.

As time moved on, we removed the native WordPress commenting system for Disqus.  This was an absolute godsend, as server load during “thundering herd” moments of large traffic greatly decreased. Users were storing comments in a separate database which really meant we were prepared for GDPR protections years before it was implemented.  I never really wanted RAB to be in the business of storing anyone’s data.  Because of that, the old users were eventually purged from the RAB database, including any user information you may have provided us. This makes me happy that we have never compromised/hacked thanks to good security defaults and reducing our total data exposure by simply not storing that data.

Later on, we found new ways to further reduce server load with the implementation of a CDN and better communication amongst the writers about how we needed to store static images.  That meant faster load times and better access to the site when big moments happened.

Things haven’t always been perfect, but the bigger incidents have done a ton to teach me more about what I do for a living,  I have always appreciated including communities in the work I have done or the hobbies I enjoy.  Baseball and technologies are my passions and RAB was the ultimate culmination of both for me.

Now, I work at Microsoft and teach people how to use the Azure cloud.  I also spend my time helping organize the DevOpsDays NYC conference and do the On-Call Nightmares Podcast.  I love chatting technology and baseball – feel free to reach out if you ever need help or just want to talk about these topics, or metal music, or anything pug-related  Thanks for reading RAB all these years; it’s been a big part of my life.  None of this stuff happens without Mike, Joe and Ben.. to them I am eternally grateful.  Thank you always to my wife, Betsy, who was woken up as many times as I was to fix things (and occasionally woke me up for breaking news, like the Andrew Miller trade in 2016). Eternal gratitude to everyone who came to the site and returned an HTTP call successfully. That means I did my job.

RAB Tech Stack 2007 – 2019:

Linux, WordPress, Apache, PHP, Memcached, MySQL

Yankees Only.

OOTP Simulation: The Official RAB 2018-2019 Offseason Plan

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(Presswire)

As the end of RAB draws near, I figured I would give an ode to one of the site’s annual features: the Official RAB Offseason Plan. Back in November, Mike published the plan to fill the roster for 2019. I’m giving it life in an alternate universe: Out of the Park Baseball 20.

As a refresher, let’s compare his offseason plan to what actually occurred:

What the Yankees actually did looks a whole lot different than what Mike came up with. Two more things to note about how I set this up, aside from making the aforementioned roster changes. One, the only injuries the OOTP team started with were the ones the team already had entering spring training (like Didi Gregorius, for instance). That means Luis Severino, Aaron Hicks, et. al. all got a new lease on life. Second, I let the computer take total control after the I set the roster up. Didn’t want any of my personal input to be included whatsoever. Now, time for the simulation.

By the numbers

This hypothetical club was a juggernaut in OOTP’s world. It scored a remarkable 888 runs and hit 272 home runs to shatter the record the team set last season. The pitching was good, but the bullpen was not as great as one might think (9th in reliever ERA in the American League). Player statistics are embedded below and here is a link to the Google sheet as well.

I think the real life Yankees have already spent more days on the injured list than this pretend team did. Other than the pre-existing injuries, only Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Raimel Tapia, Gary Sanchez, Patrick Corbin, and Hyun-Jin Ryu spent time on the shelf.

The hits

Corbin proved to be a home run even though he missed a few starts. The lefty accumulated 4 WAR in just over 150 innings pitched. He also recorded a 2.67 postseason ERA in four starts, winning three of those ballgames. The other wise free agent decision was to bring back David Robertson. Houdini had a 2.78 ERA and his typical high strikeout rate.

Tapia was a successful acquisition as well, though his season came to a bitter end. After hitting .296/.325/.455 (107 OPS+), the outfielder ruptured his MCL in September, which ended his season. Another trade acquisition, Jurickson Profar, wound up being a good get too. The jack of all trades infielder netted 2.5 WAR and a 111 OPS+.

The misses

Wei-Yin Chen was an unmitigated disaster. That said, I wouldn’t blame Mike for it. Rather, the fault belongs to the computer for letting him pitch so much. Chen posted a 6.91 ERA in more than 80 innings which made him two wins below replacement level.

I don’t know if it’s fair to call the next two misses, but they weren’t necessarily good. Neil Walker was actually cut loose in May, though he only had six plate appearances to his name. He had an emergency appendectomy early in the season and was ultimately released. Ryu was decent, pitching to a 101 ERA+ (4.66 ERA). He suffered a severe ankle sprain and missed a big chunk of the season to boot.

Better off elsewhere?

As you can tell by the length of the “out” list, there are a number of current Yankees who played for other squads in the OOTP universe. Let’s see how they did:

  • Brett Gardner (Cleveland): 512 PA, 79 OPS+, 1.3 WAR
  • James Paxton (Seattle): 211 IP, 109 ERA+, 3.3 WAR
  • Michael King (Texas, did not play in majors)
  • Jacoby Ellsbury (Miami): 60 PA, 83 OPS+, 0.1 WAR
  • Luis Cessa (Miami): 15.1 IP, 58 ERA+, 0.2 WAR
  • Jonathan Loaisiga (Colorado): 20 IP, 82 ERA+, 0.1 WAR
  • Troy Tulowitzki (Texas and San Diego): 448 PA, 73 OPS+, 0.9 WAR
  • DJ LeMahieu (Angels and Minnesota): 623 PA, 107 OPS+, 3.0 WAR
  • Mike Tauchman (Colorado): 651 PA, 108 OPS+, 3.0 WAR
  • Zack Britton (Dodgers): 29 IP, 149 ERA+, 0.0 WAR
  • Gio Gonzalez (White Sox, Dodgers, Cincinnati): 155.1 IP, 99 ERA+, 2.7 WAR
  • J.A. Happ (Baltimore and San Diego): 187 IP, 109 ERA+, 1.8 WAR
  • Adam Ottavino (Washington): 67.1 IP, 152 ERA+, 0.5 WAR

Standings and postseason results

The faux Yankees won 99 games and secured a Wild Card berth. Yes, the Red Sox were division champions once again, winning 104 games. Midseason acquisitions of Brian McCann and Justin Smoak helped put them over the top while their bullpen was surprisingly good. This year, however, the Yankees got the last laugh in the division series. In a rematch of last season, the Yankees toppled the Red Sox in five games. To backtrack for just a second, the Bombers knocked off the Angels in the Wild Card round before facing Boston.

The championship series was yet another rematch, this time against the team that eliminated the Yankees in 2017. It took seven games, but the Yankees outlasted the Astros to move on to the World Series. Didi Gregorius was the series MVP. He swatted three taters and reached base at a .516 clip. Nice to get revenge against the two franchises that knocked them out in the two seasons prior.

In the World Series, the Yankees took on the Rockies. Just as we all expect to happen! After an 11-1 victory in game one, things were looking good. Most notably, Giancarlo Stanton drove in five runs and hit his seventh (!) postseason home run. Things went downhill from there: the Yanks lost the next four games and thereby the series. Three of those losses were by one run and the bullpen blew two games. Chad Green coughed up the lead in game three and David Robertson did the same in game four. In the fifth and decisive game, Corbin tossed his only stinker of the postseason. The Rockies took home their first championship.

Awards

A few Yankees took home awards. Aroldis Chapman was named the American League’s best reliever. The lefty tallied 36 saves, 91 strikeouts, and a 2.35 ERA in 57.1 innings. No Yankees took home Gold Gloves, but a couple won Silver Slugger awards. Gary Sanchez took home the reigns at catcher after a monster season. 41 home runs for a backstop will do that. Meanwhile, Giancarlo Stanton won as designated hitter. He blasted 53 dingers. Somewhat humorously, Aaron Boone won Manager of the Year. The Cy Young award went to Chris Sale, but Luis Severino finished in second.

Leftovers

You might be wondering about what trades the AI made midseason, if any. There are a myriad of deals that went down around the league, but the Yankees only made one trade: Austin Romine for Mark Canha. Why? I don’t really know.

So, would you sign up for a World Series loss right now if it meant postseason vengeance against Boston and Houston? It’s kind of hard to stomach losing the World Series to the Rockies, yet this hypothetical season kind of reminds me of 2003. The ALCS *felt* bigger than the World Series that year. Not that I didn’t care that the Yankees lost to the Marlins, but rather, the bigger memory was the seven games against Boston.

Roster speculation and be-the-GM type thinking always makes for fun discussion and debate. There are a million great things that RAB has done over the years, but I always enjoy Mike’s thought process about acquisition targets. One facet of that has been his offseason plans, and I figured it would be fun for OOTP to shine on a light on what could have been from his perspective.

Five bold predictions for the 2019 Yankees

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(Presswire)

In less than 28 hours the Yankees will open the 2019 regular season at home against the Orioles. Spring Training really flew by this year even though it seemed like someone got hurt every other day. Thank goodness it’s over, both Spring Training and an offseason that was frustrating for fans (of all teams) more often than not.

Since Opening Day is tomorrow, it’s time for what has become my annual bold predictions post. Two years ago I went 7-for-10 and that told me I didn’t go bold enough. I trimmed it to five bold predictions last year and went 0-for-5. That’s more like it. Fewer predictions with a greater emphasis on bold. That’s the point, right?

Well, anyway, here are my five hopefully bold enough predictions for the 2019 Yankees, listed in no particular order. We’ll come back and see how I did in a few months.

Judge and Stanton will combine for 116 home runs

The Yankees set several home run records last season, mostly notably the single-season record with 267 homers, but the whole “first team to get 20 homers from every lineup spot” thing is my favorite record. That is insane. That deep attack is how the Yankees were able to set the single-season homer record despite losing Aaron Judge to a wrist injury for seven weeks and others underperforming.

Breaking the home run record again this season is a very possible. It’ll take good health, something the Yankees don’t have right now, but it is possible. My focus is another home run record though. I’m predicting Judge and Giancarlo Stanton will combine for 116 homers, the most ever by two teammates in history. Only five sets of teammates have ever combined for as many as 100 homers in a season.

  1. 1961 Yankees (115): Roger Maris (61) and Mickey Mantle (54)
  2. 2001 Giants (110): Barry Bonds (73) and Rich Aurilia (37)
  3. 1927 Yankees (107): Babe Ruth (60) and Lou Gehrig (47)
  4. 1998 Cardinals (101): Mark McGwire (70) and Ray Lankford (31)
  5. 2002 Rangers (100): Alex Rodriguez (57) and Rafael Palmeiro (43)

Judge and Stanton combined to hit 65 home runs last season, so, even as good as they are, they only got a little more than halfway to my boldly predicted total of 116. Here’s the thing though: Judge and Stanton combined to hit 111 home runs in 2017. Not as teammates, of course, but they combined for 111 homers. Judge hit a rookie record 52 homers and Stanton hit an MLB best 59 homers with Miami.

These two have already come pretty close to 116 homers! Stanton will play the entire 2019 season at 29 and Judge will turn 27 in a few weeks, so they’re both very much in the primes of their careers. Also, Stanton will presumably be more comfortable in year two in New York, and he gets to play in Yankee Stadium. I mean, the guy hit 59 homers while playing his home games in spacious Marlins Park. Why can’t he hit 60-65 in a friendlier ballpark in the Bronx?

Judge and Stanton combining for 116 homers means one of them will almost certainly have to hit at least 62 homers, which would pass Maris and set a new American League single-season home run record. I suppose they could split it right down the middle and hit 58 each. The more likely scenario is one has a historic record-breaking season while the other merely has a monster MVP caliber season. It could happen!

Paxton will receive the most Cy Young points by a Yankee since Clemens

The last Yankee to win the Cy Young award is Roger Clemens in 2001. He went 20-1 in his first 30 starts that year, and that created a Cy Young narrative that was more or less unbreakable. Going 20-1 (he finished 20-3) was hard to ignore even though new Yankees teammate Mike Mussina (3.15 ERA and +7.1 WAR) had an objectively better season than Clemens (3.51 ERA and +5.7 WAR).

Since 2001, eleven different players have combined for 16 instances of a Yankee receiving Cy Young votes. Most notably, Mariano Rivera was the runner-up to Bartolo Colon in 2005 and Chien-Ming Wang was the runner-up to Johan Santana in 2006. The Cy Young ballot is five names deep and a first place vote equals five points, a second place vote equals four points, all the way on down to one point for a fifth place vote. The most points wins.

The most Cy Young points tallied by a Yankee since Clemens was not Luis Severino two years ago. It was CC Sabathia in 2010. He threw 237.2 innings with a 3.18 ERA and +6.4 WAR that season, and finished third in the Cy Young voting behind Felix Hernandez and David Price. Here are the top Cy Young point totals among Yankees since Clemens:

  1. 2010 CC Sabathia: 102 points
  2. 2017 Luis Severino: 73 points
  3. 2005 Mariano Rivera: 68 points
  4. 2011 CC Sabathia: 63 points
  5. 2006 Chien-Ming Wang: 51 points
  6. 2004 Mariano Rivera: 27 points
  7. Ten instances with 13 or fewer points

For reference, American League Cy Young winners have averaged 166.4 voting points over the last ten years. (The National League average is a bit higher because Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, and the late Roy Halladay skewed it with their overwhelming greatness.)

With all due to respect to Masahiro Tanaka, who is forever cool with me, James Paxton is the Yankees’ best chance at Cy Young votes this year given Severino’s injury. Paxton has flashed ace ability in the past — at one point last May he struck out 16 and threw a no-hitter in back-to-back starts — but he hasn’t had that complete, fully healthy ace season yet. Last year he threw 160.1 innings with a 3.76 ERA. The year before it was 136 innings with a 2.98 ERA.

Blake Snell lowered the Cy Young threshold last year by throwing only 180.2 innings, the fewest ever by a Cy Young winner in a non-strike season. Of course, Snell also became the first American League starter with a sub-2.00 ERA since peak Pedro Martinez, so those 180.2 innings were super high-quality. Point is though, winning the Cy Young with only 180 or so innings is no longer impossible. You just need to be really, really good.

The bold prediction here is Paxton will not only stay healthy and get to 180 innings or thereabouts, but that he’ll also perform as well as 2017 on a rate basis. Even with the move from Safeco Field T-Mobile Park into Yankee Stadium. That means a 3.00 ERA or so, a FIP about a half-a-run lower, a strikeout rate approaching 30%, and nearly five strikeouts for every one walk. Add in the “new guy carrying to the Yankees to the postseason” narrative, and there you go. Even if he doesn’t win the award, Paxton will rake in Cy Young points.

Andujar will finish the year as an above-average defender

Perhaps my boldest prediction ever. I’m a longtime Andujar believer — what’s a good fan club name, the FANdujars? — and yes, I know he was atrocious defensively last season. Defensive Runs Saved data goes back to 2003 and includes over 31,000 individual player seasons. Last year Andujar finished with the 25th worst rating (-25 runs) in DRS history, sandwiched right between 2004 Bernie Williams (-26 runs) and 2007 Derek Jeter (-24 runs). Eek.

Like I said though, I am an Andujar believer, and I’m boldly buying into all the defensive work he did over the winter and in Spring Training, as well as a year’s worth of MLB experience. Being a rookie in the big leagues isn’t easy, especially not in New York with a Yankees team that is in the race. It’s pretty remarkable Andujar and Gleyber Torres were as productive as they were last season. There’s a lot to absorb during that first year in the show.

Andujar (and Torres) knows what to expect now, and he’s a very hard worker who’s spent a lot of time working on his defense the last five months. A lot. I expect all that work to pay off this summer. We’re going to see more plays like this …

… and fewer missed dives and double-clutches and short-hopped throws. Will Andujar be Adrian Beltre? Maybe! But no, probably not. I’m going with above-average, and, just to be completely upfront about this, I am totally claiming victory here if Andujar finishes the season at, like, +0.1 UZR with the other defensive metrics in the negative. One stat in plus territory, even by a tiny little bit, works for me.

Ottavino will lead the Yankees in saves

On paper, Adam Ottavino is what, fourth on the closer depth chart? Aroldis Chapman will again go into the season as the ninth inning guy, as he should, and my hunch is Zack Britton is next in line for save opportunities over Dellin Betances whenever Chapman needs a day. Either way, it’s Britton and Betances behind Chapman in either order, which means Ottavino is fourth at best. Maybe he’s even behind Chad Green? Could be.

Even at fourth on the closer depth chart, you don’t have to try real hard to envision Ottavino getting save chances at some point. I’m worried this bold prediction isn’t all that bold. Betances is already hurt, and while it’s not expected to be a long-term injury, you never really know with shoulders. He might not be the same dominant Dellin when he returns. That means Ottavino would have one fewer player standing in his way for save chances.

I didn’t love the decision to re-sign Zack Britton — like the rest of the Yankees’ free agent activity, it was fine and nothing more — because his strikeouts have gone down and his walks have gone up, and hitters aren’t chasing out of the zone nearly as much as they did a few years ago. For a 31-year-old reliever who’s missed a bunch of time with injuries the last two years, expecting Britton to be good rather than great isn’t crazy. I mean, look at this:

As for Chapman, he looked sneaky crummy this spring, with a fastball that sat mostly 94-96 mph rather than 97-98 mph. I know it’s only Spring Training, believe me, but Chapman’s fastball averaged 99.1 mph last March. For a guy who’s already losing velocity, seeing mid-90s rather than upper-90s this spring was a little worrisome. Hopefully he will regain those last few miles-an-hour as the weather warms up and the ninth inning adrenaline flows.

Even then, Chapman spent about a month on the disabled list in 2017 (shoulder) and 2018 (knee), and had to be demoted out of the closer’s role each year. It wouldn’t be the most surprisingly thing in the world if it were to happen again. Between Betances already being hurt and Britton and Chapman showing signs of decline, it sure seems like Ottavino is closer to save chances than it may appear given the other names in the bullpen.

If Ottavino leads the Yankees in saves — ahem, when he leads the Yankees in saves — my guess is he’ll do so with a low total like 18 saves. Ottavino has 18 saves, Chapman has 17 saves, Britton has 14 saves, something like that. It won’t be Ottavino with 42 saves and the runner-up with five saves or something like that. The Yankees have a historically great bullpen on paper. I’m still boldly predicting Ottavino will have to save the day in the ninth inning.

Romine will get an extension before Judge

Look, this probably won’t happen seeing how it wouldn’t qualify as a bold prediction if it were likely, but folks, get ready for Austin Romine to get a contract extension before other core players. Romine is due to become a free agent after the season and …

  • … the Yankees love him. Absolutely love him.
  • … Romine will be cheap, which presumably makes coming to terms easier.
  • … the free agent market is increasingly hostile toward players, hence all the recent extensions.

“I’d love to start, but I love being here. I like my job. I like this team. I’m looking forward to being on another winning team,” said Romine to Randy Miller recently. The American League catching picture stinks right now. Romine very well might get offers to start next winter, which is why I expect the Yanks to swoop in with an extension offer sooner rather than later. Two years and $5M seems reasonable.

As for Judge, he will earn $684,300 this year, his final season as a dirt cheap pre-arbitration player. The recent Alex Bregman extension (six years, $100M) and less recent Mike Trout extension (six years, $144.5M) indicate a Judge extension will fall in the six-year, $120M range. Bregman and Trout signed their deals at the same service time level as Judge, so that’s the ballpark number. He’s a $20M per year player on an extension.

During a radio interview earlier this week, Judge said “we haven’t spoken about that” when asked about a possible extension. He did kinda sorta indicate his agent may be talking to the Yankees though. Hal Steinbrenner more or less ducked a question about possible extensions in a radio interview the same day. Brendan Kuty has a transcript:

“I’ll leave that to (general manager Brian Cashman),” Steinbrenner said. “I’m not going to get into who we have talked to about the concept or who we do want to or don’t want to. But I will say it’s obvious we can’t do everybody at once. There are numerous situations we’re looking at when it comes to major league service time and the other part of the puzzle is, how conducive is the player to a concept like that. More to come. Stay tuned. We love all of our players. We love our young players. And we want them wearing pinstripes.”

This is my thinking: Judge already has lucrative endorsement deals with Pepsi and Adidas, among other #brands, and he’s a year away from a potential record arbitration payday. Kris Bryant ($10.85M), Francisco Lindor ($10.55M), and Mookie Betts ($10.5M) are the high-water marks for first year arbitration-eligible players. Repeating his 2018 season in 2019 (minus the wrist injury) would put Judge in position to crack $11M next year.

Because the endorsements give him some level of financial security, Judge is in good position to go year-to-year in arbitration to maximize his earning potential, or at least drive a real hard bargain in extension talks. He’s not stupid. He knows he’s the face of the franchise and one of the game’s biggest and most marketable stars. Passing on a nine-figure extension after only two full MLB seasons can’t be easy. Judge is one of the few players who could swing it.

The Yankees control Judge through 2022, so, while they surely want to lock him up at a below-market rate as soon as possible, there’s not much urgency. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Romine, on the other hand, can bolt after the season, and the generally weak catching situation around baseball means it’s possible another team will lure him away with a starting job. Time is of the essence with Romine. Free agency is months away, not years.

Furthermore, Romine is going to be cheap, and that makes coming to an agreement easier. The bigger the contract, the more complicated it gets. Martin Maldonado and James McCann both inked one-year deals worth $2.5M over the winter. Doubling that figures to catch Romine’s attention (and would double his career earnings) and could lead to a quick deal. It makes too much sense not to happen. Judge is playing the long game. Romine … is not.

What if there was a Division Series MVP?

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Two-time ALDS MVP Bernie Williams (Getty Images)

You’ve likely come to this fine website for astute baseball analysis, but allow me a modicum of whimsy.

I recently found out that in Alex Rodriguez’s original 10-year deal with the Rangers, there was a standard awards clause, giving out bonuses if he achieved various results. This awards clause was curious, however, as it included a bonus for Division Series MVP.

There is no Division Series MVP. There has never been a Division Series MVP. There is no good reason for a Division Series MVP … but what if MLB gave it out anyway?

Would A-Rod have won one or two ALDS MVPs with the Yankees? Almost assuredly. Therefore, I went back through all of the Yankees’ ALDS victories and determined the rightful winner of this non-existent award. First up, 1996.

1996 ALDS MVP: Bernie Williams

The King of the Division Series, Bernie Williams caught fire in the 1996 ALDS. He posted the highest WPA of any non-reliever and went 7-for-15 with three home runs. When you add further context, it simply gets better.

Bernie singled and scored the game-tying run in the eighth inning of Game 2 as the Yankees trailed the series. He homered in the first inning of Game 3 before tying it late with a sacrifice fly. Finally, he tied and capped the clincher with his final homer of the series. Enough said!

1998 ALDS MVP: Shane Spencer

Shane Spencer should not get this award. He was going to be a replacement player in 1995 and, in more relevant arguments, only played two games in this series.

But he hit two dingers!

The Yankees gave up just one run over three games with Davids Wells and Cone alongside Andy Pettitte dominating. However, I’m not going to give this to three people at once. I’m not going to split this award either. This has to go to one player and Spencer is it.

Spencer homered to put the Yanks ahead in Game 2 before singling and scoring two innings later. In Game 3, his three-run homer in the sixth inning put the game, and thus the series, out of reach. Normally, this isn’t enough for a series MVP, but it’s enough here.

1999 ALDS MVP: Royce Clayton

Royce Clayton didn’t play for the Yankees. What? I’ll explain.

This is the type of series why this award does not exist. The Yankees won the series in a rout with a 14-1 lead in aggregate and only one semi-interesting game in the middle.

I just couldn’t bring myself to award any particular Yankee. Derek Jeter went 5-for-11 with a double, triple and two walks. Mariano Rivera had two saves and three innings pitched. Bernie had six RBI and went 4-for-11 after pouring it on late in a blowout Game 1.

So I’m giving it to Clayton, the Rangers’ shortstop. He went 0-for-10 in the series, distinguishing himself among the Rangers’ hitters, who only mustered 14 hits and a .152/.228/.207 collective batting line. Yuck.

2000 ALDS MVP: Mariano Rivera

You could give Rivera about four of these awards (1996, 1998-2000, 2003). He has to get at least one, in my award-giving opinion, and this was his most impactful series.

Rivera saved all three wins in the 2000 ALDS — which went the distance — and threw five important innings along the way. He gave up just two hits, walked no one and struck out two Athletics.

Though all three of his saves came in multi-run victories, Rivera entered Games 2, 3 and 5 with the tying run at the plate and deftly navigated each situation. Game 5 was essentially a six-run first inning followed by scratching and clawing to get to Rivera. Let’s call this one a unanimous selection.

2001 ALDS MVP: Derek Jeter

Jorge Posada has been overlooked for his entire career. Perhaps not as much as Williams recently as Posada made the “Core Four” but based on his Hall of Fame vote totals and by playing next to Rivera and Jeter, he didn’t get the credit he deserved.

And by the numbers, he should be the 2001 ALDS MVP. He went 8-for-18, hit the homer for the lone run of the pivotal Game 3 to turnaround the series. He compiled a 1.167 OPS.

But the Flip Play happened.

You can’t ignore the play and Jeter would have won easily on that narrative if they’d given out the award back then. Doesn’t hurt that he matched Posada with an 8-for-18 series.

Sorry, Jorge. I tried.

2003 ALDS MVP: Bernie Williams

Going just on raw numbers, Jeter would win again. He went 6-for-14 with four walks, a homer and a 1.198 OPS. However, the homer was meaningless and he already stole the award from Posada.

Outside of a loss in Game 1, this was reminiscent of the 1998 and 99 ALDS with three good starts in a row, but no one of the starters can get the award. Rivera could once again win this, but he’s not going to be the first two-time award winner here.

Therefore, we’re going with Williams, who was at the center of the action in the three wins. He hit a sac fly to put the Yankees up in Game 2 early, scored the go-ahead run and knocked in an insurance run in Game 3 and put the team up to start the knockout rally in Game 4.

2004 ALDS MVP: Alex Rodriguez

The whole point of this exercise was to get the obscenely wealthy Rodriguez his extra $100,000 or so and he gets it right off the bat.

A-Rod essentially wins it for Game 2 alone, as the Yankees knotted up the series in dramatic fashion. He homered in the fifth to put NYY up one before extending the lead with a single in the seventh. After a rare Mariano Rivera meltdown, the game went to extras and the Yankees trailed in the 12th. Don’t worry, Joe Nathan came on for the save and Rodriguez hit a game-tying, ground-rule double and set up the winning run two batters later.

After a quiet Game 3, he went 2-for-4 with two walks in Game 4 and scored the series-clinching run in the 11th inning by doubling off Kyle Lohse, stealing third base and scoring on a wild pitch.

2009 ALDS MVP: Alex Rodriguez

While A-Rod already got his bonus for the 2004 series, the 2009 ALDS was his piece de resistance. It was an undisputed masterpiece. He had two RBI singles in Game 1 to pad the Yankees’ lead en route to 7-2 win. He hit a tying homer in Game 3 to lead another comeback win.

But this is all you really need to know.

Other players had good series then, but no one neared Rodriguez’s peak in this one. This was the best all-time ALDS for a position player.

2010 ALDS MVP: Curtis Granderson

In a three-game series, the MVP comes down to one game, if not one moment. There isn’t enough time for a starting pitcher to go twice, so whoever makes the play or comes through with the key hit would earn it. This is precisely the reason why there’s no ALDS MVP in reality, 2009 A-Rod being a supernova exception.

With two men on and two outs and the Yankees down 3-2 on the road, Curtis Granderson came to the plate against Francisco Liriano, who was 100 pitches into his start. This was a guy coming off a career year facing Granderson, who could barely make contact against lefties.

But Granderson smacked a ball to right-center that carried. And carried. In most parks, it would have left, but it went for a triple to put the Yankees in front. Mark Teixeira hit the game-winning homer an inning later, but Granderson’s shot was the turning point where it came apart for Minnesota.

Tex has a cogent argument for MVP, but I’m handing it to Grandy after he put up better overall numbers, going 5-for-11 with a double, the triple, three RBI and a walk in a precursor to his near-MVP season.

2012 ALDS MVP: CC Sabathia

Raul Ibanez stole the headlines in this series with his two Game 3 homers and his go-ahead single in Game 5. Normally, just those moments would be enough to win the short series MVP.

But CC Sabathia won two games nearly by himself and shut down the Orioles’ hopes of an upset, even with Ibanez’s advantage in WPA (0.90 to 0.84). CC threw 8 2/3rds in Game 1 of a closely-contested matchup and went the distance in Game 5.

Game 5 was likely the last peak CC Sabathia game. He’s had some big playoff moments since, but he hasn’t been the ace or workhorse in the regular season or playoffs after that game. He threw 121 pitches, allowed just six baserunners and held Baltimore to one run, striking out nine. He capped it off by throwing out a runner at first and clinching the series. Well done, big man!

2017 ALDS MVP: Didi Gregorius

There wasn’t a clear statistical victor in this one. Sabathia had a solid Game 5 and underrated Game 2, but he didn’t get the win in either start and wasn’t dominant. Nearly every hitter and reliever had a big moment, but no one stood out. Aroldis Chapman would have been an OK choice if one player didn’t steal the show in Game 5.

And it was Didi Gregorius who stole said show in the winner-take-all finale. His two home runs off Corey Kluber were enough to give the Yankees the series. I still get goosebumps watching this.

—

If there was an ALDS MVP, history looks more favorably upon A-Rod, who was often destroyed for his playoff woes. Rivera, Williams and Jeter get their just due for postseason excellence that wrapped into two decades. Meanwhile, one or two hits get Spencer and Gregorius immortality while the lack of a hit dooms Clayton into shame.

P.S. Sorry again to Posada.

Reviewing RAB’s five bold predictions for the 2018 season

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Hicks. (Hunter Martin/Getty)

About two weeks ago the 2018 season came to an end for the Yankees, about four weeks too early. The Yankees were bounced in four games in the ALDS and the season feels like a disappointment. At least to me it does. Last year the Yankees went to Game Seven of the ALCS, and although they lost, it was still fun as hell. That was not really the case year.

Anyway, now that the season is over, it is time to go back and review my five bold predictions for the 2018 Yankees. Spoiler alert: I went 0-for-5. Last year I went 7-for-10 and that told me I didn’t go bold enough. I tried to rectify that this year and I guess it worked? Perhaps I’ll actually get one right next year. Time to review this year’s five bold predictions to see where I went wrong.

1. Hicks will lead the Yankees in WAR.

Among this year’s bold predictions, this is the one that was closest to coming true. For all the wrong reasons, of course. Aaron Hicks had a tremendous 2018 season but the only reasons he came close to leading the Yankees in WAR are Aaron Judge’s wrist injury and Luis Severino’s second half fade. An errant pitch broke Judge’s wrist in late-July and kept him out to mid-September. Severino was pretty bad after the All-Star break. That allowed Hicks to draw close.

I tend to stick with the two most popular version of WAR but there is a third out there. Here’s the top five Yankees in each version:

FanGraphs WAR
1. Aaron Judge: +5.5
2. Luis Severino: +4.8
3. Aaron Hicks: +4.7
4. Didi Gregorius: +4.2
5. Giancarlo Stanton: +4.0

Baseball Prospectus WARP
1. Luis Severino: +5.6
2. Aaron Judge: +4.7
3. Didi Gregorius: +4.2
4. Gleyber Torres: +3.2
5. Aaron Hicks: +2.9

Baseball Reference WAR
1. Luis Severino: +5.7
2. Aaron Judge: +5.0
3. Aaron Hicks: +4.9
4. Didi Gregorius: +4.6
5. Giancarlo Stanton: +4.2

I am not a big fan of BP WARP but I figured I’d throw it in there anyway. Hicks being the third best player on the Yankees — and second best position player — this past season matches the eye test, I believe. He hit .248/.366/.467 (127 wRC+) with 27 homers, eleven steals, an excellent walk rate (15.5%), and a better than average strikeout rate (19.1%). Add in quality center field defense and you’ve got a +5 WAR player.

Unfortunately for me and my bold prediction (but fortunately for the Yankees and Yankees fans), Judge is a true talent +7 WAR player, so he still finished ahead of Hicks even with all that missed time. Severino finished ahead of Hicks as well thanks largely to his dominant first year. Great year for Hicks. Not great enough to lead the Yankees in WAR. (That’s a good thing!)

2. The Yankees will be the first team ever with four 40+ home run hitters.

Nope. The Yankees instead became the umpteenth team in history with zero 40+ home runs hitters. Stanton led the Yankees with 38 home runs. Gregorius, Hicks, Judge, and Miguel Andujar tied for second with 27 homers apiece. The Yankees did set a new single-season record with 267 homers this season. They did it without that one guy having a monster season though.

I specifically mentioned Judge, Stanton, Gary Sanchez, and Greg Bird as the 40-homer hitters in the bold predictions post. Here’s what happened:

  • Bird: Hurt (again) and awful. He played in 82 games and hit only eleven homers.
  • Judge: Probably would’ve hit 40 homers if not for the wrist injury. Twenty-seven homers in 112 games is a 39-homer pace, and remember, he stunk when he first returned from the disabled list.
  • Sanchez: Missed two months with groin injuries and, even when healthy, he wasn’t good.
  • Stanton: Hit 38 homers. Just short of 40. He was really good this year.

The Judge and Sanchez injuries were unfortunate. It happens. There are two big reasons this bold prediction was derailed. One, Sanchez was just terrible. Who saw that coming? My dude missed most of April and still hit .278/.345/.531 (129 wRC+) with 33 homers last year. Rather than build on that, Gary took a massive step back. And two, I foolishly believed this would be the year Bird stayed healthy. Never again.

3. The Yankees will have four starters each make 30+ starts.

Nope. The Yankees had one starter make 30 starts this season (Severino made 32). CC Sabathia made 29 starts and would’ve made 30+ had he not missed two weeks with a hip issue in April or eleven days with knee trouble in August. Masahiro Tanaka made only 27 starts because he managed to strain both hamstrings at the same time while running the bases in June. Good grief. That sent him to the sidelines for a month.

Only one other Yankee made as many as 23 starts this season. That Yankee: Sonny Gray. Gray made 23 starts and had to be pulled from the rotation because he was so awful. I didn’t expect that to happen. Opening Day fifth starter Jordan Montgomery made only six starts before his elbow gave out and he needed Tommy John surgery. Know who finished fifth on the 2018 Yankees in starts? Domingo German with 14. Yeesh.

4. Cessa emerges as the next great Yankees reliever.

I called this with Chad Green last year and it worked beautifully. I tried it again this year with the other half of the Justin Wilson trade and it didn’t work out so well. I guess Jonathan Holder was this year’s breakout reliever? Yeah, has to be. Anyway, here was my logic behind the Cessa prediction:

There are three reasons I believe Cessa can succeed as a short reliever. One, he has plenty of velocity. Last season he averaged 95.4 mph and topped out at 99.5 mph with the fastball, even as a starter. Two, his slider misses plenty of bats. It’s true. Last year he threw his slider a touch more than 30% of the time and:

  • Swing-and-miss rate: 21.4% (MLB average for sliders: 16.9%)
  • Whiffs-per-swing rate: 43.2% (MLB average for sliders: 35.2%)

Cessa also throws a curveball and a changeup, but with a move into short relief, he can forget about those pitches and work exclusively with an upper-90s fastball and a swing-and-miss slider. That’s similar to what Green did, right? He moved to the bullpen, shelved his subpar secondary pitches, and leaned on his best offering, which happens to be his fastball. Cessa with something like a 55/45 fastball/slider split could be real good.

Cessa never really got a look as short reliever this year. He made two one-inning relief appearances in April, during which he struck out three of the six batters he faced, otherwise he was used as a spot starter and swingman. Cessa made five spot starts and nine relief appearances of at least two innings. The Yankees never bothered to give him a look as a one-inning “air it out reliever” aside from those two appearances in April.

In 44.2 total innings this past season Cessa finished with a 5.24 ERA (3.74 FIP) and good enough strikeout (20.0%) and walk (6.7%) rates. The fastball velocity was still good (95.0 mph average and 97.9 mph max) and the slider still missed bats (18.6% swings-and-misses and 38.3% whiffs-per-swing). Shrug. Cessa will be out of minor league options next year, and if he doesn’t stick with the Yankees, I wouldn’t be surprised if he turns into a nice one-inning reliever elsewhere. The tools are there. He seems miscast as a starter but the Yankees have stuck with him in that role.

5. Medina finishes the season as a top 50 prospect.

This was my most “out there” bold prediction. It’s not often a 19-year-old pitcher jumps into the top half of a global top 100 list. Medina has dynamite stuff. He’s upper-90s with his fastball and he’s hit triple digits several times, his curveball is a hammer, and his changeup is sneaky good as well. I didn’t pick him out of the hat. Medina has the stuff to develop into a top 50 prospect. I aggressively said it would happen this year. I was wrong.

In 36 innings for the rookie level Pulaski Yankees, Medina pitched to a 6.25 ERA (6.46 FIP) with 25.5% strikeouts and 25.0% walks. That’s 47 strikeouts and 46 walks in 36 innings. Among the 3,014 pitchers to throw at least 30 innings in the minors this season, Medina had the sixth highest walk rate and 83rd lowest K-BB%. Medina also hit two batters and uncorked 12 wild pitches in those 36 innings. Yikes.

Even with that statistically terrible season Medina remains a very good prospect because he is only 19 and because you can’t teach his stuff. It’s electric. Baseball America (subs. req’d) recently ranked Medina as the 13th best prospect in the Appalachian League. A snippet of their scouting report:

What keeps scouts interested with Medina is a fastball that sits in the 95-96 mph range and touches 100, with impressive plane and sink. He’s also got a 60-grade curveball and a changeup that could become a third plus pitch as well. He’s still growing into a 6-foot-1, 175 pound frame, Medina has a good arm action but simply struggles to repeat his delivery with any kind of consistency and is just an average athlete.

This failed bold prediction is nothing more than a bet on a talented yet unpolished 19-year-old pitching prospect gone wrong. It happens. Medina definitely has a little Dellin Betances in him and by that I mean 19-year-old Dellin Betances. Betances was a starter with drool-worthy stuff at the same age and it wasn’t until his age 26 season that he figured it out for good and stuck in the big leagues. Medina is a similar long-term project. He may one day be a top 50 prospect, but it won’t be today.

Five bold predictions for the 2018 Yankees season

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Hicks and Stanton. (Presswire)

One week and one day until the Yankees open the 2018 regular season in Toronto. Is it just me, or has Spring Training flown by this year? I feel like it’s gone much quicker than previous years. Maybe that’s because Spring Training was longer than usual last year due to the World Baseball Classic. Whatever. Opening Day is rapidly approaching and I can’t wait.

With the start of the regular season on the horizon, this is as good a time as any to lay down some bold 2018 Yankees predictions. Last year I came up with ten bold predictions and learned two things. One, ten is too many. And two, I didn’t go bold enough. I went 7-for-10 last year. As much as I’d like to say I’m just that smart, going 7-for-10 tells me my bold predictions weren’t really that bold.

So this year, I’m shortening up to five predictions that I hope qualify as actually, you know, bold. Or at least bolder than last season. Anyway, here are my five bold predictions for the 2018 Yankees season, in no particular order.

1. Hicks will lead the Yankees in WAR.

This could be a good thing or a bad thing! I try to be an optimist and hey, Spring Training is the time of year for unbridled optimism, so I see this as a good thing. I’m all in on Hicksie. I think last year’s first half Hicks, the guy who hit .290/.398/.515 (144 wRC+) with nearly as many walks (15.3%) as strikeouts (17.4%) before his oblique betrayed him in the second half, is the real Hicks going forward.

A few reasons I’m buying the new Hicks. One, this didn’t come out of nowhere. He’s a former first round pick and highly regarded prospect — Baseball America ranked him as the 19th best prospect in baseball prior to the 2010 season — so the talent has always been there. Two, Hicks has been making more and more hard contact with each passing season. His yearly hard contact rates:

  • 2014: 24.1%
  • 2015: 25.3%
  • 2016: 28.9%
  • 2017: 30.8%

Three, Hicks has always controlled the strike zone. Going into last season he had a 9.6% walk rate and a tiny 22.4% chase rate in his career. He didn’t swing-and-miss much either (8.9%). That overall .372 OBP last season wasn’t an accident. Four, he switch-hits! Never being at the platoon disadvantage is kind of a big deal. And five, Hicks is right smack in the middle of what should be the prime of his career. He turned 28 in October, and if there was ever a year to have a career year, this is it.

With good health this season, I think Hicks is a .280/.400/.500 guy with 20+ homers, 20+ steals, and very good center field defense. That last part is important. Hicks isn’t going to out-WAR guys like Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Gary Sanchez on offense alone. It’ll be the superb defense at an up-the-middle position that puts him over the top and into the +7 WAR range this season.

2. The Yankees will be the first team ever with four 40+ home runs hitters.

The four: Judge, Stanton, Sanchez, and Ronald Torreyes. Okay fine, Greg Bird instead of Torreyes. Only three teams in history have had as many as three 40-homer guys.

  • 1973 Braves: Davey Johnson (43), Darrell Evans (41), Hank Aaron (40)
  • 1996 Rockies: Andres Galarraga (47), Vinny Castilla (40), Ellis Burks (40)
  • 1997 Rockies: Larry Walker (49), Galarraga (41), Castilla (40)

Competing with pre-humidor Coors Field won’t be easy, but the 2018 Yankees and Yankee Stadium are up to the task. Judge and Stanton are obvious 40-homer power guys and I think Sanchez gets there this year as well, especially if the Yankees do indeed cut back on his catching workload slightly to give him more DH days. Gary hit 33 homers in 122 games last season. Reaching 40 with good health is doable.

The fourth 40-homer guy is the sticking point. We all love Greg Bird. He’s awesome. But he has not been the most durable player in his career to date. HowEVA, he’s hit 20 homers in 94 regular season games despite playing 19 of those games with a bum ankle early last year. Getting to 40 homers in, say, 150 games is possible because Bird’s swing is so geared for the short porch. Allow me to repeat some numbers:

  • Career pull rate: 44.8% (MLB average: 39.8%)
  • Career ground ball rate: 28.4% (MLB average: 44.2%)
  • Career hard contact rate: 40.6% (MLB average: 31.8%)

A lefty hitter who hits the ball hard in the air and to the pull field is a great it for Yankee Stadium. We’ve seen it already. Bird has peppered the short porch when healthy. This will be the year he finally stays on the field, and that’ll allow him to make 40-homer history with Bird, Sanchez, and Stanton.

3. The Yankees will have four starters each make 30+ starts.

Every spring, like clockwork, we talk about the rotation and all the preexisting health concerns. There’s Masahiro Tanaka’s elbow and CC Sabathia’s knee and the young guys and their workloads limits. We all fret about the breakdown potential, then the Yankees go out and have a pretty good rotation anyway. The rotation was top ten in basically every meaningful category last year, and now the Yankees will have a full season of Sonny Gray.

Starters are throwing fewer innings with each passing season, and not only because they’re being pulled earlier within games. They’re also making fewer starts (by design). Teams are giving their starters more rest whenever possible. The Yankees certainly do that whenever they can. And yet, I have four Yankees starters making 30+ starts in 2018: Tanaka, Sabathia, Gray, and Jordan Montgomery. Why not Luis Severino? Because I think the Yankees will be extra cautious with him after last season’s workload. He might have to settle for 28 or 29 starts.

One team having four pitchers make 30+ starts in a single season doesn’t happen often but it does happen. Recent World Series winners like the 2016 Cubs (Jake Arrieta, Jason Hammel, Kyle Hendricks, Jon Lester), the 2012 Giants (Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Ryan Vogelsong, Barry Zito), and the 2011 Cardinals (Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia, Kyle Lohse, Jake Westbrook) all managed to do it. Here are the last three times the Yankees got 30+ starts from four pitchers:

  • 2009: Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Joba Chamberlain, Andy Pettitte
  • 2003: Pettitte, Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina, David Wells
  • 1999: Pettitte, Clemens, David Cone, Orlando Hernandez

Notice a pattern here? Very good things tend to happen when teams have four starters stay healthy all season. It doesn’t guarantee success — John Danks, Jose Quintana, Chris Sale, and Jeff Samardzija all made 30+ starts for the 2015 White Sox and they went 72-90 — but if it happens, I’m feeling good about my team’s chances. The 2018 Yankees will join the “four starters with 30+ starts each” club. And they might be the only team to do it this year.

4. Cessa emerges as the next great Yankees reliever.

This worked with Chad Green last year so I might as well try it with the other player in the Justin Wilson trade this year. I have (inexplicably?) been a Luis Cessa fan the last two years — that isn’t to say I think he’s a budding ace or anything, but I think he’s a long-term big leaguer — though he has probably reached the point where sticking with the Yankees as a starter isn’t going to happen. Spot starter? Sure. Full-time starter? Nah.

Green started last season as the de facto sixth starter before moving to the bullpen out of necessity, and he took off from there. I can see the same thing happening with Cessa, even while acknowledging this year’s bullpen is way better and way deeper than last year’s first half bullpen. Extra arms are always needed. Guys get hurt or underperform. That’s baseball. At some point the Yankees will need a long man and Cessa figures to get the call.

There are three reasons I believe Cessa can succeed as a short reliever. One, he has plenty of velocity. Last season he averaged 95.4 mph and topped out at 99.5 mph with the fastball, even as a starter. Two, his slider misses plenty of bats. It’s true. Last year he threw his slider a touch more than 30% of the time and:

  • Swing-and-miss rate: 21.4% (MLB average for sliders: 16.9%)
  • Whiffs-per-swing rate: 43.2% (MLB average for sliders: 35.2%)

Cessa also throws a curveball and a changeup, but with a move into short relief, he can forget about those pitches and work exclusively with an upper-90s fastball and a swing-and-miss slider. That’s similar to what Green did, right? He moved to the bullpen, shelved his subpar secondary pitches, and leaned on his best offering, which happens to be his fastball. Cessa with something like a 55/45 fastball/slider split could be real good.

And three, Cessa’s splits once the lineup turns over are insane. Here are his career numbers each time through the order:

  • First Time: .212/.279/.385
  • Second Time: .284/.340/.534
  • Third Time: .280/.333/.600

Yeah. Cessa is also way more effective from pitches 1-25 (.221/.288/.430) than pitches 26+ (.260/.319/.486). This is Cessa’s final minor league option year, so if he doesn’t carve out a role this season, he’s probably a goner a la Bryan Mitchell. Forget the rotation. Scrap the changeup and curveball, and use him in short relief. It worked with Green last year. It could work with Cessa this year. The opportunity to use him this way will present itself at some point. I have no doubt about it.

5. Medina finishes the season as a top 50 prospect.

Luis Medina is a rising star in the farm system. The Yankees signed the 18-year-old out of the Dominican Republic for $280,000 back in July 2015, and he’s already generating lots of buzz. Medina received votes for Baseball America’s annual top 100 prospects list, and, in a separate piece, they say he has “an excellent chance to find himself in next year’s Top 100 Prospects.” Keith Law called Medina the “next great starter prospect in what looks like a line of them from the majors on down.”

The scouting report on Medina is drool worthy. Here’s what MLB.com says:

Medina isn’t physically imposing but has an exceptionally quick arm that repeatedly delivers 95-100 mph fastballs that top out at 102 and feature some cutting action. Both of his secondary pitches have a chance to be at least plus pitches as well. He has a power curveball with a high spin rate and a 90-92 mph changeup with splitter action that can devastate hitters, especially if they’re trying to sit on his heater.

The scouting report also says Medina has a “lofty ceiling as a frontline starter.” As with many 18-year-old hurlers, Medina’s biggest weakness is his command and control. He walked 24 in 38.2 rookie ball innings last season, or 14.0% of batters faced. Also, Medina managed to uncork 18 (!) wild pitches. So yeah, throwing the ball over the plate is the top developmental priority this season. Here’s some video:

The various scouting publications are already talking about Medina as a potential top 100 prospect next year. I think he’s going to figure out how to throw strikes this year — look at his delivery in the video above and look at his delivery when the Yankees signed him in 2015, his tempo is better and he seems way more under control now — and if he does that, he’ll be a top 50 prospect given his stuff.

I should note it would not be unprecedented for an 18-year-old pitching prospect to rank among the 50 best prospects in baseball. Anderson Espinoza was a consensus top 25 prospect at 18 two years ago. Julio Urias was a top 50 prospect four years ago, when he was only 17. Back in the day Felix Hernandez was a top prospect as a teenager. That isn’t to say Medina will be Felix. That’d be nuts. The point is a kid like a Medina, an 18-year-old with a golden arm, can be considered one of the top 50 prospects in baseball, and I’m going to boldly predict he makes that jump this year.