Get Greedy: Sign JD Martinez

"Please, God. Make me a Yankee!"

We’re back and we are greedier than ever with the latest idea to break the bank, blow all the austerity talk out the window and blow the baseballs out of Yankee Stadium with even more consistency here in 2018. I know it is out of the realm of possibilities fiscally, but I don’t worry myself with the financials much anymore, instead I worry about getting the best 25 players that I possibly can out on the field on any given night. With that in mind it is time to get greedy once again and sign former Detroit Tigers and Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder JD Martinez. Yeah, I went there.  

Now earlier today in my free agent post where I outlined what free agents I thought the Yankees should at least have discussions with I alluded to the fact that I was happy with keeping the designated hitter position a revolving door for the Yankees outfielders to use for half-days off and here is the reason. Adding another outfielder is more of a luxury than a need at this point but New York added a $13 million DH last offseason in Matt Holliday and got little to show for it in return. Could you imagine if the Yankees were to add a bat like JD Martinez’s who could play in the outfield and DH a few days a week to keep everyone fresh, healthy and productive? The hell with the Bronx Bombers and Murderer’s Row, that would be downright unfair. 

Now I know this is a bold statement and a bold request of the Yankees to sign possibly the best positional player on the free agent market in a year where the team is going to give austerity a try but hear me out. Giving Martinez the security of a longer contract could conceivably keep the average annual value of the contract down while giving the team a leg up on the competition in terms of negotiations, because what player doesn’t want security and peace of mind?  

Martinez has possibly been the best kept secret in MLB over the past couple of seasons which is a scary thought since Martinez was a 4.1 WAR player in 2017 with Detroit and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Martinez has eclipsed 20 home runs in each of the last four seasons including hitting 45 home runs in 2017 and 38 home runs in 2015, both inside extremely pitching-friendly ballparks. You can add 10-15 home runs to that total in the Bronx assuming he is healthy and has a healthy Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Didi Gregorius etc. behind him protecting him in the lineup. Again, downright unfair. 

Martinez just turned 30-years old recently and is in the middle of his prime, so I would feel comfortable giving him a six-year deal with an option for a seventh year if that were a sticking point in the negotiations. Martinez is good in the field, great with the bat and I think he would be an incredible addition to the team. Whether Hal Steinbrenner opens up the wallet strings or not is one thing, but I think the Yankees should make the move if the money allows. Martinez could be the Paul O’Neill to the 2018 dynasty that O’Neill was to that 1996 team. Just get it done.  

What Has the Rockies Offense Done Against Zack Greinke?

It wouldn’t be fair to just look at what the Diamondbacks offense has done against the Rockies starter Jon Gray and not also look at what the Colorado Rockies offense has done against Zack Greinke throughout their careers. Spoiler alert, at the end of this post I should post the “So you’re saying there’s a chance” meme because the often-dominant Greinke has been anything but dominant against the Rockies. Good, sure, but not so dominant. I’m shocked, how about you?

Thanks again to ESPN for the above stat line and stat sheet. 

What Has the Diamondbacks Offense Done Against Jon Gray?

The title says it all, what has the Arizona Diamondbacks done against the Colorado Rockies starter Jon Gray throughout their respective careers? Thanks to sites like ESPN and Baseball Reference that information is readily available, even if it means nothing in the grand scheme of things. The postseason is a second season but let’s take a look at the history between the Diamondbacks offense and Gray anyway, you know… for funsies. 

Thanks to ESPN for the above stat sheet. 

The Yankees Offense vs. Doug Fister and the Red Sox Offense vs. Sonny Gray

The Yankees and the Red Sox continue their series in the Bronx here in a few hours and like most games tonight’s outcome will likely come down to the starting pitching in one way or another. With that being the case let’s take a look at tonight’s starters and how they have fared against the respective offenses on the other side of the diamond. Will these stats paint a clearer picture as to what we are about to watch? Who knows, you can’t predict baseball.

All stats courtesy of ESPN.com

Pitching Wise, Are the Yankees Worth it?

Hey guys and girls, it’s me again back with the same question. Are the Yankees worth it here in 2017? Earlier in the day we took a look at the offensive players and now we will look at the pitching. The Yankees had a ton of money sitting on the disabled list this week in Masahiro Tanaka and CC Sabathia so now seems like as good of a time as any to see if those two and their fellow brothers in arms have been worth it here in 2017. Again I will be referencing Fangraphs “value” and WAR stats and comparing them with the players actually salary from 2017, not their AAV.

Remember that these stats being used are cumulative so the fact that David Robertson has not exceeded his base salary with his Fangraphs “value” doesn’t mean that he won’t. Also I went ahead and included Jaime Garcia’s three teams and both the teams’ stats for Sonny Gray, Tommy Kahnle and David Robertson since including just the Yankees statistics would be too little of a sample size to look at in my opinion. Take them for what you will with that in mind. 

Offensively, Are the Yankees Worth it?

Are the Yankees worth it? In years past that may have been a hard question to answer but in the era of Moneyball and sabermetrics that answer is simply just a click away. Using Fangraphs WAR and “Value” stats I wanted to take a look at the Yankees offensive players salaries, WAR’s and what their values are to get a comparison. Are the Yankees getting the most bang for their buck? See below.

I went ahead and used Todd Frazier’s stats with both the Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees since I deemed the sample size of just his Bronx tenure too small to judge. Keep that in mind when looking over the chart above. 

So it Seems… I’m Home

Honey, I’m home! No really, I am home. Finally. It took forever, or what felt like forever, but everything is all about to be worth it. All the missing you. All the lonely nights. All the frustrations. All the insecurities. Everything. It’s here!!

To everyone else, thank you. Thank you for being patient with me and the blog and thank you for your understand when there couldn’t always be content put up. Thank you for reading my sappy crap every single morning and thank you for just being you. You guys and girls make it all worth it.

Good morning, Happy Saturday and enjoy the weekend!!!

RANT: Hey NESN … So What if Aaron Judge Strikes Out A Lot?

So the New York Yankees and New York Mets executives and front office personnel keep firing pot shots back and forth at each other which reminds me of the good ole days of the Yankees and Red Sox rivalry. With the Yankees making the trip to Boston this weekend for their second consecutive weekend series head-to-head I wanted to take this opportunity on this beautiful Friday morning to take a cheap shot of my own, not at the Boston Red Sox themselves but at NESN.com. NESN released an article, and if you don’t know who NESN is they are basically the Red Sox equivalent of the YES Network here in the Bronx, stating that Aaron Judge set an “embarrassing” Major League record on Wednesday night against the New York Mets when he struck out in a 33^rd straight game. My question is, so what? And while we are on the subject, don’t worry I have plenty of embarrassments to talk about this morning.

First of all it seems like the crew over at NESN never watched or paid much attention to the whole sabermetrics and Moneyball craze. Does NESN and their writer Joshua Schrock not understand that striking out counts just the same in the sabermetrics world as a 400 foot fly out or a ball hit on the screws right at a positional player? Sure, if you want to get more in-depth with it you can bring up sacrifice flies, moving runners over etc.  but in the grand scheme of things one thing is certain in Major League Baseball… A great player is going to make an out seven times out of ten and even the best player will make an out six times out of every ten at-bats. Baseball is failure. What in the hell does it matter if he’s striking out, grounding out, flying out, popping out or whatever? The team is going to make 27 outs on any given night regardless.

Those of us who pay attention to baseball and specifically to Yankees prospects know that Aaron Judge always battled the strikeout and always will. Some reporters, who needs views and clicks I’d assume, are talking about Judge’s strikeout problems like this is new news, or news at all. Judge was never the .300 - .400 hitter he portrayed himself to be in a small sample size in the first half and he never will be. That’s not his game. His game is giving it all in the field and hitting mammoth home runs. Judge can’t and won’t be something that he’s not and he shouldn’t be embarrassed for being the player that the Yankees drafted, developed and called up to lead the youth movement and the potential charge into the 2017 postseason.

Does NESN want to know what is embarrassing though? What is embarrassing is having Jerry Remy rip a Japanese-born player, Masahiro Tanaka, for needing a translator. What is embarrassing is having a blatant racist on your payroll that will be celebrated in a pregame ceremony this season if he hasn’t been already. I don’t know because (insert four letter word) the Red Sox. Especially when it was okay, or nothing was said by Remy anyway, when Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima (to name a few) had translators of their own. Be consistent or stfu. 

Quick Hit: Yankees Sign David Metzgar

Another day and another non-drafted free agent signed by the New York Yankees. This time around it is Cal State Bakersfield’s David Metzgar out of Bakersfield, California. Metzgar is listed as an infielder and outfielder on the school’s website so a bit of versatility may be headed to the Yankees system after Metzgar passed a physical this week.

In four seasons at CSUB the second baseman posted a .336/.393/.427/.820 slash line with two home runs and 136 RBI. The Baseball Cube has their own set of unique rankings systems much like scouts use with their 20-80 rankings which may help explain what kind of player Metzgar is. The rankings are similar to scout’s rankings and the full explanation can be seen on the Baseball Cube’s website.

Speed: 72

Power: 44

Contact: 84

XBH: 42

RBI: 69

Hitting: 86

Durability: 95

Metzgar is a second baseman and will be the 21^st player in CSUB history to sign a professional contract so congratulations to him and congratulations to the school. Welcome to the family David!

So it Seems the Gerrit Cole Trade Rumors Still Swirl

I kind of scoffed when I opened my Twitter on the day that I ran an article about the New York Yankees potentially trading for one of their former draft picks and current Pittsburgh Pirates arm Gerrit Cole. To paraphrase the tweet basically asked why my site was the only one to run this story. Well first of all is it that far out of the realm of possibilities that we could have an original thought or that we could break news? We’ve broken news before, we just never received the full credit we deserved because we are still considered to be the “little guy.” Secondly, and this is how I responded to the tweet, a simple Google search would show that we were not the only ones talking about it. We weren’t even the first to talk about it yet the trade winds surrounding the New York Yankees and Gerrit Cole this summer continue to swirl as we stand here talking today.

This rumor has gained so much steam and credibility that even Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports discussed it recently on his blog. Heyman was quoted as saying the following: 

“The Yankees have always loved him so they’d make sense. New York drafted him out of high school as a late first rounder, but Cole’s father told them then that there was no offer that could keep him away from UCLA.”

Now on the site and on Twitter I’ve seen some talks that would suggest that Cole wouldn’t be worth the prospect haul it would take the acquire him but I am on the fence about it myself. Cole has a career 3.20 ERA and has an uncanny ability of keeping the ball down and in the ballpark, which is evident by just 43 home runs allowed during his five-year career in Pittsburgh. I get that pitching in the NL Central is an entirely different animal than pitching in the American League East and I also get that pitching inside Yankee Stadium is much different than pitching in a pitcher-friendly ballpark in Pittsburgh so I did a little bit of research. Shout outs to Baseball Reference for the stats.

Cole actually has more wins on the road, has given up less hits, runs and home runs, strikes out more batters and has comparable stats otherwise across the board in almost an identical sample size. Cole is not a product of the stadium out in Pittsburgh, he is what he is.

Here is another interesting stat I found, and I’ll finish the article with this, regarding run support. When Cole gets two runs or less he has a career 5-23 record in 31 starts. When Cole gets 3-5 runs of support he is 25-11 in 50 starts. When Cole gets six runs or more, which he would a lot in the Bronx, Cole is a perfect 19-0 in 22 starts so please tell me again how he wouldn’t be a good fit at the top of the Yankees pitching rotation. I’ll wait. 

So it Seems the Yankees Need a LOOGY

So it seems, for the second time today, the New York Yankees need a LOOGY. While the New York Yankees have easily been one of the best teams in all of Major League Baseball this season the team may have one glaring hole in their arsenal right now, the left-handed reliever out of the bullpen whose sole job is to get a left-handed batter or batters out. That’s better known as a LOOGY, or a Lefty One-Out GuY.

Tommy Layne is the man tasked with getting the opposing team’s toughest and best left-handed hitter out and to date he just hasn’t gotten the job done. Sure, the sample size is small but the stats are alarming and they simply won’t cut it on a team that looks to compete for an American League East Division title and possibly more.

At the time of this writing Layne is sporting an ugly 8.22 ERA and 2.217 WHIP in 11 games and 7.7 innings pitched but that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that lefties are slashing .400/.438/.533 this season against him with a walk. They aren’t walking because they are too busy smoking the meatballs he is leaving over the plate every single night.

This isn’t going to work guys. The Yankees need a LOOGY and they may need one now as Layne’s ERA and struggles rise and continue. The Pittsburgh Pirates may be in total sell mode this summer and one such arm, Tony Watson, is set to hit free agency after the 2017 season thus making him intriguing to New York. Since the beginning of the 2013 season Watson owns the second-best ERA against left-handed hitters and his 1.53 ERA is better than some familiar names like Aroldis Chapman (1.86), Andrew Miller (2.03) and Zach Britton (1.55). Watson is a strikeout pitcher that would fit extremely well in this bullpen and inside Yankee Stadium and he wouldn’t cost and arm and a leg in terms of prospects.

This is far too early to predict and obviously much of this depends on where Pittsburgh is sitting in the standings on or around July 31^st but if they are out of it or want to move Watson I think the Yankees should jump on the deal, regardless of whether Layne turns it around or not. Improve the bullpen and turn every game into a five inning game, that’s the plan. Or it should be anyway.

No Seriously, Acquire James Paxton Please

Here’s a quick hit to end your Friday and kick off your weekend and it’s something that I have said on the blog here more than once already this offseason. The New York Yankees need to find a way to pry away left-handed starting pitcher James Paxton and they need to find a way to do it sooner rather than later because I truly think he is in line not only for a strong bounce-back type season but he may be in line for a season that could turn his career around for the foreseeable future as well. Don’t worry all, I’ll explain.

Why would the Yankees want Paxton? In parts of four Major League seasons the southpaw has lacked consistency on a team starved for starting pitching and every one of those seasons he has spent time in Triple-A Tacoma. His control was average at best and his velocity, low 90’s, did him no favors in hiding the fact that he simply struggled at the Major League level despite the hype of being a top prospect along with former teammate Taijuan Walker. These and many other reasons are exactly why the Yankees would want to acquire Paxton now and not later, buy low and sell high.

Paxton began the 2016 season down in the minor leagues where he worked with pitching coach Lance Painter who tweaked his delivery with astounding results. While Paxton did not suddenly dominating MLB hitters right away he did finish the 2016 season at the MLB level with an impressive 3.79 ERA and 2.80 FIP. The 2.80 FIP would have been the best in the American League had he had enough innings to qualify for the award besting Corey Kluber’s 3.26 FIP in 2016. That’s encouraging and shows a bit of bad luck in the overall stat line. What is not unlucky by any stretch of the imagination is his sudden increase in velocity due to the delivery change as Paxton finished last season with a 96.7 MPH average fastball which would have made him the third hardest thrower in the majors trailing just Noah Syndergaard and Nathan Eovaldi.

You have to remember the Yankees, at least for this season, are looking for a pitcher to pitch at the back end of their starting rotation and Paxton would easily fill that need for New York. If he can pitch like he has this spring though, thus far he has 11 L’s in nine spring innings with a 0.89 WHIP, with that 97 MPH fastball the Yankees may have the best #3 or #4 starter in all of Major League Baseball… and all for a low risk and high reward type trade. Get it done Cashman and get it done now before the Mariners realize what they have in him. 

Report: Michael Pineda Drawing Trade Interest

The New York Yankees went into this offseason seemingly willing to trade away any veteran or high priced player that wasn’t tied down. We’ve seen it with the Brian McCann trade and we’ve heard rumbles of potential Chase Headley and Brett Gardner deals but what about another player from the team that is reportedly drawing trade interest this offseason. What about the potential idea of trading away Michael Pineda before he gets too expensive or before he reaches free agency after the 2017 season? Would it work for New York?

There’s no denying the potential and the talent that Pineda has. What you can deny is whether he will ever put it all together over the course of an entire season or whether he can get out of his own way, Pine Tar Gate anyone?, long enough to put it all together long enough to have a great career. For that reason alone there will at least be some teams that will be intrigued and interested in Michael Pineda if he were to come available this winter via trade. I believe that a lot of teams could see the right-hander as a one-year stop gap and/or a buy-low candidate this season due in large fact to his peripherals, his raw stuff, talent and his age.

Last season Pineda finished the season with a 4.82 ERA and a 1.35 WHIP, neither of which are very impressive by any means, but when you look at his FIP you can see that according to sabermetrics he was a much better pitcher. Pineda had a 3.80 FIP, a 3.30 xFIP, a 10.61 K/9 ratio, a 3.91 BB/9 ratio and a .339 BABIP (batting average on balls in play) which suggest that his defense, and maybe a bit of bad luck, didn’t do him any favors in 2016.

According to Andrew Marchand of ESPN New York the Yankees have fielded offers for Pineda but have denied all trade requests to date due in large part to their lack of quality arms in the rotation. Plus it’s worth noting that the Yankees have always been high on his upside and would presumably rather see him flourish or finally figure it all out in the Bronx rather than for another time like we’ve seen far too many times in recent years.

This is it for Pineda though as time is running out on his tenure in the Bronx. Pineda is set to hit free agency after the 2017 season so it’s time to put up, or shut up. Let’s hope for the former and not the latter although it could be either and he could still be traded this summer if the Yankees are out of contention. Stay tuned. 

Learn the Name Giovanny Gallegos

The New York Yankees may be done with their heavy lifting on the free agent market but that does not mean the team is done improving their roster at the big league level. If the free agent spending is done, and Yankees GM Brian Cashman says it is unless the team can move some payroll around, which leaves the team two options in order to improve. They can make trades, and subsequently sign more free agents if they move money in those deals, or they can simply continue building from within. One such name and arm that they could build from within with is a name that a lot of people and fans may not know now, but you should get to know him. His name is Giovanny Gallegos, learn the name.

The 25-year old relief pitcher was added to the Yankees 40-man roster this winter making arms such as Nick Goody, who was traded to the Cleveland Indians for a player to be named later or cash considerations, expendable. The Yankees must be high on him but who is he?

Gallegos is another big-framed right-handed pitcher for the Yankees standing at 6’2” that signed with the team out of Mexico in 2010. Gallegos had a rough and rocky road to his career that included a knee injury and a Tommy John surgery but has since found his niche as a reliever after being moved there full time in 2015. Gallegos is the Yankees stereotypical low ERA, low WHIP, high strikeouts and low walk type reliever they seem to be pumping out in excess lately. Gallegos is a big command guy while surviving with enough velocity and movement to be effective.

Gallegos is a former starting pitcher so he is not a two-pitch pitcher like most relievers. Instead Gallegos has three off-speed pitches alone that he uses at will against batters. That in itself is something special. Gallegos has been nothing but dominant in the Yankees minor league system and reached Triple-A in 2016 where he posted a 1.40 ERA and 0.84 WHIP with a 5-1 record. Gallegos is a ground ball pitcher, which can only help inside Yankee Stadium, and is poised to make a run at the final spot in the Yankees bullpen a la Johnny Barbato in 2016. Stay tuned to see if he can do it. 

TGP Awards: Best Yankees Pitcher of 2016

The New York Yankees had a whole lot of pitching come through the Bronx in 2016 whether it be in the starting rotation or in the bullpen but throughout the entire season they had one man that stood above the rest. No, not literally, because if it were literally then you would know that Dellin Betances won the award but figuratively. Instead I’m talking about the player who stood above the rest in the clubhouse, statistically and as a leader of the staff. Masahiro Tanaka, come on down.

Tanaka was the leader of the staff for the Yankees, hands down in my opinion, but he also is at least in the discussions for the American League Cy Young Award, again in my opinion, for 2016. Tanaka was the third most valuable pitcher in the American League according to his 5.4 WAR calculated by Baseball Reference while also posting an impressive 3.07 ERA and 1.077 WHIP in 31 starts.

At 27-years old Tanaka set a career high in the Major Leagues with 199.2 innings pitched and for much of the year he looked to get stronger and better as the season went on before a “slight, slight” strain of his forearm ended his season prematurely as he missed his final two starts.

Congratulations to Tanaka on the award and on the amazing 2016 season.

Was Starlin Castro Better Than Stephen Drew (Sucks)?

You guys know me, you read my stuff and you follow us @GreedyStripes on Twitter, so you know that I was never a fan of Stephen Drew. I clamored for what felt like years to get the Yankees to let go of Stephen Drew and to plug Robert Refsnyder in at the position to no avail so you can understand how ecstatic I was when New York acquired Starlin Castro in the offseason from the Chicago Cubs. I was skimming through other Yankees blogs and new publications lately like I always do when I ran across a post that boggled my mind, the post was explaining how the Yankees got nothing from Castro this year that they didn’t get from Stephen Drew last year. Their basis for the post? One stat. Albeit one pretty heavily weighted stat in the sabermetric community but still just one stat. No stat, however liked or heavily used across the board, tells the whole story so I will look to tell the whole story here for you today in hopes of seeing whether Castro was better than Drew in 2016. 

In 146 games Starlin Castro has played an awesome second base committing just 11 errors while posting a .981 fielding percentage. Castro was a part of 68 double plays this season along with Didi Gregorius and while these were all career bests for the Yankees second baseman there is no reason not to think he cannot keep up this pace defensively. Drew on the other hand? In his final season in pinstripes in 2015 Drew posted 131 games played with seven errors and a .984 fielding percentage. The numbers are comparable yet no one gushes over Castro’s defense like they did for Drew. No one is using Castro’s defense as a reason to keep Robert Refsnyder out of the discussion for the second base job either. Two Robert Refsnyder references in one day. One more and you have to free him. 

In those same 146 games Castro hit 21 home runs, seven more than his career high, with a .273/.301/.434 triple slash, 69 RBI and a 1.2 WAR. Drew on the other hand? .201/.271/.381 with 44 RBI, 17 home runs and a 0.4 WAR. Castro gets the slight edge. 

One thing that was definitely not suggested or mentioned in the article that I will not link because it doesn’t deserve the attention and the views is age. Castro is 26-years old and entering the beginning of his prime while putting up these numbers. This was also Castro’s first season in the American League and the first year in front of the bright lights of Yankee Stadium. The pressure, the fan scrutiny, the media questions, etc. This is all something that Drew was used to by 2015 after heading to the World Series with the Boston Red Sox and playing with the Bronx Bombers the season prior after coming over in a trade. These are things you can’t put a stat on and this is what, in my opinion of course, sets Castro apart from Drew across the board in every category. 

Castro is the man and will continue to be the man while Stephen Drew still sucks! And you can tell him I said that too. 

Masahiro Tanaka, Sabermetrics and the AL Cy Young Award

When you think of the Top 5 candidates for the American League Cy Young Award in 2016 who immediately comes to mind? Anyone’s Top 5 is probably pretty arguable, some will have this pitcher and others will have that pitcher, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there isn’t too many people out there who would have the Yankees ace Masahiro Tanaka in their Top 5. Now I can only use my Top 5 as an indicator of whether Tanaka should be in the AL Cy Young Award discussion but I am going to do just that if possible by comparing some key sabermetric stats of the Top 5 and Tanaka himself. Is it a perfect analysis? Of course not but the committee who votes on this award has proven in the past that they take sabermetrics into account and it’s not just about wins and losses anymore, ask Felix Hernandez, and we all should too. So here we go.

My Top 5 in the running for the AL Cy Young Award in no particular order is Zach Britton of the Baltimore Orioles, Jose Quintana of the Chicago White Sox and Cole Hamels of the Texas Rangers, Rick Porcello of the Boston Red Sox and Corey Kluber of the Cleveland Indians with an honorable mention for Steven Wright of the Boston Red Sox, Chris Sale of the Chicago White Sox, JA Happ for the Toronto Blue Jays and David Price of the Boston Red Sox. Yes I know, I didn’t make it easy on myself including a relief pitcher but without a clear-cut winner or favorite here Britton may actually run away with the award. If Tanaka doesn’t win it first.

WAR:

Britton – 3.3 (in just over 50 innings)

Quintana – 4.5

Hamels – 5.0

Tanaka – 4.7

Porcello – 4.2

Kluber – 5.8

VALUE:

Britton – $15.3 MILLION

Quintana – $36.9 MILLION

Hamels – $20.4 MILLION

Tanaka – $37.9 MILLION

Porcello – $31.8 MILLION

Kluber - $37.8 MILLION

RA9:

Britton – 1.15

Quintana – 3.23

Hamels – 3.61

Tanaka – 3.46

Porcello – 3.57

Kluber – 3.45

WHIP:

Britton – 0.800

Quintana – 1.125

Hamels – 1.305

Tanaka – 1.082

Porcello – 1.023

Kluber – 1.044

FIP:

Britton – 2.01

Quintana – 3.42

Hamels – 4.02

Tanaka – 3.26

Porcello – 3.52

Kluber – 3.19

ERA+:

Britton – 687 (not a typo)

Quintana – 129

Hamels – 141

Tanaka – 141

Porcello - 143

Kluber - 150

Based on these stats Tanaka is an extreme long shot at winning the AL Cy Young Award but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he should be. He’s done more with less in terms of offense, especially in the first half of the season, he faces some of the best competition in the American League (it looks likely that the AL East could send three teams to the postseason in 2016) and he pitches in one of the most hitter-friendly ballparks in all of Major League Baseball. The problem with the AL Cy Young Award voting and sabermetrics is we have yet to see any sort of consistency in the voting and in the criteria for voting which complicates things a ton. Will Tanaka win it? It depends who is looking at what stat at what time, what they had for breakfast and which way the wind is blowing I guess because I have no idea. I do know one thing though, Tanaka should at least be in the discussions for the award when it’s decided on and handed out this winter.

All stats courtesy of Baseball Reference except “VALUE” which is courtesy of Fangraphs.

Yankees Pitchers Have to Hit But Can They?

Thankfully it is just for two games but nonetheless for the next two games, the first coming tonight, the New York Yankees must send their pitchers up to the plate for three or more at bats. Interleague play was nice when it was just for a couple weeks before the All-Star Game but now that it is all season long I am liking it less and less the more I see New York’s pitchers struggle to handle the bat at the plate. This offense is dry enough without adding an automatic out into the mix but I digress.

It is a common conception that the American League pitchers cannot handle the bats but in this era where every stat and almost every action on a baseball diamond is quantifiable we no longer have to give in to common misconceptions. Now we can quantify and check the stats to make up our minds for us and that is what we are doing today as we look at the career batting lines for this series starters Ivan Nova and Nathan Eovaldi.

Nathan Eovaldi:

Year	Age	Tm	G	PA	R	H	2B	HR	RBI	SB	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
2015	25	NYY	27	5	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000	-100
2016	26	NYY	12	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	.000	.000	.000	.000	-100
6 Yrs			122	155	6	11	0	0	1	0	4	86	.080	.106	.080	.187	-47
162 Game Avg.			162	206	8	15	0	0	1	0	5	114	.080	.106	.080	.187	-47

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Ivan Nova:

Year	Age	Tm	G	PA	R	H	2B	HR	RBI	SB	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
2011	24	NYY	28	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	.000	.000	.000	.000	-100
2012	25	NYY	28	9	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	6	.143	.143	.143	.286	-22
2013	26	NYY	23	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	.000	.000	.000	.000	-100
2014	27	NYY	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2015	28	NYY	17	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2016	29	NYY	13	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
7 Yrs			123	17	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	13	.071	.071	.071	.143	-61
162 Game Avg.			162	22	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	17	.071	.071	.071	.143	-61

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

And since we’re here and quantifying and all here is what the Rockies group of hitters have done against these same two Yankees pitchers throughout their careers.

All stats courtesy of Baseball Reference and ESPN.com