Checking In With Adam Warren Open Thread

The New York Yankees are off tonight which gives us enough time to finally get caught up on somethings. There’s only so many hours in the day and only so many posts I can type up in a day so tonight we finally get caught back up with a former friend and current teammate (again) Adam Warren.

Warren has not had the best time of it pitching in the National League this season and will look to bring back some of those great memories and performances that he had while here to his 2016 season. Here is a quick look at what Warren did as a Chicago Cubs player in 2016 and here are his 2015 stats as well. I know that they don’t compare but a homecoming of sorts can only help in my opinion so here’s to helping and to improvement for the rest of the season.

Enjoy the off night Yankees family. 

Year	Tm	W	L	ERA	G	GS	GF	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA+	FIP	WHIP	H9	HR9	BB9	SO9
2015	NYY	7	7	3.29	43	17	5	1	131.1	114	51	48	10	39	104	121	3.59	1.165	7.8	0.7	2.7	7.1
2016	CHC	3	2	5.91	29	1	4	0	35.0	31	24	23	7	19	27	68	5.82	1.429	8.0	1.8	4.9	6.9

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

2016 the New 1996 for the New York Yankees?

As we inch closer towards the 2016 season and Opening Day optimism is running high on most every Major League team right now. That’s the greatest part of it being a whole new season, nobody knows what to expect and not many teams and their fan bases are down right now. This is especially true for the New York Yankees specifically because with all the new faces in the Bronx, whether acquired elsewhere or coming up through the farm system, and the question marks surrounding the starting rotation no one really knows what to expect. We have mentioned this a few times last season and already once or twice this season but the comparisons and parallels are just too much to ignore. If the Yankees stay healthy and if the Yankees can gel together like they presumably did in 2015 could this team defy the odds and shock the world in 2016 much like they did in 1996? 

Both teams were not expected to make the postseason in both 2015 and 1995 and both teams won the Wild Card before losing in the Wild Card Round. Things were a little different back then obviously as the Yankees lost technically in the ALDS to the Seattle Mariners in an epic five-game series while the Yankees lost a one-game playoff to the Houston Astros last season but the basic premises are the same. That’s just the beginning though, keep reading. 

In the early to mid-90’s the Toronto Blue Jays were at the top of the division and the top of the American League as their fans watched Joe Carter walk off a World Series like most of us have only dreamed about as a child and once again the Yankees seem to be looking up at the Blue Jays once again. In fact the last time the Blue Jays made the postseason before last season was during this dominant time with Carter in the middle of that lineup. To counteract the Blue Jays then the team acquired a National League player who had struggled and fallen out of favor with the team that drafted him, that NL player’s name was Paul O’Neill. This may be a stretch and I am in no way comparing the two but does this not sound a lot like the Starlin Castro acquisition for 2016? 

The 1995 Yankees had a staple of a first baseman entering presumably his last season with the club in Don Mattingly and had a struggling veteran with a ton of question marks in Mike Stanley also looking to hang on while this season boasts possibly the final years for Mark Teixeira and Carlos Beltran. The Core Four was just beginning to make some noise with short cameos from Andy Pettite (Luis Severino in 2016) and eventually Derek Jeter (Jorge Mateo, Didi Gregorius… take your pick), Jorge Posada (hello Gary Sanchez), Mariano Rivera (Dellin Betances and/or Jacob Lindgren) while Bernie Williams (Slade Heathcott, Mason Williams, Ben Gamel) was just beginning to establish himself. 

The team was young at the core and filled in where it needed to offensively while shutting down teams with a strong bullpen late. Sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it? I just hope the statistics and the end results are the same.

Age Is Just a Number

For years, the fans, columnists, and anyone under the sun has claimed the Yankees are too old to compete for a World Series. When Jason Heyward signed with the Chicago Cubs earlier this offseason and indicated that the Cardinals age was a reason he left many reporters took that as an indication that the Yankees had no shot at signing him either.

With the infusion of young talent like Nathan Eovaldi, Didi Gregorius, Starlin Castro, Luis Severino and Greg Bird on the roster I wanted to see how many older players the Yankees are using in comparison to their five most recent World Series victories and the two years they failed to make the postseason.

The results are not what I thought they were going to be. First off the Yankees last five World Series victories.

In 1996, the Yankees used 48 total players, 5 players were 35+. Older players made up 10.4% of the roster.
In 1998, the Yankees used 38 total players and 6 players were 35+. Older made up 15.8% of the roster.
In 1999, the Yankees used 39 total players and 7 players were 35+. Older players made up 17.9% of the roster.
In 2000, the Yankees used 34 total players, and 11 players were 35+. Older players made up 32.4% of the roster.
In 2009, the Yankees used 45 total players, and 7 players were 35+. Older players made up 15.56% of the roster.

Next up the last two times, the Yankees missed the playoffs as well as 2015 to bring it all together.

In 2013, the Yankees used 56 total players and 8 players were 35+. Older players made up 14.3% of the roster.
In 2014, the Yankees used 58 total players and 8 players were 35+. Older players made up 13.8% of the roster.
In 2015, the Yankees used 56 total players and 4 players were 35+. Older players made up 7.1% of the roster.

The Yankees have been using fewer players 35 and older as the years have gone on which would seem contradictory for a team described as "old." The key, however, is the overall usage of the older players. They are using fewer players, but they are relying on them more.  In 2000 when the Yankees used 11 35+ players only 3 of them were regular contributors, David Cone, Roger Clemens and Paul O'Neill. In 2013, the Yankees used eight 35+ players, and all of them were expected to be regular contributors. The 2000 team had older players play in a combined 487 appearances. The 2013 team had older players play in a combined 589 appearances.

That trend continued in 2015 as three of the four older players the Yankees used were regular contributors. The Yankees look to reverse this trend through the on the fly rebuild they have been going through. In 2016, I estimate the Yankees will again have four 35+ players but younger players like Greg Bird, Aaron Hicks will allow them to use Carlos Beltran, Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez more effectively.

Jason Stark's Strange But True Feats from 2015

Every season Jason Stark of ESPN releases a set of "Strange But True" feats from the previous season and also releases the same post just for the postseason. Unfortunately the Yankees, despite making the postseason, were not involved in the postseason strange but true posts but they were mentioned more than once in the regular season feats. Head on over to ESPN and check out Jason's article SEEN HERE and I am going to sample some of the Yankees related material here to garner interest. Be sure to check out his post for the entire post and all the Yankees related material, plus he deserves a click or two for his awesome work. Enjoy.

-- The Yankees faced four position players as pitchers this season. Chris Young, the former Yankees fourth outfielder, hit a home run off of Atlanta Braves (at the time) outfielder Jonny Gomes but struck out in the same season against Adam Rosales, a Texas Rangers infielder. The Yankees didn't just face positional players as pitchers though they also threw out some of their own including Brendan Ryan who pitched two scoreless innings for the team. The last position player to get six outs as a pitcher for the Yankees was Gene Michael in 1968.

-- Mark Buehrle beat the Yankees this season, this was the first time he did so in 11 seasons. Who could blame him if he retired this offseason? Buehrle went 148 games against the club without winning a game, that has to be some sort of record.

-- Didi Gregorius did something that his predecessor never did, he drove in six runs in a single game. I find that pretty hard to believe but Derek Jeter never drove in six runs in a single game, wow. Gregorius did it in his 120th MLB game while Jeter, including the postseason, played in 2,505 games and never did it. No Suzyn, you can't predict baseball.

-- The final bit of Yankees related news relates to the powerful offense led by Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira. The Yankees eclipsed the 20 run plateau not once but twice in a single game in 2015 , both times on the road to boot.

Remembering 2015: Andrew Miller

Remembering 2015: Nathan Eovaldi

Remembering 2015: Alex Rodriguez

Remembering 2015: Jacoby Ellsbury

Remembering 2015: Brett Gardner Highlights

Remembering 2015: Chase Headley Highlights

Remembering 2015: Didi Gregorius Highlights

Remembering 2015:Brian McCann Highlights

Remembering 2015: Mark Teixeira Highlights

Digging in the TGP Archive: Didi Gregorius, BIP Locations and Yankee Stadium

The original post can be seen HERE. If you ignore the fact that I mention Didi Gregorius as a potential 20 home run power bat in 2015 or shortly after the prediction and analysis is pretty spot on. That's my opinion anyway, what's yours?

Every time the New York Yankees acquire player or are reportedly linked to a player the first thing I look at are the BIP locations from the previous season. I think the BIP's, or ball in play locations, can tell you a lot about how a player will react and do in their new stadium. Of course there is neutralized batting stats and such, which I look at as well which by the way adds 11 points to Gregorius' average per Baseball Reference, but this visual look works better for me and a lot of others I've been told on Twitter. Let's take a look at what Gregorius' hits in Arizona would look like if he played 2014 in the Bronx.

As always we use this same chart with the same color scheme:

Line Outs
Fly Outs
Doubles
Triples
Home Runs

As you can see it looks like, again in a perfect world, that Didi will improve substantially inside Yankee Stadium. I know it's hard to differentiate on the picture between doubles, triples, and home runs so you may just have to take my word on it. The lightest colored dots in the outfield were doubles in Chase Field and both of them are home runs in New York. The darker blue dots that barely cleared the wall at the 385 mark and the 408 mark were actually triples which also turned into home runs in the Bronx. Didi hit three home runs last year in Arizona that would have been well out of New York as well which equals seven home runs before we even look at line outs and fly outs. Two fly outs easily clear the wall in New York and I like to at least consider balls that reached the warning track. With the difference in humidity and with the wind blowing at least two of those fly outs could have been home runs in New York while another six were at least in the discussion as home runs. Conceivably, and again in a bubble, Didi could have had 10 home runs or more in New York in just 80 games played just by switching to Yankee Stadium. Double that in 160 games and you have a guy with 20 home run power that we have for the next five seasons and all we had to give up was Shane Greene.... tell me again why you want Brian Cashman fired again?