What Will Santa Bring Yankees for Christmas?

Posted on by Charlie Ricker

It’s the first full day of Winter, Christmas is almost here, and everyone is excited in anticipation of gifts they will soon be receiving. Fans of Major League Baseball are also excited to see who their favorite teams will sign as a free agent or make a trade to solidify their lineups or pitching staffs.

Of course, the New York Yankees are in the market to add to their team, as they are every Winter. The big name in play is D.J. LeMahieu, who’s spent the last two seasons with the Bronx Bombers. Bringing him back is imperative, as I wrote back in November. Over his pair of seasons with the Yankees, LeMahieu put up a slash-line of .336/.386/.536 with 36 HR’s and 129 RBI in 195 games. Brian Cashman, the Yankees GM, maintains he is doing everything he can to retain the popular and surehanded 2nd baseman.

YES Network’s Jack Curry thinks LeMahieu will return. Certainly, this would bring a collective exhale from Yankees fans strong enough to qualify as a gale wind.

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If LeMahieu leaves, the wise move would be to move Gleyber Torres back to second base, and sign a shortstop. Old friend Didi Gregorius could be an option. Fully recovered from Tommy John surgery on his throwing elbow late in 2018, Sir Didi played all 60 games for the Phillies in 2020. He put up decent numbers (.284/.339/.488 with 10 HR’s and 40 RBI) and should have no problem securing a multi-year deal. It’s hard to say if Cashman is willing to re-commit to Gregorius after letting him leave after 2019. Would Didi even be willing to return?

With Masahiro Tanaka, James Paxton and J.A. Happ hitting the free agent market, the Yankees have a few holes to fill in their starting rotation. Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery are the two main holdovers from the 2020 season. Luis Severino is expected to return from Tommy John Surgery, but unlikely to be ready by Opening Day 2021. Deivi García seems ready to contribute after a number of good starts late in the summer. No one knows what to expect from Domingo Germán. He missed the 2020 season while suspended for his role in a domestic violence incident in September 2019.

Trevor Bauer is the big, high profile name in free agency and he would instantly upgrade the Yankees rotation. However, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner has repeatedly said he does not want the team’s budget to be above the luxury tax threshold (210M for 2021). Adding Bauer would most certainly push them above 210 million. It’s more likely Cashman will look to lower priced options such as Corey Kluber or Jake Odorizzi (both missed virtually the entire season) or bringing back Paxton on one year deals to prove they are healthy.

Other than adding pitching and trying to bring back LeMahieu, the Yankees are in good shape, roster-wise. Hopefully Santa will deliver Yankees fans with some nice gifts to celebrate over Christmas.

And I want to wish all of you a safe, happy and healthy Merry Christmas! 🎄🎁

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You want shorter MLB games? Throw strikes and locate!

Posted on by Charlie Ricker

In a few short weeks Spring training will be upon us. Mostly likely with it will be more changes initiated by Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred in his never-ending quest to improve pace of play and shorten the length of games.

This past week, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale revealed Manfred’s proposal to change the 10 day disabled list back to 15 days as well as another stab at adding a pitch-clock to help control pace of play. I agree with returning the DL back to 15 days because it seemed to be used more as a way to manipulate rosters than an actual disabled list. I disagree with a pitch-clock but think it’s inevitable since all minor leagues now use it.

A search of average time per nine innings over the last 25 seasons revealed a MLB low of 2:49 in the year 2005. Two teams, the Minnesota Twins and Houston Astros tied for the lowest average time per nine innings at 2:43 and the New York Yankees had the highest at 3:02, with the Boston Red Sox on their heels at 3:01. In 2018, the average time per nine inning games was three hours even, a drop of five minutes from the previous year.

What stood out for me in this research was the collective amount of pitches thrown between the Twins and Astros of 2005 and the rest of the league. The ’05 San Francisco Giants led MLB in total pitches with 24,324 over their 162 games. The Twins threw the fewest (21,902) with the Astros second fewest (22,112) that year.

The biggest thing I took away from looking at the numbers from from the ’05 Twins and Astros was that their starting pitchers threw strikes and pitched deep into games. Minnesota’s top three starters, Johan Santana, Brad Radke and Carlos Silva all averaged close to seven innings per start. In combination with this, all three guys constantly threw strikes. Santana, a power pitcher at the time gave up 1.7 BB/9 IP. Radke (1.0 BB/9) and Silva (0.4 BB/9!!) weren’t power guys, but located and let their defense do their jobs behind them. Houston starters Roy Oswalt, Andy Pettitte and a 42 year old Roger Clemens weren’t the hardest of throwers, but tallied more strikeouts, being a National League team at the time. Oswalt (1.6 BB/9), Pettitte (1.7 BB/9) and Clemens (2.6 BB/9) also threw strikes and pitched deep into ballgames, all averaging between 6.5 and 7.0 innings per start.

In contrast with 2005, the 2018 Twins threw the most pitches collectively in MLB with 24,927, with the Chicago White Sox right behind with 24,926. The ’18 Twins top-three starters Kyle Gibson (3.6 BB/9), José Berríos (2.9) and Jake Odorizzi 3.8) walked well more than twice as many as their 2005 counterparts. As a result, Gibson and Berríos averaged just a shade over six innings while Odorizzi barely averaged five innings/start.

There are other variables that add to the length of the game today, with pitchers throwing harder and hitters going for the home run instead of putting the ball in play, but I think better control and location would be a big help with pace of play.

Throw strikes! (Shout-out to my man @JordanLeandre55 for this timeless moment) 😉