Platoon splits are real, and they matter. The trouble comes in when people put too much emphasis on individual platoon performance over a short period of time. It is understandable, of course, and as fans, we have a right to overreact to things. But when it comes to getting to the truth of things, it gets a bit more complicated. One can read about the general principles of thinking about observed platoon performance versus true talent elsewhere. What can be instructive is looking at some concrete cases of unusual or standout performances of certain players. For today, let’s take a look at the platoon histories of a couple of left-handed hitters: Alex Gordon and Robinson Cano.

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For the fourth time this season, Derek Jeter has been sidelined. There is no timetable for his return, and unless the Yankees reach the postseason — and there is still hope on that front — there is a decent chance that he will make no meaningful contribution to the team at all this season. Even with the expectation that he would miss time this season, it seemed likely that he would contribute at some point, so this comes as a bit of a surprise, even at this late date. The question is then, just how much should the Yankees expect him to contribute next season?

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Mariano Rivera is in the process of completing a farewell tour, getting recognition even within rival ballparks. Just on its own, this tells you a few things. One, Rivera is on the verge of retirement, preparing to officially hang up his spikes, figuratively if not literally. Two, Rivera has been great. Great and beloved and unanimously respected, but mostly, great. Players who weren’t great don’t get the Rivera treatment. Few players, really, get the Rivera treatment. Fans in other cities are saying goodbye to one of the greatest pitchers the game’s ever seen. Three, Rivera’s seen a whole lot. He’s had a long enough career to establish himself as a hall-of-famer — and to make an impression on every place he’s been to — so there aren’t many things Rivera hasn’t seen, that he hasn’t experienced. He’s given everything he’s had to baseball, and he’s squeezed baseball for everything it’s worth.

Some of the only things Rivera hasn’t experienced are different varieties of failure. He has, simply, been too good, too consistently and reliably good, to fail often. He has failed before, sometimes memorably, but there have been plenty of ways in which he hasn’t failed, and ways in which he never will. At the moment, though, Rivera’s experiencing something he’s never experienced before. For the first time in his big-league career, Rivera’s blown three consecutive saves. He hasn’t been through everything, but he’s been through one more thing than he had been.

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When it comes to thinking about the best pitchers in the American League this year, the names that jump out to most might be along these lines: Felix Hernandez (always awesome and having one of his better seasons), Max Scherzer and Anibal Sanchez (two non-Verlander Tigers having big years), Yu Darvish (strikeout machine), Chris Sale (great pitcher on a bad team), and Derek Holland (finally living up to his stuff in a hitter’s park). One pitcher that would probably come up less frequently is Hiroki Kuroda. He probably would not be totally ignored (especially by Yankees fans), but he has flown somewhat under the radar (has never made an All-Star game) for whatever reasons, some having to do the nature of his performance, some not.

External factors aside, an examination of Kuroda’s 2013 performance shows why he might not get as much attention for the year-end awards, but a deeper look also reveals his worthiness.

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It’s been in the works for a few days, and now this morning, it is finally official: the Yankees have acquired Alfonso Soriano from the Cubs in exchange for a class-A pitching prospect, widely rumored to be Corey Black. For the Cubs, though, this move is less about the prospect than it is about financial flexibility.

Soriano has about $25 million left on his contract between 2013 and 2014, and according to Buster Olney, the Yankees have agreed to absorb almost $7 million of that total, including $5 million next season. It’s not a massive pot of gold, but the Cubs are saving about the same amount of money that they used to sign Scott Feldman over the off-season, and that turned out okay. Odds are good that the Cubs are going to reinvest the savings into their 2014 club and come away with a better (and younger) player than Soriano in the process. That makes this an easy win for Chicago.

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It was on Feb. 16, 2004, that the Yankees thought they had their questions answered. That day, they added a 28-year-old Alex Rodriguez from the Rangers — along with cash — and what it cost them was Alfonso Soriano and, eventually, Joaquin Arias. It was a deal thought to be lopsided at the time, and Rodriguez, for awhile, performed like a superstar. Rodriguez today resembles Rodriguez then, but only really in terms of genetics; there’s some chance he might never play another game. Which is one reason why the Yankees are rumored to be pursuing Soriano, who now is in Chicago. Rodriguez’s arrival was directly connected to Soriano’s departure. Rodriguez’s potential departure might be directly connected to Soriano’s potential arrival.

Here’s another reason why the Yankees are looking at the ex-Yankee. Soriano bats right-handed, and for a while, he’s produced. Right-handed batters for the Yankees, this season, have racked up more strikeouts than hits. Granted, it turns out that’s hardly unprecedented, so it’s not as impactful as it sounds. But Yankee righties have a .589 OPS. Next-worse is the Marlins, at .622. Yankee righties play in Yankee Stadium. The Yankees are thirsty for a right-handed bat that doesn’t suck, and it just so happens that Soriano’s an outfielder, like Vernon Wells.

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The last time I wrote about Edge% it was in the context of the Tampa Bay Rays using it to get their pitchers into more favorable counts on 1-1. But now I want to take that topic and drill a little deeper to understand how often edge pitches are taken for called strikes.

Overall, pitches taken on the edge are called strikes 69% of the time. But that aggregate measure hides some pretty substantial differences. Going further on that idea, I wanted to see how the count impacts the likelihood of a pitch on the edge being called a strike.

Here are the results:

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The Yankees, at present, are right in the thick of the American League playoff race, and like most teams hanging around contention, they’ve expressed interest in making a midseason splash. Recently there’ve been rumors about Joba Chamberlain, and about maybe trading Phil Hughes for a hitter. But Thursday, the Yankees went ahead and exchanged Travis Ishikawa for Derek Jeter. Jeter was inserted directly into the starting lineup, albeit as a designated hitter instead of a shortstop.

Whenever a team gets a player back from injury this time of year, someone will refer to it as a midseason acquisition, and that’s basically what this is. After not having Jeter for more than three months, the Yankees now have him for the stretch run, and in his first at-bat on Thursday, he swung at the first pitch and singled. Granted, it was an infield single, weakly struck, but a hit’s a hit, and Jeter took his familiar sprint to first base. The Yankees just don’t feel like the Yankees without Jeter in the order, so now, if nothing else, there’s more excitement. And there’s not nothing else.

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It could have worked out so perfectly. The Yankees’ acquisition of Vernon Wells appeared to be unwise at the time, but they’d be looking to him as a backup, who needed only to fake it as a starter while Curtis Granderson was hurt. Pretty bad gamble, sure, but we’re given only one reality, and when Granderson debuted on May 14, Wells had an .875 OPS. It was up in four-digit territory through the first three weeks, and all the talk was about how Wells had found a new home, and a new life, more like his old one. Wells had done more than enough, and with Granderson healthy, he could be reduced to a role player.

Granderson got hurt again, and Wells hasn’t stopped playing. Wells has stopped hitting, even though he hasn’t stopped getting opportunities. Wells, now, owns the worst rate numbers of his career, a small step down even from what he did with the Angels. Wells didn’t just regress from his hot streak — his numbers over-corrected, such that he’s been more of a burden than a boon.

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We are a little more than two months into the season, and that means it’s time to check on early season velocity trends. As I’ve mentioned before, declines in velocity are a less reliable signal in April and May than in June and July, but nevertheless large declines can still be a solid predictor that a pitcher’s velocity has in fact truly declined and will remain lower at season’s end. Almost 40% of pitchers that experience a decline in April — and almost 50% in May — will finish the season down at least 1 mph. And while the signal gets much stronger in July, 40% is still a pretty sizable number.

So let’s take a quick look at the major decliners from April and May.

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