Will Warren has quietly, and quickly, emerged as one of the top pitching prospects in the New York Yankees organization. An eighth-round pick in the 2020 draft out of Southwestern Louisiana University, the 22-year-old right-hander made his professional debut this year, and by June he was pitching with Double-A Somerset. On the season, he had a 3.91 ERA and a 3.74 FIP with 125 strikeouts and 119 hits allowed in 129 innings.

His best two pitches have been added to his arsenal since college. Warren’s sweeper, which spins as high as 3,000 rpm, replaced the pedestrian slider he’d thrown as an amateur; his low-to-mid 90s sinker, which helped produce a 53% ground ball rate, was developed just this past season. His physique has transformed, as well. The 6-foot-2 hurler now packs close to 200 pounds on his once-lean frame, giving him a more-projectable starter’s build.

Warren discussed his developmental strides late in the 2022 season.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with your M.O. on the mound. How do you get guys out?

Will Warren: “Basically attacking the zone, knowing that the guys behind me are going to make plays. As a sinkerball guy, I’m probably going to get a lot more ground balls than strikeouts, so I rely a lot on my defense to get people out.”

Laurila: I understand that you also have a pretty good slider.

Warren: “Yes. Analytics makes it easier to look at a pitch and say, ‘Oh, I can do this, I can manipulate it this way.’ When I got drafted by the Yankees, we [developed] the slider. We tinkered with some grips, and it ended up being what it is now.”

Laurila: Is it the Yankees whirly?

Warren: “It’s the sweeper, yes. Off the top of my head, I’m going say I get like 16–18 inches of sweep. I can get it bigger, but I think that’s what it is on average. The velocity is 84–87 [mph].” Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2019 election, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

As much as Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, and Bernie Williams, Andy Pettitte was a pillar of the Joe Torre-era Yankees dynasty. The tall Texan lefty played such a vital role on 13 pinstriped playoff teams and seven pennant winners — plus another trip to the World Series during his three-year run with Houston — that he holds several major postseason records. In fact, no pitcher ever started more potential series clinchers, both in the World Series and the postseason as a whole.

For as important as Pettitte was to the “Core Four” (Williams always gets the short end of the stick on that one) that anchored five championships from 1996 to 2009 — and to an Astros team that reached its first World Series in ’05 — he seldom made a case as one of the game’s top pitchers. High win totals driven by excellent offensive support helped him finish in the top five of his leagues’ Cy Young voting four times, but only three times did he place among the top 10 in ERA or WAR, and he never ranked higher than sixth in strikeouts. He made just three All-Star teams.

Indeed, Pettitte was more plow horse than racehorse. A sinker- and cutter-driven groundballer whose pickoff move was legendary, he was a championship-level innings-eater, a grinder rather than a dominator, a pitcher whose strong work ethic, mental preparation, and focus — visually exemplified by his peering in for the sign from the catcher with eyes barely visible underneath the brim of his cap — compensated for his lack of dazzling stuff. Ten times he made at least 32 starts, a mark that’s tied for seventh in the post-1994 strike era. Within that span, his total of 10 200-inning seasons is tied for third, and his 13 seasons of qualifying for the ERA title with an ERA+ of 100 or better is tied for first with two other lefties, Mark Buehrle (also on this ballot) and CC Sabathia. He had his ups and downs in the postseason, but only once during his 18-year career (2004, when he underwent season-ending elbow surgery) was he unavailable to pitch once his team made the playoffs. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2015 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Wherever Gary Sheffield went, he made noise, both with his bat and his voice. For the better part of two decades, he ranked among the game’s most dangerous hitters, a slugger with a keen batting eye and a penchant for contact that belied his quick, violent swing. For even longer than that, he was one of the game’s most outspoken players, unafraid to speak up when he felt he was being wronged and unwilling to endure a situation that wasn’t to his liking. He was a polarizing player, and hardly one for the faint of heart.

At the plate, Sheffield was viscerally impressive like few others. With his bat twitching back and forth like the tail of a tiger waiting to pounce, he was pure menace in the batter’s box. He won a batting title, launched over 500 home runs — he had 14 seasons with at least 20 and eight with at least 30 — and put many a third base coach in peril with some of the most terrifying foul balls anyone has ever seen. For as violent as his swing may have been, it was hardly wild; not until his late 30s did he strike out more than 80 times in a season, and in his prime, he walked far more often than he struck out. Read the rest of this entry »

SAN DIEGO — The early hours of Wednesday morning at the Winter Meetings brought a giant-sized deal for baseball’s latest home run giant… but not from the Giants. After a day in which it appeared as though Aaron Judge had decided he was not in fact prepared to be “a Yankee for life,” as he had previously professed, and would instead leave the Bronx to sign with the the team for which he grew up rooting in Linden, California, about two hours from the Bay Area, the 2022 AL MVP has returned to the Bronx via a record-setting nine-year, $360 million deal.

The move happened only after Judge arrived in San Diego on Tuesday night and heard overtures from a third team, the Padres, who had reportedly offered Trea Turner a $342 million deal before the shortstop signed with the Phillies on Monday. Via USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale, San Diego offered Judge $40 million per year over 10 years; whether either deal included deferred money isn’t known. According to the New York Post’s Jon Heyman, the Yankees had offered Judge eight years and $320 million — about $90 million more than the offer that he spurned just before Opening Day. “Once Judge told Hal Steinbrenner he wanted to be a Yankee (but had more $ on table elsewhere — SF and SD) Hal sealed the deal by bumping it another $40M and one year,” Heyman wrote. Read the rest of this entry »

Tommy Kahnle has once again found himself back with the Yankees. Drafted by the team in 2010, he played four seasons in the minor leagues with the organization but was scooped in the Rule 5 draft by Colorado and pitched there in 2014. His stint in Denver wasn’t long, and he eventually found himself traded to the White Sox for Yency Almonte. Chicago is where Kahnle rose up as a prominent reliever; in 2017, it all clicked for him, and the Yankees thought so too, acquiring him along with David Robertson and Todd Frazier before that year’s trade deadline.

Each of them played a pivotal role in the first ALCS run of the Baby Bomber era. But after more than three seasons with the club, Kahnle was waived due to injury — a torn UCL — and missed all of 2020 and ’21. After a long rehab, he made his comeback with the Dodgers in 2022 and showed he still has his stuff, making him a coveted reliever in this year’s free-agent class. His two-year, $11.5 million deal with the Yankees begins yet another stint in the Bronx for the 33-year-old reliever.

The reason for the Yankees’ interest in Kahnle is the same as it’s always been: he posses an elite changeup that plays perfectly with his four-seamer. When looking at the quality of his changeup, no one aspect sticks out relative to his peers. In 2022, its vertical movement was 11% above average, and its horizontal movement was 12% below average; that vertical movement was higher than it had been in any year of his career, and the horizontal movement was about in line with previous seasons. Basically, the pitch is closer to horizontal neutral and has plenty of vertical depth. The horizontal approach angle (HAA) reinforces the movement with a -0.2 degree entry into the zone, and the vertical approach angle (VAA) is steep at 7.0 degrees.

Changeups are difficult to diagnose and/or develop. Similar to any other pitch, you’re looking for unicorn qualities to see what makes it so lethal. Does it have an extremely sharp or steep entry into the zone? Does it move so much that hitters just cannot get a barrel on it? Is the movement profile unique for the given player’s extension and/or release point? These are just a few questions you ask about any pitch, but with changeups specifically, another crucial component is how the pitch plays with the primary fastball, whether it be a sinker, four-seamer, or both.

The beauty of the changeup is in the deception. If you can get a hitter to see a fastball for as long as possible, then you can get them either to swing over the pitch or hit the ball on the top third and ground out. Kahnle’s ability to do this while commanding his changeup location is why teams like the Yankees, Dodgers, and other advanced thinkers covet his services and want him to spam the pitch. Read the rest of this entry »

Eight months ago, Aaron Judge turned down a seven-year contract extension worth more than $200 million. Judge’s dice roll has officially paid off for him as, after a brief flirtation with the NL West, he remains with the Yankees on a nine-year, $360 million deal that ensures that he’ll spend most, if not all, of his career in pinstripes.

$213 million wasn’t an unreasonable offer given the facts on the ground in April. While Judge had a rookie season of mega-ultra-super-duper-star quality in 2017, he had failed to come close to that level in recent years. It would be an enormous stretch to say he struggled or was disappointing, but Judge entered 2022 with only one full, healthy season in the last four campaigns. To land a huge upgrade on that pre-season contract offer as a free agent entering his age-31 season, Judge would basically need to match his .284/.422/.627, 8.7 WAR rookie year.

He did more than that. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Carlos Beltrán was the quintessential five-tool player, a switch-hitting center fielder who harnessed his physical talents and became a superstar. Aided by a high baseball IQ that was essentially his sixth tool, he spent 20 seasons in the majors, making nine All-Star teams, winning three Gold Gloves, helping five different franchises reach the playoffs, and putting together some of the most dominant stretches in postseason history once he got there. At the end of his career, he helped the Astros win a championship.

Drafted out of Puerto Rico by the Royals, Beltrán didn’t truly thrive until he was traded away. He spent the heart of his career in New York, first with the Mets — on what was at the time the largest free-agent contract in team history — and later the Yankees. He endured his ups and downs in the Big Apple and elsewhere, including his share of injuries. Had he not missed substantial portions of three seasons, he might well have reached 3,000 hits, but even as it is, he put up impressive, Cooperstown-caliber career numbers. Not only is he one of just eight players with 300 homers and 300 stolen bases, but he also owns the highest stolen base success rate (86.4%) of any player with at least 200 attempts.

Alas, two years after Beltrán’s career ended, he was identified as the player at the center of the biggest baseball scandal in a generation: the Astros’ illegal use of video replay to steal opponents’ signs in 2017 and ’18. He was “the godfather of the whole program” in the words of Tom Koch-Weser, the team’s director of advance information, and the only player identified in commissioner Rob Manfred’s January 2020 report. But between that report and additional reporting by the Wall Street Journal, it seems apparent that the whole team, including manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow, was well aware of the system and didn’t stop him or his co-conspirators. In that light, it’s worth wondering about the easy narrative that has left Beltrán holding the bag; Hinch hardly had to break stride in getting another managerial job once his suspension ended. While Beltrán was not disciplined by the league, the fallout cost him his job as manager of the Mets before he could even oversee a game, and he has yet to get another opportunity.

Will Beltrán’s involvement in sign stealing cost him a berth in Cooperstown, the way allegations concerning performance-enhancing drugs have for a handful of players with otherwise Hallworthy numbers? At the very least it appears likely to keep him from getting elected this year. What remains to be seen is whether voters treat him like Rafael Palmeiro and banish him for a big mistake (a positive PED test) in the final season of an otherwise impressive career, or like Roberto Alomar and withhold the honor of first-ballot induction for an out-of-character incident (spitting at an umpire) before giving him his due. Read the rest of this entry »

Another Pirates reliever has been picked up by the Yankees, and his name is Junior Fernández, owner of 54 career innings pitched in the majors with St. Louis and Pittsburgh. This past season, he finished with a 5.79 FIP in 18.2 innings; his career FIP sits at 5.57, so he hasn’t had much success in the league so far. So what exactly do the Yankees see in him?

Like many relievers in the Yankees’ bullpen, Fernández throws high-velocity sinkers and boasts an above-average ground ball rate: 58.9%, a very similar clip as Jonathan Loáisiga. That all sounds very similar to another Yankees pickup from the Pirates: Clay Holmes. But Holmes’ sinker is of the turbo ilk that forces its way down with bowling ball action; this past season, the vertical movement on that pitch was 21% above league average. Fernández’s is much more vertical neutral. In fact, the comparison to Loáisiga is much more appropriate. The table below shows how Fernández’s sinker specs compare to Loáisiga’s:

The two pitchers have similar extension, release points, and movement profiles. The entry into the zone in terms of horizontal and vertical approach angles isn’t all that far off either. Overall, we’re looking at very similar pitches, and Fernández throws his even harder by about a tick. This alone is a good starting point to explain why the Yankees were interested enough to scoop him up off waivers. Read the rest of this entry »

While the top of the celebrated free agent shortstop market has yet to roll into motion, the end of last week saw a flurry of action a little lower on the positional power rankings. The Yankees agreed to a one-year, $6 million deal with Isiah Kiner-Falefa, locking up his final season of team control. And as Friday afternoon progressed, four other teams linked up for an exchange of shortstops. A shortswap, if you will.

Gio Urshela went from the Twins to the Angels for 19-year-old pitching prospect Alejandro Hidalgo, Kyle Farmer went from the Reds to the Twins for minor league pitcher Casey Legumina, and Kevin Newman went from the Pirates to the Reds for reliever Dauri Moreta.
Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2023 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been expanded and updated. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

Don Mattingly was the golden child of the Great Yankees Dark Age. He debuted in September 1982, the year after the team finished a stretch of four World Series appearances in six seasons, and retired in 1995 after finally reaching the postseason — a year too early for the franchise’s run of six pennants and four titles in eight years under Joe Torre.

A lefty-swinging first baseman with a sweet stroke, “Donnie Baseball” was both an outstanding hitter and a slick fielder at his peak. He made six straight All-Star teams from 1984 to ’89 and won a batting title, an MVP award, and nine Gold Gloves. Along the way, he battled with owner George Steinbrenner even while becoming the standard bearer of the pinstripes, the team captain, and something of a cultural icon. Alas, a back injury sapped his power, not only shortening his peak but also bringing his career to a premature end at age 34. At its root, the problem was that Mattingly was so driven to succeed that he overworked himself in the batting cage.

“Donnie was one of the hardest workers I had ever seen and played with. He would go in the cage before batting practice and take batting practice. And after batting practice was over, he’d take batting practice,” former teammate Ron Guidry said for a 2022 MLB Network documentary, Donnie Baseball (for which this scribe was also interviewed).

“I should have learned quicker to not to beat my body up, and if I did less, I could perform better,” said Mattingly for the same documentary.

Mattingly debuted on the 2001 Hall of Fame ballot, the last one before I began my own annual reviews, but it was quickly clear that he didn’t have the raw numbers or the support of enough voters to gain entry to Cooperstown. After receiving 28.2% his first time around, he dipped to 20.3% in 2002, spent most of the remainder of his 15-year run in the teens, and was in single digits by the end. What’s more, in two appearances on the Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot in 2018 and ’20, he failed to reach the threshold to have his actual share reported; at most, he received three of 16 votes (18.8%) in his last appearance.

At this point, Mattingly’s best hope for a Hall of Fame berth involves building on his managerial success, though even in that department he has a long way to go. After winning three division titles in five seasons with the Dodgers, he spent seven years toiling for the Marlins and is currently out of a job after stepping down from that job last month. He seems unlikely to be elected this time around, but his candidacy is nonetheless a welcome palate cleanser when compared to the likes of Rafael Palmeiro and Albert Belle. Read the rest of this entry »