Clarke Schmidt is more than a talented, 24-year-old right-hander who made his major league debut with the New York Yankees in 2020. He’s also a bona fide pitching nerd. Selected 18th overall in the 2017 draft out of the University of South Carolina, Schmidt leans heavily on analytics as he strives to further develop an already formidable four-pitch arsenal.

His top two offerings — per Eric Longenhagen, “a power-sweeping, mid-80s breaking ball” and a two-seamer with “nasty tailing action” — have each been honed with the help of data. A third pitch, his four-seamer, is currently on that same path, while his changeup has likewise been undergoing nuanced tweaks. Big-league hitters have barely gotten a glimpse of Schmidt’s smart weaponry — last year’s cup of coffee comprised just six-and-a-third innings — but they can expect to see a lot more of him in the future. Clarke heads into the 2021 season as a strong candidate to capture a spot in New York’s starting rotation.

———

David Laurila: You have a plus breaking ball. What is the story behind it?

Clarke Schmidt: “In college, I was a slider and curveball guy — mainly a slider guy — and my sophomore year, I think I led the SEC in strikeouts. I had [129] strikeouts, and if I had to guess, I got 90 of them on sliders. That was like my go-to pitch. It wasn’t very hard, but it was hard for hitters to see the spin. It was an interesting-spinning slider, and it had a good movement profile, but it wasn’t a sharp-breaking slider.”

Laurila: What made the spin interesting?

Schmidt: “It was very depth-y. Normally, when you see sliders from guys who throw mid-90s [fastballs], it’s like a Gerrit Cole slider, or more of a sharpness with it staying on the plate longer. Mine was more of a sweepy slider, kind of like Chris Sale has. It was a low-80s slider. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 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. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

A.J. Burnett’s stuff was never in doubt. The owner of a mid-90s fastball and a devastating knuckle curve that he threw from multiple arm slots, he could make batters look foolish and miss bats aplenty, but his command and control were another matter. When Burnett no-hit the Padres as a member of the Marlins on May 12, 2001, he walked nine batters — the most by a pitcher ever in a nine-inning no-no — and hit another.

Burnett spent parts of 17 seasons (1999–2015) in the majors with the Marlins, Blue Jays, Yankees, Pirates, and Phillies. He struck out at least 190 hitters in a season half a dozen times, led his league in strikeouts per nine twice, played a key role in helping New York win a World Series and in ending an epic postseason drought in Pittsburgh, and went through an impressive late-career reinvention there that culminated with his only All-Star berth in the final year of his career. Yet he also ranked among the league’s top 10 in walk rate nine times, leading once and placing second twice. Three times he led his league in wild pitches and once in hit batsmen. From his tattoos and nipple rings to his penchant for self-immolation on the mound, he earned an unenviable reputation by the middle of his career.

“When his head’s not right, then his body won’t follow. But his head goes first. Then his body gets all out of whack,” Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland bluntly told ESPN’s Johnette Howard in 2010, as Burnett suddenly devolved into yet another pitcher who couldn’t handle the Bronx. It took a change of scenery and mastery of a two-seam fastball to get his career back on track. Once he did, he became a favorite of teammates and fans — an outcome that at one point appeared so remote.

Allan James Burnett was born on January 3, 1977 in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He played mostly third base at Central Arkansas Christian High School, and when he pitched a bit during his junior year, “more of his pitches ended up at the backstop than in the strike zone,” wrote ESPN Magazine’s Eric Adelson in 2001. Filling in for a teammate in a key game as a senior, he broke through, and the Mets chose him in the eighth round of the 1995 draft; he signed for a $60,000 bonus. By FanGraphs’ version of WAR — which at 42.5 is well beyond the value estimate of Baseball-Reference’s version (28.8) — he’s the most valuable eight-round pick ever, though Paul Goldschmidt will soon surpass him.

Burnett struggled with his control and his temper from the outset of his professional carer, walking 77 batters (but striking out 94) in 91.2 innings in his first two seasons. He began harnessing his stuff after coming under the tutelage of Pittsfield Mets pitching coach Bob Stanley (the former Red Sox reliever) in 1997. Via Adelson, Stanley once sent Burnett back to the mound with bloody knuckles after Burnett had repeatedly punched a dugout ceiling in anger; he struck out the side.

In February 1998, Burnett was traded to the Marlins — who were in the process of tearing apart their World Series-winning roster — as part of the Al Leiter deal. Despite missing the first seven weeks of the season due to a broken right hand suffered while playing catch (he was protecting himself from an errant throw), he made an indelible impression with his performance at A-level Kane County, posting a 1.97 ERA with 14.1 strikeouts per nine in 119 innings. The performance rocketed him to No. 21 on Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects list; the publication lauded his stuff (mid-90s fastball that touched 97, two other average or better pitches) and his makeup (“not afraid to make a mistake, loves to challenge hitters and won’t back down… willingness to make adjustments and correct mistakes on his own”).

Promoted to Double-A Portland, Burnett struggled, with high walk and homer rates pushing his ERA to 5.52, but he responded well to a detour to the bullpen, and the Marlins called him up to debut on August 17, 1999. He threw 5.2 innings and allowed one run in beating the Dodgers, the first of seven starts over which he posted a 3.84 ERA but walked 5.4 per nine.

Expected to make the Marlins out of spring training in 2000, Burnett ruptured a ligament in his right thumb and was sidelined until July 20. He pitched quite well initially but faded in September, finishing with a 4.79 ERA in 82.2 innings. He continued to develop over the next two seasons, throwing that ugly 129-pitch no-hitter against the Padres in just his second start off the disabled list following a right foot fracture (suffered after he stepped in a gutter while bowling, naturally).

Burnett enjoyed a significant breakout in 2002, when he posted a 3.30 ERA and struck out 203 in 204.1 innings while leading the NL in shutouts (five), hit and homer rates (6.7 and 0.5 per nine, respectively) and wild pitches (14). His usage was heavy even in the context of the time; his 12 outings with at least 120 pitches over the 2001–02 seasons tied for fourth in the majors, and at 24 and 25 years old, he was the youngest pitcher among the top eight in that category. Thus it wasn’t much of a shock when the elbow trouble he developed in early 2003 led to Tommy John surgery. He missed the Marlins’ championship run, but given how awash the team was with young pitching — Josh Beckett, Dontrelle Willis (his rotation replacement), Brad Penny, Carl Pavano — the team barely missed him.

Even so, Burnett made a strong return in June 2004, highlighted by a 14-strikeout effort against the Rockies on August 29. Despite posting solid numbers in 2005 (3.44 ERA, 116 ERA+, 198 strikeouts in 209 innings), he lost his final six decisions amid a race for a playoff spot and was sent home during the final week of the season after a clubhouse outburst regarding the negative attitude surrounding the team. “We play scared. We manage scared. We coach scared and I’m sick of it,” he told reporters. “It’s depressing around here. It’s like they expect us to mess up, and when we do they chew us out. There’s no positive nothing around here for anybody.”

Though Burnett apologized, and manager Jack McKeon was replaced, the skids were greased for his exit via free agency, not that the Marlins were going to pay market rate for his services. As one of the top starting pitchers in a weak field, he signed a five-year, $55 million deal with the Blue Jays, reuniting with pitching coach Brad Arnsberg, with whom he’d worked well in Florida. He pitched reasonably well in Toronto and benefited from the guidance of teammate Roy Halladay, who helped him evolve from a thrower to a pitcher. Asked about his approach by the future Hall of Famer, a flummoxed Burnett couldn’t come up with more than, “Umm… I just try to throw heaters by guys. And if I get ahead, I throw my curveball as hard as I can.”

“Roy just started laughing. Like for a while. And I’m just shaking my head, like, What? What! Dude, what’s so funny?” a sheepish Burnett recalled in 2018.

Elbow inflammation (2006) and a shoulder strain (’07) limited Burnett to 46 starts and 301.1 innings in his first two seasons as a Blue Jay, the latter amid some high pitch counts. Though his 4.07 ERA (104 ERA+) in 2008 was the highest mark of his Toronto tenure, he went 18–10 while leading the AL with 231 strikeouts (and 9.4 per nine) in a career-high 221.1 innings, then exercised an opt-out clause and hit free agency again.

The Yankees, smarting from missing the playoffs for the first time since the 1994–95 strike, signed the going-on-32-year-old Burnett to a five-year, $82.5 million deal on December 12, kicking off a spending spree that would also include even more lucrative deals for CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira. They won 103 games and the AL East in 2009 while Burnett pitched to a 4.04 ERA, struck out 195, and livened up a staid clubhouse with at least 10 celebratory pies-in-the-face of teammates who collected walk-off hits. In the postseason, he made three strong starts and two lousy ones, most notably sparkling in a seven-inning, nine-strikeout, one-run effort against the Phillies — and opposite Pedro Martinez — in Game 2 of the World Series, but getting roughed up for six runs in two-plus innings when starting Game 5 on three days of rest. Still, he did a lot more for his World Series ring than he’d done in 2003.

After cruising through the first two months of 2010, Burnett began spiraling downwards during an 0–5, 11.35 ERA June, his inability to self-correct on the mound apparent to teammates, opponents, media, and fans; the boos rained down. Even after turning things around, he cut both of his hands hitting a clubhouse door in anger after a July start, prompting Eiland’s unflattering assessment. While he held opponents scoreless in six of his 33 starts, he allowed six or more runs 10 times and finished 10–15 with a 5.26 ERA. He was similarly bad in 2011 and clashed with manager Joe Girardi when he was pulled early from games. Even so, the Yankees gave him playoff turns in both years, and he notably beat the Tigers in a must-win Game 4 of the 2011 Division Series.

That turned out to be Burnett’s final start as a Yankee. On February 19, 2012 he was traded to the Pirates for two minor league non-prospects, with the Yankees sending along $20 million to cover his remaining salary. Before he could make his first official appearance for Pittsburgh, he fractured his right orbital during a spring training bunting drill and needed surgery, delaying his debut until April 21. Nonetheless, he quickly took to his new surroundings and was embraced as a clubhouse leader and mentor as well as a fierce competitor. A clip of him telling the Dodgers’ Hanley Ramirez to “Sit the fuck down” after a strikeout still circulates on the internet:

This day in #PGHistory: A.J. Burnett strikes out Hanley Ramirez, before telling him to “Sit The F*** Down” at PNC Park. (2012) pic.twitter.com/F1VoHqScO8

— Pittsburgh Clothing Co. (@PGHClothingCo) August 16, 2017

“He wanted to impact an organization,” manager Clint Hurdle told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2016. “He was going to be our ace. I don’t know if he had been ‘the guy’ before, but he was going to be our guy.”

With his average fastball velocity having dipped from 95.0 mph in 2008 to 93.4 in ’11, Burnett became more reliant upon his two-seam fastball, which helped him keep the ball in the park. His ground-ball rate jumped from 49.2% to 56.9%, his home-run rate dropped from 1.47 per nine to 0.8, and he turned in a 3.51 ERA while helping the Pirates to 79 wins. He was similarly strong in 2013: Despite missing four weeks due to a calf strain, he struck out 209 hitters in 191 innings for an NL-high 9.8 K/9. More importantly, he helped the Pirates clinch their first postseason berth since 1992. Alas, his lone postseason start was a disaster; after two scoreless innings in the Division Series opener against the Cardinals, he allowed seven straight batters to reach base in the third, all of whom scored before he could retire a hitter. He didn’t get another turn, bypassed in favor of Game 2 starter Gerrit Cole as the series went five games.

Having completed his five-year deal — during which he made at least 30 starts annually, something he had done just twice prior — the going-on-37-year-old Burnett was mulling retirement. The Pirates didn’t issue him a $14.1 million qualifying offer, and by the time he decided to return in January, the team somehow wasn’t interested despite making no significant additions to its roster. Burnett instead signed a one-year, $16 million deal with the Phillies, but things went poorly for both him and the 89-loss team. While he made an NL-high 34 starts and pitched 213.1 innings, his highest total since 2008, he was lit for a 4.59 ERA and took a league-leading 18 losses. Pitching the entire season with a hernia that required offseason surgery couldn’t have helped.

Not wanting to end on such a sour note, Burnett returned to the Pirates via a one-year, $8.5 million deal ($4.25 million less than the Phillies offered). He was stellar in the season’s first half, posting a 2.11 ERA while allowing two or fewer runs in 15 of 18 starts. For the first time in his career, he made an All-Star team, though manager Bruce Bochy somehow couldn’t shoehorn him into the game. After struggling in his first three starts of the second half, he missed six weeks due to elbow inflammation. He returned and helped the Pirates secure their third straight Wild Card berth, collecting his 2,500th strikeout (the Cubs’ Jorge Soler) on September 27, and his 2,507th (the Reds’ Todd Frazier) on October 3, tying Christy Mathewson for 31st on the all-time list; he surpassed Mathewson an inning later by striking out Tucker Barnhart.

That turned out to be Burnett’s final outing, as he didn’t appear in the Wild Card Game, where the team was eliminated at the hands of the Cubs. Though he believed he could still pitch — and the numbers clearly say so, with 3,000 strikeouts an outside possibility — his desire to spend time with his wife and children won out. In his retirement, his Pirates teammates lauded him for his effect on his teammates. Said pitcher Jeff Locke, “There’s just nothing that any one of us in this clubhouse are going through, or are going to go through, that he really hasn’t been through.”

Of the thousands of pitchers who have reached the majors, fewer than a hundred mastered the knuckleball — that maddeningly erratic, spin-free butterfly — well enough to rely upon it as their primary pitch. None of them succeeded to the extent that Phil Niekro did. “Knucksie” learned the pitch from his father, a coal miner and semiprofessional hurler, at the age of eight, and while he didn’t establish himself as a big league starter for another 20 years, he carved out a 24-year-career in the majors, winning 318 games, striking out 3,342 batters, starting more games than all but four pitchers, and earning a spot in the Hall of Fame.

Alas, in the final days of 2020, Niekro joined an all-too-inclusive subset of Hall of Famers, passing away on Saturday at the age of 81 after a long bout with cancer. He is the seventh Hall of Fame member to die this year, after Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford, and Joe Morgan. That’s a record, either surpassing the total from 1972 or tying it, depending upon whether one counts the posthumous induction of Roberto Clemente via a special election in 1973.

Niekro spent the first 20 years of his major league career (1964-83) with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves before moving on to the Yankees (1984-85), Indians (’86-87) and Blue Jays (’87). He was nearly six months past his 48th birthday when he returned to make one final start for Atlanta on September 27, 1987. A five-time All-Star and five-time Gold Glove winner, he never won a Cy Young award, but he started more games (716) than all but Young, Nolan Ryan, Don Sutton, and Greg Maddux, taking more turns than any starter who never pitched in a World Series. He’s one of 10 pitchers to attain the dual milestones of 300 wins and 3,000 strikeouts — six of them cohorts from “That Seventies Group“— and ranks 16th overall on the all-time list for the former and 11th for the latter. He’s also 11th in the Baseball-Reference version of WAR, fifth in losses (274), fourth in innings (5,404), hits allowed (5,044), and home runs allowed (483), third in walks (1,809) and second in earned runs allowed (2,012) behind only Young. With his death, three of the top 15 pitchers in JAWS have died this year, with Niekro one spot below Gibson (14th) and seven below Seaver (eighth). He and his brother, Joe Niekro, who was born in 1944 and spent 22 years in the majors (’67-88) with eight teams, combined for more wins (539) than any other brotherly combination.

As you’d guess from those numbers, Niekro’s knuckler baffled hitters, making even All-Stars look foolish.

Phil Niekro, Knuckleball. ? #RIPKnucksie pic.twitter.com/LGYfXEOEz4

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) December 27, 2020

“Trying to hit against Phil Niekro is like trying to eat Jell-O with chopsticks,” outfielder Bobby Murcer once said. “Sometimes you get a piece, but most of the time you get hungry.”

“It actually giggles at you as it goes by,” outfielder Rick Monday told Sports Illustrated in 1983.

“I work for three weeks to get my swing down pat and Phil messes it up in one night,” said Pete Rose. “Trying to hit that thing is a miserable way to make a living.” Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 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.

Earlier in this series, I profiled 2021 Hall of Fame candidates Tim Hudson and Barry Zito, who together made up two-thirds of the “Big Three” starters who helped the Moneyball-era A’s make four straight postseason appearances from 2000-03 despite their shoestring budgets. Inevitably, the economic realities of playing in Oakland forced general manager Billy Beane to trade away Hudson and Mark Mulder, the third member of the Big Three, as they grew more expensive, and to let Zito depart via free agency.

In doing so, Beane was able to replenish his roster, keeping the A’s competitive for a few more years before heading into rebuilding, and then repeating the cycle. The two players in this installment of my One-and-Done series were part of that endless process. Dan Haren was one of three players acquired from the Cardinals in exchange for Mulder in December 2004, and a key starter on the AL West-winning A’s in ’06. Nick Swisher, the team’s 2002 top first-round pick — compensation for losing center fielder Johnny Damon to free agency — was the starting left fielder on that ’06 squad. Both players were subsequently traded away in the winter of 2007-08, with two players acquired from the Diamondbacks in exchange for Haren, namely lefty Brett Anderson and first baseman Chris Carter, contributing to their 2012 AL West champions, and one player acquired from the White Sox for Swisher, namely lefty Gio González, traded again to net catcher Derek Norris and left-hander Tommy Milone, contributors to the team’s 2012-14 run. And the cycle continued… Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2013 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.

Roger Clemens has a reasonable claim as the greatest pitcher of all time. Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, and Grover Cleveland Alexander spent all or most of their careers in the dead-ball era, before the home run was a real threat, and pitched while the color line was still in effect, barring some of the game’s most talented players from participating. Sandy Koufax and Tom Seaver pitched when scoring levels were much lower and pitchers held a greater advantage. Koufax and 2015 inductees Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez didn’t sustain their greatness for nearly as long. Greg Maddux didn’t dominate hitters to nearly the same extent.

Clemens, meanwhile, spent 24 years in the majors and racked up a record seven Cy Young awards, not to mention an MVP award. He won 354 games, led his leagues in the Triple Crown categories (wins, strikeouts, and ERA) a total of 16 times, and helped his teams to six pennants and a pair of world championships.

Alas, whatever claim “The Rocket” may have on such an exalted title is clouded by suspicions that he used performance-enhancing drugs. When those suspicions came to light in the Mitchell Report in 2007, Clemens took the otherwise unprecedented step of challenging the findings during a Congressional hearing, but nearly painted himself into a legal corner; he was subject to a high-profile trial for six counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to Congress. After a mistrial in 2011, he was acquitted on all counts the following year. But despite the verdicts, the specter of PEDs hasn’t left Clemens’ case, even given that in March 2015, he settled the defamation lawsuit filed by former personal trainer Brian McNamee for an unspecified amount.

Amid the ongoing Hall of Fame-related debates over hitters connected to PEDs — most prominently Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa — it’s worth remembering that the chemical arms race involved pitchers as well, leveling the playing field a lot more than some critics of the aforementioned sluggers would admit. The voters certainly haven’t forgotten that when it comes to Clemens, whose share of the vote has approximated that of Bonds. Clemens debuted with 37.6% of the vote in 2013 and only in ’16 began making significant headway, climbing to 45.2% thanks largely to the Hall’s purge of voters more than 10 years removed from covering the game. Like Bonds, he surged above 50% — a historically significant marker towards future election — in 2017, benefiting from voters rethinking their positions in the wake of the election of Bud Selig. The former commissioner’s roles in the late-1980s collusion scandal and in presiding over the proliferation of PEDs within the game dwarf the impact of individual PED users and call into question the so-called “character clause.”

Clemens’ march towards Cooperstown has stalled somewhat in the three years since, as he’s added just 6.9% to reach 61.0%. Whether or not the open letter from Hall of Fame Vice Chairman Joe Morgan pleading with voters not to honor players connected to steroids had an impact, the end result has been time run off the clock. He now has just two more shots to get to 75%, which will require voters changing their minds — something only a dwindling number of voters have been willing to do when it comes to Clemens or Bonds.

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 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 — 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 thirties 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 »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 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.

Bobby Abreu could do just about everything. A five-tool player with dazzling speed, a sweet left-handed stroke, and enough power to win a Home Run Derby, he was also one of the game’s most patient, disciplined hitters, able to wear down a pitcher and unafraid to hit with two strikes. While routinely reaching the traditional seasonal plateaus that tend to get noticed — a .300 batting average (six times), 20 homers (nine times), 30 steals (six times), 100 runs scored and batted in (eight times apiece) — he was nonetheless a stathead favorite for his ability to take a walk (100 or more eight years in a row) and his high on-base percentages (.400 or better eight times). And he was durable, playing 151 games or more in 13 straight seasons. “To me, Bobby’s Tony Gwynn with power,” said Phillies hitting coach Hal McRae in 1999.

“Bobby was way ahead of his time [with] regards to working pitchers,” said his former manager Larry Bowa when presenting him for induction into the Phillies Wall of Fame in 2019. “In an era when guys were swinging for the fences, Bobby never strayed from his game. Because of his speed, a walk would turn into a double. He was cool under pressure, and always in control of his at-bats. He was the best combination of power, speed, and patience at the plate.” Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 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 (his word) 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 fourth, 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 (a newcomer to this year’s 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.

Even given Pettitte’s 256 career wins, he takes a back seat to two other starters on the ballot (Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling) who were better at missing bats and preventing runs, and who also had plenty of postseason success. Both of those pitchers have reasons why voters might exclude them from their ballots even while finding them statistically qualified, and the same is true for Pettitte, who was named in the 2007 Mitchell Report for having used human growth hormone to recover from an elbow injury. Between those dents and dings and the additional presence of both Roy Halladay and Mike Mussina, Pettitte received just 9.9% in his 2019 ballot debut, and even on a less crowded slate, his share only increased to 11.3% last year. He seems unlikely to make much headway towards 75% barring a significant change in the electorate’s attitudes towards PEDs.

About those wins: Regular readers know that I generally avoid dwelling upon pitcher win totals, because in this increasingly specialized era, they owe as much to adequate offensive, defensive, and bullpen support as they do to a pitcher’s own performance. While one needn’t know how many wins Pettitte amassed in a season or a career to appreciate his true value, those totals have affected the popular perception of his career.

Read the rest of this entry »

When looking at statistics for the 2020 season, everything should be taken with a grain of salt. The players had to prepare and then play in the middle of a pandemic with adjusted routines and preparation, as well as a lack of fans in the stands. Added to the mix is the 60-game season, which is just over a third of a normal year. All of that is going to lead to some weird-bad stat lines — like, for example, the one Gary Sánchez put up.

Sánchez stepped up to the plate 178 times in 2020 and got just 23 hits for a batting average of .147. Among the 18,273 batters with at least 150 plate appearances since 1969, that figure ranks 18,259th. His rate of hits per plate appearance was 13%, a touch behind Mike Trout’s rate of extra-base hits in his career. Thanks to the walks (18 and a 10.1% rate) and homers (10), Sánchez’s 69 wRC+ is merely awful instead of historically bad, but it’s still a gruesome line.

But as I said, we need to take these numbers with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, the overall picture of Sánchez as a player isn’t a pretty one right now. Over at ESPN, Buster Olney wrote how fixing Sánchez was a top priority this offseason for the Yankees, and what the problems are.

Well, a theory of some rival evaluators is that Sánchez’s confidence is all but shot, with his failures at the plate compounding it. Others note his increasing inability to cope with sliders, a pitch that seems to mystify him and accounts for a lot of his career-high 13.8% swing-and-miss rate in 2020, the worst of his career. At least some evaluators think that Sánchez has a hard time separating his offense from his defense, so that when he makes a mistake behind the plate, that tends to carry over to his hitting, and vice versa. And like many other young players, he seems to struggle to make in-game adjustments.

Some of the mental claims are somewhat dubious. Sánchez was a pretty bad catcher making plenty of mistakes back when he was hitting really well. As for in-game adjustments, he has generally hit the best in the fourth through sixth innings in his career, and since the start of 2019, his numbers in the first three innings match up with the last three innings, while the average player sees a 10-point drop.

The swing-and-miss issues on sliders are pretty indisputable, but they also aren’t new. Sánchez whiffed on 18% of sliders last year, which was right in line with his career averages. The problem for him is that he used to be able to run into a few of them: Last season he posted an .083 ISO on sliders, making him completely ineffective on the pitch. Further compounding things was a more than 50% increase on whiffs against four-seam fastballs: Sánchez went from a 10.7% swing-and-miss rate on four-seamers entering the season to 17% of those fastballs in 2020. That was also the second straight year in which Sánchez saw a big increase in four-seamer whiffs. He’s been swinging through fastballs at roughly the same rate as sliders, and neither number is good.

But wait, it gets worse. I noted Sánchez’s inability to hit the slider for power when he did make contact, and his general inability to get a hit when a ball is put in play ruins his chances of getting on base. Jeff Zimmerman looked at Sánchez’s poor BABIP and found the shift was killing his batting average despite his hard contact. While his high barrel rate makes it seem as though he should hit for a higher average, 10 of his 16 barrels last year were homers; his .281 xwOBA on balls in play is 30 points below league average.

Add that all up, and you get an offensive performance that hit new lows this past season and has been trending downwards for quite some time. Over the last three years, Sánchez has a .200/.296/.453 slash line with a 98 wRC+ in roughly 1,000 plate appearances. Since the middle of June 2019, he’s batting .168/.272/.379 with a 74 wRC+ in close to 400 plate appearances. Some of the blame could go to varying injuries over time, but catching takes a toll on the body, so we can’t exactly wish those away in the future.

While a dip this big in production didn’t seem possible a few years ago, there were always concerns about how Sánchez would profile. In Dave Cameron’s Trade Value Rankings back in 2017, he ranked 12th (which should provide some idea of his star production at the time), but:

That said, there are enough red flags to keep him out of the top tier for now. He’s one of the most extreme pull hitters in baseball, and you’ll note that the guys he’s hanging out with aren’t running BABIPs over .300. Toss in the pop-up problem and a below-average contact rate, and it’s easy to see Sánchez running a .240 batting average one of these years.

As predicted, the extreme pull rate, the popups, and the contact rate combined to make Sánchez a replacement-level player last season.

So what now? If Sánchez could field his position well, the Yankees could justify waiting for the bat to come around. There may be some hope there: He worked on a new catching stance in spring training, and in a very small sample, his framing was pretty close to average, and he still did a solid job with baserunners. If that holds and he is merely a little below-average behind the plate and at least average with the bat, then Sánchez is an average to slightly above-average player. If his catching regresses and the bat is average, then he’s a below-average player and a decent backup. And if he doesn’t get the bat back up to average, he’s the third catcher/26th man on the roster who can pinch-hit and rarely starts.

Unfortunately, the upside is more limited than it has been, too. If Sánchez’s bat really comes back, it might be best to let him make only occasional starts at catcher and take most of his turns at designated hitter —something that isn’t possible if he is just an average hitter. It’s hard to see a reasonable path back to more than anything than a three-win player, and the projections put Sánchez in the one- to two-win range that shouldn’t make him a starter on a contending club.

That leaves the Yankees with a difficult choice. They can hold on to Sánchez and see if he regain the ability to be a star hitter, but that likely entails bringing in another catcher to be the regular starter, as neither he nor Kyle Higashioka can be counted on for full-time (or really half-time) duty. The Yankees are supposedly “open” to trading him, but who is going to give up decent players and pay Sánchez his $5 million salary when he isn’t really projected as a starter-level player? There are a bunch of teams who would likely be willing to take a chance on him — the Rockies, Rangers, Marlins, and Tigers come to mind immediately — but they’re probably unwilling to give up any promising or useful players in exchange. The Yankees could just non-tender Sánchez and move on, but that’s a move that could backfire if he hits well, though signing J.T. Realmuto would likely make any regrets moot.

The Yankees and Sánchez, then, are likely stuck with each other for another season. He’ll get some opportunity to recapture his form, and the Yankees will pay him his relatively modest salary. They can’t trade him for nothing, and they shouldn’t let him go for free. But they also shouldn’t head into 2021 with Sánchez and Higashioka as the starting tandem at catcher. It makes Sánchez something of a potential bonus for the Yankees, and given their history together, it might actually benefit them both to give them one more season to get him back on track.

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for nine years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the New York Yankees.

Batters

The possible loss of DJ LeMahieu is a real hit to the Yankees, but even if they don’t come to an agreement with him, I don’t expect the club to actually be cruising with Tyler Wade and Thairo Estrada come April. But even if they did, as long as the team remains healthy — a big condition given their recent experiences — it’s still an extremely potent lineup even if they tank a position or two. Brett Gardner is a free agent as well after the team declined his option, but I expect him to return anyway. After all, Gardner didn’t attract a ton of interest in last year’s free agent market, and with him being a year older and coming off a worse season, and with baseball’s economics, I doubt he gets more phone calls this time around. Like Mitch Moreland in Boston, Gardner appears to have a de facto arrangement where he can just show up at some point and the team will give him a one-year contract for $X million.

Did you really think that ZiPS would fall out of love with Gleyber Torres after his power went missing for six weeks? I do think he’s at the point at which I’d try to get him moved to third base. If the Yankees don’t re-sign LeMahieu and instead go after one of the players in the surprisingly deep shortstop pool, could Gio Urshela theoretically play second base? He’s likely a better third baseman than Torres, who hasn’t been great at second, and the team did work him out some at the position in summer training. How the infield gets shuffled will be one of the more interesting questions for them this offseason. Read the rest of this entry »