Aroldis Chapman, most recently seen allowing a home run to José Altuve that sent the Astros to the World Series, has reportedly signed a contract extension with the Yankees that will keep him in New York through the 2022 season. The deal, as reported, adds one year and $18 million onto the two years and $30 million that were left on Chapman’s previous contract, and answers the question — open since that Altuve home run — of whether Chapman would exercise the opt out in his contract and become a free agent this offseason.

Last week, Jon Heyman reported that Chapman, 32, planned to exercise his opt-out in the event he was unable to reach a deal with the Yankees for an additional year. That move would almost certainly have resulted in the Yankees extending Chapman a qualifying offer (this year set at $17.8 million), Chapman declining to sign at that price, and Chapman and his agent subsequently seeking a deal that involved the signing team giving up a draft pick.

Having no doubt watched the Craig Kimbrel experience play out last offseason, and presumably wanting no part of it, it makes sense that Chapman would pursue an extension in New York rather than test free agency with a QO hanging around his neck. This is now the second time the left-hander has chosen to return to New York (the first time, when he signed his current contract, came in 2016) and this extension guarantees him three more years in the city he calls home — not to mention a worry-free winter.

The Yankees benefit too. Retaining Chapman means that their excellent 2019 relief corps can return mostly intact, and in particular that Zack Britton, Adam Ottavino, Tommy Kahnle, and Chad Green can return to the roles they played last season, and are presumably comfortable with (that’s especially true for Britton, who for obvious reasons threw in many of the same sorts of situations as Chapman). That’s not to discount Chapman’s contributions on their own terms, as they were excellent last year (a 2.28 FIP and a 36.2% strikeout rate over 57 innings pitched) despite modest declines in fastball velocity that began in the middle of 2018 and persisted in 2019:

It’s hard to know what to make of Chapman’s velocity decline or what it augurs for his future effectiveness. As far as I can tell, the conventional wisdom on relievers is that they’re good until they’re not, except for elite relievers, who are good for longer until they’re not. Chapman definitely falls into the latter category, and as Ben Clemen’s wrote earlier this year, he’s already demonstrated success in moving somewhat away from his fastball in favor of sliders inside the strike zone. Since Ben wrote that piece, Chapman has gravitated even more towards his slider, throwing it 31.1% of the time in 2019 against 19.7% two years ago and 19.3% on his career.

Perhaps most promisingly, Chapman has demonstrated a willingness to use that slider in most instances with the count even or behind, saving his fastball only for the first strike of the sequence (in the chart below, courtesy of Baseball Savant, his fastball is in red, his slider in yellow, and his little-used sinker in orange). That sinker only appears with two strikes and fewer than two balls, when Chapman uses it to try to generate swings and misses.

All in all, although I wouldn’t personally want to be on the hook today for paying a generic 35-year-old reliever $18 million in 2022, I think this is the right move for the Yankees, whose owners are significantly richer than I. Chapman has convincingly demonstrated that he is anything but a generic reliever, and finalizing their bullpen this early in the offseason gives New York the cost certainty they need to pursue other, Gerrit Cole-shaped projects. What’s more — and this is where it gets icky — the Yankees have clearly already decided that they’re comfortable with Chapman’s history and past suspension under the league’s domestic violence policy (Hal Steinbrenner, their owner, was quoted in 2017, not long after Chapman signed his first deal with New York, as saying of the incident, “Sooner or later, we forget, right?“).

Any other team that signed Chapman — save perhaps the Cubs — would no doubt have deservedly tarnished their reputation for doing so. For the Yankees, that decision was made three years ago, though that stretch hasn’t dimmed our memories quite like Steinbrenner thought, or perhaps hoped, it would.

With Chapman’s new contract will likely come ripple effects downstream in the relief market. Will Harris, Will Smith, Daniel Hudson, and Dellin Betances (not to mention Drew Pomeranz, Chris Martin, and Jake Diekman) are all available this offseason, and probably happy to see Chapman return to a team already rife with relief arms. There aren’t quite as many sure bets on the market this offseason as there were, perhaps, a year ago, when Kimbrel, Britton, Cody Allen, Jeurys Familia, Kelvin Herrera, Andrew Miller, Joakim Soria, David Robertson, and Ottavino were all available. But there are still enough that the teams most in the market will find plenty to consider this winter.

After what was otherwise a fairly quiet affair punctuated by the occasional home run, the Houston Astros won Game 6 of the American League Championship Series 6-4 on a walkoff home run from José Altuve. Houston takes the series four games to two, and avoids a high-stakes Game 7 that would have left Gerrit Cole unavailable in the World Series until the third game.

The evening got off to an inauspicious start for the Yankees as Houston’s first entrant in the bullpen battle, Brad Peacock, quickly dispatched DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge, and Gleyber Torres with seven pitches. Chad Green opened for New York and didn’t perform as well in his half of the inning as Peacock did in his. Green was perhaps fortunate to escape a rather pedestrian slider to Altuve with only a double, but he was less lucky with a high, very inside fastball to Yuli Gurriel, which the first baseman turned on for a home run to give the Astros an early 3-0 lead. That high, inside fastball isn’t usually that dangerous for a pitcher; there were only 13 home runs hit this year by right-handed hitters swinging at a four-seamer in Statcast’s inside and high-inside “chase” zones. Coincidentally enough, Gurriel had one of those home runs, comfortably turning on a sorta-fastball from Trevor Williams. This might have been one of the highest-leverage of those since Kit Keller’s.

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NEW YORK — The Yankees may not win this year’s American League Championship Series. They may not become the 14th team to rally from a three-games-to-one deficit in a best-of seven, or the eighth to do so by finishing the job on the road — particularly against an Astros team with the majors’ best record and an historically powerful offense. But in the wake of a demoralizing Game 4 loss full of missed opportunities, sloppy defense, and the sudden end of CC Sabathia’s career, they met manager Aaron Boone’s immediate goal of sending the series back to Minute Maid Park with a 4-1 victory that featured strong work by starter James Paxton and a four-run first inning against Justin Verlander, featuring a pair of homers by DJ LeMahieu and Aaron Hicks.

“He’s got to go out and pitch well and set the tone for us,” Boone said of Paxton prior to the game, “because we’ve got to get on that plane and go back to Houston.”

The tone early on Friday evening was all too reminiscent of Thursday’s late-inning sloppiness. Second baseman Gleyber Torres, who made errors in each of the final two innings of Game 4, mishandled leadoff hitter George Springer‘s grounder, which had slipped under Paxton’s glove, though the ball was scored a single. Springer then took second on a passed ball by Gary Sánchez, advanced to third on Jose Altuve’s grounder, and scored on a wild pitch. It was an all-too-familiar story for Paxton, whose 29 first-inning runs allowed in 29 starts tied for the major league lead.

That was all the Astros would get from him, however. Both Alex Bregman and Yuli Gurriel scorched line drives to the outfield —  98.4 mph for the former to left, with Brett Gardner chasing it down, and 96.8 for the latter to center, but right at Hicks — and so Paxton escaped by allowing just one run. He’d failed to get ahead of any of the five batters he faced, gotten just one swinging strike on a total of 23 pitches, and his defense looked anything but sharp. With the Yankees desperately needing length given their plans for an all-bullpen Game 6, it was not an encouraging beginning. Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees’ 8-3 loss in Game 4 of the ALCS did not eliminate them, but between their missed opportunities early (stranding five runners in scoring position in the first five innings) and their sloppiness late (four errors over the final four innings), the game had an air of finality about it. Nowhere was that more true than in the case of CC Sabathia, who departed due to a shoulder injury in what will stand as the final appearance of a 19-year major league career that may well be capstoned by a plaque in Cooperstown.

On Friday morning, the Yankees announced that Sabathia had experienced a subluxation of his shoulder joint and replaced him on the roster with righty Ben Heller. The move means that he would not be allowed to be reactivated for the World Series, almost certainly a moot point given the condition of his shoulder, to say nothing of the Yankees’ precarious position. Sabathia, who appeared to be in good spirits during a pregame press conference on Friday despite pain that he described as “pretty intense,” said that he would “maybe get an MRI after we get back from Houston” and that he doesn’t know yet whether he will need surgery.

Dropped into a difficult situation in his second relief appearance of the series and just the fourth of his career — runners on second and third with no outs in the top of the eighth, with the Yankees already down 6-3 — Sabathia was victimized by the first of Gleyber Torres‘ two errors when Yordan Alvarez’s chopper deflected off the second baseman’s right hand as he positioned himself to throw home; Alex Bregman scored on the play, and Alvarez was safe at first. After retiring Carlos Correa on a soft liner to right field, one in which Aaron Judge nearly doubled Yuli Gurriel off second base, Sabathia hit Robinson Chirinos on the left elbow with a pitch, loading the bases. He got Aledmys Diaz to pop up to shallow right, keeping Gurriel from scoring, but after missing inside on a 1-1 cutter to George Springer, Sabathia grimaced, and both manager Aaron Boone and head athletic trainer Steve Donohue came to the mound.

According to Sabathia, his shoulder popped during his last pitch to Diaz: “I just felt like when I released the ball, my shoulder kind of went with it.” In other words, he pitched through a partial separation when he faced Springer, throwing a first-pitch cutter that reached 91.2 mph.

After throwing one warm-up pitch to check if he could continue, Sabathia told Boone and Donohue, “I’m done,” shook his head, and then departed to a heartfelt ovation from the Yankee Stadium crowd as well as both dugouts. The FS1 broadcast showed both Springer and Gerrit Cole paying their respects, then a slump-shouldered Sabathia covering his face with his glove, understandably overcome with emotion but — and maybe this is just a scribe projecting — ever so slightly tipping his cap to the crowd even as he did. It wasn’t easy to watch, and you’re by no means obligated to, but here’s the whole scene: Read the rest of this entry »

Last offseason, the Yankees gave Adam Ottavino a three-year, $27 million contract, a move that added yet another high octane arm to their already-loaded bullpen. And unlike some reliever contracts, it has worked out quite well thus far.

Ottavino had a solid first year in New York. His 1.90 ERA was a career-best, as was his 2.5 RA9-WAR. His 3.44 FIP (74 FIP-) and 4.32 xFIP (94 xFIP-) suggested that he was probably quite a bit worse than his ERA indicated, due to a year-over-year strikeout rate that fell from 36% to 31% and a walk rate that ballooned from 12% to 14%. So, yes, Ottavino wasn’t nearly as dominant in 2019 as he was the year before, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t useful in the Big Apple. His 1.3 WAR ranked 22nd among all relievers and second on the team.

We could dig deeper into Ottavino’s 2019 campaign if we so desired, but that’s not why he’s relevant right now. The 66 and third innings he pitched during the regular season were important, but they are not nearly as meaningful as the two and one-third innings he’s pitched so far this postseason. Ottavino has faced just 18 hitters this October, but the Yankees have already been ridiculed for “making a big mistake” in sticking with him.

Perhaps this is a fair argument; Ottavino’s October results certainly reflect the rationale behind the criticism. Of the 18 batters he has faced, seven of them have recorded hits, three more have walked, and just seven have made outs. The slash line against Ottavino is ugly: .467/.556/.800.

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The Astros beat the Yankees 8-3 last night, moving within a win of their second World Series berth in three years, but the night didn’t have to turn out that way. The victory was comprehensive — Houston out-homered the Yankees, had more non-homer hits, struck out less than half as often, and committed three fewer errors. Five runs is an odd lead, but it’s also the first truly safe lead in baseball. The Astros could have spotted the Yankees a grand slam before the game and still come out ahead.

But baseball doesn’t really work that way. If the Yankees had started the game ahead 4-0, things would have gone differently. Batters wouldn’t have gotten the same pitches, different Yankees relievers would have thrown, A.J. Hinch would have been forced to manage differently; the things that happened last night weren’t deterministic, destined to play out in the same order regardless of circumstance.

So with that in mind, let’s look at a few places where the Yankees could have changed history. They might have lost anyway, and they might have won — but they had their chances to do something, and simply didn’t make the most of them.

Gary Sánchez Bats in the First
Gary Sánchez bats seventh for the Yankees, so when he appears in the first inning, something has gone very right. Not only that, but he came up with the bases loaded; Zack Greinke looked shaky, with three walks on the night already, and Sánchez had a chance to deliver a decisive blow early. Read the rest of this entry »

With the postponement of Wednesday’s scheduled ALCS Game 4, the de-juiced baseball remained a hot topic of discussion, particularly in New York, where the Yankees appeared to catch a game-changing bad break on Didi Gregorius‘ fifth-inning fly ball that instead of becoming a three-run homer that would have swung the lead in their favor, was caught at the warning track. Players and managers are talking about it, fans are talking about it, analysts are talking about it — here in New York City, even on the 10 pm local news. Like it or not, it’s an issue that won’t go away, in part because of MLB’s stubborn insistence that nothing has changed, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, as well as the reality that the league actually owns about 25% of Rawlings, the manufacturer of the baseball (the other 75% is owned by Seidler Equity Partners, founded by Peter Seidler, the leading investor of the Padres). While none of this invalidates what the players on the field are accomplishing, everybody is suddenly playing or watching a very different game than we’d grown accustomed to during the regular season.

On Saturday, our own Craig Edwards reported that Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said that his team’s analytical department had noted that fly balls are traveling four-and-a-half feet less far than normal. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported on Wednesday that officials from two unnamed teams (quite possibly those of the Astros and Yankees, since Passan was reporting from New York) “concurred that whatever batch of balls has been used during October is not performing the way the ones in the regular-season did.”

The change concerns the drag on the baseball, which according to the work of Baseball Prospectus’ Rob Arthur has increased sharply relative to the regular season, strongly suggesting that different balls are being used. Arthur estimated that 50% more homers would have been hit if the regular season ball were being used. On Thursday, Arthur published a new piece showing that the postseason baseballs are also affecting pitchers, producing slightly less vertical break (by about 0.4 inches) on curveballs, and that “Sliders are cutting across the zone a little less; sinkers staying a little more buoyant… [The changes] all seem to hover on the border between just large enough that baseball’s tracking system can detect them and just small enough that a major-league hitter probably wouldn’t care.” Read the rest of this entry »

If Masahiro Tanaka has a signature pitch, it’s his slider. When he first came over from Japan in 2014, nearly half of his strikeouts came on the splitter despite throwing it only a quarter of the time. In his first three seasons in the majors, Tanaka threw his splitter more often than any other pitch and batters put up a feeble 37 wRC+ against it, while whiffing on the pitch 19% of the time. But in 2017, Tanaka used his slider more often than the splitter. In 2018, that trend continued; he got better results from his slider than he did with the splitter. This season the disparity in usage and effectiveness grew. Tanaka struggled with his splitter due to changes in the baseball, but even after re-configuring the splitter in July, his slider has remained his best pitch.

Against the Astros in Game 1 of the ALCS, Tanaka got eight swings and misses. Every single whiff came on the slider. Here’s how Tanaka’s usage of his slider has compared to that of his splitter this season:

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The Yankees and Astros both won over 100 games in the regular season but nobody beats Mother Nature. When a rainstorm causes cool terms like “bomb cyclone” or “explosive cyclogenesis” to be bandied about, you know you’re not expecting a light drizzle. Yankee Stadium is currently dry, but with a system the size of the mid-Atlantic barreling up the coast, it didn’t make sense for MLB to pretend that tonight’s ALCS Game 4 was going to take place. Just look at the radar, courtesy of the National Weather Service:

Yikes. The rain provides the Yankees and Astros with an extra off-day now at the expense of losing an off-day between a possible Game 5 and Game 6. This isn’t a big deal for the hitters, but it will result in some revised pitching plans. In a five-game divisional series, teams can generally muddle through with a three-man rotation. Due to the 2-2-1 format, no team plays on three consecutive days, and while the Game 1 starter would have to pitch Game 4 on short rest, the Game 2 starter can pitch in a possible rubber match on normal rest. This extra rest gives teams the flexibility to either stretch their best three starters or, as the Nationals demonstrated, use starting pitchers in relief more aggressively.

But short of baseball going to some kind of impractical 2-2-1-1-1 format, that doesn’t quite work in a seven-game series. So unless you’re going to have your entire rotation do it 1930-style, you’ll need to use a fourth starter. That isn’t an ideal situation for either the Yankees or the Astros. From a pure projection standpoint, it’s actually doesn’t move the probabilities. The Astros get an immediate benefit in that they avoid a Bullpen vs. Bullpen Game 4; ZiPS takes bullpen depth into consideration and Yankees enjoy a significant projected edge in any such bullpen game. Before the rainout, ZiPS projected the Yankees to have a 56%-44% edge in a home bullpen duel, so it’s a nice game to delay if you’re Houston.

The problem you run into with this model is that the rainout doesn’t really add an extra day of rest, it simply moves it. Since there are only two days of rest for a Game 4 starter to pitch in Game 7 now, both teams end up repeating the dilemma of either using a fourth starter — particularly problematic for the Astros — or going with a bullpen game. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I wrote about some intentional walk decisions that merited further scrutiny. One of them was pretty bad and one of them was a little bad, but both managers advanced to the NLCS — and now, like clockwork, we have more intentional walk decisions to analyze. Playoff baseball is predictable like that, even as it’s unpredictable in other ways.

Let’s take these two chronologically. The Yankees had their backs against the wall, down 2-0 against Gerrit Cole to start the seventh. It got worse quickly, with two of the first three runners reaching base. That gets us to our situation; second and third, one out, and Alex Bregman at the plate facing Adam Ottavino. Aaron Boone put up four fingers; he chose to face Yuli Gurriel rather than Bregman.

The surface level math on this one doesn’t look that bad for Boone. The trail runner here simply doesn’t matter that much; if Bregman scores, it’s 5-0, and three innings to score five runs is a tall task against Gerrit Cole and the best relievers the Astros can muster. To approximate the lower run-scoring environment they’re facing, I lowered the run environment in our WPA Inquirer to 4.5. The decision hardly hurt the Yankees; their odds of winning fell from 12.3% before the walk to 12.0% afterwards.

When an intentional walk only costs 0.3% of win expectancy when ignoring batters, it’s more often a good one, and a cursory look at Bregman and Gurriel’s wOBA agrees with that. That doesn’t even add in platoon splits; Gurriel has a reverse split in his major league career, and even regressing it back to the mean leaves him only 3% better against lefties than righties. Bregman, meanwhile, clocks in at 6.8% better against lefties than righties post-regression.

Put that all together, and Gurriel’s projected wOBA against Britton (accounting for Britton’s own splits) comes out to .314, while Bregman’s is .372. Given that the Yankees gave up so little win expectancy by putting Bregman on, the back-of-the-envelope math makes the decision obvious. The team would need to face a batter who projected to be at least 31 points of wOBA worse than Bregman to make the decision worth it, and Gurriel is 58 points worse. Good intentional walk! Read the rest of this entry »