In a season during which all but a handful of Yankees missed time due to injury, it’s amazing that they’ll enter the playoffs with almost all of their best players on the active roster. On paper, they look great. How that translates on the field is another story. They lost nine of their last 17 games, but there’s no question that their starting pitchers can be very good, the bullpen is very deep, and their lineup is filled with guys who can thump. That combination can be quite effective in outlasting a playoff opponent.

Here’s how every member of the Yankees’ 2019 ALDS roster was originally acquired. The team’s full RosterResource Depth Chart and Payroll pages are also available as a resource.

Homegrown (6)

• Brett Gardner, OF: Drafted Third Round 2005
• Austin Romine, C: Drafted Second Round 2007
• Gary Sánchez, C: Amateur Free Agent (Dominican Republic) July 2009
• Luis Severino, SP: Amateur Free Agent (Dominican Republic) December 2011
• Aaron Judge, OF: Drafted First Round (32) 2013
• Tyler Wade, INF/OF: Drafted Fourth Round 2013

Total WAR: 12.2 Read the rest of this entry »

Let us dispense with this first, so that we can move on: Derek Jeter isn’t here, and neither are the rest of the Core Four. For that matter, there’s no Johan Santana, Michael Cuddyer, Francisco Liriano, or Joe Mauer. The four Yankees teams that manhandled the Twins in the 2003, ’04, ’09 and ’10 Division Series by a combined total of 12 wins to two are no more relevant to this series than Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig. Aside from “Yankees Bullpen: Still Very Good,” there’s no point overthinking the results of the 2017 AL Wild Card Game, either. These 101-win Twins and 103-win Yankees are a pair of excellent, evenly-matched squads here to write new stories instead of extending old ones.

Some thoughts on the series, which begins at Yankee Stadium on Friday at 7:07 pm ET.

Keeping It 100

This year was the first in major league history with four 100-win teams, and while that seems impressive, it’s an indication of the game’s competitive balance issues (a topic worth revisiting on another day). While 33 teams have won at least 100 games in a season during the Wild Card era, only three previous times have two of them crossed paths in the postseason, all within the past three years: the 2017 World Series between the Astros (101-61) and Dodgers (104-58), the 2018 Division Series between the Red Sox (108-54) and Yankees (100-62), and the subsequent ALCS matchup between those Red Sox and the Astros (103-59). Inevitably, one of these teams will be the unlucky 13th 100-game winner to make a first-round exit, after the 1998 Astros (102-60), 1999 Diamondbacks (100-62), 2001 A’s (102-60), 2002 A’s (103-59), 2002 Yankees (103-58), 2002 Braves (101-59), 2003 Braves (101-61), 2003 Giants (100-61), 2008 Angels (100-62), 2011 Phillies (102-60), 2015 Cardinals (100-62), and 2017 Indians (102-60). It’s going to hurt.

Not all 100-win teams are created equal, of course. This pair had similar levels of scoring and runs allowed, and both similarly overachieved relative to their Pythagen records. However, the Yankees distinguished themselves in a few ways:

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NEW YORK — On Tuesday night, in the Yankees’ 152nd game of the season, staff ace Luis Severino finally made his 2019 debut. The 25-year-old righty, who after back-to-back All-Star seasons had been laid up by shoulder woes since spring training, spun four scoreless innings in an 8-0 rout of the Angels. His fastball sizzled, topping out at 98.8 mph and sitting 96-97, and his tantalizing performance fuels hopes that he can make a substantial postseason contribution to a 99-win team whose rotation has been its weakest link.

“That’s Sevy out there,” gushed catcher Austin Romine afterwards. “We need Sevy where we’re going. He’s pitched in big games for us and we look forward to him pitching in more big games for us.”

Romine could be forgiven for forgetting the quality of Severino’s last big game (six runs in three innings in Game 3 of last year’s AL Division Series against the Red Sox) and focusing on the fact that the Yankees simply don’t have any other starter of Severino’s caliber. In both 2017 and ’18, the young righty threw least 190 innings, notching at least 220 strikeouts and 5.0 WAR, and receiving down-ballot Cy Young consideration. His 11.0 WAR in that span trailed only Max Scherzer, Chris Sale, Jacob deGrom, and Corey Kluber, a group that accounted for three of the four Cy Youngs awarded.

Tuesday night qualified as a big game only in the grand scheme of things, as relatively little was at stake in the standings. The Yankees began the night with a nine-game AL East lead over the Rays, and a magic number of three to clinch, though in the battle for the AL’s top postseason seed, they were also tied with the Astros at 98-53. The Angels (68-83) have not only clinched a losing season, but their lineup has been defanged, as Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and Justin Upton have recently been shut down due to season-ending injuries, while Tommy La Stella hasn’t played since July 2.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Chance Adams, Domingo German, and Nick Pivetta — on how they learned and developed their curveballs.

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Chance Adams, New York Yankees

“When I was in college my pitching coach was Wes Johnson, who is now with the Twins. He taught me my curve. For awhile it was kind of slurve-slider, then it went to a curveball, and now it’s kind of slurvy again. But it’s interesting, because when I got [to Dallas Baptist University] it was, ‘OK, I throw it like this,’ and he was like, ‘Well, have you tried spiking it?’ My curve was moving, but it wasn’t sharp, and I was like, ‘No, not really.’ Spiking it was uncomfortable at first, but after I got used to it, it was pretty interesting. It started moving better.

“My pointer finger is off the seam, with just a little pressure on the ball. Wes said to try spiking it and see what feels good, so I worked on it with this much spike, that much spike. Even now, the spike kind of varies for me; I’ll move it back or forward for comfortability, but also movement-wise. Sometimes it’s sharper when it’s more spiked. It kind of depends on the day, and if I’m controlling it or not. Read the rest of this entry »

In terms of notoriety, Nestor Cortes Jr. barely registers a blip on the national radar. That’s not meant as a slight to the 24-year-old lefty. It’s just that when you play for a star-studded team — in baseball’s largest market, no less — it’s hard to make a name for yourself as a rookie reliever. More specifically, a soft-tossing rookie reliever who lasted until the 36th round of the 2013 draft.

He’s probably the most unique member of the 2019 New York Yankees. Born in Surgidero de Batabano, Cuba, and raised in Hialeah, Florida, Cortes has a little Luis Tiant in his windup — Oliver Perez would be a contemporary comp — and his lack of giddy-up is more of a wrinkle than a scar. He’s averaging better than a strikeout per inning with a heater that lives south of 90.

“I’m more of a deception pitcher,” said Cortes, whose 5.13 ERA is accompanied by an unblemished 5-0 record. “The cliche is that everybody throws 95 now, but what I do is try to mess up timing. The multiple windups I use, the spin rate on my fastball, hiding the ball well before I go to home plate… I try to abide by all of that. I cherish that I can use those things to my advantage.”

Those attributes are on display in The Bronx because the Orioles opted not to keep him. Cortes was a Rule 5 pick by Baltimore in December 2017, but after appearing in just four games last April he was returned to his original club. He spent the remainder of the season in Triple-A with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RoughRiders. Read the rest of this entry »

September call-ups, both high-profile and totally innocuous, have been trickling in over the transaction wire for the last several days. As always, there are some who will have real impact on the playoff race and some who are interesting for the purposes of player evaluation, like your usual spare lefty reliever and catcher (by far the most common types of September additions). Some teams with no new names at all. Below I’ve compiled notes on every player brought up by an American League team since the start of the month, no matter how inconsequential; I’ve slipped some rehabbers and August 31 acquisitions in here, too. It’s a primer for you to get (re)acquainted with players who might impact the playoff race or the seasons to come. (The National League’s complement can be found here.)

Contenders’ Reinforcements

Houston Astros– OF Kyle Tucker, C Garrett Stubbs, RHP Josh James, RHP Jose Urquidy

Kiley and I have Tucker projected as an above-average regular, ranked 15th overall among prospects in baseball. I have no idea what kind of playing time he might get this month. Stubbs (24th in the org) has begun playing a little bit of second base and outfield. A part time, multi-positional role might help keep his tiny frame from breaking down, and enable Houston to get his long-performing bat in the lineup, as well as create flexibility on other parts of the roster.

James was 94-97 in rehab outings before he returned, then reached 99 on Monday. Urquidy projects as a strike-throwing fifth starter.

New York Yankees– OF Clint Frazier, RHP Jonathan Loaisiga, RHP Ryan Dull, RHP Chance Adams, LHP Tyler Lyons, INF Brenny Escanio (prospect)

I think it’s likely Frazier, who many scouts/teams continue to think has everyday ability, gets traded this offseason, both because he’s part of a crowded outfield/DH mix and because he and the org don’t seem to be a great fit. Read the rest of this entry »

Lost somewhat amid the holiday weekend, the Twins set a new major league record on Saturday. Granted, the mark they surpassed was no long-standing, hallowed standard — in fact, it stood for less than a full year. Nonetheless, with Mitch Garver’s ninth-inning solo shot off the Tigers’ Joe Jiménez, the Twins overtook the 2018 Yankees with their 268th home run, the most by any team in one season. That they left themselves with four full weeks to pad the mark is just one more sign of how over-the-top this this year’s home run totals — fueled primarily by more aerodynamic baseballs, with smoother leather and seams so low that the balls are nearly round — are. The feat deserves a closer look, as well as some perspective.

Here’s Garver’s home run, his second of the day and 26th of the season — in just his 76th game:

Garver’s homers were two of six the Twins hit in their 10-7 loss (a subject to which I’ll return momentarily). His total ranks fifth on the team behind Max Kepler (36), Nelson Cruz (35, in just 101 games), Eddie Rosario (28), and Miguel Sanó (27, in just 87 games). Counting C.J. Cron (24), Jonathan Schoop (21) and Jorge Polanco (20), the Twins are the first team with eight players to reach 20 homers in a season, and they’re the 14th team to have five players reach 25 homers, with multiple candidates to make them the second team to have six:

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Royals fans aren’t exactly getting swept up in a wave of euphoria with the team’s newest acquisition. Ryan McBroom — obtained from the Yankees over the weekend in exchange for cash considerations — is a 27-year-old outfielder/first baseman without a big-league resume. Nowhere to be found on top prospect lists, he wasn’t even on New York’s 40-man roster (which is why this deal was possible a month after the MLB trade deadline).

That doesn’t mean that Kansas City didn’t get a player capable of producing at the highest level. Named last week to the International League’s Postseason All-Star Team, McBroom slashed an impressive .315/.402/.574 with 26 home runs in 482 plate appearances with the Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. His .976 OPS was tops in the circuit.

While he didn’t exactly come out of nowhere, the University of West Virginia product clearly turned a corner in this, his sixth professional season. Coming into the current campaign, he profiled more as an organizational guy — a Quad-A type — than a true prospect. Poor walk and strikeout rates stood out among the negatives.

Recently, I asked the suddenly productive right-handed hitter about his breakthrough. Read the rest of this entry »

Luke Voit is a huge football fan. In recent years, he’s been a huge football fan without an NFL team to support. A Missouri native, Voit grew up rooting for the Rams, but the franchise relocated from St. Louis to Los Angeles while he was climbing the minor-league ladder in the Cardinals system. A void was thus created.

That jilted-lover experience is now safely in the rearview, and he has a new allegiance in mind. Voit recently bought a Sam Darnold jersey and is flirting with the idea of becoming a New York Jets fan.

“Because I’m playing for the Yankees now,” was the sturdily-built slugger’s response when I asked why that is (the Jets have gone 14-34 over the past three seasons). “I think it would be a fun connection to have. I want a team, and being in New York — I have a place there — I’ll be able to go to a game or two.“

His younger brother excelled on the gridiron. John Voit was a defensive lineman at
Army for four years, serving as a co-captain and earning the team’s prestigious Black Lion Award. Luke likely would have played collegiately himself had he not blown out his shoulder in high school. It was at that point that he devoted his full attention to baseball.

Upon learning that he’s been a linebacker, I asked Voit if he liked to hit people. His smiling response was, “Oh, yeah.” Read the rest of this entry »

On July 25, Masahiro Tanaka allowed a career-high 12 runs in just three and a third innings. It was a sobering outing in a marquee matchup against the Red Sox, but it was also a catalyst for him to make a major change to one of his pitches. His splitter has been his signature pitch for almost his entire career, both in Japan and in the States, but it hasn’t been nearly as effective this season. The ineffectiveness of his splitter has been a big reason why he’s leaned so heavily on his fastball and slider, and it’s been a constant source of frustration for him.

The source of his problems with the splitter is somewhat unexpected. Instead of a mechanical issue, it’s been the ball itself that’s caused his consternation. Tanaka discussed the issues he’s had with his splitter with both James Wagner of the New York Times in an article dated August 5, and Lindsay Adler of The Athletic in an piece posted yesterday. Here’s how he explained it to Wagner: “You grip the ball, and it feels a little bit different. And then when you’re throwing with that difference in hand, obviously the movement of the ball becomes a little bit different, too.”

The effect of the dragless ball on the explosion of offense seen in the major leagues and Triple-A has been widely studied. The baseball used in the majors was introduced in Triple-A for the first time this season and home run rates are skyrocketing. In a study published by The Athletic, Dr. Meredith Wills determined the biggest physical changes to the ball were lowered seams and leather smoothness, both contributing to there being less drag on the ball in flight. But the effects of the new ball on how pitchers grip and throw the ball hasn’t been examined as closely. In Tanaka, we have a specific case study on one of the other unforeseen effects of the new ball. Read the rest of this entry »