Did the Yankees Just Win the Wild Card Game?
There’s a reason some have connected starting pitchers to the Yankees.
According to ERA- and WAR, the Yankees’ rotation ranks behind that of the other AL elites like the Astros, Indians, and Red Sox, which rank 1-2-3 in ERA-. The Yankees rank sixth (95), just better than league average.
Only Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, and Fringe Five alumnus Jonathan Loaisiga project to produce ERA and FIP marks below four the rest of the way, according to FanGraphs Depth Charts. While Severino is an ace, playoff contenders typically always want more starting pitching. Even Yu Darvish wasn’t seen as a luxury item to the pitching-rich Dodgers last season.
But on Tuesday, the Yankees continued to do what they’ve done since last deadline season by adding to the game’s best bullpen — according to ERA, WAR and ERA- — with the addition of Zach Britton.
While the Orioles perhaps did OK with their return for a reliever who hasn’t reached 40 innings since 2016 and is a free agent after the season, the Yankees have a crammed 40-man roster and can afford the package that is headlined by Dillon Tate.
The Yankees are rightfully focused on opportunity and the present and have been among the best at riding the game’s trends from focusing on power velocity and power bats, increased breaking-ball usage, and, of course, building an uber pen.
Bullpens absorbed 38.1% of innings in the major leagues last season, which was a record. Relievers tend to account for more and more innings every year, and in the postseason that share ballooned to 46.4% in 2017. This season? Expect bullpens to be at an even greater premium in the playoffs. To date, 39.18% of innings — 10,665.1 of 27,219.0 — have been tossed by relievers. Perhaps bullpens will push to account for half of the workload in the coming postseason, and no team can leverage their bullpen like the Yankees.
Sooo the Yankee bullpen is something like:
L Chapman
L Britton
L Shreve
R Betances
R Green
R Robertson
R Cole
R Warren
R HolderThat's fair, seems fine.
Remember that Cole has been awesome (0.87 ERA, 26/6 K/BB). Remember that Tommy Kahnle is down in AAA w/ a 40% K rate.
— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) July 25, 2018
Britton, if he’s anything close to himself, gives the Yankees the rare luxury of a third quality left-handed option.
In fact, this contributor argued a year ago that the Yankees should leverage their bullpen from Day 1 of the postseason — the AL Wild Card game — and save their ace to open a potential ALDS. They could face a similar dilemma this season. The Yankees were built to bullpen the Wild Card game a year ago, and they are even more built to bullpen the Wild Card game this season, hope and expect to advance, and save Severino for Game 1 of the ALDS (likely against the Astros). While the Yankees are hardly out of the division race, they have 35.2% division odds.
But the Yankees weren’t willing to bullpen the Wild Card game a year ago. Said then-manager Joe Girardi to reporters when asked about the idea of bullpen-ing the Wild Card game:
“I think that’s pretty risky… You could do that but that’s not something you’ve done during the course of the season. And we have some starters who are pretty qualified to make that start. You want to treat it like a regular game when it starts. There are some things you might do a little different once you get into it, but if you start doing crazy things, things guys aren’t used to, then I’m just not comfortable doing it. You want to keep it as normal as possible.”
And to be fair to their process, they did win the Wild Card game and nearly advanced to the World Series. But exhausting the ace of a starting staff that as presently constructed has not been as strong as other AL contenders to date brings into question the best approach toward optimizing their postseason odds. The Yankees also have a new manager in Aaron Boone. Maybe Boone will be open to bullpen-ing. But even if he isn’t, if the Yankees advance beyond the play-in game, they’ll have a bullpen that can potentially carry them to the World Series.
A Cleveland native, FanGraphs writer Travis Sawchik is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Big Data Baseball. He also contributes to The Athletic Cleveland, and has written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @Travis_Sawchik.
Last time I checked the rules, Britton cannot be used in the Wild Card game.
Why can’t he be used?
EDIT: I’m assuming this is a Showalter troll
That rule only applies if you are also rostering LHP Brian Duensing.
I’m going to pretend this means the Yankees are a lock to win the division.
Ubaldo Jimenez is a free agent? The Yanks should scoop him up!
Small question, but why would their ALDS be most likely against the Astros?
Wouldn’t it be more likely against Boston?
yeah, there’s absolutely no divisional component to the LDS round(see just last season with Arizona playing the Dodgers). Currently Boston is 4 games up on Houston. The WC winner plays the top division winner.
no
This does seem like the kind of headline that is destined to come back and bite you in the butt.
It’s a gamble. You get to gloat if they do and Britton does something big.
The inception of the Wild Card game created an inevitability that a 100-win team would lose to a high-80’s win team eventually, and my crystal ball says 2018 is the year. The Yankees’ only hope to prevent this from happening to them is to win the division.
Yeah because not like they’d be able to hit James Paxton or Sean Manaea.
Wait, huh?
Especially since they’re lefties, and the Yankees kind of destroy lefties. .840 OPS vs lefties (.773 OPS vs RHP)
“But they can’t hit MY lefty!”
They could also prevent it from happening by not winning 100 games.
As a Yankee fan it would suck to lose to the A’s but their fans are loyal and smart baseball people.
I’m going to guess the reason they traded for Britton was because they couldn’t convince the Blue Jays to take Dillon Tate for JA Happ. That 40-man roster crunch is real, which is probably (maybe?) why you keep hearing the same teams (Dodgers, Yankees, Astros, Brewers, Phillies) over and over again. They have too many prospects to hoard.
I doubt the Yankees are done, but I’m pretty sure the Yankees aren’t thinking about bullpenning a game this far out. They’re probably just taking all the prospects they think they’ll lose in the Rule 5 and trying to exchange them for something useful now.
The point was also made elsewhere on this site that because of their ability to develop prospects, it’s less costly to trade some away because they are more likely to cultivate more. That was regarding the Dodgers trade for Machado but the same premise applies here I think.
Still think they paid too much for Britton.
You are absolutely correct about the 40-man roster. This has been my idea for quite a while. Pull a Herschel Walker(9 for 1) or Ricky Williams (entire draft) type deal and package 2 or 3 quality prospects, Florial and Abreu come to mind, then sweeten the deal with 5 or 6 good prospects, Estrada, Adams, German and more to get two top players rather than spreading the mother load out and only getting bits and pieces back.
You’re forgetting one thing … nearly every team, even the bad ones, would then be facing the same roster crunch. Adding 8-10 minor leaguers has a ripple effect.
Yeah, now all you have to do is find a team willing to part with a top 10 prospect for Florial, Abreu and a bunch of meh.
While they’re at it, they should probably just trade Drury, Bird, Neil Walker and Tyler Austin for Freddie Freeman and shore up first base too.
They just used Drury for a Happ rental.
Damn, I guess that mean no Freddie Freeman then.
Did the Angels win the off-season, Travis?
(Partially injured or not) For the price of peanuts, they did win the Ohtani sweepstakes.
“Golf clap”
– Cain & Yelich
Cain: 5/80M & Yelich: 6/58M + prospects = a shit ton more than peanuts
*6/58 includes 15M team option for 6th year
So they paid more for wins.
Call me when Manfred hands out the dollar adjusted world series rings.
And injuries matter, ESPECIALLY when Ohtani was known to have arm problems when they signed him.
You do make good points but, they paid A LOT more for wins. (When you add prospects on top of it.) Neither team is making the WS, let alone winning it, w/o pitching, thats for sure. That’s where the injuries have come into play, for each respective team.
I really liked the Cain and Yealich gets by the Brewers, though
. It’s just that, from a scouting and player development side of things, I’m super excited to see Ohtani’s growth/potential for the next six years. (for pennies on the dollar)
*Then you add prospects on top of it (I miss-typed)
Anyways, I surrender. You win, I think. Cain and Yelich are two proven commodities with long track records that were acquired for cheap.
It’s like take your pick: **Play it safe with Cain and Yelich or press your luck with Ohtani.
**This would assume all money owed (and spent in prospects), respectively.
I don’t think Severino is that much better than Paxton, or even the current version of Gonzales. And no, they are not going to bullpen the game. They are going to be 60% favorites, so they are going to lose 40 % of the time.
The math checks out. Good work!
Are you trying to tell me they won’t be 60 % favorites vs whoever they play?
No, I am just grateful for your keen insights on the inner workings of arithmetic.
You lost me at Gonzales.
well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration:)
Also Yankee fans will dispute the notion that Chasen Shreve can be considered “quality.” Also sorry that pic is so big.
Haha, my first thought reading this.
Zero chance that they bullpen the Wild Card game, and frankly, they would be crazy to do so.
Severino’s record is 14-3. Don’t get cute.
Zero chance, maybe. Crazy? Not really, when it would mean the difference between Severino facing the Red Sox once and twice in a 5 game series.
One time is better than zero.
True, which is why he’ll in all likelihood start the wild card game.
But you could argue that using Severino in the WC game when the realistic goal is to win the World Series is analogous to the Red Sox using Kimbrel in the 5th inning instead of the 8th AND 9th when the goal is to win the game.
Or in other words, is an 80% (?) chance of 2 Severino ALDS starts better than a 90% (?) chance of 1?
I’m overestimating those odds of beating the Mariners/A’s with a bullpen game vs. Severino, but you get my drift.
In a do-or-die game, you play your best players by FIP. Statistics will never dispute that nugget of common sense.
Required link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
Also, in order to win the wild card game, by definition, the Yankees will have to score at least a run. That might be looking like a stretch for a team whose OPS with RISP over the past two months (under .700) barely bests that of Jose Iglesias.
(from a frustrated Yankee fan)
Jose Iglesias has an .846 OPS with RISP this year.
Wow, then he is WAY better than the Yankees!
Adding a WAR 0.0 player might not be the difference maker some outlets are suggesting.
On the other hand, they haven’t conceded the division just yet, nor have they finished dealing.
I’d argue that in the postseason, WPA is a lot more important than WAR (when looking at it in retrospect).
Excellent point.
His WPA is -0.13
The “in retrospect” part was supposed to imply that the Yankees (and presumably every other contender that was in on him) believe he’s going to get some huge outs/innings in the postseason.
The correct strategy for the wildcard game is to “bullpen” with the best available pitcher on the roster “opening” which is exactly what the Yankees did in 2017.
NO (did not read the article, because of the click-bait headline with an obvious answer). The Wild Card game is in October. It’s July.
If you are not going to read the article then why bother commenting?
To express my annoyance at the headline. 😉
If I had to guess what Cashman was thinking is this: In a short game, reducing the HR odds is a large factor. HR is still the top event in the game. So…
He buys a Britton. Even if the K rate is good, but the walk rate is bad, the sinker will still supress the HR at a higher rate. There is an edge there. Brittion on, in the sense of GB% is the key. the BB% isin’t that much of a factor.
Bullpenning – dumb idea. Bullpenning the WC game – dumber idea. Don’t forget the Yankees actually did bullpen the WC last year because Severino imploded in the first inning. Then the bullpen was gassed for the remainder of the playoffs. And besides, Britton, or what’s left of him, hardly moves the needle.
Trope as it may sound, is there any evidence of the BP being “gassed”, or just you know, competing and facing failure against the best in the world?
Can their be “evidence” of that? Life isn’t like the video games *sigh*. The players don’t have bars hovering over them indicating their energy or health level. The results are the only evidence we have, even more so than what the players or coaches tell us themselves.
What’s apparent is that relying too heavily on your bullpen has not been an effective strategy in the playoffs. The nature of a reliever is that they are flawed. If they weren’t, they’d have been starters. Not only does the over-use have a direct impact on their effectiveness from a stamina standpoint, but when you have a one or two pitch pitcher who is being used 4, 5 or 6 times in a given series, there won’t be much mystery left for the opposing hitters to solve.
Adding depth certainly helps, but starting pitching and timely hitting will still be what wins championships.
Travis, you are a good writer, but you are also the guy who gave the Angels a playoff spot in March