Domingo German Demands Our Attention
Most of the general public, perhaps even many hardcore baseball enthusiasts, were unacquainted with Domingo German until Sunday. German has never been a top-100 prospect. He is 25 years old and has been a professional for nearly a decade, yet he remained largely unknown. He was, for example, still available in most fantasy baseball leagues as of Sunday afternoon.
But on Sunday afternoon, German went out to the middle of the infield at Yankee Stadium and no-hit the Indians for six innings, striking out nine against two walks. He was taken out of the game by Aaron Boone due only to pitch-count concerns. It was his first major-league start, and he dominated.
Maybe the Yankees, already enjoying a rare collection of young talent, an uber bullpen, a cast of superstar sluggers, and an incredible amount of purchasing power for next offseason, have unearthed yet more wealth.
With Jordan Montgomery leaving his last start because of an elbow strain, this is a chance for German — labeled as something of a ‘tweener — to compete for a rotation gig.
Boone spoke to reporters about German and his rotation status.
“We’ll see how it evolves… I foresee [German] being in the rotation — at least a couple times through — just based on where we are roster-wise and availability-wise… We feel like he’s more than capable of stepping in there in a starting role.”
The following is a brief history of German, in part to underscore the obscurity from which he has risen to this place of relevance.
The 25-year-old German signed with the then-Florida Marlins on Aug. 8, 2009 as an amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic for a paltry $40,000.
He didn’t make it to full-season ball until 2014. After that year, he was dealt from the Marlins to the Yankees along with Nathan Eovaldi and Garrett Jones for David Phelps and Martin Prado.
He was granted free agency in December of 2015 only to return to the Yankees later that month on a minor-league deal.
German never posted an ERA or FIP above 3.44 at any minor-league stop. Last year in Double-A, he struck out more than a batter per inning for the first time in his career. His 19.7-point K-BB% mark was his best since Rookie ball in 2013. He was then promoted to Triple-A, where he posted another 19-point mark.
His lithe, 6-foot-2, 180-pound frame has always created excellent velocity, but perhaps his fastball was not fully appreciated until we placed TrackMan radar upon it. German’s average spin rate of 2,525 rpms this season ranks eighth in baseball. That’s elite. The pitch ranked fifth last season in a small sample of work.
Couple that strong spin with a fastball that sits at 95 mph and you have something rare, though his velocity was not quite that good as a starter on Sunday.
German also has a two-seamer…
https://gfycat.com/JitteryEnergeticItaliangreyhound
A changeup that generated a ton of swing-and-miss Sunday…
https://gfycat.com/RelievedConsiderateCentipede
And a breaking ball…
https://gfycat.com/CommonOpenArchaeopteryx
That’s a starting-pitcher skillset.
What’s particularly interesting is that German is seemingly buying into the Yankees’ aversion to the fastball — perhaps to his great benefit. This season, German has thrown a fastball variant 36.6% of the time, his curveball at a 38.6% rate, and his changeup a quarter of the time.
He was even more extreme Sunday, throwing his fastballs at a 29.8% rate and his curveball at a 41.7% clip.
German has always had swing-and-miss stuff, although perhaps we didn’t know the stuff was this good. Among pitchers who have thrown at least 20 innings this season, German ranks seventh in out-of-zone swing rate above Noah Syndergaard and just behind Chris Sale and Patrick Corbin.
He ranks eighth in swinging-strike rate (15.3%) among pitchers with at least 20 innings, one spot ahead of Shohei Ohtani.
The Yankees didn’t need any help, but they might just have unearthed another useful piece, and perhaps something more.
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.
Oh come on… Like they need any luck
This is makeup for Hughes/Montero/Chamberlain/Tabata
Banuelos, Brackman…
We’ll see how he does… I give Cashman credit he’s asked for young, low level, high upside lottery arms in deals (the last ten years) and their drafting/international market approach has modified to a high risk/high reward approach. In the end young pitchers are lottery tickets. My fav was Christian Garcia- he coulda been great….
Copied from Mike’s game summary post on RAB:
– Fastball: 25 thrown (three swings and misses)
– Curveball: 35 thrown (six swings and misses)
– Changeup: 24 thrown (seven swings and misses)
German struck out everyone in Cleveland’s lineup at least once except Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez and the average exit velocity on his nine balls in play was 78.6 mph.
78.6 mph is a disgusting number. His stuff is for real.
You could see he had filthy stuff from his time in the majors last year. But he walked lots of people. And when walking those people some of his pitches missed by a mile. Looking at the stats, he had 3 wild pitches in 14.1 innings.
It looks like he’s doing the modified stretch wind-up. Any evidence he changed that from the minors?
“He was granted free agency” is an amazing way to describe being non-tendered after having Tommy John surgery.
The Death Star is fully operational
Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational battle lineup!
Meh. They’re always an 0-3 game skid from being booed out of the ballpark.
Evacuate? Now, in our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.
Can anyone tell me why his curve was so effective? Looks relatively flat in the gif.
1) The movement and his arm path are parallel to the camera angle
2) It could gain added effectiveness from all the run that hitters experience with his other pitches
To me it doesn’t look flat. It has a nice sharp break. Not as good as Betances’ but still sharp. It looks like he can throw it in the zone for a strike in any count and not be afraid of it being hit hard, and he can also start it at the bottom of the zone and have it land in the dirt as a strike out pitch.
Here are some end-of-plate-appearance highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNQ48PXqgp8
It is the angle of the video. His curveball is scouted on his FG page as 60/65 and brooksbaseball showed 41.48 inches of vertical sink, which is down about 2.5 inches when he had control problems last season.
I’m interested to see gifs of his pitches in his future starts. He had a no-no through 6 in this start, so obviously he had his best stuff then. it’s really easy to look at one start and say the peripherals were amazing: low average exit velocity, etc. I’m intrigued, but am curious to know what happens in a larger sample size. Definitely looks like another big league starter for NYY.
Well, those statistics are from his 20.1 innings of work this year, not just from his 6 innings in that no-hit start. He seems to have great stuff. Judging from his time with the Yankees last year his problem is control.
Ok same article about Zach Eflin and his big new slider, please.
he’s been my yankees prospect crush for a while now, never thought he would crack the rotation as anything more than a spot starter, and thought his stuff would play very well in the bullpen a la chad green type role. but if he keeps this up, man the yankees would be so solid