February 4th, 2025: Schmidt, Outfield Arms, Kahnle, Leiter, Minor League Coaches, Serruto

Reminder: My annual Top 30 Prospects list will go live Friday. That means a) Friday’s regular post will run Thursday, and b) pitchers and catchers report next week. Thank goodness. I’m ready to move on from the usual late offseason bellyaching to real live baseball. The Yankees will play their first Grapefruit League game in two weeks and three days. I can’t wait. On that note, 2025 PECOTA projections are out:

The Yankees and Orioles being in a virtual tie atop the AL East passes the sniff test, I think. Remember, projections are not predictions, they are an estimate of talent level. Projected 89-win teams win 95 games all the time because a player(s) unexpectedly breaks out, they add at the trade deadline, etc. And they sometimes win 82 games too, usually because they get hammered by injuries. Last year’s initial PECOTA release pegged the Yankees for 94 wins, the second most runs scored in the AL, and the fourth fewest runs allowed in the AL. They won 94 games, scored the most runs in the AL, and allowed the sixth fewest runs in the AL. This year they’re projected for the AL’s best record, the fourth most runs scored, and the second fewest runs allowed. I'll take it. Here now is Tuesday’s post as baseball’s last half-decent commissioner kicks the bucket.

1. I got into the NBA a few years ago. I tried several times in the past but it never stuck. For whatever reason, this time it did (I’m sure the Knicks being good and fun contributed to it). I avoid NBA analytics as much as possible too. Basketball has passed hockey as my “shut off my brain and watch” sport. Like everyone else, I was stunned when I woke up Sunday and saw the Luka Dončić/Anthony Davis trade. The baseball equivalent is what, Bobby Witt Jr. for Mike Trout? A top five player in his mid-20s for an erstwhile top five player in his early 30s who’s had a hard time staying healthy the last few years? I dunno. Whatever the equivalent, it was a jaw-dropping trade. Baseball superstars get traded all the time (Mookie Betts, Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, etc.), though it’s almost always for a package of young players/prospects. What was baseball’s last star for star trade? It has to be Alex Rodriguez for Alfonso Soriano, right? Yoenis Cespedes for Jon Lester, or Ian Kinsler for Prince Fielder, doesn’t rise to the Dončić/AD level. Go back a little and there’s Roger Clemens for David Wells, and Gary Sheffield for Mike Piazza. Go back even further and there’s the Roberto Alomar/Joe Carter for Fred McGriff/Tony Fernandez trade. I’m doing this off the top of my head and I may be missing a few star for star trades, but I dunno, these seismic blockbusters tend to stick in your mind. NBA trades are so much cooler than MLB trades (sorry, our eighth ranked prospect is off-limits because the guy we're getting is being paid what he's worth). A Dončić/AD caliber trade in baseball would be so much fun. Trade Ronald Acuña Jr. for Fernando Tatis Jr., or Paul Skenes for Gunnar Henderson, cowards.

2. Clarke Schmidt hasn’t gotten much love this offseason given his injury last year and everything else the Yankees did (or, in some cases, didn’t do) this winter. He threw 85.2 innings with a 2.85 ERA (3.58 FIP) around his injury last season, though the ERA estimators based on batted ball quality ding him a bit harder (4.15 DRA and 3.78 FIP). Still, that guy is now the No. 5 starter, and Schmidt’s strikeout rate increase (21.5% in 2023 to 26.3% in 2024) was one of the five largest in baseball (min. 80 innings each year). The cutter has advanced enough that it helped him hold lefties to a .238/.326/.363 (.307 wOBA) line last year, which isn’t amazing, but is good enough to turn a lineup over multiple times. Schmidt chases, uh, chases at times, and the ultra-patient Dodgers worked him for 68 pitches and four walks in 2.2 innings in his World Series start, so that’s the next step. Don’t rely so much on getting hitters to chase, and get a little more aggressive in the zone, even when ahead in the count. Schmidt is annoyingly prone to turning 0-2 counts into 3-2 counts. There are hitters on the defensive ready to give you outs in 0-2 counts if you attack them right. Schmidt does need to fine-tune a few things, mostly with his command and location, but if this guy is your fourth or fifth starter, you’re living right. Kinda funny how for 15-20 years the Yankees were incapable of developing a homegrown starter. Now a guy like Schmidt, coming off the season he had (around the injury), is flying under the radar and almost an afterthought. Hoping for big things from Clarke in 2025. The age 29 season is as good a time for a breakout year as any.

3. The Yankees have improved their outfield defense this offseason. Aaron Judge is an upgrade over Juan Soto in right, and Cody Bellinger is an upgrade over Judge in center. Those improvements should more than enough to make up for a defensive slip from Alex Verdugo to Jasson Domínguez in left. The Yankees should be better at catching the ball in 2025. Know what else the outfield will be better at? Throwing. Verdugo has a terrific arm, one of the best in the sport, but being in left field limits the value somewhat. Runners typically don’t go first-to-third on a single to left. Here are the numbers on the 2024 Yankees (MLB averages in parentheses):

I was surprised to see the Yankees rank 20th in average center field throw last season given Judge’s arm, and it turns out that 87.7 mph is split into 88.1 mph for Judge and 84.8 mph for Trent Grisham. That makes more sense, though Judge’s average throw is still lower than I expected. Also, the Yankees ranked 28th in average right field throw but third in right field hold rate (hold rate being the rate at which runners did not take the extra base on a ball hit to right). You can thank Yankee Stadium for that at least somewhat. It’s not so easy to go first-to-third on a single to right in Yankee Stadium because right field is so small, and the right fielder is able to play that much shallower. Anyway, here’s what we’re looking at arm strength wise in 2025 using 2024 arm strength numbers:

• LF: Verdugo (92.1 mph) to Domínguez (???)

• CF: Judge (88.1 mph) to Bellinger (87.9 mph)

• RF: Soto (84.7 mph) to Judge (88.1 mph)

Domínguez didn’t play enough to meet Statcast’s throws minimum, so we don’t have data on his arm, but Verdugo has one of the strongest arms in baseball, so we can assume a downgrade in left field. Judge to Bellinger is essentially a wash in center, and Soto to Judge is a huge upgrade in right. For his career, Judge has a 55.5% hold rate in right, which is far above 2024 Soto and the right field average. Is the throwing upgrade from Soto to Judge big enough to make up for the downgrade from Verdugo to Domínguez? I hope so. I think so too, because the right fielder’s arm is more important than the left fielder’s arm. The right fielder has the long throw to third base. The right fielder is the guy who really gets tested on first-to-thirds, and Judge is a much better thrower than Soto. That’s real value added. Improved outfield defense goes beyond simply catching the ball.

4. Tommy Kahnle joined Gleyber Torres in Detroit. Tommy. TightPants got a one-year, $7.75M contract last week. I’m going to miss him. I’ll miss his energy and zaniness …

… and also his effectiveness. There aren’t many relievers who combine strikeouts (25.7% in 2024) with ground balls (58.6%) as well as Kahnle. That isn’t to say I think the Yankees made a mistake not bringing him back. Kahnle is 35 now, he’s had shoulder (and biceps) trouble the last few years, and his strikeout rate and fastball velocity are trending down. The all-changeup approach is extreme and kinda broke everyone’s brain because conventional wisdom says you need to throw the occasional fastball to change up off of it, though that’s not really the case as long as you have enough movement and show you can throw it for strikes. It’s not really any different than throwing all sliders (sliders slide off a fastball, right?). Anyway, the Yankees already have their Kahnle replacement in Fernando Cruz, who I imagine they will have throw his splitter as much as Kahnle threw his changeup (and shelve his cutter, which has gotten eaten up the last two years). The big question is can Cruz be as effective against lefties as Kahnle? To date, the answer has been a resounding no …

• 2023-24 Cruz vs. LHB: .248/.357/.453 (.351 wOBA) with 33.3 K% and 14.3 BB%

• 2023-24 Kahnle vs. LHB: .187/.283/.337 (.275 wOBA) with 27.3 K% and 11.0 BB%

… and that’s something the Yankees will miss if Cruz is unable to figure it out. Luke Weaver was excellent against lefties last year and Devin Williams has been for years, though I imagine Williams will be married to the ninth inning, and Weaver can’t pitch every day. Cruz is the obvious candidate to replace Kahnle as the No. 3 high leverage option, the guy who pitches the seventh inning most days and occasionally fills in in the eighth and ninth when Weaver and/or Williams is unavailable. Hopefully Cruz solves lefties and steps into the Kahnle role seamlessly. And hopefully the Yankees bring in an actual lefty reliever at some point, just to have that look available to them. You’ve got eight bullpen spots. Might as well have a lefty, no? Anyway, Kahnle said he knows he’s nearing the end of his career – “I feel it’s getting closer,” he told Mark Sanchez after the World Series – and I look forward to him coming back for Old Timers’ Day. And who knows? The Tigers are good but not really great, and maybe things don’t go their way this year and they make their rental veterans available at the trade deadline, and Kahnle and a certain second baseman make their way back to the Bronx. Probably won’t happen, but maybe.

5. Paying relievers is cool again. We went through the “they’re all fungible so don’t pay anyone” phase and now top end relievers are getting $18M+ a year (Edwin Díaz, Josh Hader, Tanner Scott, etc.) while second tier high leverage guys are in the $11M to $13M range (Carlos Estévez, Jeff Hoffman, Blake Treinen, etc.). Tommy Kahnle's 35 and he hasn't thrown as many as 43 innings in a season since 2019, and he got $7.75M. Reliever salary market correction was bound to happen at some point. Bullpens are such a huge part of the game now that it was only a matter of time until the very best relievers got paid, and the rest of the bullpen market followed along. In theory, this is good for the Yankees, because the more something costs, the fewer the teams that can afford it, and the Yankees can afford anything. We’ll see how things go with Devin Williams this year, but if he has a typical Devin Williams season, giving him the Scott contract (four years and $72M) should not be out of the question. If he holds out for Díaz money (five years and $102M), then that might be a different conversation, but paying market rate for Williams’ age 31-34 seasons shouldn’t be off the table just because he’s a reliever and they’re volatile. Teams know so much about pitching these days. If you can keep them on the field, there’s usually a way to keep them productive, especially when you’re talking about someone with Williams’ arm talent. The Yankees can have the best of both worlds. They can pay big for top relievers and also unearth the hidden gems like Jake Cousins and Ian Hamilton and Luke Weaver. The Dodgers are the smartest, most well-run team in the game, and they’ll have three $11M+ relievers on the roster this year (Scott, Treinen, Kirby Yates). There’s no reason the Yankees can’t do it too. Pay for elite talent and use your smarts to add depth and raise the bullpen’s floor.

6. One thing that might be a bit of a shock to the system this year is a bullpen that gives up fly balls. The Yankees built their bullpens around ground ball guys the last few years because ground balls rarely go for extra-base hits, and limiting extra-base damage in close games was a priority. It worked as intended:

2022-24 Bullpen GB%
1. Yankees: 49.1%
2. Cardinals: 47.9%
3. Giants: 47.3%

2022-24 Bullpen SLG
1. Yankees: .344
2. Guardians: .349
3. Dodgers: .355

Clay Holmes, the best ground ball reliever in the sport the last few years, is gone. So is Tommy Kahnle and (for the time being?) Tim Hill. That’s a lot of ground ball inducers out the door. The late innings now belong to Fernando Cruz (35.7 GB% in 2024), Luke Weaver (36.4%), and Devin Williams (43.2%). The Yankees have replaced ground balls with strikeouts in the late innings and I’m cool with that, though the uptick in fly balls will inevitably lead to more homers, especially in Yankee Stadium. Weaver was awesome last year. He also gave up as many homers in 2024 (10) as Holmes did in 3.5 years as a Yankee (also 10). I’m glad the Yankees have added two elite strikeout arms in Cruz and Williams. There were too many times last year when they were banking on a ground ball at someone to escape a jam. The downside is the Yankees will be a bit more prone to backbreaking homers late in close games. I’m not trying to be dramatic and say the Yankees are doomed. Hardly. I like the bullpen. I’m just saying the bullpen has a new look. Ground balls are out and strikeouts are in. We’ll (probably) have to accept a few more homers as part of the tradeoff, and hope they come at times that don’t kill the Yankees. As viewers, there’s not much scarier than the initial reaction to seeing a ball go up in the air off the bat in a one-run game. 

7. For the first time in eight years, the Yankees went to an arbitration hearing. They beat Mark Leiter Jr. this past weekend, per Mark Feinsand, and will pay him $2.05M this season rather than $2.5M. It was their first arbitration hearing since beating Dellin Betances in 2017. The Yankees are now 14-9 in arbitration hearings all-time, with the majority occurring in the 1970s and 1980s. Leiter was their sixth hearing since Brian Cashman was elevated to GM in 1998. The list:

• 2025: Beat Mark Leiter Jr. ($2.05M vs. $2.5M)

• 2017: Beat Dellin Betances ($3M vs. $5M)

• 2008: Beat Chien-Ming Wang ($4M vs. $4.6M)

• 2000: Beat Mariano Rivera ($7.25M vs. $9.25M)

• 1999: Lost to Mariano Rivera ($3M vs. $4.25M)

• 1999: Lost to Derek Jeter ($3.2M vs. $5M)

Even with his loss, Rivera’s 2000 case was historic because $7.25M was the highest salary ever awarded through arbitration at the time. For all players, not just relievers. "Looks like somebody died in here," Rivera joked after he and his representatives heard the ruling. The Yankees and Rivera went to a hearing after he rejected a four-year extension worth $36M. Well, anyway, Leiter’s salary is set and Cot’s puts the team’s luxury tax payroll at $302.7M. FanGraphs has it at $303.0M. Either way, the Yankees are comfortably south of last year’s $316.2M payroll, and that was going to be true even if Leiter won his hearing. In other news, the Yankees don’t have a second or third baseman, a lefty reliever, or a backup catcher. They also aren’t resetting their luxury tax rates, putting themselves in the most favorable free agent compensation bucket, or making sure their 2026 first round pick won’t get moved back 10 spots either. This is fine.

8. The Yankees announced their minor league coaching staffs two weeks ago. Normally I wouldn’t bother to mention this because minor league coaching staffs are only so interesting, but the Yankees had A LOT of coaches leave the organization this offseason. Much moreso than usual, so there are a lot of new faces on this year’s coaching staffs. I’m going to focus on the hitting and pitching coaches:

• Triple-A Scranton: Mike Mergenthaler (hitting) and Gerardo Casadiego (pitching)

• Double-A Somerset: Mike Fransoso (hitting) and Peter Larson (pitching)

• High-A Hudson Valley: Tom DeAngelis (hitting) and Demetre Kokoris (pitching)

• Low-A Tampa: Edwin Beard (hitting) and Ryan Mossman (pitching)

Casadiego has been with the Yankees for several years and has previously served as the pitching coach at other levels. The same goes for Beard and DeAngelis on the hitting side. Everyone else is new to the organization. Mergenthaler spent the last eight years with the Guardians as a minor league hitting coach. Fransoso spent the last five years coaching in the Mariners’ system and played for Somerset back when they were an independent league team. Larson (Twins from 2019-24) and Kokoris (Rangers from 2022-24) are more longtime coaches whose careers go back further than what I’ve listed. Mossman spent the last few years with the Johnson City Doughboys of the Appalachian League, which is now a collegiate summer league (MLB took away the Apply League’s affiliation when they contracted the minors in 2021). That’s a lot of new coaches and I’m for it. Granted, player development is so much more than specific coaches at each level (the Yankees also have a new minor league hitting coordinator), but these are the people tasked with the day-to-day stuff, and with being hands-on. The Yankees have been quite good at developing pitchers. I trust they have their ducks in a row on the pitching side. They have not been as successful at developing Major League hitters though, so a new set of voices and perspectives could help. It could also be a total disaster, but when the best hitter (i.e. not Anthony Volpe’s glove) to come out of your farm system in the last six years is Austin Wells, I’m willing to give something new a try. If the Yankees are not going to win bidding wars for prime-aged position player free agents (Juan Soto) or not even bother to try to sign them (Bryce Harper), then they must get more from their farm system on the hitter side. It is imperative. Hopefully we’ll look back on this offseason’s minor league coaching overhaul as the turning point in the Yankees’ hitter development, kinda like how Matt Blake represents a shift in their pitching success at the MLB level.

9. And finally, here’s a fun one: Peter Serruto is the Yankees’ new MLB bullpen catcher. He announced it on Instagram. Collin Theroux, the bullpen catcher from 2022-24, was part of the offseason exodus and took a minor league coaching job with the Marlins a few weeks back. Serruto, 25 in March, is a local guy from Millburn, New Jersey, and he played his college ball at Rutgers and Indiana. He signed with the Yankees as an undrafted free agent in Aug. 2023 and I mentioned him a few times last summer because the Yankees had a catching shortage in Triple-A. Jose Trevino was hurt and Carlos Narváez was in the big leagues, Luis Torrens opted out of his contract, and Josh Breaux got released. The Triple-A catching duo was Serruto and JC Escarra for a few weeks, and when he got to Scranton, Serruto’s pro experience consisted of one game in rookie ball and one game in Double-A, and a total of two plate appearances and 5.1 innings at catcher. He was in way over his head with the RailRiders, but the Yankees didn’t want to rush an actual prospect, and there wasn’t much out there in free agency. Serruto ultimately caught just one game with Scranton – they ran Escarra into the ground, he caught every game for a while, including day games after night games and both ends of a doubleheader (seven-inning games, but still) – and went 2-for-5 at the plate. Despite (very) limited playing time, Serruto impressed the Yankees enough that they offered him their big league bullpen catcher job. There’s a lot more to it than warming up relievers too. The bullpen catcher is essentially another coach, one charged with day-to-day preparations more than big picture strategizing. Pitchers are creatures of habit. They all like to warm up and get ready in their own way, and the bullpen catcher has to be ready to handle them all. There are different ways to get to the big leagues. Everyone wants to make it as a player, but sometimes it’s as a coach or umpire. In Serruto’s case, he went from playing in college to playing six pro games to being bullpen catcher for the New York Yankees in less than two years. What a fascinating journey.

(Send your requests for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com. The random Yankee series is on hiatus, but feel free to send in requests for when it returns.)