August 23rd, 2024: Judge, Soto, Gil, LeMahieu, Verdugo, Mailbag

The folks at Pitch Profiler had a fun list the other day. They measured the most “feared” hitters by comparing the difference between Stuff+ when a pitcher faces a specific hitter and when they face all other hitters. Aaron Judge is atop the list, meaning he gets everyone’s nastiest stuff. Juan Soto is high atop the list too. Know who else? Anthony Volpe! I guess this is because Volpe hit leadoff most of the season, and opposing pitchers tried their darnedest to get him out so he wasn’t on base for Soto and Judge? Probably, yeah. Anyway, let’s get to today’s post.

1. Weekday thoughts. Going into this week’s series, Guardians’ hitters ranked 22nd in baseball with a 7.9% walk rate. The Yankees then walked them 14 times Tuesday. The game went 12 innings and one of those walks was intentional, sure, but 14 walks is 14 walks. It was the first time the Yankees walked 14 batters since a 15-walk game against the Brewers on Sept. 15th, 1993. That was a nine-inning game too. What a slog that must’ve been. Tuesday was the first time the Yankees issued even 12 walks since Aug. 6th, 2009. That was the game the Yankees annihilated John Smoltz, and the Red Sox DFAed him a day later. Good omen? Here are a few thoughts after the Yankees clinched the season series against the Guardians, who definitely give off “AL Central Good, not Actually Good” vibes. (The season series win means the Yankees hold the tiebreaker for postseason seeding purposes.)

Soto and Judge, and chasing history

Aaron Judge is on a home run binge. He hit four in the Guardians series and has six in his last seven games, nine in his last 18 games, and 16 in his last 33 games. Judge hit two homers Wednesday (video) but wasn’t even the star of the show. Juan Soto, who is more like a second Batman than Judge’s Robin, had a two-run homer and a bases-clearing double on an excuse me two-strike protect swing (video). Did Soto do this intentionally? I don’t think he drew it up exactly like this, but yeah, this is a hitter looking for a hole.

“It's just things that happen,” Soto told Gary Phillips about that double. “Definitely I was trying to grind to put the ball in play and try to find the hole. When I got to 3-2, he made a great pitch, and I followed it. After that, I just tried to make contact with it, and I really find a hole.”

That double was Soto’s first non-homer hit since the Rangers series. Each of his previous eight hits were home runs, the longest such streak in Yankees history and the longest streak by any hitter since the just retired Joey Votto had an eight-hit homer streak in July 2021. Soto has a career high 36 home runs. Judge has 48. They’re on pace for 106 combined. They would be the sixth set of teammates with 100 homers, and they have an outside chance at the all-time record for two teammates:

1. Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, 1961 Yankees: 115
2. Rich Aurilia and Barry Bonds, 2001 Giants: 110
3. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, 1927 Yankees: 107
4. Ray Lankford and Mark McGwire, 1998 Cardinals: 101
5. Rafael Palmeiro and Alex Rodriguez, 2002 Rangers: 100

Soto and Judge hit back-to-back home runs for the fifth time Tuesday (video). Statcast says both would have been home runs in Yankee Stadium only. Not in any of the other 29 ballparks. Long live the short porch. Anyway, here are the Yankees teammates with the most sets of back-to-back homers in a single season (via James Smyth):

1. Johnny Damon and Mark Teixeira, 2009: 6
2. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, 1927: 5
3. Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig, 1936: 5
4. Gary Sheffield and Alex Rodriguez, 2005: 5
5. Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, 2024: 5 and counting

Not who I would’ve guessed at the top! Damon and Teixeira were great, great players, but come on, these are the Yankees. I would’ve guessed Ruth and Gehrig, Maris and Mantle, etc. As best I can tell, Damon and Teixeira are tied with a bunch of others for the MLB record. Soto and Judge have 34 games remaining to tie and hopefully break that back-to-back homers record.

Judge is hitting .334/.465/.726 (223 wRC+) and Soto is hitting .299/.430/.607 (189 wRC+). The Yankees are extremely reliant on those two – the Yankees scored 19 runs in the Guardians series and Soto and Judge drove in 13 of them – but when they get pitched too, they win the Yankees games. I mean, look at Soto clearing the bases Wednesday. Get runners on base for him and very good things happen.

Going into Thursday’s game Judge had a 226 OPS+ and Soto a 189 OPS+. Here is the complete list of teams with two 185 OPS+ or better hitters: 

• Gehrig and Ruth with the 1927, 1928, 1930, 1931 Yankees

• Judge and Soto with the 2024 Yankees

That is it in baseball history, not just Yankees history. Judge and Soto are an almost unprecedented pairing. I mean, Judge is on pace for 61 homers, 100 extra-base hits, and 413 total bases. Doing one of those things would be absurd. All three is hard to fathom. Since April 27th, a span of 100 team games, Judge is hitting .380/.507/.829 (260 wRC+). How is that even real? That’s not a two-week heater. That is four months of being the most dominant offensive force many of us will ever see. Except I also said that in 2022. Who’s to say Judge can’t be better than this? 

Soto is a metronome. Has he had more than 2-3 bad games in a row at any point this season? We’ve been fortunate to watch some all-time greats come through the Bronx during our lifetimes. Soto is right up there with any of them. His bat is messianic. I have no idea how things will play out for the 2024 Yankees these next few weeks. I just know Judge and Soto are having two of the greatest individual seasons ever, and they’re on the same team at the same time. 

“Two guys that are great, back to back,” Aaron Boone told Bryan Hoch after Wednesday’s win. “They obviously root for one another. I think they really appreciate each other. One right-handed, one left-handed. They are different in how they do it, and I think they like doing what they did tonight.”

Gil to the IL

Absolute grind of a start for Luis Gil on Tuesday: 3 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 6 BB, 3 K, 1 HR on 78 pitches. He’s walked 13 batters in his last three starts after walking 14 batters in his previous seven starts. Gil has never been blessed with good control. Even at his best earlier this year, he was merely around the zone more than he was pounding the zone. Rarely does a graph sum up a player’s season so well:

Gil exited Tuesday’s start with what the Yankees called lower back tightness. A day later they placed him on the injured list with a lower back strain. Back trouble could have certainly contributed to the poor control and all those walks Tuesday, but eh, Gil walking a bunch of guys is not out of the ordinary. He’s on the injured list now though. The Yankees say it’ll be a short-term thing, for what it’s worth.

“It’s minor. Just some lower back soreness,” Boone told Hoch. “I think he feels better even already today. The hope is that he’ll be able to stay pretty active through this stint and hopefully be back pitching right around (when he’s eligible to be activated on Sept. 5th) … We don’t expect it to be long.”

Gil is up to 124.2 innings this season, well over his previous career high (108.2 innings in 2021). There is no such thing as a “good” injury, but if the back issue is as minor as the Yankees claim, then maybe a little breather in late August will benefit Gil in the long run. Rest up a bit, come back in September, then get back to mowing through hitters down the stretch. That would be cool.

Will Warren replaced Gil on the roster and he’s really the only candidate to step into the rotation. If not Warren, then I guess it would be … Thomas Pannone? A not very stretched out Yoendrys Gómez? He threw only 49 pitches in his most recent Triple-A start. Warren’s had one good start, one bad start, and one so-so start. He’ll hold down the No. 5 spot until whichever one of Gil, Cody Poteet, or Clarke Schmidt returns first.

Because Warren was still in the 15-day waiting period after being sent down following his White Sox start, the Yankees had to use Gil’s injured list stint to bring him back. This wasn’t a “call up an extra reliever for a few days, then call up Warren when the rotation spot comes up” situation. Gil’s injury was the only way to bring Warren back up so quickly. He’s lined up to start sometime this weekend.

Not sure there’s much more to add here. Gil’s struggling to throw strikes and his workload is in uncharted territory, two things that might be related. Hopefully this back injury really is minor and he comes back with a second wind in two weeks. And in the meantime, hopefully Warren holds down the rotation spot and we see more of the guy we saw in Chicago, not the guy who got blasted by the Angels.

The less LeMahieu, the better

DJ LeMahieu is 210 plate appearances into his season and he’s hitting .189/.263/.248 (48 wRC+) with more GIDP (11) than extra-base hits (seven). He’s been worse against lefties (15 wRC+) than righties (64 wRC+) despite having the platoon advantage and he’s 3-for-23 (.130) in his last seven games. Look at his spray chart in those seven games. He hit seven balls out of the infield and that’s being generous.

And it’s not like LeMahieu is playing good defense, right? He misplayed two balls Tuesday night (why didn’t he step on first here? why didn’t he let Gleyber Torres field this ball?) and I’d argue it was really three because he hesitated to throw home on this play. Entering play Thursday, LeMahieu was at -1.7 WAR this season. That’s dead last among all players in baseball.

“It’s been rough. No question about it,” Boone said about LeMahieu’s season after Tuesday’s loss. “He has had moments where he’s gotten it going a little bit, but it’s been tough. I know he’s working his tail off to get it right and be a contributor. At this point, we’ve got to just keep grinding with him.”

No, the Yankees don’t have to “just keep grinding with him.” I don’t doubt for a second that LeMahieu is working hard to get his season back on the rails, but he’s a 36-year-old career middle infielder who’s had injuries the last few years. The aging curve usually isn’t kind to those guys. The Yankees have 34 games remaining and the AL East race is still so very tight. It is time to play your best players, and LeMahieu isn't one of them.

Who should the Yankees play at first base until Anthony Rizzo returns? Ben Rice has been terrible since his three-homer game (.122/.227/.268 and 41 wRC+) and the Yankees have seemingly decided he can’t hit lefties – one of my least favorite things about this team is they don’t give players a chance to prove them wrong, once they make up their mind about a player, it’s final – so I guess the answer is Oswaldo Cabrera? That is a scathing indictment of the front office and the roster construction. 

It’s also the best the Yankees can do right now. Again, LeMahieu is closing in on -2 WAR. He actively harms the Yankees at the plate and in the field. LeMahieu has not started the last two games and he should not start again anytime soon. It sucks things have gotten to this point, but this is what it is. We can revisit LeMahieu’s role when the Yankees have more breathing room in the AL East.

(Not pinch-hitting for LeMahieu against sidewinding righty Nick Sandlin with runners on first and second and one out in the sixth inning Tuesday was an incredibly dumb decision. Austin Wells was not yet in the game and that was the time to use him. Instead, LeMahieu hit a 1-6-3 GIDP ball back to Sandlin. Brutal, man.)

The less Verdugo, the better too

Alex Verdugo is 0-for-19 in his last five games and he’s hitting .208/.285/.283 (62 wRC+) since the All-Star break. It’s a .218/.270/.331 (68 wRC+) line in over 400 plate appearances since May 1st. Boone said Verdugo’s been hitting into “tough luck” the other day, which, lol. When you roll three ground balls to second base a night, it’s not bad luck. The Yankees have 34 games remaining to find out if Jasson Domínguez can be the guy in the postseason. If El Marciano stinks it up, they can go back to Verdugo. Enough is enough. Try someone else, specifically your most highly regarded prospect.

(I know keeping Domínguez down until whatever date will make him eligible for a Prospect Promotion Incentive pick, but I don’t care. The odds Domínguez gets that pick are small, and even if he does, the player the Yankees select with that pick is 4-5 years away from the big leagues. Put the best team on the field right now and stop worrying about the 2029 Yankees.)

Miscellany

Nestor was nasty Wednesday: 7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K (video) on a night the bullpen needed a breather. Cortes is the first Yankee with back-to-back starts of seven innings, no walks, and no runs since Ron Guidry in 1977. He is 11th in the league with 148.1 innings and he has a 4.00 ERA (104 ERA+) and 3.82 FIP. He’s had a few blowups this year (which starter hasn’t?), but I’m not sure what more you could want from a guy who was penciled in as the No. 4-5 starter. Nestor is overhated … Giancarlo Stanton hit this pitch into Monument Park on Thursday (video) and I’m not sure there is another person on Earth who can do that.

Judge is an incredible hitter period and a historically great power hitter, but I swear, no one hits more “how in the world did that get out???” home runs than Giancarlo … Wells catching Gerrit Cole during the day game Thursday after starting the night game Wednesday is notable. Jose Trevino has been Cole’s personal catcher whenever healthy the last few years, and a day game after a night game gave the Yankees a built-in excuse to sit Wells, but nope, he was back out there. Trevino started three of the first four games off the injured list, but Wells pinch-hit for him twice in those three games, and he has more plate appearances (16 vs. 9) since Trevino was activated. I am pleasantly surprised Wells is still playing as much as he is. I fully expected to see Trevino behind the plate Thursday. Also, congrats to Cole for his 150th career win Thursday. Forgot 300 wins. Who will be next to 200 wins after Cole, assuming he gets there? … Torres has only one extra-base hit (a double) in his last 21 games, but in those 21 games he has a .340 OBP. He’s top 15 in pitches per plate appearance too. Gleyber has hit leadoff each of the last six games, including against righty pitchers. On a team with no good leadoff options, he’s the best the Yankees have. The Yankees should keep him there for a bit and see what happens … And finally, Tuesday might’ve been the sloppiest, most boneheaded game the Yankees have played this season, and that’s a really high bar. LeMahieu botched multiple plays in the field and Boone let him stay in to face righties in obvious pinch-hit situations in the late innings (LeMahieu vs. Emmanuel Clase is elder abuse). Also, Trent Grisham got thrown out at home (video), either because he didn’t run hard or because Luis Rojas had the stop sign up for a moment before waving him home.

Blame both of ‘em, Grisham and Rojas. And there was the botched rundown too (video). No one bothered to cover second base. That’s on Judge and Verdugo. The infielders and the pitcher have other responsibilities there. It’s on the outfielders to come in and help out at second. Instead, Judge and Verdugo both got caught napping. Mistakes like this are the difference between winning two of three and sweeping, guys. Clean it up, I ask for the seventh year in a row.

Injury updates

Chisholm (elbow) took batting practice Wednesday and Thursday and said he feels good. Today’s the first day he is eligible to come off the injured list and Oswald Peraza was sent to Triple-A after Thursday’s game with no corresponding move announced. You can put two and two together … The minor leaguers with Double-A Somerset are gonna eat good this weekend. Several rehabbing big leaguers are joining the team:

• Clarke Schmidt (lat): Will make his first rehab start Friday. He expects to throw 50-ish pitches.

• Jon Berti (calf): He will start a rehab assignment Friday as well.

• Ian Hamilton (lat): Expected to start a rehab assignment Saturday.

• Cody Poteet (triceps): He’ll make his second rehab start Sunday.

• Anthony Rizzo (arm): Starting a rehab assignment this weekend. He’ll DH initially.

Poteet threw 34 pitches in two scoreless innings in his first rehab start this past Tuesday. Hamilton threw live BP to Rizzo and Brad Ausmus (yes, really) on Tuesday. With any luck, we’ll be sitting here in 10-14 days trying to sort through a roster crunch because everyone’s close to coming off the injured list. The old September call up rules would’ve been helpful this year … And finally, Brian Cashman told Joel Sherman the Yankees have not considered sending Anthony Volpe to Triple-A for a mental/mechanical reset. “(He’s) by far our best player at that position and you could argue he’s our best player by far in our infield,” Cashman said, which is the problem! If Volpe is your best infielder, your infield stinks. Also, this tells you what the Yankees think of Peraza if they consider Volpe “by far” their best shortstop. The defense wouldn’t take much of a hit going from Volpe to Peraza (the case can be made Peraza is the better defender), and if you value Peraza’s bat that much less than Volpe’s, yikes.

Up next

The homestand concludes with three games against the very bad Rockies (47-81 and -205 run differential), then the Yankees head down to Washington DC for three games with the slightly less bad Nationals (58-70 and -62 run differential). Here’s what’s coming up:

• Friday vs. Rockies: LHP Carlos Rodón vs. LHP Kyle Freeland (7pm ET on YES)

• Saturday vs. Rockies: TBA vs. RHP Bradley Blalock (2pm ET on YES, MLBN)

• Sunday vs. Rockies: TBA vs. LHP Austin Gomber (1:30pm ET on YES)

• Monday at Nationals: TBA vs. LHP Mitchell Parker (6:45pm ET on YES)

Warren was available out of the bullpen the last two games but was not needed, and now the Yankees will decide where to slot him into the rotation, hence the TBAs. Warren last pitched last Wednesday. He’s ready to go. The TBAs line up to be Marcus Stroman on Saturday, Gil’s spot on Sunday, and Cortes on Monday. Starting Warren on Saturday and giving Stroman an extra day seems like a good idea.

(While the Yankees are playing the Rockies and Nationals, the Orioles will be playing the Astros and Dodgers. It is time to open up some breathing room in the division.)

Saturday is Old Timers’ Day and the 15th anniversary celebration of the 2009 World Series, so that’ll be fun. The Yankees say the ceremony starts at 12pm ET. YES always carries it. Not sure about MLB Network or MLBtv though. Gary Phillips says the Yankees invited Brett Gardner (and just about every 2009 Yankee except Sergio Mitre, who's in prison), but he didn’t respond. Gardner is living a private life in retirement, which is in no way surprising.

“I think the vast majority of it is he just wants to stay private and do his own thing,” Gardner’s agent told Phillips. “I think he was disappointed about (the way his career ended) too. I know he was, but in terms of being bitter or upset, he hasn’t said that to me.”

2. Rapid fire thoughts. John Sterling spent a few innings in the radio booth the other night and apparently he might come out of retirement to call the postseason, per Andrew Marchand (subs. req’d). “The ball is in (WFAN’s) court. They would have to ask. I would feel bad for the guys who have done the games all year,” Sterling said. I don’t listen to a ton of games on the radio these days, but other than Rickie Ricardo, the rotating cast of broadcasters has been underwhelming at best (making Suzyn Waldman share a booth with Craig Carton was insulting). I know you’re never supposed to say never, but I can safely say that if I ever get to retire, I'm never coming out of retirement to work again lol. If Sterling wants to, then good for him.

Mailbag Questions of the Week

El asks: When Judge hangs the cleats up, how many homers will he have?

I will say 525. He’s at 305 right now, so I’m projecting another 220 home runs over the final seven years and six weeks of his career, assuming this is Aaron Judge’s last contract (his contract takes him through his age 39 season, so I think that’s a safe assumption). Judge is on pace for 61 homers this season. Let’s say he gets to 61 and finishes this season with 318 career homers. That means I’m projecting 207 homers from 2025-31, or 29.6 per year. Is this breakdown crazy?

• 2025 (age 33): 49 HR

• 2026 (age 34): 43 HR

• 2027 (age 35): 36 HR

• 2028 (age 36): 30 HR

• 2029 (age 37): 22 HR

• 2030 (age 38): 16 HR

• 2031 (age 39): 11 HR

That’s a pretty graceful decline. Even for all-time greats, the mid-to-late 30s aren’t always pretty. Miguel Cabrera hit 38 home runs at age 33 and never hit more than 16 in a season again, for example. Also, 207 home runs from 2025-31 is a lot! Those will be Judge’s age 33-39 seasons. Only 19 players have hit 207 homers after their age 32 season. I’m projecting one of the best home run declines ever.

My CBS colleague Matt Snyder went through this same exercise recently and projected Judge to finish with 589 home runs, which would put him tenth on the all-time list. I will take the under on 589 and the over on 500, and I don’t think I would have taken the over on 500 as recently as last season. Judge is a freak of nature and I mean that as a compliment. He is getting better, and there’s basically zero historical precedent for a guy this big and with this much natural power. The normal aging curve may not apply to him.

Andrew asks: Who is starting at 1B during game 1 of the playoffs for the Yankees?

If everyone’s healthy, it’s Anthony Rizzo. 100%. Ben Rice has been terrible since the three-homer game and DJ LeMahieu has somehow been worse. The writing is on the wall. How will Rizzo perform? Beats me. He was really bad before getting hurt (.223/.289/.341 and 79 wRC+ with weirdly shaky defense), but what other choice do the Yankees have? I think the plan is Rizzo at first base when he returns, and maybe LeMahieu gets starts there against tough lefties. Rizzo at first as long as he’s healthy though. Take it to the bank.

Alessandro asks: With Devin Williams set to earn $10 million next year, and all of our bullpen struggles, can you see the Yankees calling the Brewers about him?

Williams has a $10.5M club option with a $250,000 buyout for 2025, so it’s a $10.25M decision. If the Brewers decline that option, he’ll still be under team control as an arbitration-eligible player. Basically, if the Brewers think Williams will get more than $10.25M in arbitration, they’ll pick up the option. If they think he’ll get less, they’ll decline it and negotiate a new salary/go to a hearing. Williams is making $7M this year and he missed the first 104 games with a back injury. He might not get to $10.25M in arbitration.

I have to think Williams will be on the trade block this winter. That $10.5M salary would be roughly 9% of Milwaukee's payroll, and the Brewers are really good at putting together bullpens. They traded Corbin Burnes when he was a year away from free agency. They got out ahead of things with Josh Hader and traded him 1.5 years before free agency. Milwaukee trading Williams for young players and replacing him in the bullpen with a cheaper reliever would be on brand. (They showed they can adequately replace Williams earlier this season too.)

Williams turns 30 next month and he got roughed up last time out (0.2 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 3 BB, 2 K), so his small sample season numbers aren’t impressive (8.2 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 5 BB, 16 K, 1 HR), but he’s been very good more often than not since returning. His velocity is up from the last few years too. At 94.9 mph, it’s the best his fastball has been since 2021 (95.4 mph). His Airbender is Airbending …

… and he looks good and healthy. The injury – Williams had stress fractures (plural) in his back – means you’ll have to dig into the medicals before going through with a trade, but the early returns are promising, and the track record is impeccable. Based on what we know right now, yes, the Yankees should call the Brewers about Williams after the season. He’ll be available and they need a top flight reliever(s). He’s pricey, but the Yankees can afford it, and it’s just a one-year commitment.

(If he stays healthy and has a typical Williams year in 2025, he’s the rare reliever who would decline the qualifying offer. You can recoup a prospect that way.)

The last elite reliever traded with one full year of control remaining was, uh, Wade Davis? Actually, it was Raisel Iglesias, but that was a pure salary dump for the Reds. The Royals traded one year of Davis to the Cubs for four years of Jorge Soler. High-end rental reliever trades include both Aroldis Chapman deals (Yankees to Cubs, Royals to Rangers), Zack Britton, and the various David Robertson trades. The trade packages are all over the place. Hard to pin down what a reasonable package for Williams looks like.

The Burnes and Hader trades tell us the Brewers don’t hunt the biggest names. They went for MLB-ready or near-MLB-ready players in both trades, and more quantity than quality. I suspect Milwaukee will want 2-3 near-MLB-ready guys for Williams. Big name players usually get traded for less than you expect. I dunno what the trade package looks like. Williams is definitely on the offseason radar though.

Daniel asks: At this point, the missing players in the Yankees bullpen are just making me sad: Lasagna, Effross, Trivino, Hamilton, Burdi….But really it’s Effross that I’m worried about. Up to 18 appearances at AAA as of Sunday, and not even a whisper of being called up. Is he cooked?

It’s definitely red flag-y that the Yankees haven’t called Scott Effross up yet, especially when they went from Enyel De Los Santos to Tim Mayza last week (with a Will Warren spot start mixed in). There was an open bullpen spot and Effross got passed over. Maybe they wanted a second lefty, maybe Mayza had an opt out we didn’t know about. I dunno. But a bullpen spot was open and it did not go to Effross.

The overall Triple-A numbers are not great – 4.12 ERA (3.76 FIP) with 22.2 K% and 6.2 BB% in 19.2 innings (.282 xwOBA as a measure of contact quality allowed) – though Effross has been much better the last few times out. He made only two appearances with High-A Tampa, so he was still knocking off the rust when he first got to Scranton. Effross seems to be rounding into form now. I think? Maybe?

There are two concerns with his stuff. One, Effross is still building arm strength and velocity. He’s not a hard-thrower, but he was in the 87-89 mph range when he first got to Scranton. His velocity is gradually creeping up, though it’s still south of where he was in 2022:

And two, Effross’ slider isn’t sliding as much. His slider is missing about three inches of horizontal break. That’s a big number. His slider horizontal break is down about 33% from 2022. To put it another way, Effross right now is not the guy he was in 2022. His fastball is a bit short and the slider isn’t moving as much. Forget the ERA and FIP in Triple-A. This is what’s important. Effross’ stuff is down.

Does it mean Effross is cooked forever? That’s always possible. Effross turns 31 in December. He’s not a young kid, and these deception guys without eye-popping stuff have the most to lose with Tommy John surgery (or any arm injury for that matter). If their stuff doesn’t bounce all the way back after elbow reconstruction, they go from bullpen mainstays to fringe roster candidates real quick.

That said, Effross had Tommy John surgery in Oct. 2022 and then back surgery in Dec. 2023. He’s missed a lot of time and is coming back from two major procedures. We should give him time to really get back into the swing of things before declaring him cooked. Personally, I consider Effross a non-factor for 2024. We can reevaluate things in Spring Training. I can tell you this much: If the Yankees believed Effross could help them right now, he’d be in the bullpen. He’s not, which means they don’t.

Joe asks: Ben Gamel was just DFA’ed and it made me realize he has been in the league for 9 years and 2200+ at bats. In your time following the Yankee’s system, what former fringe prospect has most surprised you in carving out a long-term career?

The Yankees drafted Gamel in the 2010 tenth round, he made his big league debut in May 2016, then the Yankees traded him to the Mariners for prospect righties Juan De Paula and Jio Orozco that August. Neither made it to the show, though De Paula was one of the two players the Yankees traded to the Giants for Andrew McCutchen, so they got value out of him that way. (The Giants traded De Paula to the Blue Jays for Kevin Pillar the following spring.)

Anyway, 105 position players have appeared in at least one MLB game every season since 2016, and Gamel is one of ‘em. He’s bounced from the Yankees to the Mariners to the Guardians to the Pirates to the Padres to the Mets and now to the Astros, who claimed him off waivers earlier this week. Gamel’s a career .252/.333/.382 (96 wRC+) hitter and +1.1 WAR player in 703 MLB games. At the Triple-A level, he’s a career .303/.381/.468 (133 wRC+) hitter. Classic Quad-A player. It’s a hard game.

As for my answer, Phil Coke immediately jumped to mind. Coke was a spare arm in the minors. It wasn’t until the Yankees put him in the bullpen late in 2008, his age 25 season, that he really popped. To use Baseball America as an authority, they didn’t rank Coke among their top 30 Yankees prospects until 2019 (after his standout stint as a September call up in 2008). Coke spent parts of nine seasons in the big leagues and made himself a few million bucks. Didn’t see that coming on Opening Day 2008.

I definitely would have taken the under on Vidal Nuño pitching in six different seasons and throwing 377 innings as a big leaguer (he’s still active in the Mexican League!). This is Year 8 as a big leaguer for Kyle Higashioka. Even as a good defensive catcher, I didn’t see him hanging around that long. I bet Shane Greene would’ve lit up pitch models back in the day. He was an interesting sleeper type more than a top prospect, yet he spent 10 years in the big leagues and went to an All-Star Game. Force me to pick one, and it’s Coke.

Mark asks: A lot of stuff has been tossed out there to improve the offense. I know this would never happen, but would going to three balls for a walk help?

We can use 1-0 counts to estimate the impact. Three balls for a walk is functionally the same as starting every at-bat with a 1-0 count, and the league is hitting .256/.372/.431 after a 1-0 count this season. That’s a 126 OPS+ when compared to the league’s .244/.313/.401 line in all situations. So, the simple answer is offense would increase 26%, give or take. That’s a huge, huge jump. I’m all for more offense, but that might be too much? That’s more than a run per game league-wide. Obvious statement is obvious: This would be a monumental change to the foundation of the sport. Teams would change their strategies both offensively and on the mound. Three balls for a walk is ripe for unforeseeable wrinkles. (I would not enjoy watching a parade of hitters go up to the plate hunting a walk. Teams will develop them to do so.)

(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.)