March 28th, 2024: Soto, Volpe, Cortes, Verdugo, Cabrera, Mailbag

The new road jerseys look sharp, no? I might be in the minority, but I like the blue lettering with no white outline. Anyway, best win of the season! Nothing else is even close! I mean, there’s a non-zero chance that winds up actually being the best win of the season, right? Anyway, what a great Opening Day. Tough first inning, but almost everything after that was cool. The four-run comeback is the second largest Opening Day comeback in franchise history. The Yankees had a nine-run comeback against the Red Sox in 1950. Here now is Friday morning’s post Thursday night. That game ruled and I might as well get this out there now while we’re all still riding the high.

1. Opening Day thoughts. It’s too bad Minute Maid Park has a roof and Friday’s not an off-day. I could’ve gone for the usual "off-day after Opening Day" just to savor that win a little more. I guess the Yankees will just have to win Game 2 too. Maybe a blowout this time? Here are a few thoughts on the Opening Day win.

Juan Soto is a New York Yankee

Superstar players make superstar plays, and in the ninth inning Thursday, noted poor defender Juan Soto threw the tying run out at the plate to preserve a one-run lead (video). The Astros challenged both the tag and Jose Trevino blocking the plate – you can challenge both at the same time apparently? – to no avail. Mauricio Dubón was out and the Yankees held on to win. Things you love to see:

"My mindset was just try to make a great throw to the plate, and let Trevy do what he needs to do,” Soto said after the game (video). “... It felt pretty good man. I worked all Spring Training long on my arm and my throws from right field. To see this, it’s a great feeling. It just tells you I’m going the right way.”

The throw was the highlight of the game, but Soto also went 1-for-3 with two walks, and the one hit was a run-scoring single with the bases loaded to get the Yankees on the board (video). One of his two outs was a called strike three on a pitch that looked to be out of the zone. Every at-bat is an event. Soto looks cool even when he takes a pitch. No further commentary. I’m so happy this dude is a Yankee.

“Juan Soto was a missing element, I’ll tell you that much,” Aaron Boone said when asked whether the Yankees lacked something like Soto’s swagger in recent years (video). “... There’s no question though that he embodies who we want to be on offense. Wear you down, grind you out.”

Volpe’s big day

One single, three walks, and four terrific plate appearances for Anthony Volpe. His fifth plate appearance didn’t go so well, but Josh Hader will do that to you. Volpe singled back up the middle in the second inning, drew a four-pitch walk in the fourth, a four-pitch walk to force in a run in the fifth, and then went from 0-2 to a walk in the seventh. That third walk was really, really impressive.

Ryan Pressly has some of the nastiest stuff in the game – everything is high spin and moving all over the place – and he held hitters to a .140/.138/.175 line with a 70.5% strikeout rate after getting ahead in the count 0-2 last season (I do love a good OBP > AVG line). He did not walk a single batter after getting ahead in the count 0-2 in 2023. Then Volpe did it to him on Opening Day.

Opening Day was Volpe’s first career three-walk game and the second time he reached base four times in a game (he had two hits and two walks last April 26th). At 22 years and 335 days, Volpe is the second youngest Yankee to reach base four times on Opening Day, per Yankees Stats. The only player who did it at a younger age was (who else?) Mickey Mantle. He did it at 20 years and 179 days in 1952.

We didn’t see Volpe’s new flatter swing much on Opening Day – he swung only four times all game (three foul balls and the single) – but we did see a patient hitter, one who wasn’t swinging out of his shoes like the rookie we saw last season. It’s one game and I don't want to make too much of it, but if Volpe sticks with that approach and stays within the zone, he’ll have a monster year. Good things happen when you swing at strikes.

“Embodied what we want to be. Every at-bat, even the punch out – I haven’t seen all the calls – he was on time, tough at-bats,” Boone said about Volpe’s game (video) “… I think he looks like a way better hitter to me (this year), period.”

Nestor settles down

One inning into Opening Day, the “the Yankees should have signed another starter!” crowd was validated. I am a member of that crowd, though credit to Nestor Cortes for settling down and giving the Yankees some length after that messy three-run first inning. And I do mean messy. Every fastball was either in the middle of the plate or way above the zone for an easy take:

Cortes gave up a loud leadoff solo home run to Jake Meyers in the second inning but I didn’t think it was a terrible pitch. It was a fastball on the inside corner, and Meyers just beat him to the spot. Sometimes you get got. After that Meyers homer though, Nasty Nestor retired 12 of the final 13 batters he faced, and only five of those 13 batters hit the ball out of the infield. First inning: bad. Everyone else: acceptable.

“I felt like that first inning, I was trying to pepper the top of the zone, and I wasn’t clipping it enough,” Cortes said (video). “I think it was after that home run that I gave up, I started shaking off some pitches, then went in the dugout and talked to Trevy, and said, ‘Hey, let’s try to start mixing up pitches.’ I started locating, and I thought I used both sides of the plate real well after that.”

With any luck, we’ll be able to look back and chalk that tough first inning up to Opening Day jitters. Missing above the zone is often a sign the pitcher is overthrowing, so maybe Nestor was too amped up? Four runs in five innings is no good, but one run in four innings after giving up three in the first? That’s a nice recovery. Nestor settled in and gave the offense a chance to get back into the game, and get back into it they did.

Verdugo’s first game

This was shaping up to be a Very Annoying Game early on. Because it wasn’t bad enough that the Astros tagged Cortes for three runs in the first, the Yankees banged into three – three! – double plays in the first four innings. Framber Valdez did not pitch well. Five hits and six walks in 4.2 innings? Come on. He retired only 11 of the 23 batters he faced! The Yankees had him on the ropes all afternoon, but damn yo, those double plays.

The Yankees loaded the bases in the second and fourth innings and got zero runs out of it because of double plays. Trevino did the deed in the second and Alex Verdugo did it in the fourth. In the seventh though, Verdugo gave the Yankees the 5-4 lead with a two-strike sacrifice fly against Pressly, who again is very tough. Verdugo reached out and poked the ball to left field (video). Nothing fancy:

“Good at-bats against Pressly there. Made him work really hard,” Boone said (video). “Pressly’s a tough at-bat. For a lefty especially. And Rizz I thought did a great job going the other way. And then Dugie just kinda knowing the situation and staying inside it, knowing he wants to get it in the air to the big park of the field. Just a pro at-bat.”

I love home runs, dingers rule, but that is the kinda run the Yankees were simply unable to score the last few years. The timely two-strike sacrifice fly in the late innings. The Yankees didn’t have the bat-to-ball guys to do it. That was a focal point this offseason. Soto and Verdugo both have well-above-average contact rates, and Trent Grisham’s a good bat-to-ball guy too. He strikes out as much as he does because he takes so many pitches, not because he swings and misses a ton.

I’m turning into a crusty old man here but that at-bat, getting the ball to the outfield with a runner on third and less than two outs in the seventh inning of a tie game, is winning baseball, and the Yankees could not do it the last few years. They didn’t have the personnel. Now they do. And every so often that contact-happy personnel will bang into a double play, it comes with the territory, but it can also help you win close games. It did Thursday.

(Also, shoutout to Verdugo for his running catch in the gap in the seventh inning (video). Does the cast of characters the Yankees played in left field last season make that catch? No. No they do not.)

Bullpen on parade

I am already 0-for-1 with my bold predictions. Ian Hamilton was not the first reliever out of the bullpen. Jonathan Loáisiga was, and in the bold predictions post, I said I considered Loáisiga the biggest threat to my prediction, so I guess I got that part right. Anyway, Loáisiga gave up four hits in two scoreless innings, but nothing was hit especially hard. Couple jam shots and balls muscled to the outfield.

The Yankees are planning to use Loáisiga as a multi-inning guy with plenty of rest between outings – I’m guessing we won’t see him again until Sunday at the earliest – so he went two innings and faced the top of the lineup in the seventh. That left the bottom of the order for Hamilton in the eighth inning. You could argue Hamilton is better than Loáisiga, but the Yankees trust Loáisiga against anyone, so it lined up nicely.

There is always this feeling out period with the bullpen early in the season. Guys are still settling into roles, and I was curious to see where Boone would go after Loáisiga. Hamilton was the right call in that spot. I’m intrigued by Nick Burdi, but he hasn’t earned that trust yet, and it wasn’t the right lane for lefties Victor González and Caleb Ferguson. Hamilton’s gonna be super important this year, isn’t he?

Miscellany

Jon Berti did not get to Houston until 2am Thursday morning, so Boone gave him the day to get settled in, and Oswaldo Cabrera started at third base. And he hit a home run! The game-tying home run, in fact (video). He has a pretty left-handed swing, doesn't he? Cabrera quietly went 10-for-29 (.345) with six walks and five strikeouts in his final 13 spring games. I badly want Oswaldo to be good. He’s so fun. I hope the clutch Opening Day homer and the great finish to Spring Training is a sign he’s coming around (also, Cabrera hit right-handed against Valdez, so I guess Framber isn’t one of the lefties he’ll go left-on-left against) … Aaron Judge doubled to start the go-ahead rally in the seventh inning. He has a hit in all eight Opening Days he's played. Only Lou Gehrig (12) and Alex Rodriguez (nine) have longer Opening Day hitting streaks as a Yankee ... Verdugo started Opening Day, not Grisham, so the Yankees are not using a quirky two-lefty platoon with the two of them (yet). Also, Grisham did not come in for defense late. Soto would be the obvious guy to pull for defense, but you can’t take his bat out of a one-run game. I’m curious to see how the Yankees use Grisham. There’s no clear role when the outfield is at full health … And finally, Austin Wells has a new number: 28. He was No. 88 last year and throughout Spring Training. No. 28 is a better and more “you’ve made it” number, though No. 88 was growing on me. No. 8 is retired for both Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey, so No. 88 carried on the catching lineage. Will Jasson Domínguez keep No. 89? I reckon no. We’ll find out later this year. Also, Berti is No. 19. First Yankee to wear it since Masahiro Tanaka.

2. Rapid fire thoughts. Jordan Montgomery finally has a team. He hooked on with the Diamondbacks. It’s a one-year contract worth $25M, and Montgomery gets a $20M player option if he makes 10 starts. Arizona won the pennant last season, then added Montgomery, Joc Pederson, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Eugenio Suárez over the winter. They raised payroll more than $40M despite getting dropped by Bally Sports. Good for them. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Jon Heyman says the Yankees offered Montgomery a heavily deferred four-year, $72M contract that would have paid him $10M a year from 2024-27, and not made him whole until 2041. No surprise Montgomery passed on that and took the money upfront. I’m not sure what more the Yankees could’ve wanted, the contracts Montgomery and Blake Snell took were as favorable as anyone could have possibly expected, but they went elsewhere. Scott Boras had an awful offseason, maybe his worst ever, and the Yankees didn’t take advantage. They’ll now have to trade prospects at the deadline to solve any pitching problems when they could have solved them for just money in the offseason … And finally, the sale of the Orioles is complete. Former owner Peter Angelos passed away at age 94 this past Saturday, and on Wednesday, the owners unanimously approved the sale to Baltimore billionaire David Rubenstein. It is now his team and the Angelos failsons are out of the picture. What does this mean? No one really knows yet, but the potential for the Orioles to increase spending now exists (it would be hard for Rubenstein to spend less than the Angeloses), and that’s bad news for the Yankees. The O’s payroll is currently 27th in baseball. I would be surprised if it’s that low on Opening Day 2025.

Mailbag Questions of the Week

Ray asks: FanGraphs doesn't think much of the Yankees bullpen, ranking it 19th in baseball. I don't think the 'pen is as strong as it's been the last 2-3 years, but 19th seems low. In your estimation how does the Yanks' pen stack up?

I agree 19th seems low, though I don’t think it’s egregious. Maybe they should be in the 11-15 range instead? On paper, the bullpen isn’t as deep or as strong as the last 4-5 years, and the Yankees could be in a real bind if Jonathan Loáisiga gets hurt again, or neither Victor González nor Caleb Ferguson emerges as a trusted lefty. The Triple-A depth isn’t as impressive now that Ron Marinaccio’s crashing and burning.

We do have to give the Yankees the benefit of the doubt with bullpens. They always seem to figure it out, and they manage to pull a capital-D Dude out of nowhere each year. Last season it was Ian Hamilton. The year before it was Mike King. The year before that it was Clay Holmes and Wandy Peralta. Who’s to say Clayton Beeter or Yoendrys Gómez or someone else won’t be a high leverage guy in a few months?

To me, it kinda feels like the Yankees are relying on their ability to pull good relievers out of nowhere more than they did in the past. Hamilton was found money last year. Give the Yankees a truth serum and I think they’d tell you even they didn’t think Holmes would be this good. Those guys popped and gave the Yankees a boost. Now it feels like they’re relying on bullpen breakouts before they even happen.

My concern is workload. No Yankee threw even 80 pitches in a Spring Training game (Nestor Cortes threw 76 on Opening Day), so the Yankees are planning to really ease their starters into action. The bullpen is going to have to eat up A LOT of innings in April, and I’m worried about what that means for July, August, and September. FanGraphs might be too down on the bullpen. I don’t think they’re wrong to be down on it compared to the last few years though.

Adam asks: We now know the Yankees went with Gil as the fifth starter - my question is: before this announcement, would you have went with this choice as well? Me personally - the combination of being on the 40-man roster + spring training production (small sample caveats aside) made him the best choice (edging out Weaver and Warren/Beeter) but I’m curious to hear your perspective.

Yeah, I would have gone with Luis Gil over Will Warren as well. Gil looked better in Spring Training. The stuff was lively and he was more consistently around the zone than Warren, who was behind in the count an awful lot. Anecdotally, Gil just looked more ready to go through a Major League lineup twice, even if you ignore the stats. I’d say Gil won the job more than Warren lost it (I’m sure we’ll see Warren soon enough).

Aaron Boone said Gil being on the 40-man roster and Warren not didn’t factor into the decision, and I can buy that. The Yankees still have flexibility at the bottom of their 40-man roster – Oswaldo Peraza might be a 60-day injured list candidate, and no one will miss Clayton Andrews or Nick Ramirez – but if you don’t have to tie up a spot yet, that’s a nice little benefit. Someone would have to go to make room for Warren, and the more players you can keep, the better. Especially pitchers early in the season.

Jonathan asks: When do we decide who won the Jake Cave trade? More importantly, I recall you saying on multiple occasions Luis Gil had the makings of perhaps a Betances type reliever - not sure if you ever made that specific comparison but your descriptions always made me link the two -  and these days that's extremely useful. If Gil is pitching as well as anyone else in the rotation when Cole returns, do you keep Gil in the rotation and remove whoever is the worst performing starter at that time? Or do you remove Gil, keep his innings down, and try to turn him into a Betances type reliever with scary good stuff?

The Yankees traded Jake Cave for Luis Gil in March 2018 and we still don’t know who won that trade, right? Gil is just now getting an honest-to-goodness big league opportunity. Cave spent five years with the Twins as a fourth outfielder type, last year with the Phillies as an up-and-down guy, and they traded him to the Rockies last week. Now 31, Cave’s career totals are a .231/.293/.401 (88 wRC+) line and +2.0 WAR. I sure hope Gil can beat that, but who really knows?

As for the reliever thing, yeah, I’ve been on the “Gil is a future high leverage guy” train for a while because his control is poor, but given the state of the rotation, the Yankees might as well see things through as a starter. If Gil is pitching well when Gerrit Cole returns, I think you keep him in the rotation and let him keep building on it. Cole will hopefully be back in early June. That’s too soon to pull the plug on Gil as a starter for workload reasons. Get him through the first half, then re-evaluate. Ideally, Gil shoves as a starter, solidifies that as his long-term role, and slides into the bullpen for this postseason.

Isaac asks: With all the talk about the shaky pitching depth and the revamped offense, do you think the team's defense has been overlooked? The way I look at it, the best starting lineup has 1 above-average defender (Volpe) in it, and 8 average to terrible ones. I don't think it will be 2005 levels of bad, and nobody wants to watch last year's offense again, but this should be a concern, no?

Really? I think the defense should be improved. There were times last year the Yankees straight up could not count on their left fielder to catch a fly ball. Jake Bauers and Giancarlo Stanton made 35% of the starts in right field, and infielders Oswaldo Cabrera and Isiah Kiner-Falefa combined for 116 outfield starts. Even with Harrison Bader making 76 starts, Yankees outfielders were at -26 DRS and -7 OAA in 2023.

Alex Verdugo will be an upgrade in left field, Aaron Judge a downgrade in center field (that is somewhat mitigated by Trent Grisham), and are the Yankees really any worse off in right? Yankees right fielders were at -14 DRS and -11 OAA last year. Juan Soto was at -6 DRS and -9 OAA last season, though he played left field, not right. Maybe Soto will be a downgrade. I think we forget how bad the 2023 outfield was though.

The middle infield is unchanged and a full season of Anthony Rizzo will be better than a partial season of Anthony Rizzo. He’s very good around the first base bag. Third base is unsettled and there’s a chance an aging DJ LeMahieu (with a bad foot) will be a liability, and Oswald Peraza’s not around to step in. Catcher figures to be a downgrade with Austin Wells replacing Kyle Higashioka (and Ben Rortvedt). 

To be clear, I’m not saying the Yankees will be a standout defensive team. I just think they’ll be better than they were last year, especially in the outfield because they now employ actual outfielders. Third base has a chance to get messy, and if someone like Rizzo or Volpe gets hurt, then the Yankees are in trouble. I think the Yankees will be closer to average defensively this year rather than outright bad like they were last year.

Hunter asks: Hey Mike, how long until the 5 man rotation set up is rethought? I know there aren't really enough pitchers to go around these days as it is, but do you know how much it's being talked about in the league or would it even make a difference regarding the durability of the starter of there were 6 or 7 man rotations? 

It’s already happening. The Astros and Mets used a six-man rotation at times last year, the Brewers the two years before that, and a quick search says multiple teams may use one in 2024. It’s difficult to pull off because few teams have six legitimate Major League starters, but the game is trending toward smaller workloads, and the six-man rotation is the next logical step. This is how the five-man rotation came to be, right? The five-man rotation replaced the four-man rotation in the early 1970s because workloads were trending down. These seismic changes to the sport don’t take place overnight, but the shift from a five-man rotation to a six-man rotation is already underway. Give it 5-10 years and it’ll be more widespread (barring MLB intervention via a rule change that limits roster spots for pitchers, etc.).

Steve asks: I ask this every year, and you’re kind enough to answer it every year - so here it is again … For night owls that love baseball and tune into MLBtv or extra innings - are there any fun west coast teams/broadcasts that you’re looking forward to watching this season? I’ll throw in the caveat that I have an aversion to domed stadiums - which would only eliminate the DBacks and Rangers - their ballparks look especially dark for night games … yet Seattle’s looks ok - call me crazy.

It’s too early in the season to say for certain – I haven’t gotten into a routine yet – but I imagine I’ll watch the Dodgers a ton this year. They’re so good and they have so many fun players, and Dodger Stadium is a beautiful ballpark. It’s a very pleasant baseball-watching experience. I’m with Steve on the Mariners. Will the team be any good? Eh, I dunno, probably, but they have an excellent broadcast team, Julio Rodríguez, and great starting pitchers. That’s a strong foundation for late night baseball watching. I’m not sure how much I’ll watch the Padres but the Don Orsillo/Mark Grant duo is top tier if you like goofy broadcasters. They spend two innings trying to come up with single names for each other (like Madonna, Prince, etc.) the other night in the late innings of an exhibition game. I could see myself getting roped into the Giants. Great broadcasters and some new, fun players. I anticipate watching a lot of Dodgers and Mariners this year, with the Giants a dark horse to steal away attention.

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