February 13th, 2024: Spring Training, Fallen Prospects, Hader, Jones

UPDATE: I goofed. Aaron Boone's start of Spring Training press conference is Wednesday, not today. My bad. It will be on YES though (or maybe just the app, not 100% sure). Sorry about the mistake. Brian Cashman's press conference is Thursday.

* * *

ORIGINAL POST: In case you missed it last week, my annual Top 30 Prospects List went live Friday. More than 18,000 words of prospecty goodness (with more on the way this week). Have I mentioned lately that I started a new pricing tier after the calendar flipped to 2024? Just throwing that out there. Anyway, the offseason is over (kinda) and Spring Training begins this week. Thank goodness for that. Let’s get to today’s post.

1. Pitchers and catchers report. Spring Training has arrived. Yankees pitchers and catchers will report to Tampa today, then the position players will follow Monday. Many of them are already in town. If you watched the recent ALL-ACCESS: Anthony Volpe thing or any of Gleyber Torres’ offseason videos (they're surprisingly fun!), you saw those two working out in Tampa with Aaron Judge, DJ LeMahieu, Oswaldo Cabrera, and others.

Aaron Boone will have his start of Spring Training press conference at 1pm ET on Tuesday and the YES Network usually airs that. It’s the first day of Spring Training, so he’s going to say he’s excited, everyone looks great, etc. Brian Cashman will speak at 3pm ET on Thursday. MLB is pushing GM availability this spring, so every GM will speak formally at some point early in camp. YES will probably carry that too, though don't hold me to that.

As for the team itself, here’s what the roster looks like on the first day of Spring Training. An asterisk means the player is out of options and can not be sent to the minors without being exposed to waivers:

Ferguson, Holmes, Kahnle, Loáisiga, and Weaver all have 5+ years of service time and can refuse a minor league demotion, so only Effross and Hamilton can be shuttled in and out. I wouldn’t sweat a lack of bullpen flexibility on Feb. 13th. These things take care of themselves, usually because someone gets hurt in camp. They’re pitchers. They get hurt. That’s baseball.

Boone will surely be asked about his lineup Tuesday and I get why that’s on everyone’s mind, but it’s not something that needs to be decided on the first day of Spring Training. Also, there aren’t many position battles this spring. Cabrera and Peraza have options, so maybe those two bench spots are up for grabs, and I guess the pitching staff is never quite settled. That’s pretty much it, right? Everything else seems set.

PECOTA projects the Yankees as a true talent 94-win team, six wins better than anyone else in the AL East and one win behind the Astros in the AL in general. That projection seems high to me, though I guess it’s better than being projected for 78 wins. Here’s what ZiPS, my preferred projection system, says about the AL East heading into Spring Training:

ZiPS is inherently conservative – the O’s are the only AL team with a 90-win projection – so that 88-win projection is strong. The AL East picture looks right to me. The Yankees, Blue Jays, and Rays* bunched together a few wins behind the Orioles, and the Red Sox bringing up the rear. The team that stays healthiest will have the best chance of catching Baltimore. Obvious statement is obvious.

* You always have to adjust Tampa’s projection upward a few wins. Their thing is optimizing the specific skills of their players (platoons, matchups based on swing paths, etc.) and that’s difficult to model. The models see meh players. In reality, the Rays get the most out of 'em.

The outfield alignment will vary throughout the season – Soto will play right field primarily, but I bet we see him manning tiny left field in Houston in the first series of the regular season – and third base could be a work in progress depending how LeMahieu and Peraza perform. Otherwise things are mostly set. Here are the Yankees’ positional projections (via FanGraphs):

• C: +3.5 WAR (10th in MLB)
• 1B: +1.5 WAR (20th)
• 2B: +3.9 WAR (4th)
• SS: +3.3 WAR (13th)
• 3B: +2.7 WAR (12th)
• LF: +3.3 WAR (2nd behind Astros)
• CF: +4.8 WAR (2nd behind Mariners)
• RF: +6.2 WAR (2nd behind Braves)
• DH: +2.2 WAR (3rd)
• SP: +13.5 WAR (6th)
• RP: +2.6 WAR (17th)

That is the Yankees’ worst bullpen projection in a long time. I bet they beat it handily. Figuring out bullpens is the one thing the Yankees have done consistently well lately. Rizzo was great before the collision with Fernando Tatis Jr. last year and although all indications are he’s doing well, we just don’t know how he’ll perform until we see him back on the field. Concussions are tricky and it’s not always a smooth return.

The plan is to let an elite outfield carry a middle of the pack infield, and hope the pitching staff stays reasonably healthy. Injuries are going to happen. It’s a matter of limiting them if at all possible. I’m telling you anything you don’t already know when I say getting another 5.92 ERA in 127.2 combined innings from Cortes and Rodón could sink the season. The margins are that thin in this division.

There are still a lot – A LOT – of quality free agents remaining, and while I think the Yankees are done with their offseason heavy lifting, the door is open to add to their roster during Spring Training. The dream is Blake Snell’s market collapsing and the Yankees getting him on a one-year contract (or 2-3 years with opt outs), but I’m not gonna hold my breath. I bet Snell winds up with a big deal when it’s all said and done.

Last year Spring Training opened after the Yankees did nothing in the offseason to address their biggest weakness (offense) and everyone knew it, and the lack of an offensive upgrade felt like a cloud hanging over everything. The Yankees upgraded their roster this offseason in a way that attacked their weaknesses significantly (too right-handed and too prone to swings and misses). Could they have done more? Of course. But they did a lot.

I am definitely more excited heading into 2024 than I was heading into 2023 almost entirely because of Soto. Stroman and Verdugo are upgrades and are slotted in where they belong – Stroman as his team’s third best starter (assuming Rodón bounced back, which is a big assumption) and Verdugo as his team’s third best outfielder – and Grisham figures to be the Yankees’ best fourth outfielder since Aaron Hicks in 2017. I’m also looking forward to a full year of Wells.

Soto is a balance of power player. He can change a division race and a short postseason series all by himself. We’ll find out over the next few months whether the Yankees improved the roster enough around Soto and Cole and Judge to get back to the postseason and make a real run at the World Series. The long, long, long journey that is the 2024 season begins today.

2. Fallen Top 30 Prospects. Last week I published my annual Top 30 Prospects List (and Not Top 30 Prospects) and only 13 of the 30 were holdovers from last year. More than half the list is new additions. The 17 newbies were not in last year’s Top 30 either because I didn’t consider them Top 30 caliber, or because they weren’t in the organization yet. Here’s what happened to the 17 players they replaced:

• Graduated to MLB (4): RHP Jhony Brito, RHP Ron Marinaccio, SS Oswald Peraza, SS Anthony Volpe
• Traded (6): RHP Juan Carela, RHP Richard Fitts, OF Estevan Florial, SS Trey Sweeney, RHP Drew Thorpe, RHP Randy Vásquez
• Lost in Rule 5 Draft (1): RHP Carson Coleman
• Six others remain in the organization but fell out of the Top 30.

I explained where those traded prospects would’ve slotted into this year’s Top 30 at the bottom of the Top 30 post. We’re here to examine those last six prospects and why they fell out of the Top 30, and whether they can make it back into the Top 30 at some point in the future. Let’s dig in now, shall we?

OF Elijah Dunham (No. 18 in 2023)

Date of Birth: May 29th, 1998 (age 25)
Acquired: Signed as an undrafted free agent (June 18th, 2020) ($20,000 bonus)
2023 Stats: .230/.335/.389 (93 wRC+), 16 HR, 35 SB, 12.4 BB%, 27.1 K% (564 PA at AA, AAA)

What went wrong? For starters, the performance. Dunham began last season with Triple-A Scranton, didn’t hit (.216/.330/.340 and 74 wRC+), then got demoted to Double-A Somerset in July. He was worse in Double-A in 2023 (111 wRC+) than he was in 2022 (118 wRC+) too. Given the big league left field situation, all Dunham had to do was hit a little in Triple-A, and he might’ve gotten the call. Alas.

In last year’s Top 30, I mentioned Dunham had ‘tweener risk, and that is coming to pass. His bat is light for a corner outfield spot and his defense is short of what you want in center. He is a lefty, so he’s on the heavy side of the platoon, but the Triple-A ball-tracking data was not good (contact rates, chase rate, exit velocity, etc.). Dunham proved doubters wrong throughout college and early in his pro career. Last year was the first time he proved them right.

Can he make it back into the Top 30? No, probably not. Dunham turns 26 in May, and you really need to mash in Triple-A with this profile. Guys like this, who have questions about their bat and are average-ish defenders, need to put up like a .300/.400/.500 line in Triple-A to get noticed. Not sure I see Dunham doing that. The scouting reports and underlying data don’t support it. I ranked Dunham too high last year given the skill set.

RHP Trystan Vrieling (No. 21 in 2023)

Date of Birth: Oct. 2nd, 2000 (age 23)
Acquired: 2022 3rd round, No. 100 overall ($608,900 bonus)
2023 Stats: 10.2 IP, 11 H, 8 R, 6 ER, 6 BB, 15 K, 4 HR (AzFL)

What went wrong? Injury. Vrieling broke his elbow in Spring Training and didn’t pitch during the regular season last year. He did get healthy in time to pitch in the Arizona Fall League, where he labored through five starts while being on a pitch count. The AzFL reports weren’t great, but again, Vrieling missed the entire season. Not sure we should judge him on those 10.2 innings.

Can he make it back into the Top 30? Sure. The book on Vrieling before the injury was a low-90s fastball with two high spin breaking balls, and the hope was the Yankees would work their magic and coach him up a la Chase Hampton and Will Warren. That could still happen as long as he stays healthy. Losing a season to an arm injury is never good though. That has tempered expectations for Vrieling a bit.

OF Anthony Hall (No. 25 in 2023)

Date of Birth: Feb. 9th, 2021 (age 23)
Acquired: 2022 4th round, No. 130 overall ($456,500 bonus)
2023 Stats: .246/.353/.403 (108 wRC+), 10 HR, 5 SB, 13.6 BB%, 23.2 BB% (383 PA in A-, A+)

What went wrong? Hall hurt his wrist late in 2022 and had surgery last January, though he was back on the field a week into the regular season, and his performance didn’t suffer. Hall hit well with Low-A Tampa, got promoted to High-A Hudson Valley in August, then struggled. Here are the splits:

• Low-A: .269/.382/.449 (127 wRC+) with 14.7 BB% and 22.4 K% (12.7% swinging strikes)
• High-A: .194/.282/.296 (63 wRC+) with 10.8 BB% and 25.2 K% (17.2% swinging strikes)

Hall set Oregon’s single-season SLG record his draft year, though his contact quality with the Tarpons was not great (86.9 mph average exit velocity), and High-A was a rude awakening. I figured a college guy from a major program would crush Single-A pitchers and not really be challenged until he got to Double-A. It was only 24 games in High-A, but still. Hall underwhelmed last year.

Can he make it back into the Top 30? Yes, though similar to Dunham, Hall will have to hit and hit a lot to get noticed, because he’s a corner outfielder long-term. Wrist surgery is known to sap power for a while even after the player is medically cleared to play, so with any luck, Hall’s pop will return this year, as he gets further away from surgery.

RHP Brendan Beck (No. 26 in 2023)

Date of Birth: Oct. 6th, 1998 (age 25)
Acquired: 2021 2nd round, No. 55 overall ($1.05M bonus)
2023 Stats: 1.59 ERA (2.87 FIP), 31.0 K%, 5.1 BB%, 41.8 GB% (34 IP at FCL, A+)

What went wrong? Nothing until last month. Beck had Tommy John surgery in Sept. 2021, completed his rehab, and pitched well when he returned last season. He spent four years at Stanford and did what you would expect a four-year college guy to do in High-A. I had Beck penciled into the back half of the Top 30 again and was looking forward to his first fully healthy pro season in 2024.

Alas and alack, Beck announced he had “some additional elbow work (that) was long overdue” early last month. I do not know what surgery he had specifically, though in the photo he posted he’s wearing the brace used to limit range of motion, indicating it was structural damage (ligament, flexor, etc.) rather than a bone spur or something relatively minor like that. Whatever it was, he’s hurt again.

Can he make it back into the Top 30? Hard to say without knowing the nature of the new injury. Beck will turn 26 later this year and has missed a lot of development time between injuries and the pandemic. That said, pitchers level up at all different ages these days. If Beck doesn’t debut until 28 or 29, so be it, he can still contribute, but he has to stay on the field to get there and he’s been unable to do that.

RHP Sean Hermann (No. 28 in 2023)

Date of Birth: June 13th, 2003 (age 20)
Acquired: 2021 14th round, No. 423 overall ($135,000 bonus)
2023 Stats: 4.92 ERA (4.90 FIP), 18.1 K%, 9.1 BB%, 57.2 GB% (112.2 IP at A-, A+)

What went wrong? Hermann’s season was better than the numbers indicate. The Yankees turned his low-90s four-seamer into a heavy low-90s sinker, he added an upper-80s cutter, and he made strides with his changeup too. By the end of 2023, Hermann was a legit four-pitch guy (he also has a slider) who threw strikes (the Low-A average was 12.3% walks with the automated strike zone) and got grounders.

Unfortunately, the elbow ligament monster came for Hermann early this offseason, and he had Tommy John surgery in November or December. He’ll miss the entire 2024 season. If healthy, Hermann would have again been in the mix for the 25-30 range in the Top 30. It wasn’t difficult to bump him out and put healthy players in the Top 30 instead. So it goes.

Can he make it back into the Top 30? Yes, though it may take a while. Hermann probably won’t jump back into the Top 30 next year, after spending the season rehabbing, so figure his earliest possible return to the Top 30 will be 2026, after he gets back on the mound in 2025. Hermann’s still very young and I know he doesn’t sound exciting, but he’s improved so much in a short time since being a 14th round pick.

SS Alex Vargas (No. 30 in 2023)

Date of Birth: Oct. 29th, 2001 (age 22)
Acquired: Signed July 2018 out of Cuba ($2.5M bonus)
2023 Stats: .206/.248/.342 (59 wRC+), 9 HR, 16 SB, 5.4 BB%, 26.0 K% (447 PA at A+)

What went wrong? I refer you to the slash line. Vargas just can’t hit. He’s hit .206/.262/.330 (65 wRC+) in close to 900 plate appearances at the two Single-A levels the last two seasons, and his contact quality is awful. Exit velocities in the low-80s on the regular. Vargas is not strong enough to handle Single-A pitching and his approach is poor. He’s a great athlete and a great shortstop, but he can’t hit.

Can he make it back into the Top 30? Never say never, but … never. I kept Vargas in the Top 30 last year as an acknowledgment of his defense and overall athleticism, but yeah, the bat’s not gonna work. Good luck finding a player who had any sort of MLB career after being this bad two straight years in Single-A.

* * *

Three of the six prospects who fell out of last year’s Top 30 are pitchers who got hurt, and that’s baseball for ya. Hopefully Beck, Hermann, and Vrieling make their way back into Top 30 consideration once healthy. Otherwise the Yankees have an exciting group of rookie ball kids, and it was pretty easy to slot them into the Top 30 and make changes at the back of the list. A good reason for turnover, I’d say.

3. Mining the news. Got a few Yankees-related and Yankees-adjacent nuggets I want to touch on before Spring Training gets underway, so let’s do that now.

Yankees had interest in Hader

That is according to Josh Hader. I didn’t listen to his podcast appearance, but MLBTR’s recap says Hader said the Dodgers and Yankees were both in the mix, though no team came close to matching Houston’s aggressiveness. Hader wound up with the Astros on a five-year, $95M contract that is the second largest reliever contract in history behind Edwin Díaz’s five-year, $102M deal with the Mets.

The Yankees check in on every worthwhile free agent and I’m sure they checked in on Hader at some point this offseason. Hader is excellent – 1.28 ERA (2.69 FIP) with a 36.8% strikeout rate in 2023 – and slotting him in at closer would’ve freed up Clay Holmes for high leverage work earlier in the game. The bullpen would have fallen into place nicely behind Hader (assuming no Caleb Ferguson trade):

• Closer: LHP Josh Hader
• Setup: RHP Clay Homes, RHP Jonathan Loáisiga
• Middle: RHP Scott Effross, LHP Victor González, RHP Ian Hamilton, RHP Tommy Kahnle
• Long: RHP Luke Weaver

I’m not opposed to spending big on a top tier reliever. I said this last week: one advantage of being the Yankees is being able to dig up under the radar bullpen guys like Hamilton while also paying top dollar for an elite reliever. They don't have to limit themselves to cheap relievers only. The Yankees can build their bullpen through all available means.

That said, I have a hard time believing the Yankees were ever seriously willing to spend close to $20M a year (plus give up two draft picks and international bonus money) on Hader. If they were going to go above and beyond like that, it seems more likely they’d invest in a starter. I’m not sure what would have had to fall into place this offseason for the Yankees to step out and sign Hader.

Kluber retires

So long, Corey Kluber. The Klubot announced his retirement last week. From 2014-18, Kluber was arguably the best pitcher in the game, pitching to a 2.85 ERA (2.84 FIP) with a 28.4% strikeout rate while averaging 218.3 innings per season. He won two Cy Youngs (2014 and 2017) and had two other top three finishes in the voting, and he has the only 18-strikeout game in the AL this century.

Kluber spent 2021 with the Yankees and only made 16 starts that year due to injury (3.83 ERA and 3.85 FIP in 80 innings), though he has been featured prominently in the Aaron Judge era of Yankees baseball. You of course remember Didi Gregorius taking Kluber deep twice in Game 5 of the 2017 ALDS (video), when the Yankees completed the comeback from down 0-2. I was terrified of Kluber heading into that series, so of course the Yankees tagged him for nine runs in 6.1 innings in his two starts. Go figure.

Also, Kluber threw a no-hitter in 2021, the Yankees’ first in 22 years. He no-hit the Rangers on a night the Rangers gave away his bobblehead. To be fair, it wasn’t Corey Kluber bobblehead night specifically. Texas had a mystery bobblehead night in which they gave away unused bobbleheads from 2020, so everyone in attendance got someone different. Some folks got Kluber. I reckon Kluber is the only pitcher in history to throw a no-hitter on a night the opposing team gave away his bobblehead.

And finally, Kluber taught Mike King his sweeper. That pitch helped King become one of the best relievers in the game and also transition back into the rotation late in 2023, which paved the way for King to be the headliner in the Juan Soto trade. That worked out pretty great. Kluber was a hell of a pitcher. Enjoy retirement, Corey. The man had an impact on the Yankees that went beyond his 16 starts in 2021.

Eppler suspended for 2024

Former Mets GM Billy Eppler – Brian Cashman’s former right-hand man – was suspended for the 2024 season for improper use of the injured list, MLB announced last week. His transgressions include the “deliberate fabrication of injuries (and) the associated submission of documentation for the purposes of securing multiple improper Injured List placements during the 2022 and 2023 seasons.”

Essentially, Eppler got caught using the phantom injured list, something every team does. The Yankees had a pretty obvious phantom injured list situation with Josh Donaldson last season. He was out with a hamstring injury and the Yankees put him on the 60-day injured list, then Donaldson went out on the field and went through a full workout in front of reporters to show everyone he was healthy.

Usually the phantom injured list is used to avoid exposing an out of options player to waivers or to give a pitcher a breather without tying up a roster spot. The whole “this guy is performing poorly and they need to put him on the phantom injured list until he figures it out” thing fans often talk about doesn’t really happen. The phantom injured list is used for roster flexibility, not so much for performance.

Every team uses the phantom injured list to some extent but apparently Eppler went too far and got caught. Tim Healey says a letter to MLB prompted the investigation and Ken Rosenthal (subs. req’d) says Rob Manfred wanted to make an example of Eppler in order to crack down on phantom injured list stints. This is a “you got caught? you idiot” situation rather than an “Eppler did a bad thing no one else does” situation.

There were 687 injured list placements in 2023. Go back five years to 2019, the last season before the pandemic, and it was 574. That’s almost a 20% increase. Some of that 20% is legitimate injuries, specifically pitchers hurting their arm by throwing max effort all the time, but yeah, we can assume phantom injured list use is on the rise too. I wonder whether Eppler’s suspension will act as a deterrent. Could be hard to tell.

Latest on MLB’s participation in 2028 Olympics

According to Evan Drellich (subs. req’d), the owners were shown a presentation explaining how MLB players could participate in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics at the owners’ meetings last week. “There’s been a lot of growing support, a lot of it based on the great success of the World Baseball Classic last year,” one person told Drellich. Here are the nuts and bolts:

• Condensed 5-6 day schedule for Olympic games during the All-Star break.
• The All-Star Game could be canceled that year to accommodate the Olympics.
• If necessary, the regular season schedule could be shortened to make it work.
• 6-8 countries could participate.

Call me a cynic, but MLB’s owners have shown they are motivated by one thing and one thing only: money. If they truly cared about growing the game globally, the 2025 Paris Games would not have been canceled. As long as the owners believe they can make a buck, they will support MLB players in the Olympics. Once the IOC pushes back on insurance (as they do with the NHL), the owners will stop being optimistic.

Also, Olympic participation must be collectively bargained. The MLBPA has to agree to this and the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires after the 2026 season. It’s easy to be optimistic about something set to take place in 2028 when it’s still 2024. We’ll see what happens when CBA talks roll around in two years. It’s not difficult to see Olympic participation being put on the back-burner as the two sides focus on more important things amid another lockout.

I would certainly watch MLB players play in the Olympics, though a hastily put together 5-6 day tournament (in which no country has their pitching lined up?) may not make for the most entertaining product. The WBC is excellent. MLB should lean into that and do what it can to make the WBC baseball’s premier international event rather than treat the Olympics as a cash grab. Are they going to pause the 2032 season to send MLB players to the Olympics in Australia? Almost certainly not. This would be a one-time thing.

Miscellany

According to Jon Heyman and Bob Nightengale, the Brewers wanted Spencer Jones in a potential Corbin Burnes trade with the Yankees. Obviously the Yankees deemed that too much, and now Burnes is with the AL East rival Orioles. Me? I would’ve done it (to be fair, we don’t know what the rest of the ask looked like). I admit I’ve grown disillusioned with the Yankees and their (in)ability to turn good minor league hitters into good Major League hitters, but still, Jones is 2-3 years away from helping the Yankees in a meaningful way. If you’re going to trade for one year of Juan Soto, then go all-in and field the best possible team in 2024. Don’t hug prospects who aren’t contributing anytime soon. It’s not like we’re talking about trading Jones, my No. 2 prospect, for a back-end innings guy here (there’s still time to trade him for Dylan Cease!) … And finally, the Padres had interest in Wandy Peralta at last year’s trade deadline, according to Dennis Lin (subs. req’d). My guess is several teams had interest in Wandy. Now we know at least one. Ultimately, not getting some team’s No. 20 prospect for rental Peralta isn’t the end of the world. I’m just still annoyed the Yankees didn’t pick a lane at the deadline and wound up doing nothing to help themselves in the short or long-term (no offense to Keynan Middleton). What a botch job the 2023 deadline was.

(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.)