January 30th, 2024: Schmidt, Bullpen, Chapman, Torrens, Gage, Winter Ball

Pitchers and catchers will report to Tampa in two weeks and one day. The first Grapefruit League game is only three weeks and four days away. What is that, only seven RAB posts between now and the first spring game? Not counting today’s post and any extras that come along, yeah, it's seven. Baseball is getting close. Let’s get into today’s post.

1. Three ways Schmidt can improve in 2024. In what qualifies as both good news and bad news, Clarke Schmidt was the Yankees’ second most reliable starter in 2023. That was bad news because Nestor Cortes, Carlos Rodón, and Luis Severino all missed big chunks of time with injury and were ineffective when they did pitch. That contributed to the lost season.

It was also good news because Schmidt made 32 starts and threw a career high 159 innings, and had a league average season according to the ERA estimators (4.42 FIP, 4.30 xERA, 4.58 DRA) rather than ERA itself (4.64 ERA and 93 ERA+). At age 27, Schmidt stayed healthy and took the ball every fifth day, and earned himself a longer look in 2024.

“I was really proud of the progress Clarke Schmidt took last year in his evolution. We could really count on him every fifth day to give us a chance to win even though we were having trouble scraping runs across,” Brian Cashman told Max Goodman earlier this month. “He was keeping us in the game every five days. Providing innings and an opportunity for us to win despite the shortcomings on offense. I was really proud of the season he had last year and I’m looking forward to running him back out there in ‘24.”

Schmidt has never lacked stuff. He works with two very high spin breaking balls (Schmidt threw the fifth most 3,000 rpm pitches in 2023) and a 93 mph sinker that sinks more than average. The cutter he picked up last Spring Training was more effective as the season went on and he got more comfortable with it. Schmidt has the tools to be a successful starter, and he has a fan in new teammate Marcus Stroman.

“Clarke Schmidt is a guy with a ton of upside. He’s got incredible stuff,” Stroman told Goodman during his introductory Zoom call. ”... I truly think Clarke Schmidt is going to be a guy for many, many years in this league once he fine tunes some little things. His repertoire is incredible. He’s got some big, big, big time stuff. I think Clarke Schmidt is going to end up being a guy for us or a guy in this league for many, many years.”

(Stroman and Schmidt are similar sinker/cutter/sweeper pitchers. Maybe Stroman can coach up Schmidt a bit. That would be cool.)

How does Schmidt get better in 2024? He doesn’t need to be an ace to be an important piece for the Yankees. There’s a lot of value in being, say, 5% to 10% better than league average over 150-170 innings. Stay healthy and do that, and you’ll make $20M through arbitration and eight figures a year as a free agent. Quality innings are in short supply. So are competent innings.

What can Schmidt do to take a step forward this coming season and further cement himself as part of the rotation? The short answer is pitch better. The long answer is a bit more complicated. Here are three ways Schmidt can improve and take the next step in 2024. (I acknowledge there is a lot of overlap here. Such is the nature of pitching.)

Avoid the middle of the plate

Obvious statement is obvious. Coming up through the minors, Schmidt was hailed as a good strike-thrower with below average command. Those two things may seem at odds, but they’re not. There’s a difference between throwing strikes (control) and throwing quality strikes (command), and Schmidt does the former without much of the latter.

Schmidt’s 6.6% walk rate last year was better than the 7.6% league average for starting pitchers. Not walking hitters is good. The way Schmidt goes about avoiding walks is not great though. This is among the 100 pitchers who faced at least 500 batters in 2023:

• In-zone rate: 50.9% (27th highest) (MLB average: 49.1%)
• Edge rate: 40.9% (9th lowest) (MLB average: 42.1%)
• Meatball rate: 8.3% (17th highest) (MLB average: 7.4%)

Meatball rate is middle-middle pitches. These numbers tell us Schmidt threw more pitches in the zone than the average pitcher (good) but those pitches in the zone had a tendency to be in the middle of the plate rather than on the edges (bad). Some pitchers, like Gerrit Cole, are good enough to beat hitters in the middle of the zone. Most pitchers, like Schmidt, are not.

On that note, it’s sorta remarkable how much more effective Schmidt is when he’s able to pitch on the edges of the strike zone rather than in the middle. When he left a pitch in the middle of the plate, it got hammered. When he threw a pitch literally anywhere else, hitters had a tough time squaring it up. The blue is good, the big red splotch means “do not throw the ball here.”

Of course, if pitching to the edges and avoiding the heart of the plate were easy, everyone would do it and offense would be severely depressed. This is the kinda thing that separates above-average pitchers from decent and even good pitchers though. Schmidt’s stuff is so good and it moves so much that as long as the pitch is out of the nitro zone, it’s really hard to barrel him up.

The not great news is Schmidt pitched to the corners less and less as last season progressed. His edge rate went from 44.2% in April to 41.2% in May to 42.0% in June to 40.9% in July to 31.4% in August to 40.8% in September. Schmidt struggled in September and I think part of that was fatigue, so maybe that explains the second half decline in edge rate? I hope so.

I can’t find the interview now but I remember Schmidt saying last year that he sometimes focuses too much on throwing the nastiest pitch possible, so much so that he would check the scoreboard to see the movement, and try to top it with the next pitch. Once upon a time guys checked velocity on the scoreboard and tried to throw harder. Now they check movement. Kids these days.

Point is, Schmidt acknowledged he sometimes got caught up in movement and spin rather than simply executing the pitch. He turns 28 next month, so he’s not young in baseball terms, but last year was his first season as a full-time big leaguer. Schmidt went up and down from 2020-22. He is relatively inexperienced even with his 28th birthday coming up.

With any luck Schmidt will outgrow the desire to throw the nastiest possible pitch, and instead prioritize execution. Have that light bulb moment when things click and he realizes what’s best. I’m not sure command will ever be Schmidt’s strong suit, his stuff moves so much that it must be hard to locate, but even a 5% increase in pitching to the corners would be a big help.

Put hitters away with two strikes

Relatively speaking, Schmidt was very ineffective in two-strike counts last season. A guy whose breaking balls spin that much and move that much should not have trouble putting hitters away in the game’s most pitcher-friendly count. Here are the two-strike numbers:

I’m pleasantly surprised Schmidt’s foul rate was league average. I would have guessed it was higher. Otherwise Schmidt got fewer whiffs than average in two-strike counts and he gave up an extra 35 points of batting average and 40 points of slugging. Maybe some of that is bad BABIP luck, but the lack of whiffs is not. How does a guy with Schmidt’s stuff have a below average whiff rate in two-strike counts?

Things were even worse when Schmidt got ahead 0-2. When hitters fell behind 0-2, they went on to hit .167/.200/.260 and strike out 46.3% of the time last year. When they fell behind 0-2 against Schmidt, it was a .242/.284/.346 line and 43.2% strikeout rate. Last season 39 pitchers went to at least 150 0-2 counts. Here’s were Schmidt ranked among those 39 pitchers:

• AVG: 39th
• SLG: 39th (technically tied for last with Joe Ryan)
• K%: 34th

On one hand, Schmidt finished last year 20th in 0-2 counts and 43rd in batters faced, so that’s good. He gets to 0-2 at a higher rate than most others. Keep getting ahead of hitters 0-2. On the other hand, Schmidt was literally the worst pitcher in baseball at putting hitters away after getting ahead 0-2. We’re talking roughly 80 points of average and 80 points of slugging worse than the league average. Sheesh.

Being average in two-strike counts – .172/.249/.273 rather than .207/.270/.313 – would’ve made such a big difference for Schmidt. Two-strike hits are backbreakers. They turn the game’s most pitcher-friendly situation into baserunners and extended innings, and there’s a mental letdown too. We feel it at home watching on television. The guys on the field feel it even more.

This section is an extension of the previous section. Schmidt needs to stay out of the middle of the plate and do a better job executing, including in two-strike counts. I think this is the single biggest area of potential improvement for Schmidt. He’s good at getting to two strikes. He just has to do a better job converting those situations into outs.

Keep refining the cutter

Spring Training is two weeks away and so are stories about this guy being in the best shape of his life, that guy having a new pitch, etc. Nothing comes of most of those stories. Schmidt’s cutter last year was an exception. He picked it up in the spring and, by the end of the regular season, it was his most used pitch. Schmidt threw more cutters as the year went on.

“The reason they wanted me to add the cutter was lefties,” Schmidt told David Laurila in September. “The idea was that I could throw a fastball to lefties and be able to induce either a) weak contact, or b) a swing and miss. That was the real reason. And then once I started throwing it, we realized that my arm action was built even more for a cutter than they thought. The metrics on my cutter are really good. Analytically it became one of my best pitches, which is why they were like, ‘Why don’t we up the usage of this?’”

The cutter looked like a lost cause in April. Opponents hit .458 with a 1.042 SLG (.445 xwOBA) against it in that first month, and it seemed like, okay, this new pitch isn’t working it, shelve it and go back to what got Schmidt to the big leagues in the first place. So many “he’s working on a new pitch this spring” stories amount to nothing and it seemed Schmidt’s cutter was on that path.

After April though? The cutter was pretty good! It held hitters to a .242 AVG and .363 SLG (.282 xwOBA) from May through September. The 2023 league averages for cutters were a .267 AVG and .446 SLG (.337 xwOBA). Maybe pretty good is overselling it, but after that dreadful April, Schmidt’s cutter was an effective pitch and a legitimate weapon, so much so that he started using it against righties.

“I started throwing (the cutter) to righties as well as to lefties, and it’s really helped play up my sinker a little bit,” Schmidt told Laurila. “I mean, it’s hurt my sinker in that I’m losing some horizontal, because I’m trying to cut the ball so much, but it’s been playing up because it’s hard for a hitter to determine if it’s going to be a cutter or a sinker.”

The cutter, and the way the cutter works with the rest of Schmidt’s arsenal, remains a work in progress, but there’s a good pitch here, and continuing to master it can help get Schmidt to the next level. He needs it to, because even with that cutter lefties hit .303/.375/.500 (.376 wOBA) against him in 2023. Specifically, Schmidt needs to improve the cutter to neutralize hitters on the opposite side of the plate.

* * *

The Yankees are in a weird spot with Schmidt. They’re on the postseason bubble more than a slam dunk postseason team, which means every game and every win carries heightened importance. They can’t really afford to let anyone, including Schmidt, learn on the job and try to figure this game out. The Yankees need as much production as possible.

At the same time, we saw some promising signs from Schmidt last year, and he deserves a chance to build on that in 2024. I mean, if you’re going to punt on every player who has a so-so first full season rather than give them a chance to improve, you’re going to run out of players really quickly. The Yankees owe it to themselves to see this Schmidt thing through.

The Yankees need Schmidt to pitch well to get them to the postseason, and in a perfect world he would become an emergency reliever in October. Well, no, in a perfect world Schmidt has a breakout year and is a no-doubt postseason starter, but a more realistic goal is being a back-end stabilizer the Yankees won’t need to play a huge role after the first 162 games.

Schmidt’s issues in two-strike counts stand out as such an obvious area of improvement. Just be a league average pitcher in two-strike counts rather than one of the worst in baseball and it will make a noticeable difference in his overall performance. That’s easier said than done, like everything about this game. Figure out the two-strike problem and good things will follow.

2. Latest hot stove rumors and roster moves. By projected 2024 WAR, eight of the top 25 free agents are unsigned as I wrote this Monday afternoon. I’ll set the over/under on the number of unsigned top 25 free agents on the first day of Spring Training at 4.5. What do you think? I’m feeling optimistic today and will take the under. Here are the latest hot stove happenings.

The bullpen market

More free agent relievers have come off the board since we last spoke. Here are the notable recent signings:

• The Cubs signed Hector Neris to a one-year, $9M contract with an option.
• The Rangers signed David Robertson to a one-year, $11.5M contract.
• The Mets re-signed Adam Ottavino to a one-year, $4.5M contract.
• John Curtiss (Rockies), Carl Edwards Jr. (Cubs), T.J. MacFarland (Dodgers), and Matt Festa (Padres) all got minor league contracts.

Neris’ contract includes a $9M club option that becomes a player option with 60 appearances, a total he has reached in six of the last seven 162-game seasons. The option and incentives can max the contract out at two years and $23.25M, which is roughly what Neris was said to want a week or two ago. He didn’t get two years guaranteed, though the option seems attainable.

Neris got less than I thought he would and the one guaranteed year reflects the risk with a soon-to-be 35-year-old who’s had a huge career workload and is losing velocity, and is showing worrisome trends in many parts of his game. I would've been fine with that contract from a "there's no such thing as a bad one-year deal" perspective, though I would not have loved it. It's not a bad deal for the Cubs. Just a risky one. Such is life with relievers.

There were no indications the Yankees were considering a reunion with Robertson (his deal has a bunch of deferrals) or Ottavino (he declined a $6.75M player option to become a free agent). The minor league contract guys are interesting in their own way, particularly the ground-balling MacFarland (I signed him in the Offseason Plan), so I figured I’d mention them.

As for the Yankees, Jon Heyman says they are “alleged to be making low offers” to various free agent relievers, including Ryan Brasier, Phil Maton, and Wandy Peralta. Here’s what I wrote about Brasier and Maton recently. I assume the Yankees value these guys similarly, and are seeing whether someone jumps at their offer and they get what they consider a bargain.

That’s all well and good, but playing a game of contract chicken with free agent relievers is a great way to wind up with none of them. Every team needs relievers. I know it’s late January, but these guys will get offers, and it only takes one team to beat the number the Yankees put out there. You generally do not win free agent bidding wars with low offers, you know?

I’m growing more interested in Maton because his lower velocity spin-happy approach would be such a different look for the bullpen. Everyone the Yankees have out there throws hard and just about everyone has a sinker. Maton spamming hitters with 66% breaking balls would give the Yankees more variety and match-up-ability with their bullpen. Variety is a good thing.

I don’t know what Maton is seeking – two years and $18M? maybe? – and I admit I'm a little nervous he’s coming from the Astros, meaning he’s likely already maxed out and there isn’t another level he can get to. What he is right now is pretty good though. As the third or fourth option in the bullpen, the Yankees could do worse than Maton. We’ll see where this goes.

If the Yankees want to sign a reliever (and it seems like they do), they’ll probably have to up their offers at some point. You can’t expect these guys to take less. Relievers have such a short shelf life in this game. So few make it through their team control years and to free agency. They tend to take the most money, period, and the Yankees don’t seem to be offering that.

Yankees interested in Chapman?

According to Susan Slusser, the Yankees are among the six teams to express interest in Matt Chapman. Slusser is plugged into Bay Area baseball (she covered Chapman with the A’s) but she can be hit or miss at times. Last offseason she mentioned the buzz had Aaron Judge going to the Giants, for example. That was a big ol’ whiff. No one bats 1.000 in this game though.

Anyway, I have a really hard time believing the Yankees are seriously interested in Chapman right now. My guess is they expressed interest very early in the offseason, when they typically express interest in every free agent who fits the roster. As I wrote in last week’s mailbag, Chapman would make sense on a short-term deal and a short-term deal only. Long-term is a no go for me.

With an aging DJ LeMahieu and an unproven Oswald Peraza penciled in at third base, I can see a scenario in which we’re all sitting here in June saying “you know, maybe the Yankees should have tried harder for Matt Chapman.” Hopefully it doesn’t come to that. In the unlikely event the Yankees give out a significant contract this winter, you have to figure it’ll go to a pitcher.

Yankees sign Torrens

The prodigal son has returned. The Yankees have signed catcher Luis Torrens to a minor league contract, according to the official site. Safe to assume he received an invitation to Spring Training (that’s probably bad news for Josh Breaux). See? You don’t have to sweat losing Single-A catchers in the Rule 5 Draft. They make their way back eventually.

Now 27, Torrens split last season with the Mariners and Cubs (he had some Triple-A time with the Nationals too). I had forgotten about this, but he had a walk-off hit against the Yankees in 2022 (video). That was the game when the automatic runner kept making dumb outs on the bases in extra innings in Seattle (video). Here’s the path Torrens has taken since the Padres grabbed him from the Yankees in the Rule 5 Draft:

• 2017: Full year in MLB with Padres as Rule 5 player
• 2018: High-A with Padres (no MLB)
• 2019: Double-A with Padres (some MLB)
• 2020: Traded to Mariners in Ty France/Andrés Muñoz deal
• 2021: Some Triple-A and mostly MLB with Mariners
• 2022: Some Triple-A and mostly MLB with Mariners
• 2023: Some Triple-A and MLB with Mariners, Nationals, and Cubs

Torrens is a career .227/.289/.354 (79 wRC+) hitter in over 800 big league plate appearances, and his best season was a .243/.299/.431 (101 wRC+) line with 15 homers in 378 plate appearances in 2021. He rates poorly defensively, so much so that he spent most of 2021 at DH. For his career, Torrens is at -22 DRS and -17.6 framing runs behind the plate.

Did the Padres ruin Torrens? He jumped all the way from Low-A to MLB and got only 139 plate appearances and 310.2 defensive innings as a 21-year-old in 2017. A young catcher can learn a lot just by sitting in on meetings and catching bullpens at the big league level, but still, Torrens was not anywhere close to MLB ready. That season as a Rule 5 player may have – likely did – stunt his development.

There are two sides to this. On one hand, Torrens should have been in High-A in 2017, not sitting on the big league bench as the seldom-used third catcher. On the other hand, Torrens did get a year of big league pay and service time out of it. Are we sure he would have carved out an MLB career more substantial than what he’s had if the Padres hadn’t Rule 5ed him?

Anyway, the Torrens signing further suggests Ben Rortvedt is indeed out of options. Torrens gives the Yankees a catcher with MLB experience to stash in Triple-A in case, you know, Rortvedt has to go on waivers in Spring Training. In that case Torrens, Carlos Narvaez, and Ben Rice would be the Triple-A catching trio. (Breaux back to Double-A, I guess?)

I gotta say, Torrens going from being Rule 5ed at way too young an age to bouncing around for a few years to becoming an everyday catcher with the Yankees would be high comedy. Maybe he just needed the pinstripes the whole time. For real though, I hope we don’t see Torrens in the Bronx this season. No need for catcher injuries or drama in 2024.

Yankees claim Gage, DFA Castillo

The Yankees have a new lefty reliever. They claimed Matt Gage off waivers from the Astros and designated Diego Castillo for assignment to clear a 40-man roster spot, the team announced Monday. Houston DFAed Gage a few days ago to clear 40-man space for Josh Hader. (I figured Castillo might not hang around long. Such is life with fringe 40-man players.)

Gage, 31 next month, has an interesting enough backstory. He’s an upstater from Johnstown and he went to Siena College. The Giants took him in the tenth round in 2014 and since then Gage has bounced around on minor league deals, he played a year in Mexico, a few years in independent leagues, then he finally reached the big leagues with the Blue Jays in 2022.

Once an upper-80s soft-tosser, Gage told Arden Zwelling that a few years ago he was randomly watching a Lucas Giolito start one day, and decided to copy his short arm action. He tried it and suddenly he was throwing 94-95 mph, so he stuck with it, and big league teams came calling. That combined with a full-time move into the bullpen opened doors.

In addition to the newfound velocity, Gage is a good pitch data guy with life on his fastball up in the zone – Gage described his fastball as an “invisiball” to Michael Shapiro last spring – and a cutter that cuts so much it looks like a slider. This is the Matt Gage experience:

That is a cutter, not a slider. Gage also has a true slider too. It’s a low-80s pitch and he does not use it very often. Perhaps the Yankees will emphasize it? I dunno. For now, Gage is a fastball/cutter lefty with a career 1.83 ERA (2.97 FIP) in 19.2 MLB innings. That comes with good strikeout (26.0%) and ground ball (48.9%) rates, and too many walks (11.7%).

The teams that pursue a player can tell you a lot about him and Gage’s velocity uptick resulted in a minor league contract with the Blue Jays and then waiver claims by the Astros and Yankees. Those three teams have a good handle on pitching and relievers in particular. They all saw something they liked in Gage and gave him a look. Now it’s the Yankees’ turn.

Also, I want to note Gage is the fifth waiver claim the Yankees have made this offseason, joining Castillo, Downs, Oscar Gonzalez, and Bubba Thompson. Here are their number of waiver claims in recent years:

• 2023-24 offseason: 5 and counting
• 2023 (before offseason): 2 (Anthony Misiewicz, Luke Weaver)
• 2022: 5 (Albert Abreu, Yoan Aybar, Luke Bard, Junior Fernández, Jeisson Rosario)
• 2021: 1 (Jonathan Davis)
• 2020: 0
• 2019: 3 (Jake Barrett, Ryan Dull, Cory Gearrin)
• 2018: 4 (Hanser Alberto, Parker Bridwell, Chris Rabago, Trayce Thompson)
• 2017: 0

That’s eight waiver claims from 2017-21 and now five this offseason alone, and 12 in the last 22 months. The Yankees did not dip their toe in the waiver pool all that often for a long time, and now they’re active in that market. Good! You’re not going to get an impact player on waivers, but it is a way to add organizational depth and improve the 38th, 39th, and 40th spots on the 40-man.

(The Dodgers, by comparison, have made 31 waiver claims since 2017, comfortably more than the Yankees. And that’s the Dodgers, not the Pirates or Royals. Ain’t no shame in waiver claims.)

The Yankees have put Downs, Gonzalez, and Thompson back on waivers since claiming them and soon Castillo will go on waivers too. Gage might at some point as well. Thompson was lost, but Downs and Gonzalez cleared and hung around as non-40-man guys. You don’t get those players without a claim. Now the Yankees have higher quality depth in Triple-A. It helps.

Matt Blake and the Yankees are pretty good at turning unheralded pickups into quality relievers and, with any luck, Gage will be next. They do need a reliable lefty. That said, the Blue Jays and Astros already had a crack at him, and they know what they’re doing with pitching. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. The Yankees will see what’s what with Gage in Spring Training. (He has a minor league option remaining, just FYI.)

Mariners get Polanco

Jorge Polanco, my preferred target for third base, was sent to the Mariners in a 4-for-1 trade Monday night. There is no good Yankees equivalent to the package the Twins received. Here’s the best approximation:

• RHP Anthony DeSclafani: Nestor Cortes if he were in his contract year
• RHP Justin Topa: Ian Hamilton
• OF Gabriel Gonzalez: Everson Pereira circa the 2021-22 offseason
• RHP Darren Bowen: Brock Selvidge but a righty

Less than I expected Polanco to fetch. There are DeSclafani (Domingo Germán? Michael Lorenzen?) and Topa (Keynan Middleton? Ryne Stanek?) types in free agency and Bowen is a Single-A lottery ticket arm. Gonzalez is a very good prospect, but if he doesn’t work out, the Twins traded two affordable years of Polanco for a bunch of spare parts. Meh.

Polanco has played 20 career games at third base, so maybe it was crazy to think he could step in there next season. The Yankees weren’t connected to him at any point anyway. It was just me identifying a player I thought made sense. That’s a nice trade for the Mariners. I think it’s a bit underwhelming for the Twins, though I guess what they do next matters.

(Of course now Polanco's power will evaporate in T-Mobile Park, and it'll look like the Twins got a steal. That's just how it goes whenever the Mariners add a good hitter.)

Sasaki signs 2024 contract

Roki Sasaki’s contract stalemate with the Chiba Lotte Marines is over. He has signed a one-year contract for the 2024 season, though it’s still unclear if he’ll be posted next offseason. “I have the desire to play in the U.S. Major Leagues in the future. I’ve been communicating every year. I believe the club understands it too,” Sasaki told Stephen Wade after signing his 2024 contract.

The Marines don’t want to post Sasaki yet* because he will be subject to the international bonus pools next offseason. That would mean a relatively small bonus and thus a much smaller posting fee for the Marines. They want to wait until Sasaki turns 25 in three years so he can sign a Yoshinobu Yamamoto contract and get them an enormous posting fee.

* Shawn Spradling passes along word that the Marines told Sasaki he has not “sufficiently contributed” to the team and has not earned the right to be posted yet. Keep in mind the kid has a 1.90 ERA in three seasons and threw a 19-strikeout perfect game.

At some point Sasaki will make the jump to MLB. My guess is it’ll happen next offseason but that is only a guess, and I don’t think anyone knows when it’ll happen for certain. Whenever Sasaki is posted, I’m sure the Yankees will try to sign him. The international bonus pools would really hamper their efforts though. The financial playing field would be level.

3. Winter ball roundup. I have been very bad at updating winter ball goings-on this offseason. Very bad as in I haven’t done it once. It’s winter ball, it only means so much, but we should still check on who’s done what this winter. Here now is my one and only 2023-24 winter ball recap.

Durbin nearly matches AzFL stolen base record

A few years ago MLB loosened the Arizona Fall League eligibility rules and now teams can send pretty much anyone. It used to be mostly Triple-A and Double-A players, with a few Single-A kids mixed in. As a result of the new rules, we see AzFL pitching matchups like the one between the Surprise Saguaros and Peoria Javelinas in this offseason’s Championship Game:

• Royals LHP Angel Zerpa: 58.2 IP in MLB
• Pirates RHP Braden Nett: 13 IP above rookie ball (all in Low-A)

Zerpa’s Saguaros won the Championship Game, though it was not decided until he and Nett were out of the game. Still kinda funny to see such a huge experience gap between the two starting pitchers in the most important game of the AzFL season.

Anyway, the Yankees did not send the most exciting group of prospects to the AzFL this winter. The best was IF Caleb Durbin, who came over in the Lucas Luetge trade and hit .304/.395/.427 (132 wRC+) in 69 games around an injury with High-A Hudson Valley and Double-A Somerset last year. His 6.2% strikeout rate was the second lowest in the minors (min. 250 PA).

Durbin was excellent in the AzFL, slashing .353/.456/.588 with three homers and twice as many walks (14) as strikeouts (seven) in 23 games. He was fourth in the league in AVG, fifth in OBP, and fourth in SLG. He also went 21-for-23 (91%) stealing bases. Those 21 steals led the AzFL and are the second most in a single season in league history. The leaderboard:

1. Rick Holifield, 1994: 24 steals
2. Caleb Durbin, 2023: 21 steals
3. Eric Young Jr., 2008: 20 steals
4. John Massarelli, 1992: 20 steals
5. Several tied with 18 steals

The AzFL season was longer back in the day. Holifield stole his 24 bases in 42 games. Durbin’s 21 steals came in only 23 games, and his 0.91 SB/G rate is the best in AzFL history. Yes, the AzFL used MLB's new rules that promote stolen bases, but only three others stole as many as 15 bags. It’s not like a bunch of guys suddenly approached the record. It was only Durbin.

The Yankees have a glut of middle infield prospects who profile best at second base (Durbin, Keiner Delgado, Jorbit Vivas, etc.) and for the most part they’re all at different levels, so that’s not really a problem. Vivas will be in Triple-A to begin 2024 and I assume Durbin will start the season back in Double-A after playing only 47 games last year. Great AzFL season for him though.

Serna mashes (and plays a new position) in Mexico

Jared Serna, one of those many middle infield prospects who fits best at second base, had a whale of a season in the Mexican Pacific Winter League: .310/.365/.478 with seven home runs (here’s one) and an 18.1% strikeout rate. He was eight years younger than the average MPWL player and the league average was .249/.332/.361 with 19.3% strikeouts this offseason.

More notable than the batting line is the position: Serna played left field. He played 18 of his 61 games in left (61 games in winter ball? sheesh), a position he has never played in pro ball with the Yankees. MLB teams have a say in how their players are used in winter ball, so the Yankees were onboard with the left field thing. I wonder if it’ll continue this coming season. Hmmm.

Still only 21, Serna was passed over in December’s Rule 5 Draft (the Rule 5 Draft was held in the middle of his great MPWL effort, so it's not like teams didn't know he was tearing it up) because Single-A infielders aren’t a priority target. They are so unlikely to stick at the MLB level the next year, plus there are always upper level infielders who have shiny numbers left exposed. More functional players were available.

The Yankees were able to slip Serna through the Rule 5 Draft this offseason. I don’t think that will be the case next offseason. He’ll go back to High-A Hudson Valley to start 2024 but should finish the year with Double-A Somerset. Perform there, and Serna will be on the Rule 5 Draft radar. He could wind up trade bait this summer if the Yankees see him as on the 40-man roster bubble.

The Oswald(o)s in Venezuela

Both Oswaldo Cabrera and Oswald Peraza played back home in the Venezuelan Winter League this offseason. Cabrera was okay. Peraza was not. Their numbers:

• Cabrera: .267/.351/.349, 0 HR, 12.2 K%, 9.2 BB% (98 PA)
• Peraza: .216/.301/.311, 1 HR, 19.3 K%, 7.2 BB% (83 PA)

For context, the VWL average was a .286/.366/.416 line with 14.7% strikeouts and 10.1% walks this year. Cabrera started poorly (.228/.290/.281 first 16 games) and finished well (.345/.429/.483 last nine games), but eh, the season is short enough as it is. Slicing and dicing the numbers even further doesn’t really tell us anything useful.

I’m glad the Oswald(o)s played winter ball and got more at-bats, and really, winter ball performance doesn’t mean much. But still, it would have been nice to see these two have at least a little success, you know? Cabrera was bad throughout 2023 and Peraza didn’t stand out during his big league stints. Would’ve been nice to have something to hang their hat on.

As things stand, Cabrera and Peraza are on the big league bench. I’d like Cabrera to get regular at-bats in Triple-A so he can try to rediscover his 2022 form. Peraza? I don’t think he has much left to learn in Triple-A. He needs to face MLB competition to get better, and the Yankees will have to thread the needle between developing Peraza and putting the best team on the field in 2024.

Miscellany

Trystan Vrieling, my No. 21 prospect entering 2023, missed last season with a broken elbow, but he was able to make five AzFL starts. He was on a strict pitch limit and those five starts didn’t go especially well (four homers in 10.2 innings), but at least Vrieling is healthy. We’ll see whether he can level up in 2024 the way so many other mid-round college pitchers have in recent years … Carlos Narvaez hit .256/.342/.372 in 40 games in Venezuela this winter. He caught 36 games. Between the regular season and winter ball, Narvaez caught 102 games and 860 innings in 2023, plus he played some first base (17 games) and DH (19 games) on top of it. That’s a hefty workload. Narvaez is young though. He’s only 25. He can handle it. The Yankees put him on the 40-man roster in November and he’ll take over as the optionable No. 3 catcher once Ben Rortvedt is gone (assuming he is out of options) … And finally, T.J. Rumfield won the Minor League Gold Glove at first base last season. There’s one Gold Glove per position, so Rumfield was voted the best defensive first baseman in the entire minors. Great first base defense is one of those things you don’t fully appreciate until you don’t have it (shoutout to Mark Teixeira), but, at the end of the day, Rumfield will have to do better than his .219/.320/.438 (106 wRC+) line in Double-A last year. Great defense alone can get you to the big leagues as a catcher or shortstop or center fielder. As a first baseman? Nope. Rumfield’s bat has to catch up with the glove.

4. Rapid fire thoughts. A significant identity fraud scandal has arisen in the international amateur free agent market. Héctor Gómez and Ken Rosenthal (subs. req’d) report dozens of players from the Dominican Republic were found to have falsified their identity, and in some cases are six years older than they were believed to be. This involves players who have already signed and players who were expected to sign in future years. Some 2024 agreements have been nullified, including several north of $1M, though we’re still waiting on names. Rosenthal (subs. req’d) has this:

Another player, this one drawing interest from the New York Yankees, has been regarded as perhaps the best player among those whose age was recently drawn into question, executives and agents said. Other teams have likely been affected as well.

That sounds like a player the Yankees were expected to sign in a future signing period, not a player they have already signed. I imagine we’ll get a more complete accounting of the affected teams and players in due time. For now, MLB is still sorting through everything and trying to determine the scale of the identity fraud. This won’t be the last we hear about it.

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