May 13th, 2022: Judge, Gil, Holmes, Hicks, Loaisiga, Severino, Torres, Mailbag

At 23-8, the Yankees are tied for the fifth best 31-game start in franchise history, behind 1928 (25-6), 1939 (25-6), 1958 (25-6), and 1998 (24-7), and tied with 1923, 1950, and 2003. The Yankees went to the World Series in every single one of those years and won it every year except 2003. If we assume it’ll take 95 wins to get a first round bye, the Yankees have to go 72-59 the rest of the way. That’s an 89-win pace. Extremely doable. If nothing else, the Yankees have put themselves in a great spot a month into the season. Let’s get to today’s thoughts.

1. Weekday thoughts. Last year’s Yankees would’ve folded like a tent after Yoan Moncada hit the game-tying home run Thursday night. The 2021 Yankees had no fight. It helps when the opposing manager brings in a generic lefty to face Giancarlo Stanton with the bases loaded, but the Yankees are back to being the big bad Yankees. They’re much more well-rounded and they’re so much more fun. The vibes are good. A few thoughts on the last few games.

Judge’s walk-off

Maybe it was a long con. Maybe Brian Cashman revealed the terms of the rejected contract extension offer knowing Aaron Judge wouldn’t like it, and he would take it out on opposing pitchers. Genius, when you think about it. Judge provided the best moment of the season (to date) with his three-run walk-off homer Tuesday. It was an absolute bomb (video).

“It’s a weird feeling,” Judge told Bryan Hoch about his first career walk-off homer. “You hear the crowd going crazy, you look at your bench and you see your guys jumping over the railing, just getting all excited. It’s a special moment that I got to share with them.”

Jordan Romano has been nails this season – he took a .220/.264/.320 opponent’s batting line into Tuesday’s game – but he wasn’t right that night. His fastball was down close to 2 mph and his slider around 4 mph, and his control was nonexistent. The rally started because Romano committed the cardinal sin of not just walking the No. 9 hitter, but walking a Yankees catcher.

“This was the plan. Get A.J. up, give us a chance to win the ballgame,” Jose Trevino, said No. 9 hitter and Yankees catcher, told Hoch.

Thanks to the mush ball, we’ve seen plenty of balls that looked gone off the bat, only to die on the warning track (or even on the grass). Not Judge’s. That was as gone off the bat as a homer can get in this offensive environment. You don’t see many second deck homers to left field in Yankee Stadium. I know Statcast measured it at only (“only”) 414 feet, but it felt like so much more.

A walk-off three-run home run down two runs with one out in the ninth inning is close to the top of the win probability scale. At +0.819 WPA, Judge’s dinger was the Yankees’ biggest hit in quite some time. Here are the last five with better than a +0.800 WPA:

• Sept. 28th, 2016: Mark Teixeira walk-off grand slam vs. Red Sox (+0.821 WPA) (video)
• June 20th, 2014: Carlos Beltran walk-off three-run homer vs. Orioles (+0.836 WPA) (video)
• June 5th, 2008: Jason Giambi walk-off two-run homer vs. Blue Jays (+0.895 WPA) (video)
• May 16th, 2006: Jorge Posada walk-off two-run homer vs. Rangers (+0.848 WPA) (video)
• May 13th, 1985: Don Mattingly walk-off three-run homer vs. Twins (+0.910 WPA) (video)

Thursday night Judge walloped a 456-foot homer and a go-ahead two-run infield single. The man contains multitudes. He’s hitting .295/.359/.635 (194 wRC+) with an MLB leading 11 home runs. This is basically 2017 Judge minus a few walks. Still a lot of season to play, but Judge made a huge bet on himself turning down that extension, and my goodness is he making good on that bet. The best player on the game’s best team to date.

Gil’s spot start

I think Luis Gil is a reliever, potentially an excellent one, and nothing I saw Thursday night has me reconsidering my position. He blew the top of the White Sox order away in the first inning (nine pitches, eight swings, five misses), then eight of the next 16 batters he faced reached base. It was a grind after that great first inning.

Gil threw five changeups all night and he left his slider up in the zone too often – four of the five hits he allowed came on cement mixers that stayed over the plate – so he was fastball only much of the night. It’s a really great fastball! But it’s hard to turn over a lineup multiple times with just a fastball. Look at his slider locations. This is Not Great:

The White Sox were a good on-paper matchup for Gil because they never walk (MLB low 6.3% walk rate), they chase a lot (sixth highest chase rate at 30.0%), and they’re not great against fastballs (21st with a .324 wOBA). They certainly bailed Gil out a few times with ugly hacks on pitches out of the zone (like this one). The Yankees planned the spot start well.

For a No. 6 starter making a spot start, Gil was fine. He ate a few innings and didn’t completely melt down, and the bar’s not much higher than that. If someone gets hurt and the Yankees need Gil to be a full-time starter, it might not go well (I think they’d go with Hayden Wesneski in that situation), but for one single spot start, Gil did what the Yankees needed him to do.

The 15-day rule is in fact a 15-day rule now. It’s not still a 10-day rule, so Clarke Schmidt wasn’t even an option Thursday. He can’t be called back up until next Tuesday. I think Schmidt will get a spot start later during this 23 games in 22 days stretch. Gil was really the only option Thursday and he was good enough. The less the Yankees have to use him as a starter, the better.

(I imagine Gil will be sent back to Triple-A for a fresh arm before Friday’s game. I wouldn’t be opposed to keeping him around as a reliever, though being unavailable for at least three days is a bit of an issue.)

The untouchable Holmes

So it turns out Clay Holmes really is that damn good. A month into the season he’s allowed just one run in 16.1 innings. He has a 26.7% strikeout rate and an 80.5% ground ball rate. To put it another way, 49 of the 60 batters he’s faced have either struck out or hit the ball on the ground, or 81.7%. The strikeout plus ground ball rate leaderboard (min. 15 innings):

1. Clay Holmes, Yankees: 81.7%
2. Alex Cobb, Giants: 71.9%
3. Shane McClanahan, Rays: 71.7%
4. Framber Valdez, Astros: 67.4%
5. Kendall Graveman, White Sox: 65.6%

The gap between No. 1 and No. 2 is the same as the gap between No. 2 and No. 14. Take a look at Holmes’ spray chart. It’s one thing to know a guy has an 80.5% ground ball rate. It’s another to see just how few balls he’s allowed out of the infield. This is wild:

60 batters faced and seven – seven! – balls hit out of the infield. And, as noted a few weeks ago, Holmes mostly faces the middle of the other team’s lineup. This isn’t some back of the bullpen reliever working sheltered low leverage innings. Holmes only faces the other team’s best hitters in close games, and he’s dominating them like that. It’s incredible.

Even more incredible: Holmes has a 3.3% walk rate (two walks to those 60 batters). He had a 14.9% strikeout rate in parts of four seasons with the Pirates, including 13.2% prior to the trade last year. With the Yankees, Holmes has a 3.7% walk rate. Turns out “hey, you should throw more strikes with that 97 mph sinker” was good advice.

Holmes appeared in 16 of the Yankees’ first 30 games and that sounds worse than it is because the Yankees played those 30 games in 34 days, and they had the mini-All-Star break last week. Holmes has pitched back-to-back days only four times. The off-days will be few and far between moving forward, so Aaron Boone will have to back off Holmes a bit. It’s fine. He’ll do it.

It’s kinda amazing the Pirates couldn’t get the guy with the upper-90s sinker to be good, but their loss is the Yankees’ gain. The Yankees pitching development (development doesn’t stop in the minors!) has come such a long way the last few years. Pitching coach Matt Blake is just one man and this takes a village, but the Matt Blake era has been transformative for the franchise.

Hicks’ lack of power

Going into Thursday’s game Aaron Hicks had a .230/.383/.270 (110 wRC+) batting line, which is the kinda funny slash line we often see early in the season. Hicks has a 19.0% walk rate (second highest in baseball behind Max Muncy) and a 15.8% chase rate (fourth lowest in baseball). He has always been a tremendously disciplined hitter. The .383 OBP isn’t an accident.

The lack of power is concerning though, even in this mush ball era. Hicks has one extra-base hit (this homer) and both his barrel rate (1.8%) and hard-hit rate (32.7%) are in the bottom 20% of the league. Jose Berrios gave him a pretty decent 3-1 fastball to hit the other day (this one) and the result was a relatively harmless fly ball. There’s just no thump in his bat.

Hicks has been very good in limited at-bats as a righty (.273/.448/.409 and 163 wRC+) and less productive in a few more at-bats as a lefty (.212/.354/.212 and 87 wRC+). His hard-hit rate (i.e. batted balls at 95+ mph) as a lefty is in the dumps at 28.9%. The radial graph shows a hitter who isn’t hitting the ball hard and isn’t hitting it on a line (left-handed only):

(I had to label the batted ball type zones myself. Why did Baseball Savant remove them? Beats me. Apologies for the amateur hour labeling.)

Lots of soft line drives (flares and burners) and pop ups (hit under), and only one batted ball (this one) that qualifies as solid contact based on exit velocity and launch angle. Rough. Hicks says his wrist is healthy – “The wrist is great,” he told Dan Martin earlier this week – though it’s not uncommon for wrist surgery to sap power even after the player returns to the lineup.

“I’ve been hitting the ball the other way left-handed, which is not usual for me. The more at-bats I get, the more I’ll be back to my old self,” Hicks told Martin. “... I’m just missing some pitches, which I think is because I was out for so long last year and then we had the shortened Spring Training. I haven’t been able to lock in.”

During Thursday’s game Paul O’Neill pointed out Hicks is starting his leg kick too late, so he then has to rush his swing and his entire body to catch up to the pitch. The pitcher is well into his delivery and Hicks hasn’t even lifted his leg yet:

Hicks walks so much that he’s not a zero offensively, and I think that, given all the mitigating circumstances (wrist surgery, long layoff, short Spring Training, etc.), the Yankees have to stick with him and let him work through it. It’s not like they have better options anyway. Stanton isn’t going to play the outfield everyday and Marwin Gonzalez isn't the answer.

I will say, yet again, that as long as Hicks is walking this much and getting on base this much, I think he should hit leadoff with DJ LeMahieu’s contact bat breaking up the high strikeout hitters in the middle of the order. It doesn’t make sense to me to …

• … expect a guy who is showing no hard-hit ability whatsoever to drive in runs behind Stanton, Judge, Anthony Rizzo, et al.
• … expect a guy hitting .111/.261/.278 (53 wRC+) with runners in scoring position to drive in runs (I’m not a RISP guy but this helps my argument).
• … have Hicks get on base this much only to have Isiah Kiner-Falefa and the catchers be responsible for driving him in.

The current version of Hicks in the No. 9 spot as the “second” leadoff hitter would be perfect, but the catchers must be buried. If it were possible to bat them tenth, the Yankees would. Hicks is a table setter, not a run producer, so let him set the table. If he stops walking and his OBP craters, the Yankees can shift gears. For now, let him continue to work through things, and let him draw all those walks in front of Judge and Rizzo and Stanton.

Miscellany

Weird game for the offense against Dylan Cease. They struck out 11 times in four innings, but the batters who didn’t strike out went 6-for-7 with two doubles, two homers, and a triple. That’s a 55.0% strikeout rate and an .857 BABIP. Cease went into the game with a 34.3% strikeout rate, so he’s gonna strike dudes out. It’s hard to string hits together against a guy like that, so homers and extra-base hits are imperative. The Yankees got them and they got to Cease, and then they got to the bullpen too … Jonathan Loaisiga’s allowed three homers in 13.2 innings with the dead ball this year. He allowed three homers in 70.2 innings last year. His command has come and gone (mostly gone) all season. Plenty of time to get this straightened out and I think Loaisiga will as long as he’s healthy. Can’t say I expected him to be the shaky reliever coming into the season … Very nice in-game bounceback by Luis Severino the other night. The first two innings were a real grind – 65 pitches to get six outs! – then he retired nine of the final 10 batters (five via strikeout) he faced to get through five innings. 65 pitches to get the first six outs and 32 pitches to get the next nine outs. Severino (and also Jameson Taillon on Wednesday) did well to prevent the Blue Jays from breaking the game open early. The Yankees won those two games for many reasons, and keeping the floodgates closed in the early innings is atop the list … Gleyber Torres is playing well and getting big hits -- that was a monster at-bat going from 0-2 to a walk against Joe Kelly -- and yet his batting line sits at .231/.273/.451 (112 wRC+). It feels like his AVG and OBP never move. Anyway, Gleyber’s running career low strikeout (16.0%) and ground ball (31.6%) rates and career high exit velocity (92.7 mph) and barrel (11.5%) rates. Keep doing that, Gleyber.

2. 2022 draft prospect: Florida HS RHP Walter Ford. The 2022 MLB Draft will take place during the All-Star break and the Yankees hold the No. 25 pick. Here are the draft prospects we’ve already profiled. Some will be players the Yankees are reported to have interest in, some are players who fit the team’s M.O., and some are players I happen to like.

Ford’s nickname is the Vanilla Missile, and as he tells it, it came about because the parent of a teammate said he looked like Vanilla Ice with the swag of Deion Sanders, so everyone started calling him Vanilla Prime. Then one day he was watching Aroldis Chapman, aka the Cuban Missile, pitch for the Yankees, and since Ford had started hitting 90 mph, Vanilla Prime became the Vanilla Missile.

Beyond the nickname, Ford is interesting because he was supposed to be a 2023 draft kid. He opted to enroll in an accelerated graduation program and will finish school early, so he’s eligible for this year’s draft. Ford won’t turn 18 until December and he’s essentially a high school junior. He’s one of the youngest players in the draft class. Here are his current draft rankings:

• Baseball America (subs. req’d): No. 25
• FanGraphs: No. 29
• Keith Law (subs. req’d): No. 25
• MLB.com: No. 43

Because he’s entering the draft a year early, teams don’t have as large a book on Ford as they do other high school kids. He’s not an unknown though. Ford still pitches for his Pensacola area high school and he played for USA Baseball’s 18-and-under national team last summer. Here’s video and here’s a piece of MLB.com’s free scouting report:

While Ford does have some serious raw power as an infielder, his future is on the mound thanks to some very big stuff. The 6-foot-2 right-hander has been up to 96-97 mph, sitting comfortably in the low 90s with a fastball that comes from a quick arm and features good riding life in the zone, though his velocity backed up a little this spring. He throws a solid low-80s slider that misses a lot of bats and while feel for a changeup is fringy, scouts feel it could develop into an average offering in the future as he commits to throwing it more.

Ford has had some issues with repeating his delivery this spring, as he’s tried to over-throw at times and has been too quick to the plate, resulting in more sporadic command. He is athletic on the mound, so there’s hope he can settle in and have solid control and command in the future.

Ford lit up Trackman during showcase events last year, registering spin rates in the 2,500 rpm range with his fastball and 2,650 rpm range with his slider. The Yankees don’t seem to weigh age heavily in their model (Blake Rutherford and Anthony Seigler were older high schoolers), though 17-year-old draftees have a good track record in pro ball (relatively speaking, of course).

The Yankees have not taken a high school pitcher in the first round since Ian Clarkin in 2013, and Clarkin was the third of their three first round picks. The last prep pitcher they took with their top pick was Ty Hensley in 2012, and that didn’t work out. Before Hensley it was Gerrit Cole in 2008. Right guy, just couldn’t convince him to sign. And before Cole, it was Phil Hughes in 2004.

It’s not often the Yankees use a high draft pick on a high school pitcher (they haven’t taken one in the top five rounds since Matt Sauer in 2017), so Ford is not exactly in their wheelhouse. That said, the top college pitchers are all hurt, which could lead to a run of bats in the first round. This might be the year when the stars align and a high school pitcher makes sense for the Yankees. Ford’s stuff checks all the analytical bonuses, so he’s as good a candidate as anyone.

3. Rapid fire thoughts. Arbitration hearings have begun. Tyler O’Neill and Austin Riley lost their hearings earlier this week, and Joel Sherman says Aaron Judge’s is scheduled for Wednesday, June 22nd. It’s the last hearing on the schedule and the Yankees play the third game of a three-game series in Tampa that night. At least some Spring Training arbitration hearings take place in St. Petersburg. I wonder if they'll do it in person? (Others have been doing it on Zoom.) Judge filed at $22M and the Yankees filed at $17M, and 2022 statistics are not admissible. Only stuff from 2021 and earlier. FanGraphs has the luxury tax payroll at $262.2M with Judge estimated at $19M. If we assume the Yankees are unwilling to exceed the $270M threshold (which would push their 2023 first round draft pick back 10 spots), Judge’s ruling will leave them with either $9.8M or $5.8M to spend the rest of the season. Pretty big difference there, so Judge’s hearing will have an impact on how the Yankees operate at the trade deadline … Ready for a blast from the past? The Yankees signed righty Danny Salazar to a minor league deal, according to Hector Gomez. The oft-injured former Cleveland hurler is now 32, and he hasn’t pitched anywhere since 2019. His last healthy-ish season was 2017, when he threw 103 innings and had a 4.28 ERA (3.48 FIP). I assume pitching coach Matt Blake had a hand in this signing (Blake and Salazar were with Cleveland at the same time). Can’t expect anything from Salazar at this point, but with the way things are going for the Yankees on the mound these days, I half expect him to show up in July and makes 10 starts with a 30% strikeout rate and a sub-2.00 down the stretch … And finally, Ken Rosenthal (subs. req’d) has a good story on what the Yankees have done to combat the running game. The numbers going into Thursday night’s game real quick:

2021 stolen bases against: 86 (9th most in MLB)
2021 caught stealing rate: 16.5% (2nd worst)
2021 stolen base attempt rate: 0.64 per game (10th most)

2022 stolen bases against: 7 (fewest in MLB)
2022 caught stealing rate: 46.2% (4th best)
2022 stolen base attempt rate: 0.43 per game (fewest)

Rosenthal says new third base coach Luis Rojas is spearheading the team’s efforts to cut down on steals and they’re doing the usual (varying times to plate, slide steps, etc.), plus PitchCom helps too. As many as three defenders are allowed to wear a receiver in addition to the pitcher, and the catcher communicates ways to hold runners in addition to the pitch call itself. Steal attempts are up ever so slightly this year (0.60 per game in 2021 to 0.66 in 2022) and it’s increased even more the last two weeks (0.70 per game), I suspect because teams realize they need to generate offense in other ways with home runs harder to come by. Combating the running game had to improve and I’m glad it happened, and in such a drastic way (small sample caveats apply). The Yankees are excelling at everything that prevents runs right now. They don’t allow hard contact (third lowest barrel rate at 7.0%), don’t allow homers (second lowest rate at 0.68 HR/9), don’t allow hits with runners in scoring position (second lowest at .168 AVG), and now they don’t allow stolen bases either. The Yankees are a run prevention machine.

Mailbag Questions of the Week

Taylor asks: Where are you with the current state of the offense? Seems they started off cold and looked liked the 2021 team, then went on a hot streak putting up crooked numbers but against lousy teams. Now the team has 13 hits across nearly 30 innings since the rain postponements. With only a month of data, which version of the team do you think represents the true 2022 Yankees offense?

Taylor sent this in about halfway through the first Blue Jays game, not after the Yankees scored 15 runs on 15 hits against the White Sox on Thursday. The offense has broken out since that little slump last weekend.

Anyway, you’re not really as good as you look when you’re playing your best and you’re not really as bad as you look when you’re playing your worst. The real offense is somewhere between the group that tore the cover off the ball those 10-14 days (and Thursday night) and the group that has struggled around that. Unsatisfying answer, I know, but it’s the truth.

The Yankees are averaging 4.84 runs per game, fifth most in baseball, and that’s with Josh Donaldson and Joey Gallo not doing much (six homers combined in 31 games? really?), Aaron Hicks providing nothing but walks, and the catchers being awful. Aaron Judge and Anthony Rizzo, and to a slightly lesser extent DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton (and Gleyber Torres), have really carried the Yankees offensively up to this point.

You can look at that two ways. The first is optimistically, because guys like Donaldson and Gallo can only be better moving forward, and Hicks is not a true talent sub-.300 SLG player. Donaldson is taking a ton of walks and Gallo’s shown some signs of life lately, plus Gleyber is chipping in a bunch of key hits. Once those guys get on track, the offense will really be cooking.

The second way to look at it is pessimistically. Donaldson might be toast He is 36 and he is swinging and missing more than ever. Gallo is over 300 plate appearances of being bad with the Yankees, Hicks is coming off wrist surgery (which tends to sap power), and they're not going to get anything from the catchers. The Yankees are still too reliant on too few players, which makes them like the 2021 Yankees, only with different names.

We all focus on the Yankees, and when you watch the same team day after day, you pick up on all their little flaws and think they’re worse than they really are. Every team has stretches where the offense goes to sleep though, especially this year. The Dodgers recently had a stretch with 14 runs in five games against the Diamondbacks and Tigers (!). This happens to every team.

I do think the construction of the current lineup – four high strikeout hitters (Gallo, Judge, Stanton, and now Donaldson too) and a bottom of the order that contributes nothing – leaves the Yankees prone to deep valleys. Getting Donaldson and Gallo going would be a big help. At least then the Yankees would have more depth to the lineup. Bottom line, every team has a frustrating offense in 2022. I think the Yankees are much better than most.

Jonathan asks: I know that in reality, ranking pitchers in a rotation against each other doesn't actually matter at all. When Severino might be last of the 5, things are going well. It's a thing fans do. With that said, how would you rank the starters in the Yankees rotation right now, best to worst? Separately, how would you line them up if you were entering a playoff series?

Yeah, Luis Severino is the No. 5 right now, isn’t he? He hasn’t been awful. He just hasn’t been as good as everyone else. You know things are going well when your No. 5 starter has a 4.08 ERA and 3.80 FIP (to be fair, that works out to an 89 ERA+ in this offense-starved environment). I can live with Severino being the No. 5. He can still dominate on his best days.

Ranking the starters from best to worst, I’d go:

1. Nestor Cortes
2. Gerrit Cole
3. Jameson Taillon
4. Jordan Montgomery
5. Luis Severino

I’d be perfectly fine with Montgomery at No. 3 and Taillon at No. 4. I think Cortes has pretty clearly been the team’s best starter to date. Cole has bounced back from his sluggish start, and Taillon and Montgomery have been very good throughout. Severino’s had some bumps, but again, he hasn’t been bad, and those bumps are understandable given what he’s coming back from.

Of course, the rotation now and the rotation going into the postseason are very different things. A lot can and will change over the next four and a half months. Assuming a four-man postseason rotation, I’m putting Severino in the bullpen, and rolling with these four in this order:

1. Gerrit Cole
2. Nestor Cortes
3. Jameson Taillon
4. Jordan Montgomery

I’ve joked (well, mostly joked) about Cortes being the ace. Ultimately, Cole is the No. 1 starter. He is the dominator you want going up against the other team’s No. 1 starter, and when the rotation turns over later in the series, he’s the first guy you want making a second start. Cole is the ace and I would think the Yankees will keep the others on a tight leash given the bullpen.

Keep in mind matchups will factor into the rotation order. If you’re facing a team that struggles with lefties, Cortes and Montgomery might be the Nos. 2 and 3. If it’s a team that has issues with righties, then maybe Taillon is the No. 2 behind Cole. That four up there is where I stand right now, on May 13th. We’ll see where things sit in September and October.

Brian asks: Was there any reporting on why the Yankees didn’t just directly trade with the Rangers for IKF? While I like Donaldson, his contract was definitely viewed as negative money. Maybe as a result the price was lower from the Twins by agreeing to take on Donaldson? Just in retrospect seems like a strange sequence of events.

I haven’t seen any reporting on it. The Yankees definitely spoke to the Rangers about Isiah Kiner-Falefa, both before and after the lockout, and I assume they just couldn’t find common ground. Mitch Garver is under control through 2023, so if the Rangers were dead set on getting a catcher*, one year of Gary Sanchez didn’t compare (ditto three years of Kyle Higashioka).

* The full trade was two years of Kiner-Falefa and righty Ronny Henriquez for two years of Garver. The Yankees equivalent to Henriquez is someone like Randy Vasquez. A live arm in Double-A, but not one of the premier guys in the system.

“(Flipping Kiner-Falefa) wasn’t something we necessarily planned on,” Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said after the trade (video). “It became pretty clear to us after the fact the Yankees were the runner-up so to speak in the original trade with the Rangers.”

Sounds like the Yankees were persistent in their pursuit of Kiner-Falefa, eh? They tried to get him from the Rangers, and when that didn’t work out, they called the Twins. “We didn’t have a clear-cut, ‘This is where it’s going. But (the trade) opened up some conversations we weren’t having,” Falvey told Dan Hayes (subs. req’d), suggesting they jumped at the chance to dump Josh Donaldson’s contract without really knowing what came next.

Based on the timestamps on the press releases, Kiner-Falefa was a Twin for 35 hours and 59 minutes, so it came together quick. Maybe the Twins and Yankees were already talking about Donaldson (and/or Ben Rortvedt)? Then once Kiner-Falefa entered the picture, the Yankees got aggressive? I dunno. They tried to get him from the Rangers though. It didn’t work out for whatever reason, so they got it done with Minnesota instead.

Paul asks: It's a little early to talk deadline trades, but let's pretend for a bit. What holes are the Yankees even looking to fill? The only glaring weaknesses are catcher and bench. And, as you pointed out several times, catchers are mostly awful throughout the league, so there aren't a lot of options there. Really, who could the Yankees even be targeting at or before the deadline?

Catcher and an outfielder, and we might as well throw pitching in there, because you’re always more likely to need pitching at the trade deadline than not. I’d think you can argue they also need a new third baseman too, but that’s not happening. The Yankees made their bed with Josh Donaldson, and if anything, they’d just put DJ LeMahieu over there full-time.

Joey Gallo is up to 319 plate appearances of being pretty bad as a Yankee (.169/.301/.378 and 94 wRC+) and Aaron Hicks is doing nothing but walking. If they’re not hitting come July, the Yankees will have to go out and get an outfield bat. I suspect we’re going to hear a lot of Andrew Benintendi rumors between now and the deadline. I worry that would be Xavier Nady 2.0 (i.e. buying into a BABIP spike and outlier performance).

“He’s a really talented player. He cares a great deal. He has a chance every time he’s at the plate, obviously, to change whatever’s happened prior,” Brian Cashman told Kristie Ackert about Gallo earlier this week. “The fact that we’re winning our games as much as we have, there’s a lot of gas in that tank, that in terms of contribution that I think is still there for us.”

Catcher is a tough one because there aren’t many good ones out there. The Yankees put such a premium on defense now that we can probably rule out impending free agent Willson Contreras, who is one of the best hitting catchers in the game but also a poor framer. The Cubs are really bad though. I’m certain they’ll put Contreras on the table in the coming weeks.

Sean Murphy might be the more realistic target. He's hitting .214/.286/.429 (115 wRC+), and while the AVG and OBP stink, the league average catcher is hitting .210/.282/.328 (80 wRC+) and Yankees catchers are hitting .172/.228/.215 (34 wRC+). Murphy’s a good framer, he’s under control through 2026, and the Athletics will trade anyone. It fits.

My guess is the Yankees are content with their catching situation, and I don’t think they want to give up on Gallo. The Yankees stood pat at the 2019 and 2020 deadlines, when they had a postseason spot pretty much locked up (last year’s moves were more about just getting to the postseason). I hope they don't do that again. This team has been very good, but there is still some pretty obvious areas that can be improved.

(Send your requests for Tuesday's random Yankee series and questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)