February 22nd, 2022: Spring Training, Maybin, Minors, Holmes

Lockout, Day 83: Remember during the shutdown two years ago when it felt like every week was a Big Week For Baseball? "If they don’t get a deal done this week they never will," was a persistent vibe. This week feels like that for the lockout. It’s another Big Week For Baseball. No deal this week puts Opening Day in peril, so fingers crossed. Let’s get to today’s post.

1. Mining the news. MLB and the MLBPA are holding daily meetings this week and it’s the first time during the lockout they’ve conveyed any sense of urgency. They met for five hours yesterday! What they talk about is more important than how long they talk though. The two sides have about a week to reach a deal before delaying Opening Day becomes a real possibility.

There have been a few bits of news the last few days that caught my eye and are worth a few sentences, but not a full blown post. I’m going to clean out the virtual notebook and cover all that stuff now. Let’s round up the latest news.

Spring Training games delayed (duh)

Last week MLB made official what has been obvious for weeks: Cactus and Grapefruit League games will not start as scheduled*. The exhibition season was supposed to begin this Saturday, Feb. 26th. It will now start no earlier than next Saturday, March 5th. I reckon MLB will announce any further delays (Spring Training or regular season) in one-week chunks.

* MLB’s press release says the league will “postpone the start of Spring Training games” rather than “cancel the start of Spring Training games.” Are those games truly postponed and will be made up later? Of course not, but saying they’re postponed means teams don’t have to issue ticket refunds right away. The most fan unfriendly sport strikes again.

The Yankees lost eight Grapefruit League games to the one-week delay because they had split squad games scheduled for Feb. 26th. They still have 26 exhibition games on the schedule in the event MLB and the MLBPA reach a new Collective Bargaining Agreement this week. I can’t say I’m optimistic, but I am willing to be surprised.

A one-week delay isn’t the end of the world (most players will tell you Spring Training is too long) though that week matters more to some players than others. Guys trying to win jobs are hurt the most because it’s less time to strut their stuff. It’s also less time for new players to acclimate, though the Yankees don’t have any new players yet. Anyone they bring in after the lockout was going to be behind the 8-ball automatically.

Ben Nicholson-Smith says the union told MLB not to expect an expanded postseason in 2022 if they don’t play a 162-game season and players don’t earn their full salaries, which perhaps prompted the daily talks this week. I am anti-expanded postseason, but at this point, whatever it takes to get baseball back, I’m for it. The lockout has broken me.

Maybin joins YES

The YES Network has added another new analyst: Cameron Maybin, everyone’s favorite random Yankee. Jack Curry announced it over the weekend and says Maybin will do about 40 games, so the entire 2022 season (I kid, I kid). For what it’s worth, Michael Kay said Maybin knocked it out of the park when they did a “tryout” game together a few weeks ago. I buy it.

Maybin and Carlos Beltran will fill the gaps created by David Cone’s reduced workload and Ken Singleton’s retirement. Maybin was easy to like as a player and I bet the same will be true in the booth. I also like that YES now has a recently retired player on staff. Maybin can speak to the way teams apply analytics better than Paul O’Neill and even Cone because he’s not far removed from playing. Maybin’s hire gets a thumbs up from me.

Jung injures shoulder

Rangers third base prospect Josh Jung suffered a left shoulder strain lifting weights last week and may need surgery, according to Evan Grant. Baseball America (subs. req’d) ranks Jung as the No. 26 prospect in baseball and he was expected to take over at the hot corner this season, presumably after Texas manipulated his service time. Now he’s facing surgery.

Jung’s injury could prompt the Rangers to hang onto Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who the Yankees were expected to ask about before the lockout. Kiner-Falefa won a Gold Glove at third base in 2020 and played shortstop in 2021, and he was made expendable by the Corey Seager and Marcus Semien signings. Now they can plug him in at third until Jung gets healthy.

My guess is Jung’s injury means nothing for Kiner-Falefa and the Rangers will trade him as long as they get an offer to their liking. They have a little more leverage because keeping him is more plausible, but there’s no way Texas will take him off the table completely. Even with Seager and Semien (and Jon Gray), they look to be pretty bad. Some projections:

• ZiPS: 73-89 (fifth in AL West)
• PECOTA (subs. req’d): 69-95 (fifth in AL West)

Kiner-Falefa has two years of team control remaining and is a no-bat/all-glove type at the peak of his defensive ability. It’s better to trade a guy like Kiner-Falefa too soon rather than too late when you’re in the Rangers’ situation. Any slip on defense and his trade value will take a hit. What good is a no-bat/all-glove player if the glove starts to slip?

The Rangers have others they could plug in at third base until Jung is ready (Andy Ibanez, Nick Solak, Eli White), plus they could always sign a stopgap (Joe Panik, Travis Shaw, etc.). I don’t think Jung’s injury means much for Kiner-Falefa. If the Rangers get a good offer built around a young player(s) who will help in the future, they’ll trade him.

Minor league park factors released

As he does every offseason, Matt Eddy (subs. req’d) calculated park factors for last year’s minor league season. They are especially relevant now given all the affiliation changes and league realignments last year. The Yankees had new ballparks at Double-A, High-A, and Low-A last season (their High-A park became their Low-A park).

Eddy presents his park factors as a multiplier that “halves the magnitude of park factors to reflect the fact that players compile only half their statistics at their home parks.” A 1.05 multiplier indicates the ballpark inflated offense to 105% the league average, and a 0.95 multiplier means it suppressed offense to 95% the league average, etc. Here’s the 2019 vs. 2021 comparison:

The Triple-A talent pool was diluted last season and the park factors are all out of whack. There were a lot of pitcher injuries after the shortened 2020 season, plus COVID call ups. A lot of Triple-A at-bats and innings went to organizational plug-and-play types and guys plucked out of independent leagues. Scranton went from one extreme to the next.

Trenton Thunder Park (formerly Arm & Hammer Park) is a brutal home run park, particularly for lefty hitters who have to deal with the wind blowing in from the Delaware River beyond the right field wall. Other than the homers, Trenton and Somerset played similarly, at least in this two-year sample. The uptick in homers was offset by fewer doubles and triples.

George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa has Yankee Stadium’s dimensions, so it’s always hitter friendly, though it was slightly less hitter friendly in 2021 than it was in 2019. Some possible explanations:

• Normal year-to-year fluctuation (maybe it was less humid last summer and ball didn’t fly as much)
• Changes to the baseball itself (the minors use a different ball than MLB, but who knows)
• Changes to the talent pool.

That last point is a big one. Tampa moved down a level, and Low-A hitters are not as advanced or physically mature as High-A hitters. Also, the short season leagues were eliminated and a lot of kids jumped from rookie ball to Low-A, like Jasson Dominguez. Pitchers are generally ahead of hitters at the lower levels. Hitters get out-stuffed there.

Also, the minor leagues played more regional schedules last year. Park factors are calculated by comparing offense at the ballpark to the “neutral” road sample, and the road sample is skewed now because there are fewer teams involved. One great (or terrible) team can have an outsized impact on that “neutral” road sample, if that makes sense.

Either way, GMS Field is way more hitter friendly than Joseph P. Riley Park in Charleston, which has long stifled offense. So, generally speaking, the Yankees have hitter friendly parks at Low-A and High-A, and homer happy parks in Double-A and Triple-A. Adjust your prospect evaluations accordingly.

Triple-A season extended

Earlier this month MLB announced six games have been added to the Triple-A season to “help Triple-A baseball better align with the Major League season.” The Triple-A season had been 144 games basically since the dawn of time. Now it will be 150 games, with an extra week tacked onto the end. The Triple-A season now ends Sept. 28th.

This is tied directly to the new September call up rules. In the past, teams could call up any players they wanted after the Triple-A season ended. Now they can only call up one extra hitter and one extra pitcher, and the other Triple-A guys they want available as call up options have nowhere to go. They have to go to the Spring Training complex to work out and stay sharp, and then travel all that way when they get called up. Now they’ll just stay with the Triple-A team, and all the non-call up options are forced to hang around too.

(I’m going to do something I’ll probably regret and give MLB the benefit of the doubt, and assume the players will be paid for that extra week. If not, shame on MLB.)

Vandy using devices to give signs

The college baseball season opened this past weekend and Vanderbilt (and a few other schools) debuted a new wearable device that delivers signs. Everyone wears the watch-like device on their glove hand and the coaching staff sends them the pitch selection. Here’s some video and here’s how announcer Max Herz described the device during a broadcast (via Simon Gibbs):

“It is technically called an electronic display board in the NCAA’s lingo. This was the first year it’s been legal for a college pitcher to wear something like that. … Scott Brown, the Vanderbilt pitching coach, is punching numbers into a controller he has, and all nine Vanderbilt players on the field have one. They all see the same thing. That tells the pitcher what type of pitch to throw, and where or how to throw it.”

The NCAA approved these devices prior to the season (they’re one-way, so the players can only receive information, not send it) and the goal is to combat sign-stealing and speed up the pace of play. One weekend of data isn’t enough to know whether they’re working as intended, but these devices are out in the wild now. I’m certain MLB is paying attention.

Two possible issues with these devices (well, three if you consider the possibility they get hacked). First, MLB would have to get the players onboard. The players tend to be anti-change (no pitch clock, etc.) and the league would need MLBPA approval to use wearable devices. I guess the players could agree to them and just not use them? I dunno.

And two, who gives the signs? The coaching staff often calls pitches at the college level, and the pitching coach punching signs into a device in the dugout is a piece of cake. At the MLB level though, where the catcher routinely calls pitches? I’m not sure how that would work. The catcher would need a way to input the signs discreetly. This is a hurdle more than a dealbreaker. Anyway, keep an eye on this. The wearable device wheels are in motion.

2. The mystery of Clay Holmes’ slider/cutter. Clay Holmes was a revelation after coming over in a two-for-one trade with the Pirates at last year’s deadline. Pittsburgh used him as a mop up guy because that’s what his performance warranted (4.93 ERA and 4.07 FIP). With the Yankees, Holmes had a 1.61 ERA (2.10 FIP) with 33.0% strikeouts and 61.5% grounders. Goodness.

Holmes started last season as a sinker/cutter/curveball pitcher and finished it as a sinker/slider pitcher. Early on he threw the sinker, cutter, and curveball almost equally. Then he cut back on the cutter and curveball and threw more sinkers, then he got rid of the curveball entirely, then he replaced the cutter with a slider (at least on paper). That transformation started before the trade:

“I just really found the consistency that I was looking for,” Holmes told Brendan Kuty earlier this month while also crediting pitching coach Matt Blake and the Yankees pitching analysts for his success after the trade. “... I’ve found some success with simplifying things and going heavy sinker and mixing in some sliders.”

The pitch data says Holmes switched from a cutter to a slider but that doesn’t seem to be true? The data on the two pitches is damn near identical. I was going to put together a boring table with the numbers, but I think graphs better drive home the point. Here’s the average velocity:

Same upper-80s velocity. Back in the day upper-80s meant cutter. Nowadays it means slider, especially when you throw as hard as Holmes. His sinker sits in the upper-90s. So, the velocity on the cutter and slider is the same. Now here’s the horizontal movement:

Same horizontal movement too. Cutters tend to have short break and sliders are sweepier, even the hard snappy kind. Even these crazy low-90s sliders we see these days have more break than the typical cutter. And yet, Holmes got the same horizontal movement (and velocity) on his cutter and slider. Hmmm. Now here’s the vertical movement:

Again, the cutter and slider are the same. Same vertical break, and cutters aren’t supposed to break vertically. Some guys have a slider that dives into the dirt almost like a curveball, but a cutter that dives? No. The slider Holmes threw late in the season with the Yankees had the same velocity and horizontal break and vertical break (and spin!) as his cutter. Hmmm.

There’s only one possible explanation given the data: the cutter and the slider are the same pitch, and there’s a classification issue. Holmes calls it a slider, the movement numbers more closely align with a slider than a cutter, and it looks like a slider (video) …

… so it’s a slider, not a cutter. I came into this thinking there was something to Holmes switching from a cutter to a slider, but no, it looks like a pitch classification issue and he was throwing a slider the entire time. Also, Holmes began to emphasize his sinker more with the Pirates. It was not something he only started doing with the Yankees after the trade.

The biggest difference between Pirates Holmes and Yankees Holmes was strikes, not pitch mix or pitch shape or anything. He just threw more strikes:

• with Pirates: 13.2% walks and 51.2% zone rate
• with Yankees: 3.9% walks and 58.3% zone rate

The uptick in strikes is tied to the sinker (Holmes threw his slider in the zone 45.4% of the time with the Pirates and 45.5% with the Yankees, so yeah), but everything is intertwined, and if you throw more strikes with your sinker, hitters have to respect the slider more too. Holmes always had really good stuff. He just didn’t throw enough strikes with it until he got to New York.

The sub-4% walk rate and near-60% zone rate are rarefied air and probably not something Holmes will be able to keep up. Among the 138 pitchers to throw at least 50 innings last year, only six had a 58% zone rate and only four had a sub-4% walk rate. Former Yankee Richard Bleier was the only guy to do both (2.7% walks and 60.6% in-zone).

The Holmes we saw last season was likely the best version of Holmes. I mean, it’s hard to be better than that, right? He threw a ton of strikes, missed bats, got grounders, the works. I’m not sure there’s another level he can get to, or whether what he did in his 28 innings in pinstripes can be done again. It feels like some step back toward Earth is coming in 2023.

That said, Holmes has dynamite stuff and the Yankees have a knack for getting good stuff/poor control guys to make it work. Holmes doesn’t need to keep his walk rate around 4% to remain effective. He strikes me as the type who can succeed with a 10% walk rate a la Zack Britton and his turbosinker. An upper-90s sinker can take you pretty far in this game.

Relievers are fickle and we could find ourselves sitting here in May wondering when the Yankees will designate Holmes for assignment. If he crashes and turns back into Pirates Holmes, then whatever. Those 28 innings last year were still fun. I do think there’s a really good reliever in there though. Maybe not as good as last year, but good, and there’s nothing obvious the Yankees did to get Holmes to level up. The adjustments he made last year he made with the Pirates, before the trade, and the Yankees reaped the rewards.

3. Remembering a random Yankee: Kevin Youkilis. By request, this week’s random Yankee is one of my least favorite Yankees ever, so I’m hate-writing this. Here’s the random Yankee archive. You can find links back to everyone we've covered there.

Youkilis was born and raised in Cincinnati and he put up huge numbers at the University of Cincinnati, hitting .366/.499/.627 with 53 home runs, 206 walks, and 95 strikeouts in 203 career games. He was drafted for the first time after his senior season with the Bearcats. The Red Sox selected Youkilis in the eighth round in 2001, and gave him a $12,000 bonus.

Two years later Youkilis achieved celebrity when he was featured prominently in Moneyball. Author Michael Lewis called him the “Greek God of Walks,” a nickname Youkilis hated – “It was frustrating to hear fans say, 'Get a walk!' I'll take a walk, a walk's as good as a hit, but don't you want me to hit a home run or something?" he told Mark Bechtel in 2007 – and also said he was a “fat third baseman who couldn't run, throw, or field” in college.

Youkilis was ahead of his time. These days a player with his college numbers would be a first or second round pick. Back then analytics had yet to really infiltrate front offices, so Youkilis was an eighth round senior sign who wasn’t drafted out of high school or as a college junior. He dominated right away in pro ball too. Youkilis hit .317/.512/.465 with 70 walks and 28 strikeouts in 50 games in the old NY-Penn League after signing.

Minor league pitching wasn’t much of a challenge for Youkilis, who reached the big leagues at age 25 in 2004. He went up and down in 2004 and 2005 before taking over as Boston’s starting first baseman in 2006. During his three-year peak from 2008-10, Youkilis slashed .308/.404/.560 (148 OPS+) with 75 homers. He finished third in the MVP voting in 2008 and sixth in 2009.

The Red Sox slid Youkilis over to third base after bringing in Adrian Gonzalez in 2011. By 2012, Bobby Valentine turned the Red Sox into a last place laughingstock, and Boston thought they had their third baseman of the future in Will Middlebrooks. The then 33-year-old Youkilis had started to decline and his back was a frequent problem as well. That June, the Red Sox traded him to the White Sox for righty Zach Stewart and utility man Brent Lillibridge.

Youkilis hit .235/.336/.409 (101 OPS+) with 19 home runs in 122 games with the two Soxes in 2012. He got on-base enough and popped enough homers to still contribute, though his strikeout and ground ball rates were on the rise. Between that and the back issues, Youkilis was pretty clearly a hitter in decline, and someone who wasn’t a good bet to stay healthy.

On Dec. 3rd, 2012, the Yankees became desperate. That day the Yankees announced Alex Rodriguez would undergo hip labrum surgery and miss at least the first half of 2013. The free agent third base market that offseason was grim. The best available were Youkilis, Eric Chavez, Maicer Izturis, Jeff Keppinger, Placido Polanco, Mark Reynolds, Marco Scutaro, and Ty Wigginton, most of whom were in the twilight of their careers.

“My sole interest is improving the club,” Brian Cashman said about third base following A-Rod’s surgery announcement. “Right now, time is a problem. We’re going to be missing him for some time. It’s our job to find a way to withstand this. He will be back. We have to plan accordingly … If it’s not practical, we won’t do it.”

A-Rod’s surgery announcement was made the first day of the Winter Meetings and the Yankees were connected to Youkilis almost instantly. Eight days later, the two sides agreed to a one-year deal worth $12M. Terry Francona tried to lure Youkilis to Cleveland and the Athletics, who long desired Youkilis, had interest as well, plus they were close to his Bay Area offseason home.

“Nothing was out of spite in this decision,” Youkilis said during a radio interview about signing with the Yankees, referring to the rumors he signed with the Yankees to get back at the Red Sox for trading him. “People are going to take it however they want, but it was not like that. There was another team that was in the same division. No matter what, it could have gone that way, too, playing against the Red Sox. The whole thing, it was just I really thought this was the best opportunity to win. With what I was presented and different things, it wasn’t anything out of spite.”

As a dead pull right-handed hitter, Youkilis was tailor-made for Fenway Park (he was a career .304/.400/.512 hitter at Fenway and a career .262/.368/.451 hitter everywhere else) and not so much for Yankee Stadium, which favors hitters who go to right field. Youkilis tweaked his batting stance with hitting coach Kevin Long in an effort to slow his decline, and he made it about a week into Spring Training before going down with an oblique injury.

The Yankees lost Nick Swisher and Russell Martin to free agency during the 2012-13 offseason, then Curtis Granderson (forearm) and Mark Teixeira (wrist) got hurt in the spring. A-Rod was out with hip surgery and Derek Jeter was also out after breaking his ankle during the 2012 postseason. The oblique healed in time for Youkilis to be in the Opening Day lineup. Look at what the Yankees trotted out there on Opening Day:

1. CF Brett Gardner
2. SS Eduardo Nunez
3. 2B Robinson Cano
4. 1B Kevin Youkilis
5. LF Vernon Wells
6. DH Ben Francisco (platooned with Travis Hafner)
7. RF Ichiro Suzuki
8. 3B Jayson Nix (platooned with Lyle Overbay, with Youkilis playing third against lefties)
9. C Francisco Cervelli

It’s funny to think about now given the current lineup, but the Yankees were very lefty heavy back in 2013, and they needed some righties to balance things out. Youkilis and Wells were supposed to help fix that the way Jay Bruce and Rougned Odor were supposed to help the righty heavy lineup last season.

Anyway, Youkilis started the season well! So did Wells and Hafner. The Yankees won 15 of their first 24 games because those three turned back the clock and had Aprils that were in line with their peak years. Youkilis went 14-for-33 (.424) with two home runs in his first nine games that season (only three walks though).

Youkilis even got into a bit with Carlos Carrasco on April 9th. The Yankees scored seven runs in 3.2 innings against Carrasco that day, and he threw up and in at Youkilis after Cano took him deep one batter earlier. Carrasco was given an eight-game suspension and Youkilis got revenge later in the game, when he took Brett Myers deep (video).

“It doesn’t look good. After a home run was given up and a ball is thrown at your head,” Youkilis told Dan Martin about Carrasco throwing at him. “It’s always good to get a home run in that kind of situation. But I wasn’t worried about that. It’s just good to be winning some games.”

Alas, Youkilis’ hot start was nothing more than a hot start. He slipped into a 3-for-31 (.097) slump after those first nine games and drew just one walk. On April 30th, the Yankees placed Youkilis on the injured list with a lumbar spine strain. He received an epidural and an MRI revealed no structural damage, and the hope was he’s return in a few weeks.

Youkilis returned to the Yankees on May 31st and was pretty much cooked. He went 6-for-41 (.146) and looked every bit as bad as the numbers, and I remember his defense at third base was poor too. The back injuries sapped his mobility and throws to first base looked like they hurt. Youkilis was 34 going on 40. He looked old.

On June 14th, Youkilis returned to the injured list with another lumbar spine strain. Six days later he had surgery to treat a herniated disc. The timeline for his return was 10-12 weeks, putting the rest of his season in jeopardy. A-Rod was progressing with his hip surgery rehab but wasn’t all that close to returning, so the Yankees were a team without a third baseman.

"It's not how you draw it up, there's no doubt about that," Cashman told Mark Feinsand about Youkilis’ surgery. "Kevin is a hell of a player when healthy. He just hasn't been in position to show what he's capable of in-season because of the back. He looked great in the spring and we had high hopes. He obviously did so much for Boston over the years. He's the type of player that, if you could draw it up, that's the type of player you'd want."

A-Rod returned in August and spent time at DH. Third base was a revolving door all season. In fact, 10 different players started a game at third base in 2013, and 11 players played the position overall. That is the most players the Yankees have used at a non-first base infield position in a single season in franchise history. Here is the team’s games at third base leaderboard in 2013:

1. Jayson Nix: 41 games (33 starts)
2. David Adams: 31 games (29 starts)
3. Alex Rodriguez: 27 games (27 starts)
4. Kevin Youkilis: 22 games (20 starts)
5. Eduardo Nunez: 14 games (14 starts)
6. Mark Reynolds: 14 games (7 starts) (a random Yankee)
7. Luis Cruz: 13 games (10 starts)
8. Chris Nelson: 10 games (9 starts)
9. Brent Lillibridge: 9 games (8 starts)
10. Alberto Gonzalez: 6 games (5 starts)
11. Vernon Wells: 1 game (0 starts) (video)

Look at those names. The Yankees owe us a Fan Appreciation Day for sitting through 2013 and 2014. Youkilis never did play again that season, though he had resumed working out in September, and there was some thought he’d be available in the postseason had the Yankees qualified, which they of course did not.

“He’s fine,” agent Joe Bick said after the season. “Had the Yankees made it to the postseason, there’s a pretty good chance he would’ve been ready to play.”

Youkilis appeared in 28 games in 2013, nine fewer than A-Rod (the guy he was brought in to replace), and he hit .219/.305/.343 (80 OPS+) with two homers in those 28 games. Add in the shaky defense and the Yankees paid $12M to get -0.4 WAR out of Youkilis in 2013. He never played in MLB again after that season, though he did sign with the Rakuten Golden Eagles in Japan in 2014, and played 21 games with them before getting hurt.

On Oct. 30th, 2014, Youkilis announced his retirement as a player. He hit .281/.382/.478 (124 OPS+) in parts of 10 MLB seasons and signed just over $56M worth of contracts. He was a special assistant to Theo Epstein with the Cubs for a few years, and these days Youkilis owns Loma Brewing Co. in Los Gatos, California. He’s married to Tom Brady’s sister Julie, and he’s established charities focused on mental heath and suicide prevention among young adults, among other causes. Good man, bad Yankee.

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