December 24th, 2021: Coaches, Holiday Gifts, Mailbag

Lockout, Day 22: Are we closer to the end of this thing, or the beginning? I’m pretty sure it’s the latter, unfortunately. I hope you’re all staying safe – I got to play my favorite game the other day: do I have a cold or the plague? (it was just a cold, thankfully) – and the holidays treat you well. Let’s get to today’s post.

1. The new coaching staff. Actual baseball news! The Yankees finalized and announced their new coaching staff earlier this week. Here’s the complete staff:

Boone, Mendoza, Blake, Harkey, and Swanson are the holdovers. Druschel, Lawson, and Rojas were reported a few weeks back. Chavez, Dykes, and Chapman are the new names to round out the staff. Rojas and Chavez are the only two hires from outside the organization. Chapman, Druschel, Dykes, and Lawson were all promoted from within.

Chavez is the most recognizable name among the final three additions to the staff. He played 17 years in the big leagues – Chavez is fourth in WAR among players never selected to an All-Star Game (not counting the pre-All-Star Game era) – including 2011-12 with the Yankees. Once he finished playing, Chavez worked in the front office with the Yankees (2015) and Angels (2016-20).

Three years ago Chavez, who is somehow only 44 despite playing 17 years and spending another five years in front offices, told Fabian Ardaya (subs. req’d) his time with the Yankees as both a player and front office person were eye-opening. From Ardaya:

Some three months after he retired midseason in 2014, Chavez was offered a job as a special assistant to Yankees general manager Brian Cashman. When he was first brought in, Yankees director of quantitative analysis David Grabiner asked Chavez a simple question: “Where do you like the ball to hit?”

Chavez prided himself for his ability to drive the ball the other way and show power to all parts of the park, so he quickly answered middle-away.

“Huh, that’s interesting,” Grabiner replied, pulling up a heat chart for Chavez’s career. In bright red was a cluster of pitches middle-in, the middle-away zone colored a cold blue.

“I thought there was no way,” Chavez said. “I thought, I should know me as a player, but the data tells you something different. I’m not saying that analytics is the end-all, say-all, but it’s a piece of the puzzle. You have to be able to learn what you’re trying to do as a player, and then understand that this is what the numbers are telling you, and piece that together.”

“That just made me think, ‘Wow, I thought I knew myself as a player,’ when the data was really showing me I really didn’t know myself,” he added. “If you put that information together, it really helps.”

Chavez doesn’t have much coaching experience (he spent a month as the interim manager for Anaheim’s Triple-A team in 2018 and that’s it), though he previously interviewed for the Angels’ and Rangers’ managerial jobs, and was billed as one of those “future manager” types during his playing career. Now he’s getting his foot in the door as an assistant hitting coach.

“Analytics isn’t going anywhere, so the baseball people, if you want to be in this game, you better be ready to adapt to it, to accept it, learn it,” Chavez told Ardaya. “It’s a part of this game. It’s going to be a balance, and the teams that are balancing it out right now are the teams that are really successful. Baseball people that don’t really like analytics or don’t agree with it too much, if you want to be in this game, you’ve got to adapt to it.”

One thing Chavez brings to the table is MLB playing experience. Boone and Harkey both played for a while and Chapman had a cup of coffee, but Chavez was a top player who received MVP votes, signed big contracts, the works. Not every player is into analytics. It’s good to have someone who can speak that language too, and command respect as an ex-player, and Chavez does that. (Several Yankees have been around long enough that they played against Chavez.)

“I view him as a little bit of a Swiss Army Knife where he’s going to have a lot of different responsibilities. He’s going to have his hands on a lot of different things. It’s a role that I feel like is going to evolve as he allows it to,” Boone told Brendan Kuty about Chavez’s role. “I feel like Spring Training, it’s a role that can grow. During the season, it’s a role that can grow. But I feel like he’s going to have a big impact, but also be part of the hitting crew, where he’s going to have a lot of input. He’s done it at a very high level in the box. To be able to have those kinds of conversations with guys is really important.”

Chapman had a cup of coffee with the 2003 Phillies, flying out in his only big league at-bat. This is his first MLB coaching job and next season will be his tenth in the organization. I always find it neat when one of these minor league coaching lifers gets a chance in the show. Here’s what Chapman’s been up to the last decade:

• 2013-14: Gulf Coast League manager
• 2015-16: Low-A Charleston defensive coach
• 2017: Dominican Summer League manager
• 2018: Triple-A Scranton defensive coach
• 2019: Low-A Charleston defensive coach
• 2020: Coached at alternate site (was going to manage in the GCL before the pandemic)
• 2021: Minor league infield coordinator

Mendoza had been the infield coach, and the Yankees took that off his plate and now Chapman will handle those responsibilities, which makes sense given his history as a defensive coach. I don’t think the Yankees are unhappy with Mendoza. If they were unhappy with him, he wouldn’t be on the staff. Teams don’t ask unproductive coaches to do less. They just get rid of them.

I think this means the Yankees want Mendoza to focus more on game-planning and whatever else bench coaches do, and not worry about the infielders. In a way, this might be a “promotion” for Mendoza. The Yankees removed one set of responsibilities so he could focus on the other, more manager-like stuff. I don’t know that for certain. I’m just speculating, but it makes sense.

Dykes climbed the ladder very quickly. He played college ball at Western Kentucky and coached at several schools (Western Kentucky, Indiana, VMI) before joining the Yankees in Sept. 2019. He was supposed to be the hitting coach at Low-A Charleston in 2020 before the pandemic wiped out the minor league season. Dykes did remote coaching instead last year, and this year he was the hitting coach at Triple-A Scranton.

“It made me appreciate that even more,” Dykes told Steve Krah about the lack of in-person work in 2020. “It also taught me that you didn’t have to be hands-on and in-person with a player to help them develop. It was a unique challenge, but it made me a better coach. It got me out of my comfort zone. The world we knew has completely changed.”

One year as a remote coach and one year as a Triple-A hitting coach, and Dykes is in the big leagues. The Yankees must really love him. Based on his Twitter account, he’s an analytics dude, which is in no way surprising. The RailRiders were one of the top hitting teams in Triple-A this year and several players at the level had breakout or career years (and they seem to like Dykes too). That’s the kinda thing that gets a hitting coach promoted.

So, three hitting coaches and three pitching coaches (which Brian Cashman said the Yankees would have) with a big slant toward analytics (duh). Will it work? Beats me. Check back in about 10 months, when we see how the players perform and can project their performance onto the coaches. One thing is for sure, the Yankees do not place a premium on experience. Rojas is the only new addition to the staff with prior big league coaching experience.

(Now we just need the lockout to end so the new coaching staff can begin working with the players. Right now they’re not allowed to have contact with anyone on the 40-man roster.)

2. Holiday gifts. Christmas is upon us and I’m one of those annoying people who says “you don’t have to get me anything” when asked what I want for my birthday or Christmas. Giving gifts is more fun than getting gifts and I’m in gift-giving mode these days, so let’s give a few Yankees holiday gifts.

I originally thought about quick one-liners and gifts for everyone on the team, but that’s overkill and some would really be strained, plus I’d rather go more in-depth on fewer players. So, here are six Yankees and what I’d like to give them for the holidays. Come with me, won’t you?

Gerrit Cole: A sticky ball

Cole was not bad after MLB’s foreign substance crackdown. In fact, he pitched quite well up until he hurt his hamstring in September. That’s when things really went south. Cole’s two best starts of the season (129-pitch shutout in Houston, 15 strikeouts in Anaheim*) came after the crackdown. It’s not like he went from ace pre-crackdown to No. 5 starter post-crackdown.

* The Angels were not good in 2021, but they had a league average strikeout rate as a team (23.2%) and only three other pitchers had a double-digit strikeout game against them all year (none had more than 11 strikeouts). Striking out 15 is never something to scoff at.

Cole adjusted to the decline in spin by pitching down in the zone more often, and also throwing fewer breaking balls and more changeups. We can chop his season into three periods: Opening Day through June 2nd (pre-crackdown), June 3rd through Sept. 7th (crackdown announced to hamstring injury), and Sept. 8th through end of the season (post-hamstring injury):

• Opening Day to June 2nd: 1.78 ERA (1.77 FIP) and 36.9 K%
• June 3rd to Sept. 7th: 3.58 ERA (3.36 FIP) and 33.1 K%
• Sept. 8th to end of season: 6.35 ERA (4.80 FIP) and 26.0 K%

There was bound to be some regression following that first period. No one pitches at that level for a full 162-game season. But, even baking in that expected regression and the sticky stuff crackdown, Cole was pretty darn good until he hurt his hamstring. Anyone who says Cole struggled after the crackdown because he had a 4.15 ERA and leaves it at that is lazy with their analysis.

Cole definitely wasn’t bad after the crackdown, but he also wasn’t as good as he was before the crackdown, and I’m going all the way back to 2018 here. With the sticky stuff, Cole was one of the 2-3 best pitchers in the world. I think Jacob deGrom is the only guy you can definitively say was better. Without the sticky stuff, Cole wasn’t quite in that tippy top tier of starting pitchers.

Foreign substances aren’t coming back. At least not like we knew them. MLB will not go back to looking the other way. There’s no putting that toothpaste back in the tube. Pitchers could (and evidence suggests they have) find other ways to use sticky stuff, mostly likely by hiding it where umpires don’t check. Things won’t go back to the way they were before the crackdown though.

So, I’d like to gift Cole a tacky baseball. The league is working on several sticky ball prototypes (they were tested in the Arizona Fall League) and it seems like we’re going to get one within a few years. A sticky ball won’t stop pitchers from using foreign substances (they’re still going to look for an edge) but ideally it would be good enough that most pitchers don’t deem them necessary.

A sticky ball that allows Cole to pitch like he did before the crackdown but without using any foreign substances (and without having to answer questions about foreign substances) seems like the perfect holiday gift. Just go out and pitch like one of the best pitchers in the world with an MLB-approved baseball that renders the sticky stuff moot. Sound good?

Aaron Judge: A fair strike zone

Five full seasons into his big league career, Judge is still – still! – falling victim to an unfair strike zone that seems calibrated for the average-sized player. I get it, he’s very tall and an outlier, and it’s difficult for umpires to adjust. They’re human. That doesn’t mean I have to like Judge getting stuck with these bad calls though, especially down below the zone.

I first wrote about this way back in 2017 and it’s time to update the numbers. Back then, Judge had more pitches below the zone called strikes than the average hitter. Is that still true? Yes. Yes it is. In fact, it’s gotten worse. Here is the percent of pitches taken below the zone called strikes against Judge over the years:

• 2017: 23.6% (MLB average: 20.1%)
• 2018: 29.9% (MLB average: 19.8%)
• 2019: 24.4% (MLB average: 19.4%)
• 2020: 31.7% (MLB average: 20.6%)
• 2021: 27.2% (MLB average: 19.4%)

From 2017-21, when Judge took a pitch below the zone, it was called a strike 26.4% of the time. For the average hitter, it was 19.8%. That’s a huge difference! This covers hundreds of pitches a year. Judge took 673 pitches below the zone in 2021 and 183 were called strikes. With a league average rate, it would have only been 131. That’s one bad call every three games. One a series.

Some of these bad calls have little impact and don’t change the outcome of the at-bat. Bad calls don’t always lead to a bad outcome. Sometimes they just don’t matter. But some bad calls wind up changing an entire game. Look at this pitch (video):

Fifth inning of a scoreless game and that call turns a would-be 2-1 count into a 1-2 count. Judge struck out on the next pitch, Joey Gallo and Giancarlo Stanton followed with a single and a walk, but the Yankees didn’t score in the inning and went on to lose the game 2-0. The difference between a 1-2 count and a 2-1 count is pretty significant:

• Judge after 2-1 count in 2021: .321/.480/.686 (165 OPS+)
• Judge after 1-2 count in 2021: .229/.259/.372 (150 OPS+)

Relative to the league average, Judge was a great hitter after falling behind in the count 1-2. But, in terms of raw stats, he was much more productive after getting ahead in the count 2-1 (like everyone else). Call that 1-1 pitch a ball instead of a strike and maybe Judge strikes out anyway. Or maybe it leads to the Yankees scoring that inning, winning the game, and the extra win allows them to host the Wild Card Game. Bah.

I just want Judge to have a fair strike zone. He’s 6-foot-7 and the bottom of his zone is higher than the average hitter’s, yet umpires do not call it that way. Give Judge a proper zone and it’s safe to assume he’d be even more productive seeing how we’re turning a bunch of strikes into balls. That would equal more walks, more favorable counts, and more damage.

So, my gift to Judge is a fair strike zone. If it takes robot umpires, so be it. No one is asking for preferential treatment. Just fairness. I would gift it to Judge, conveniently right in time for his contract year. Maybe with a fair zone Judge could do what Bryce Harper did in the second half across a full season (.338/.476/.713!). Probably not, but wouldn’t you like to find out?

Joey Gallo: An average contact rate

I’ve been told I’m a generous gift-giver, but even I won’t go overboard and give Gallo an elite, LeMahieuian contact rate. That’s like giving someone a PS5 and an Xbox One for Christmas. Going from literally the worst in-zone contact rate in baseball to a league average rate is plenty good enough for me, and plenty good enough for Gallo.

Here is the bottom of the in-zone contact rate leaderboard since Gallo became a full-time player in 2017 (min. 2,000 plate appearances):

1. Joey Gallo: 71.4%
2. Khris Davis: 76.5%
3. Javier Baez: 77.5%
4. Jackie Bradley Jr.: 78.2%
5. Josh Donaldson: 78.9%
   (MLB average: 84.1%)

It is remarkable Gallo has been as productive as he’s been throughout his career while making so little contact on pitches in the zone. For reference, the gap between No. 1 and No. 2 on that list is the same as the gap between No. 2 and No. 26. Gallo makes it work because he draws so many walks, has so much power, and is so good defensively. He has to do all that to hang around.

Because he walks so much (18.0% in 2021) and strikes out so much (34.6%), Gallo puts fewer balls in play than any player in baseball. Only 46.4% of his plate appearances resulted in a ball in play in 2021. Next lowest was Matt Chapman at 54.0% – the gap between No. 1 and No. 2 on that list is the same as the gap between No. 2 and No. 18 – and the MLB average was 67.0%.

And yet, Gallo hit 38 home runs this season. Only nine players hit more. Here is the home runs per ball in play leaderboard since 2017 (min. 500 balls in play):

1. Joey Gallo: 14.0%
2. Aaron Judge: 11.8%
3. Miguel Sano: 11.7%
4. Mike Trout: 11.4%
5. Fernando Tatis Jr.: 11.3%
   (MLB average: 4.9%)

Giancarlo Stanton is sixth at 10.7% and only four others are over 10%: Mike Zunino (10.6%), Pete Alonso (10.6%), Max Muncy (10.4%), and Kyle Schwarber (10.2%).

Anyway, the gap between No. 1 and No. 2 on this leaderboard is the same as the gap between No. 2 and No. 19. That’s much better than the last two leaderboards, no? No one in this sport hits home runs as frequently as Gallo when he puts the ball in play, and it ain’t even close. Unfortunately, no one puts the ball in play as infrequently as Gallo. Quite the pickle.

Giving Gallo an average contact rate – again, not even elite, just average – is a pretty obvious holiday gift, I think. The difference between Gallo and the league average is making contact on one additional pitch in the zone every eight swings. The guy swung at 780 pitches in the zone in 2021. We’re talking contact on an additional 54 (!) swings here. One every three games!

Not every one of those additional 54 contact swings will result in a positive outcome (duh) and I’m sure Gallo’s homer per balls in play rate will decline a bit if he starts putting more balls in play, but you know some of them are going over the fence. Given how hard he hits the ball and how good he is at not chasing out of the zone …

… Gallo would be a monster with a league average in-zone contact rate. There are few things in this sport I would like to see more than a full season of Gallo with an average contact rate. He is a unicorn. A skill set this extreme in either direction is basically unprecedented. Gallo is very good the way he is, but there’s an obvious way to get better, and I’d like to gift it to him.

Giancarlo Stanton: More outfield starts

I get it. The Yankees have limited Stanton to most-of-the-time DH duty the last two years in an effort to keep him healthy. It’s smart. But also, Stanton showed this past season that he can still play the outfield well, and giving him more outfield starts gives the Yankees much more roster flexibility. Also, consider the 2021 numbers:

• Stanton as OF: .302/.374/.635 (171 wRC+) in 107 PA
• Stanton as DH: .267/.351/.491 (130 wRC+) in 467 PA

It’s not many plate appearances as an outfielder and normally I would ignore something like this (he hits better as a left fielder than a right fielder, etc.), but DH is a different animal. It’s tough to sit around and do nothing between at-bats. You can only take so many swings in the cage and watch so much video. Stanton himself said he believes playing the field helped him offensively because it gives him a mental break.

“I think (playing the outfield) has helped kind of just not focusing on hitting,” he told Dan Martin in August. “You always want to be your best in the box, and feel like you’re in the best mind frame. But that also means turning it off for a second and using that focus somewhere else. So yeah, it helps in some way.”

I also think playing the outfield can help keep Stanton healthy too. As a DH, he has a whole routine to keep his body warm and limber. He runs in front of the dugouts between innings to stay warm, things like that. There’s no need to do that when you’re playing the field. Playing the outfield keeps him active and that can, in theory, lead to fewer muscle pulls and whatnot.

Giancarlo started 26 games in the outfield this past season, all within the final 60 games of the year, so roughly half-time the final two months. Can he do that all year and start 80 games in the field in 2022? I think he can. Will the Yankees let him? I’m not sure, but I’m in the gift-giving mood here, so I’m giving Stanton the outfield starts he seems to want.

Gio Urshela: Defensive stats that match the eye test

Gio is an eye test superstar. Watch him play everyday and he looks one of the very best players in baseball, especially when he’s hitting like he did from 2019-20. He has a knack for highlight reel plays at third base, like when he threw himself into the Rays dugout in Game 162, and he makes a lot of difficult plays look silky smooth at the hot corner.

And yet, the defensive stats don’t like Urshela. It’s not that they say he’s merely good at third base rather than great. They say he’s below average. I understand the numbers tell us stuff we can’t see with our eyes, but man, Gio’s defensive ratings are tough to buy. Here are the numbers in his three seasons with the Yankees (third base only):

• 2019: +0 DRS and -6 OAA
• 2020: +5 DRS and -1 OAA (60-game season)
• 2021: -4 DRS and -5 OAA

I dunno. It’s difficult to reconcile the eye test with the numbers. I can buy Urshela not being a top of the line, best in the sport kinda defensive third baseman. But below average? It can’t be that we watched so many bad third basemen over the years that Gio’s defense looks amazing in comparison, right? Chase Headley and Alex Rodriguez were pretty good at third.

I can’t explain why the eye test and the defensive numbers diverge so greatly. Maybe Urshela really is below average and he’s good at hiding it. Whatever it is, I would like to gift Gio defense stats that match the eye test, meaning well-above-average and downright excellent. That would boost his WAR and his standing around the league among fans, front offices, and even fellow players.

And, of course, any public and freely available stats are admissible in an arbitration hearing, so Urshela could use his standout defensive stats to negotiate a higher salary. He’s not hurting financially (signed for $6.55M in 2022), but players only have so much time to cash in before this game spits them out. I want my dudes to get paid and Gio is my dude. He’s a blast.

Deivi Garcia: His pre-2021 mechanics

Retro gifts can be some of the very best holiday gifts. It’s not necessarily something new and it’s might be something you owned once upon a time, but there are memories or sentiments attached to it, and the gift hits all the right notes. Like Walt giving Elliott ramen. This is kinda like a retro gift. I’d like to give Garcia something he once had, and that’s his nice, workable, pre-2021 mechanics.

2021 was a mess for Deivi, who went into the season as the Yankees top pitching prospect and came out of it a reclamation project. Garcia had a 6.85 ERA (4.85 FIP) with too many walks (15.6%), way too many homers (2.08 HR/9), and just an okay number of strikeouts (22.2%) in 90.2 innings with Triple-A Scranton. He also allowed seven runs in 8.1 big league innings.

This year 277 pitchers threw at least 90 innings in the minors. Here’s are Garcia’s ranks among those 277 pitchers:

• 8th highest ERA
• 5th highest home run rate
• 2nd highest walk rate
• 179th highest strikeout rate
• 6th lowest K-BB%

Five of the seven pitchers ahead of Garcia on the ERA leaderboard, and three of the four ahead of him on the home run leaderboard, pitched in the launching pad formerly known as the Pacific Coast League. Remove the innings minimum and Garcia walked the fifth most batters and gave up the 21st most home runs in the minors in 2021. Yeesh.

Deivi’s issues are rooted in “changes in his delivery that caused the quality of his stuff as well as command and control to diminish somewhat,” according to Josh Norris (subs. req’d). Keith Law said Garcia had become a “low slot slider-slinger.” I made this image a few months ago. It’s 2020 Garcia on the left and 2021 Garcia on the right. His arm slot is noticeably lower.

For whatever reason Garcia dropped his arm this season, and everything flattened out. He was not a super hard-thrower to begin with, and now he had less life on his low-90s heat, his slider had less bite, and his curveball rolled rather than snapped. Triple-A hitters hammered him even though injuries and COVID meant the Triple-A talent pool was diluted this year.

The good news is this seems correctable. There’s a pretty obvious flaw in Garcia’s delivery that must be fixed. This isn’t a pitcher working with the same mechanics as last year who suddenly lost a grade or two off his stuff. Step one in getting Garcia back on track is getting his delivery and his arm slot back to where it was. From there, they can go about fixing everything else.

Deivi is still only 22 – he’s four months older than Henry Davis, the No. 1 pick in the 2021 draft – and development isn’t linear. Sometimes prospects have bad seasons (disaster seasons). By all accounts Garcia is smart and coachable. That doesn’t guarantee he’ll get fixed, but it makes me optimistic. Even then, I would gift him his pre-2021 mechanics if I could.

3. Rapid fire thoughts. A few weeks back I mentioned Elvis Andrus as a “take on this guy’s contract to lower the prospect cost for another player” trade target, and this week Steve Adams pointed out some complications with Andrus’ contract. Specifically, his trade from the Rangers to the Athletics triggered a full no-trade clause, and his $15M club option for 2023 turns into a player option with 550 plate appearances in 2022. Avoiding the player option is easy enough. Andrus shouldn’t play that much for a contender at this point in his career. Getting him to waive the no-trade clause could be tricky though, especially if it’s pretty clear he won’t play much for his new team. Maybe this is a “he’ll waive the no-trade clause on the condition you release him” situation? Andrus gets paid either way, but getting released allows him to pick his new team (he could even go right back to the A's as a league minimum player). Then again, time will be short after the lockout. It may be unworkable. The chances this is relevant to the Yankees are small, but I figured I’d mention it. Trading for Andrus isn’t necessarily straightforward … According to Ron Blum and Maury Brown, the Yankees finished 2021 with a $208,418,540 luxury tax payroll and a $203,628,978 actual payroll. Those are the official numbers calculated by the commissioner’s office. Only the Dodgers ($285,599,944) and Padres ($216,467,391) exceeded the $210M luxury tax threshold in 2021. They owe $32.65M and $1.29M in luxury tax, respectively. More importantly, total player payroll was $4.05 billion this year, the lowest since 2015 ($3.9 billion) and quite a bit below the record $4.25 billion in 2017. Payrolls keep going down (even prior to prorated salaries last year) and that’s why we’re in a work stoppage right now. Revenues are going up, player compensation is going down, and the owners locked out the union when the players said hey, that’s not right. (Relatedly, Ben Clemens ran the numbers and found teams paid the same per win in free agency this offseason as they did two and three years ago. Free agent spending wasn’t “up” before the lockout. Teams just bunched most of their signings together in a short period of time.)

Mailbag Questions of the Week

Mark asks: Is there any way that a three team deal with SD could fetch Marquez from COL or Castillo from CIN? For example, the Yankees could trade Gallo to SD for Hosmer, with the Pads and Yanks sending prospects to secure one of those top pitchers for the NYY. I actually think Hosmer’s LH swing would play well at NYS. The loss of Gallo might be too much for the NYY’s outfield depth, but they could remedy that by signing, say, a Kris Bryant to play INF/OF. Madness??

So, just to be clear, I have to give up Joey Gallo and take on Eric Hosmer’s contract (four years and $59 million in real money with a $18M luxury tax hit) and give up prospects to get German Marquez or Luis Castillo? That’s … steep. And Marquez and Castillo are excellent. Excellent and extremely affordable. In a vacuum, I would love to slot either between Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery.

I’m open to trading Gallo and open to trading prospects. I think Mark is overrating Hosmer. I’m not sure Yankee Stadium would help him much given how many ground balls he hits and how little he pulls the ball. Hosmer had a 55.5% ground ball rate in 2021 and it was right in line with his 54.4% career mark. Here’s his 2021 spray chart:

Not exactly the spray chart of a lefty hitter who would take advantage of the short porch. Hosmer has long been a top exit velocity guy and hitting coaches have been trying to get him to elevate the ball since his prospect days. He’s 32 now and his bat is probably only going to slow down from here. Hosmer’s last three 162-game seasons are pretty similar:

• 2018: .253/.322/.398 (95 wRC+)
• 2019: .265/.310/.425 (92 wRC+)
• 2021: .269/.337.395 (102 wRC+)

Trading Gallo and taking on Hosmer to get Marquez or Castillo would be robbing Peter (the offense) to pay Paul (the pitching), and frankly the Yankees should rob Paul to pay Peter. They’re doing okay on the pitching end. It could always be better, but the Yankees had a bottom five offense in the American League in 2021. Subtract Gallo and put Hosmer at first base and the offense gets worse.

I would rather keep Gallo and pony up the prospects to get Marquez or Castillo directly. Hosmer will prevent the Yankees from doing other stuff (like signing Kris Bryant to replace Gallo) because the Yankees have a set payroll limit. Taking on Hosmer’s deal and signing someone like Bryant to replace Gallo just isn’t a thing that will happen payroll-wise.

I like the creativity. I’m open to trading Gallo, open to trading prospects (even the best prospects in the organization), and very open to acquiring Marquez or Castillo. If there’s a way to do without taking on Hosmer’s payroll killing contract – we're talking about a first baseman who’s hit .264/.323/.415 (99 wRC+) in his last 2,000 plate appearances – I’m all ears. I can’t get onboard with the Hosmer aspect in this era of unreasonably low payroll limits relative to the team’s market and revenues.

Jonathan asks: if you were to rank all the starting pitchers that the Yankees have developed on their own (Tanaka is cheating) in the past 10 years or so, based on what they have provided to the Yankees and projecting the future, where does Montgomery fit? And what does his Yankees future look like?

Let’s stretch this back to 2007 to cover the entire RAB era. Before looking it up, my guess was Ivan Nova led all homegrown Yankees in starts, and Luis Severino led in WAR. I was wrong on both counts, though only kinda on the WAR part. Here are the leaderboards. This is among players originally drafted or signed by the Yankees:

Most starts for Yankees since 2007
1. Andy Pettitte: 162
2. Phil Hughes: 132
3. Ivan Nova: 118
4. Luis Severino: 88
5. Jordan Montgomery: 76
6. Chien-Ming Wang: 54

Most WAR with Yankees since 2007
1. Andy Pettitte: +16.3
2. Luis Severino: +12.0
3. Ivan Nova: +7.4
4. Jordan Montgomery: +6.8
5. Phil Hughes: +5.8
6. Chien-Ming Wang: +5.6

Foiled by Pettitte. He is technically a homegrown starter, though he spent three years with the Astros in the middle of his career, and the spirit of Jonathan’s question was homegrown starters who came up within the last 10 years (which I stretched to 15). Pettitte’s an old timer and does not fit the question even though he technically is a homegrown starter.

Defining “homegrown” is a bit tricky. Domingo German originally signed with the Marlins and the Yankees traded for him when he was in Low-A. He spent parts of four seasons in the minors before reaching the big leagues for good. So no, German is not technically homegrown, but much of his minor league development took place with the Yankees. Shouldn’t we consider him a product of the farm system? I think so. Same with Mike King.

Anyway, I limited the WAR leaderboard to starting pitchers only, otherwise David Robertson (+12.9 WAR) and Dellin Betances (+11.5 WAR) would pop up. Ignoring Pettitte, Montgomery is the second best starter the Yankees have developed in the last 15 years behind Severino. Nova has him beat on WAR, but by only a little bit, and he made 42 more starts.

It feels like Montgomery has been around forever but he just completed his first full 162-game season. He spent some time in the minors late in 2017 when the Yankees cut back on his workload, 2018 and 2019 were interrupted by Tommy John surgery, and 2020 was the short pandemic season. Montgomery finally had a full 162-game season in 2021.

More than a few folks unfairly dubbed Montgomery the "next Andy Pettitte" early in his career (kinda like the way Melky Cabrera was the “next Bernie Williams”) and that created unrealistic expectations. Montgomery is a rock solid major league starter. His track record isn’t long because of Tommy John surgery, but he had a 3.83 ERA (112 ERA+) and 3.69 FIP in over 150 innings in 2021. That is quite valuable.

Also, Montgomery made some adjustments this year and upped the swing and miss rates on his changeup and curveball (which he threw roughly 50% of the time combined in 2021) considerably. As of late August, Montgomery was the only pitcher in baseball with two pitches with a swinging strike rate over 20%. The results have been good and the underlying performance is improving.

Montgomery turns 29 later this month and he’s under team control another two years. Sometimes at that age a pitcher is what he is, though Montgomery improved this year, and I don’t think we can assume he’s done improving now. Ideally, I think he’s the No. 3 starter on a World Series contender, but with pitching staffs being what they are these days, he just might be a No. 2.

Going forward I would rather have Montgomery than Severino, mostly because Severino has been unable to stay healthy. It’s not just the Tommy John surgery. He had shoulder trouble in 2019 too. Montgomery is an above-average starter and I’m more comfortable expecting him to stay healthy. For the next five years, I’d take Montgomery over any pitcher in the organization other than Cole. Luis Gil and Luis Medina have more pure upside, but chances are they won’t ever be as good as Montgomery is right now.

Montgomery is at worst an average mid-rotation starter, and if he can repeat 2021 a few more times, he will set himself up for a nice free agent contract during the 2023-24 offseason. Three or four years at $13M+ a year would be doable (with the caveat that we have no idea what the Collective Bargaining Agreement will look like).

Rob asks: Hey Mike, do you think that if teams were allowed to trade draft picks and a reverse draft order (WS Champs #1, runner-up #2, then filter by best records after playoffs) would help to stop tanking and incentivize winning?

It would help a little. Draft picks are only a small part of tanking. Unlike the other major sports, in baseball you can’t expect your high draft pick to step right into the lineup the next season and be one of your better players. Even the most talented and advanced draft prospects are going to need time in the minors. There’s still so much that can go wrong.

The most effective way to incentivize winning is a financial reward because that’s the only language the owners seem to speak. My half-baked idea: put all the television money in a pool and create a sliding scale in which the team with the best record gets the most money, and the team with the worst record gets the least. Think that would change how teams operate?

It seems likely the new Collective Bargaining Agreement will include a draft lottery. MLB and the MLBPA proposed different versions, but if they’re both proposing it, we’re going to get something. There’s no way that alone will eliminate tanking – the NBA and NHL have draft lotteries and teams still tank in those leagues – but it’s a start. Rewarding winning (and punishing losing!) is the only surefire way to get everyone to try their hardest to win.

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