December 14th, 2021: Kikuchi, Mayea, Brantly, Voit

Lockout, Day 13: I looked at independent league stats the other day just to feel alive. Did you know Alberto Callaspo hit .335/.469/.461 with 85 walks and 30 strikeouts for the Charleston Dirty Birds this year? I don’t know what surprised me more: Callaspo still playing or Callaspo somehow being only 38. Crazy. Anyway, here are today’s thoughts and here is Giancarlo Stanton hitting home runs left-handed.

1. Possible free agent target: Yusei Kikuchi. Whenever the lockout ends, the Yankees will seek a shortstop and a first baseman, and likely a starting pitcher as well. You can’t have too much pitching and they’ll have to protect Luis Severino in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery (and Jameson Taillon following ankle surgery). Another arm would be welcome.

The very top of the free agent pitching market has been picked clean, and so has most of the middle as well. Carlos Rodon, who barely pitched in September because of a shoulder issue, is the best available starter. After him, the next best available very well might be former Mariners lefty Yusei Kikuchi, who surprisingly declined his $13M player option after the season.

Kikuchi, 30, had an uneven 2021 season. He was rock solid in the first half, pitching to a 3.48 ERA (4.36 FIP) in 98.1 innings while earning a trip to the All-Star Game. Things then fell apart in the second half: 5.98 ERA (5.03 FIP) in 58.2 innings, prompting the Mariners to pull Kikuchi from the rotation down the stretch, when they were fighting for their first postseason berth in a generation.

“Not the way I think anybody envisioned the season ending for him, certainly with the way it started,” Mariners manager Scott Servais told the Associated Press after the season. “But you have to make adjustments, you have to do what’s best for the team, and at the time I thought that was the best thing for the team.”

Kikuchi is a high variance pitcher who will give you truly dominant starts and truly awful starts, sometimes in the same week. There seems to be no middle ground with him. He’s either great or terrible, and whichever team signs him will hope to get the great version more often than not. Does Kikuchi make sense for the Yankees? Let’s dive in.

An impressive power arsenal (in theory)

Kikuchi’s raw stuff is high end. He arrived in MLB three years ago with a low-90s fastball, then he spent an offseason working out at Driveline Baseball, the famed data driven training facility, and as a result he showed up the next year sitting in the mid-90s and touching 99 mph. Kikuchi held that velocity this year too. It wasn’t a one-year, 60-game blip.

Kikuchi’s fastball averaged 95.1 mph and topped out at 98.6 mph this past season. Only Rodon (95.4 mph) and Shane McClanahan (96.4 mph) had a higher average fastball velocity among full-time lefty starters in 2021. The late season dip is likely fatigue related given the innings jump from 2020 and the fact Kikuchi threw four bullpens a week (!) last winter to get his mechanics right, according to Ryan Divish. Point is, Kikuchi has premium velocity.

The rest of Kikuchi’s arsenal has evolved in his three years in MLB. The one constant has been a hard mid-80s changeup that had a top 15 swing-and-miss rate the last two seasons (39.6%). Beyond that, Kikuchi has scaled back on his mid-80s slider, completely given up on his mid-70s curveball, and seemingly fallen in love with a new low-90s cutter.

Anecdotally, it seems pitchers who add a cutter fall in love with it more than other pitches. You rarely see a guy add, say, a curveball, and begin throwing constantly. With a cutter, you’ll often see it take over as a pitcher’s primary fastball. That’s not always a bad thing. It worked for CC Sabathia late in his career. It was probably a detriment to Phil Hughes though.

Kikuchi arrived in MLB as a fastball, curveball, slider, changeup pitcher in that order. Now he’s a fastball, cutter, slider, changeup guy. Kikuchi has a reputation for being a tinkerer (with grips, his mechanics, etc.) and he’s tried elevated four-seamers, pitching at the knees, the works. You name it, he’s tried it. His lack of success is not the result of a lack of effort. Here’s some video.

As much as anything, Kikuchi is held back by a lack of fastball command. He threw his fastball in the zone 51.5% of the time in 2021, right in line with 2019 and 2020. The league average is 55%, and Kikuchi had several individual starts this past season where he threw his fastball in the zone around 40% of the time. That’s not going to play.

Kikuchi has not shown he can consistently throw his fastball for strikes. That means he walks more batters than you’d like (9.3% in 2021), he’s behind in the count too often (1.204 OPS when behind in the count!), and he can’t always set up his secondary pitches. Perhaps this is why he’s favoring the cutter? Maybe he feels he can better command it (only 52.1% in-zone rate though)?

Bottom line: Kikuchi has elite fastball velocity for a lefty and a changeup with one of the highest swing and miss rates in baseball. That’s a solid foundation. Whether he can ever throw enough strikes with the fastball for it to matter is another question, and it could be that he uses the cutter too often. Kikuchi doesn’t lack stuff. Figuring out the best way to use it (and executing that plan) has been the biggest challenge to date.

The post-crackdown decline

I’m sure at least part of Kikuchi’s second half skid can be chalked up to fatigue. There was the big innings jump and all those bullpens last offseason. Sure, I can buy him being fatigued. At the same time, Kikuchi’s spin rates took a nosedive following the foreign substance crackdown. His spin rate decline was among the largest in the sport, in fact. The graph:

Kikuchi lost about 200 rpm across the board on his fastball, cutter, and slider, which a) strongly suggests he was using sticky stuff (small changes in the 50-75 rpm range can occur naturally, but not 200 rpm), and b) was enough to take all three pitches from above-average spin to below-average spin. That seems like a pretty big deal.

Prior to the crackdown Kikuchi had a 13.5% swinging strike rate and allowed a 42.0% hard-hit rate (i.e. percent of batted balls over 95 mph). After the crackdown, it was 11.5% and 51.8%, respectively. His stuff wasn’t as crisp and Kikuchi went from a good (occasionally great) starter who made the All-Star Game (and mostly deserved it) to having to be yanked from the rotation.

So which Kikuchi will you get in 2022? Spin rates across baseball began to tick up late in the season (they did for Kikuchi too), suggesting pitchers are finding ways around the not exactly rigorous umpire checks. A sticky ball may be on the way too. It’s also possible Kikuchi, a very hard and diligent worker, will spend the offseason learning how to pitch without sticky stuff.

There is more to pitching than spin rate the same way there is more to pitching than velocity, but it is an important piece of the pie. Spin can make a very good pitcher great and an okay pitcher solid. Kikuchi is more the latter than the former. Given his occasionally brilliant outings, it’s easy to dream on him putting it all together and dominating. You can say that about a lot of guys though, including several already in the Yankees rotation.

What would it take to sign him?

You may remember the Mariners gave Kikuchi a unique contract. It was effectively a three-year, $43M deal with a four-year, $66M club option and a one-year, $13M player option. The Mariners of course declined the four-year club option this offseason. Kikuchi has a 4.97 ERA (4.93 FIP) in 365.2 big league innings. That ain’t worth four years and $66M.

Kikuchi also declined his $13M player option though and a) that surprised a lot of people, and b) I’ve been thinking a bunch about it lately. There are a few ways you could look at it. First, it’s a Scott Boras client believing he can get more on the open market, even if it’s spread across multiple years. Every offseason we get the “Boras overplayed his hand!” stories and then he goes and gets Eric Hosmer eight years. He’s still the king and I won’t doubt him.

Second, could it be that Kikuchi decided to take his career into his own hands after the Mariners were unable to maximize his talent after three seasons? I imagine it’s easier to walk away from $13M when you’ve made $33M (after 2020 proration) the last three years, plus whatever he made during his eight seasons with the Seibu Lions in Japan. It could be Kikuchi said I have to get away from this team and start fresh somewhere, even if it means giving up $13M.

Either scenario has implications for the Yankees. If Kikuchi declined his player option because he believes he can get a larger deal in free agency, then the Yankees are likely out, because they rarely give multiple years to non-elite starters. And if Kikuchi decides he needs a fresh start with a more pitching savvy organization, does that really describe the Yankees? Maybe it does now after the year the pitching staff had in 2021. I dunno.

Jon Heyman says the Blue Jays have interest in Kikuchi and gosh, that seems like a perfect fit for both sides. Toronto already had four above-average starters (Jose Berrios, Kevin Gausman, Alek Manoah, Hyun-Jin Ryu), so they could slot Kikuchi in as their No. 5 and put no pressure on him. Plus they have a pretty long track record of helping pitchers revive their careers. Reigning Cy Young winner Robbie Ray is the most obvious example.

FanGraphs projects Kikuchi to get one year and $8M. MLBTR has him at two years and $20M. I would bet on the latter. A Boras client declining a player option and then taking less money is so very unlikely, though we can’t rule out the possibility Kikuchi just wants to get away from the Mariners, and is willing to take a pay cut to join the right team and get his career on track.

Also, we can’t rule out Kikuchi returning to Japan. The lockout could drag on long enough that he says screw this, I’m not waiting around anymore, I’m going to pitch at home. If nothing else, Japan gives Boras something else to leverage. It is a viable option for Kikuchi. It’s reasonable to think $13M is the floor and that Kikuchi believes he can get at least that much. If he takes less with an MLB team, I would consider it a surprise.

We know the Yankees offered Justin Verlander one year and $25M. They’re willing to do a big one-year deal for the right player. Kikuchi isn’t worth that, but would they do one year and, say, $15M? That’s $4M more than they gave Corey Kluber, who was four years older than Kikuchi and coming off a major shoulder injury, but also had the greater pedigree. The Kluber deal also happened when the Yankees were dead set on avoiding the luxury tax. They have a little more latitude now.

Forget about the money for a second though. The more important question is whether Kikuchi is even worth signing. There’s more to life than Statcast charts but good gravy:

It feels like Kikuchi could and should be better than he has been. That’s the same logic that got us through four years of Michael Pineda, a year and a half of Sonny Gray, one year of Taillon, so on and so forth. Teams love the “this guy could be better than he has been” profile, the Yankees included, but I’m kinda sick of it. That said, it’s just about all the free agent market has to offer now. The reliably good (or great) starters are all signed.

I came into this exercise thinking I would walk away liking Kikuchi and seeing an obvious path to improvement. That is not the case. He has excellent velocity for a lefty and his changeup is promising, and that’s about. He can’t seem to figure out his other secondary pitches, his fastball command is not good, and the sticky stuff crackdown did a number on him. There is raw talent here, but not everyone is a ball of clay waiting to be molded. Some guys are what they are.

I can understand a team thinking Kikuchi can be better than he has been given his occasionally excellent starts. I don’t think the Yankees will be that team, especially if the bidding gets to the point where multiple years are on the table. Kikuchi is probably one of the best free agent starters on the market at this point. That says more about the market than Kikuchi though.

2. Yankees projected to sign Mayea. What is technically the 2021-22 international signing period will open about a month from now on Saturday, Jan. 15th. Assuming MLB does not postpone it like everything else during the lockout, that is. International free agency does not involve the 40-man roster, so maybe it’ll go on as scheduled. I guess we’ll find out.

Whenever the signing period opens, the Yankees are expected to sign Dominican shortstop Roderick Arias to a bonus in the $4M range. That will eat up most of their $5.2M bonus pool, though Arias is regarded as an elite talent, and the Yankees don’t want to pass him up. Besides, they’re pretty good at finding hidden gems. Chances are they’ll turn the rest of the money into something useful.

Information about the following international signing period, what we’ll call the 2023 class, is beginning to trickle in. Eric Logenhagen has the Yankees projected to sign Cuban outfielder Brandon Mayea, his top ranked player in the class among non-Japanese league veterans. I assume “projected” is synonymous with “expected” given the typical international free agency lingo. Here’s the scouting report:

Mayea derives his power from precise, flush contact. Though somewhat more physically mature than most prospects his age, Mayea isn't especially big and strong, nor projectable. He simply has great feel for contact and swings with rotational verve, and the combination is enough to punish the baseball. Short levers and prodigious bat control help drive impact hit tool projection, while his posture through contact creates natural swing loft that indicates he'll get to whatever power he ends up growing into. Additionally, Mayea looks poised to stay up the middle of the diamond due to his speed, defensive instincts, and medium build. This makes Mayea an exceptional, well-rounded prospect for his age. He's likely to sign for just shy of $5 million in January of 2023.

Kiley McDaniel calls Mayea a “top of his class” type of talent. Here’s some video. Mayea is eligible to sign during the upcoming signing period, the Arias signing period, though it seems he will wait until the following year to sign. That isn’t unprecedented. White Sox prospect Yoelqui Cespedes (Yoenis’ younger brother) was eligible to sign in 2020, but he waited until the bonus pools reset in 2021 to maximize his bonus.

The Yankees couldn’t afford both Arias and Mayea this coming signing period. The bonus pools are a hard cap. It’s not like the Yankees could just exceed their pool and pay a tax or something. That means another team could come with an offer and steal Mayea away, though the bonus pools are mostly accounted for at this point. Teams have deals lined up. Their money is spent.

Three thoughts on the Mayea situation. First, assuming it does happen, this will be the third time in four international signing periods the Yankees essentially put all their eggs in one basket. Two years ago Jasson Dominguez received a bonus that ate up just about their entire bonus pool. Arias is expected to do the same next year and Mayea the year after that. They signed one big ticket item and used the rest of their pool on lower profile players.

This year the Yankees only had a $4.2M bonus pool (they forfeited $1M for signing Gerrit Cole) and they diversified, giving $1.7M to infielder Hans Montero and $450,000 to outfielder Fidel Montero (no relation). Is it better to spend most of your bonus pool on one top talent or to spread it around? The Yankees have done a little of both lately.

I don’t think there’s a right answer. Both methods work and there’s no need to lock yourself into one set strategy when the talent pool changes each year. See what the signing period brings, line up the talent on your board, and figure out the best way to maximize your bonus pool. I do think leaning toward top of the line talent is smart because the Yankees rarely have access to those players in the draft, but you have to stay flexible.

Second, committing $5M or so to Mayea indicates the Yankees intend to have $5M to spend in two years. The smallest bonus pools (i.e. the pools given to big market teams) are $5.2M these days and it’s reasonable to expect those to go up in the future years given inflation and all that. How much will they go up though? They’ve gone up only $500,000 or so in the last five years.

Committing roughly $5M to Mayea could indicate the Yankees are not planning to sign a qualified free agent this offseason, because doing so would chop $500,000 off next year’s international bonus pool. If the bonus pool doesn’t go up all that much, signing a qualified free agent could put Mayea’s deal (which is presumably already in place) in jeopardy. Tell a guy you will give him this much, then saying “whoops, I don’t have it,” won’t go over well.

There are five unsigned qualified free agents: Nick Castellanos, Michael Conforto, Carlos Correa, Freddie Freeman, and Trevor Story. Correa and Story are the most pertinent names there. The Yankees need a shortstop and they’re the best available. Sign one and the 2023 international bonus pool gets $500,000 smaller, ostensibly endangering Mayea’s deal. Hmmm.

And third, will the Yankees even have access to Mayea? MLB has pushed for an international draft for years (decades, really) and the owners might finally get what they want in the upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement. I think the upcoming signing period, the Arias signing period, is safe from a draft because it’s such short notice and international free agency is a back-burner issue. The signing period after that though? I imagine that’s when an international draft would begin.

Mayea would presumably come off the board early in an international draft, meaning any deal the Yankees have in place with him would be irrelevant. If it happens, what can you do? This is beyond the Yankees’ control. Until an international draft actually happens, assume the system will stay the same, and line up your deals. Then adjust as necessary if a draft happens.

For now, the Yankees apparently have a big money deal in place with another top international talent. It would be their third such signing in four years along with Dominguez and Arias. If MLB gets an international draft and the Yankees lose out on Mayea, so be it. Right now it seems they have a deal in place though, and that’s exciting.

3. Yankees re-sign Brantly. Welcome back, Rob Brantly. The Yankees have re-signed Brantly to a new minor league contract, reports Joel Sherman. He’ll surely get an invite to big league camp, though teams can’t officially give those out until the lockout ends. Brantly is the fourth player the Yankees have signed to a minor league deal this offseason, joining infielder Jose Peraza and righties Vinny Nittoli and Emmanuel Ramirez.

Brantly, 32, appeared in six big league games as a COVID replacement this year, including a start at first base, and went 3-for-20 (.150) with a double. He hit .289/.379/.456 (127 wRC+) with nine homers in 68 Triple-A games. Brantly was on the Wild Card Game roster as a third catcher and he traveled with the Yankees on their postseason taxi squad in 2020. Given that and the team’s need for a No. 3 catcher, a reunion has felt inevitable since the day he was outrighted.

Chances are the Yankees will bring in another Triple-A caliber catcher before Spring Training. They have to replace Donny Sands and there are no other catchers in the organization who belong in Triple-A at this point in their development. Here’s how the catching assignments could shake out next year (stats are from the highest level the guy played at in 2021):

Triple-A
Rob Brantly: .289/.379/.456 (127 wRC+) in 68 G at AAA
Second catcher TBD

Double-A
Josh Breaux: .240/.274/.500 (103 wRC+) in 26 G at AA (plus 64 G at A+)
Austin Wells: .274/.376/.473 (130 wRC+) in 38 G at A+ (plus 65 G at A-)

High-A
Anthony Seigler: .219/.324/.391 (95 wRC+) in 41 G at A+
Carlos Narvaez: .304/.369/.429 (116 wRC+) in 16 G at A+ (plus 60 G at A-)

Low-A
Antonio Gomez: .197/.310/.328 (80 wRC+) in 16 G at A- (plus 29 G in Rk)
Alex Guerrero: .407/.478/.729 (206 wRC+) in 26 G at Rk

The Yankees also have organizational catcher Mickey Gasper, a 26-year-old who has bounced from level to level the last few years. Wherever a catcher was needed, he went. He could be in the mix for the second Triple-A catcher’s spot, though I think the Yankees will bring in someone else and continue to use Gasper to fill in the blanks.

Even with only 38 High-A games under his belt, Wells has hit so well at every level that I think the Yankees will start him in Double-A next season. He and Breaux will share catching duties the same way Austin Romine and Jesus Montero, and Gary Sanchez and John Ryan Murphy, did back in the day. One catches, one DHs, etc. That could be where Gasper lands, just to make sure Somerset has an extra catcher on the bench when Breaux and Wells are both in the starting lineup.

If the Yankees do send Breaux and Wells to Double-A, and Wells continues to mash, it’s going to force a conversation about his long-term position. He’s not a good defender and you can’t let the glove hold the bat back. It might get to the point where you have to give the kid a first base mitt and just let him rake instead of trying to force it at catcher, and that point could come as soon as next season. It would be a good problem to deal with.

The reviews on Seigler aren’t great, and those 41 games at High-A are the only games he played this past season due to more injuries. Seigler is still only 22 and catchers are notoriously slow to develop, so we have to hope he’s a late bloomer. Either way, sending Seigler back to High-A is pretty obvious, especially with Breaux and Wells ticketed for Double-A.

I don’t believe Gomez, the best catcher prospect in the system among guys who will definitely catch, is a lock to begin the season in Low-A. He turned only 20 last month and I could see the Yankees holding him back in Extended Spring Training for a few weeks. In that case the still hangin’ around Saul Torres or Ben Rice, last year’s 12th rounder, could get the starting nod in Low-A.

Narvaez is more of a prospect than Guerrero. Guerrero’s not really a prospect despite that stout batting line. He was a 21-year-old beating up on rookie ball kids during his third straight season in what is now called the Florida Complex League. Narvaez just turned 23 and is rough around the edges defensively, though there is some pop in his bat. He’s a long shot, which is better than a no shot.

Based on all that, I think the Yankees will bring in another Triple-A caliber catcher. A veteran-ish guy with experience at the level, but also not someone who will stand in the way should Breaux or Wells force a promotion. Think Wynston Sawyer last year or Max McDowell this year. A guy who’s played at Triple-A and is as much an extra coach as he is a catcher.

For now, Brantly is back, and it is in no way surprising. He’s been around the last few years, he knows (most of) the pitching staff, and he has big league time under his belt. That’s exactly the kinda guy you want a phone call away at the catcher position. I think another Triple-A catcher is coming, and of course the Yankees could shake up their big league catching situation as well.

4. Remembering a random Yankee: Dustin Ackley. By request, this week’s random Yankee is one of those former top Mariners prospects who never panned out. Here’s the random Yankee archive. You can find links back to everyone we've covered there.

Ackley grew up in Winston-Salem and he is, quite simply, one of the greatest college baseball players ever. He hit .412/.489/.648 in three years at North Carolina, including .417/.517/.763 with 22 homers and more walks (50) than strikeouts (34) in 66 games in 2009, his draft year. Ackley rewrote the Tar Heels record books and still holds several school records.

Baseball America (subs. req’d) ranked Ackley the No. 2 prospect in the 2009 draft class behind only Stephen Strasburg, arguably the greatest draft prospect ever. Here’s a snippet of their scouting report on Ackley:

Ackley has the best pure swing and pure bat in the '09 draft class, and maybe the best this decade. He's also a 70 runner (on the 20-80 scale) underway and should be a top-of-the-order, base-stealing threat in pro ball. Ackley has a disciplined approach and makes hitting look easy thanks to his advanced athleticism. He's balanced at the plate and has amazing hand-eye coordination, getting the barrel of the bat to the hitting zone quickly and leaving it there as long as possible … (Most) scouts project him as a future center fielder and potential plus defender. He's a solid-average defender at first base if he winds up there. Scouts struggle to come up with comparisons because he's such a unique player. If he becomes a batting champion and premium leadoff man as a pro, he'll become a player others are compared to.

Ackley is a player others are compared to alright, but not in a good way. Anyway, the Mariners selected him with the No. 2 pick (Strasburg went No. 1 to the Nationals) and signed him to a five-year Major League contract worth $7.5M guaranteed back when teams were allowed to give draftees big league contracts. Here’s the contract breakdown:

• $6M signing bonus
• 2010: $500,000 in MLB or $400,000 in minors
• 2011: $600,000 in MLB or $300,000 in minors
• 2012: $900,000 in MLB or $200,000 in minors
• 2013: $1.5M in MLB or $300,000 in minors
• 2014: $500,000 in MLB or $300,000 in minors

“We're very happy to get this kid signed. We think this kid will be a bat in the middle of our lineup for years to come,” Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik told ESPN. “We thought enough of this player that if takes a Major League contract to get this done, we were willing to do that. I mean, you're looking at the first position player taken in the draft.”

The contract also allowed Ackley to opt into arbitration once he became eligible. That low 2014 big league salary was essentially an insurance policy. The master plan was to reach arbitration by then and go through that process. Ackley was good in the minors but not nearly as great as you’d expect given his pedigree: .280/.386/.435 in Double-A and Triple-A. He made his MLB debut on June 17th, 2011 and singled back up the middle in his first at-bat (video).

Ackley was quite good as a rookie, hitting .273/.348/.417 (120 OPS+) with six homers and six steals in 90 games. ZiPS liked him but didn't love him, and over the next three and a half years, Ackley personified Seattle’s player development failures. Their most commonly used batting order in 2013 is full of prospect sad:

1. SS Brad Miller
2. 2B Ryan Franklin
3. LF Raul Ibanez
4. DH Kendrys Morales
5. 3B Kyle Seager
6. 1B Justin Smoak
7. RF Michael Saunders
8. C Mike Zunino
9. 2B Dustin Ackley

Zunino was the catcher because Jesus Montero had played his way back down to Triple-A, I should note. Pretty rough. From Opening Day 2012 until the 2015 trade deadline, Ackley hit a weak .236/.297/.356 in nearly 2,000 plate appearances, and even spent some time in Triple-A. He was 15% worse than the league average hitter once adjusting for the ballpark and all that.

By 2015, the Yankees had started to embark on their quasi-youth movement. Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera had all retired and the Yankees were running the clock out on Alex Rodriguez’s (and Mark Teixeira’s) contract. They’d traded for Nathan Eovaldi and Didi Gregorius before the season to get some youth and upside on the roster. That was the start of the process.

Like Eovaldi and Gregorius (and later Starlin Castro and Aaron Hicks), Ackley was once a highly regarded prospect who had fallen out of favor with his former team. So, at the 2015 trade deadline, the Yankees swung a deal for Ackley and bought low on a talented 27-year-old. To the Mariners went outfield prospect Ramon Flores and hard-throwing righty Jose Ramirez, who played in a combined five games for Seattle (all by Ramirez).

“He’s had numerous opportunities to be an everyday player that didn’t work out,” Zduriencik told 710 AM after the trade. “It’s an environment where for some reason it wasn’t going to work here. We were patient … He’s a good kid. He’s a good worker. We wish him the very best and hopefully he has a lot of success elsewhere.”

To much consternation, the Ackley trade was the only trade the Yankees made at the deadline in 2015. They were six games up on deadline day but had a clear need for another bat and another starter, plus the hard-charging Blue Jays traded for David Price. Rather than go big, the Yankees brought in Ackley, and called up Greg Bird and Luis Severino in August.

“I’m doubling down on what we’ve got,” Brian Cashman told Billy Witz following the deadline. “There’s the risk of throwing some of the young guys into the Atlantic Ocean and saying, ‘Time to swim.’ But that’s also something we’re not afraid of in some guys’ case.”

Although he was hitting .215/.270/.366 (77 OPS+) at the time of the trade, Ackley appealed to the Yankees because he was a lefty hitter with a history of strong contract rates, and he had experience playing first base, second base, and all three outfield spots. If he made good on the promise he showed at UNC, great. The more reasonable hope was a useful platoon bat.

Ackley came off the bench in his first two games as a Yankee and went 0-for-3 while filling in at DH and in left field. Four days after the trade, he landed on what was then called the disabled list with a herniated disc. It was the second time in three years the Yankees traded for a Mariners player who almost immediately got hurt. The old RAB “Seattle knew” meme sparked by Michael Pineda was rekindled with Ackley.

“Timing is everything and we had bad timing when we had an issue materialize,” Cashman told Dan Martin after Ackley’s injury, which forced the Yankees to re-sign Garrett Jones after he had been designated for assignment to clear a roster spot for Ackley. “He had no complaints in Seattle, no tests, no treatment … There was no knowledge on their part something was smoldering there. These things happen.”

Ackley missed about a month with the herniated disc, and when he returned in September, he was sneaky great. He went 1-for-3 with a double in his first game back and briefly took over as the starting second baseman, going 13-for-40 (.325) with two doubles, two triples, and four homers (video) in his final 17 games of the season (12 starts). All told Ackley hit .288/.333/.654 (162 OPS+) in 23 games as a Yankee while playing first, second, and left in 2015.

Despite the strong finish, Ackley did not start the 2015 Wild Card Game (the righty hitting Rob Refsnyder started at second base against the lefty Dallas Keuchel) though he did enough to stick on the roster all offseason (and sign for $3.2M as an arbitration-eligible player). Bird’s offseason shoulder surgery opened up at-bats at first base and DH in 2016, so Ackley looked to be in line for a good amount of playing time against righties.

That never really happened though. Teixeira and A-Rod stayed healthy early on in 2016, and Ackley didn’t hit in limited action. He went 1-for-16 (.063) in April while starting only four of the team’s 22 games. On three occasions he pinch-hit. Castro was locked in at second and outfield spot starts went to Hicks, so Ackley had nowhere to play despite his versatility.

On May 29th, Ackley drew the spot start at first base in Tampa and it proved to be his final game not only as a Yankee, but as a Major Leaguer. He lined out in his first at-bat against Rays righty Jake Odorizzi, then reached on a Brad Miller throwing error in his second at-bat. With Ackley on first base, Odorizzi made a pickoff throw, and Ackley wrecked his right shoulder diving back to the bag. Here’s the video. He dislocated his shoulder and tore his labrum.

“Hopefully if he's not ready (for Spring Training), he's close to ready,” Joe Girardi told Bryan Hoch about Ackley’s timetable after the Yankees announced he needed season-ending surgery.

Ackley, then 28, went 9-for-61 (.148) with no extra-base hits prior to the injury, and after the season the Yankees released him at the Rule 5 Draft protection deadline to clear 40-man roster space for prospects. Ackley finished his Yankees career as a .212/.283/.381 (78 OPS+) hitter in 127 plate appearances and his MLB career as a .241/.304/.367 (91 OPS+) hitter in 2,347 plate appearances.

The Angels signed Ackley to a minor league contract in Feb. 2017 and he was healthy enough to start the Triple-A season. He spent 2017-18 in Triple-A with the Angels* and returned to the Mariners on a minor league contract in Jan. 2019, but they released him in Spring Training. He has not played since. I’m not sure what Ackley, now 33, is up to these days, but he made over $17M between his draft signing bonus and salaries as a player, so it very well might be nothing but living the retired life with his family.

* Fabian Ardaya (subs. req’d) has a good story about Ackley’s time in Triple-A those two years with the Angels. “I’m still in a position where I know that I can just continue to grind and continue to push up my way until I get back there,” Ackley told Ardaya. He hit .270/.354/.384 (95 wRC+) in nearly 800 Triple-A plate appearances those two years.

5. Rapid fire thoughts. Justin Verlander’s new two-year, $50M contract (with an opt out) with the Astros has been finalized, reports Buster Olney. Jon Heyman says the contract was submitted to the league prior to the lockout, so MLB and the MLBPA worked together to finish things up even while the sport is shut down. Weird. Anyway, Verlander is no longer a free agent, so if you were holding out hope the Yankees would swoop in after the lockout, you can forget that now … The Brewers had interest in Luke Voit at some point in the past, reports Joel Sherman. I’m not sure how far back in the past we’re talking (at the deadline? last season? when he was with the Cardinals?), though Milwaukee does make sense as a possible landing spot, especially once the universal DH becomes a thing. They’re really short on power now that Christian Yelich has fallen from grace and you don’t have to try too hard to see Rowdy Tellez not sticking at first base. We’ll see whether the Brewers rekindle their interest after the lockout … And finally, the reward for losing the Wild Card Game: $15,928. That’s how much a full Yankees postseason share is worth this year, according to the Associated Press. MLB stopped releasing postseason share breakdowns for whatever reason (how many full and partial shares each team issued, etc.), so we don’t know how many shares the Yankees issued, but who really cares. The total postseason pool was a record $90.47M this year. That’s 50% of the Wild Card Game gate receipts and 60% of the first three League Division Series games and the first four League Championship Series and World Series games. You can only sell so many tickets. The postseason pool keeps going up each year because postseason tickets keep getting more expensive.

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