RAB Thoughts

December 10th, 2021: Pitching, LeMahieu, Rule 5 Draft, Mailbag

Added 2021-12-10 13:01:02 +0000 UTC

Self-promotion: I was asked to write something about the Yankees offseason at CBS. You will be surprised to learn I think they should sign Carlos Correa. I am also 100% in favor of moving Joey Gallo to center and bringing in a new left fielder rather than keeping Gallo in left and trying to find a new center fielder. So that’s that. Let’s get to today’s post.

1. State of the pitching market. As things stand, the Yankees will need a shortstop whenever the lockout ends, plus they have a few other positions to figure out as well (catcher, first base, center field, etc.). The bullpen is solid. It can always be better but it’s in good shape, even with Zack Britton likely to miss the entire 2022 season.

The rotation is in the eye of the beholder. You could look at it and see a ton of upside. You could also look at it and see a lot of risk, both health and performance. This is the rotation depth chart at the moment. The exact order doesn’t matter too much. Just focus on the names:

RHP Gerrit Cole (amazing, at least when his hamstring is healthy)
LHP Jordan Montgomery (solid)
RHP Luis Severino (first full year back from Tommy John surgery)
RHP Jameson Taillon (coming off ankle surgery)
RHP Domingo German (limited to 98.1 innings by shoulder trouble in 2021)
LHP Nestor Cortes (limited track record)
RHP Mike King (seemed to find a home in the bullpen)
RHP Luis Gil (limited track record and control concerns)
RHP Clarke Schmidt (hasn’t stayed healthy as a starter)
RHP Deivi Garcia (disastrous 2021)

You can envision Severino pitching like 2017-18 Severino with a healthy elbow, and forming a dominant 1-2 punch with Cole. You could also envision him missing most of the season again seeing how he’s thrown 39.1 innings (including minors and postseason) the last three years. Taillon was up and down this year. Excellent sometimes, terrible others.

Garcia and Gil could use more Triple-A time to continue their development – Gil got by on pure stuff during his big league stint and was progressively worse each time out – and I think it’s time to just give up on Schmidt as a starter. He turns 26 in February and his elbow keeps acting up. Put him in the bullpen, let him air it out, and let’s see if he can be Jonathan Loaisiga 2.0.

Cortes and German (and even King) are good depth options and the Yankees will rely on both to get them through the long 162-game season. I think there’s clearly room for another starting pitcher, ideally someone to slot in between Cole and Montgomery, or at least lighten the load on Severino and Taillon post-surgery. No such thing as too much pitching, you know?

The thing is, the free agent pitching market was mostly picked clean while the Yankees sat on the sidelines prior to the lockout. Most of the top guys (Max Scherzer, Robbie Ray, etc.) and mid-range guys (Alex Cobb, Steven Matz, etc.) came off the board. Here’s the best of what’s left, according to FanGraphs projected 2022 WAR:

LHP Carlos Rodon: +3.8 WAR
LHP Clayton Kershaw: +3.1 WAR
LHP Yusei Kikuchi: +2.2 WAR
LHP Danny Duffy: +1.9 WAR
RHP Zack Greinke: +1.9 WAR
RHP Michael Pineda: +1.6 WAR
Buncha guys at +1.3 WAR and under

Anyone up for a Big Mike reunion? For old times’ sake:

In all seriousness, Pineda’s probably the best bet of that group to give you innings next season. Greinke threw 171 innings this year, though he limped to the finish and the Astros avoided him as much as possible in the postseason. Rodon had shoulder trouble in September, Kershaw might need Tommy John surgery, and Duffy* will be out until at least June. Yeesh.

* I had Duffy on my list of pitchers to write about before the news of his recent flexor surgery got out. He has a very analytics-friendly fastball (spin, extension, etc.) and experience starting and relieving. Had Duffy been healthy, I could have seen the Yankees having interest.

The Yankees tend to acquire starting pitching one of three ways. They blow everyone out of the water for a top tier guy (Cole, Masahiro Tanaka, CC Sabathia, etc.), they sign free agents to one-year deals (Corey Kluber, Hiroki Kuroda, etc.), or they trade for pitchers under team control (Taillon, Pineda, Sonny Gray, etc.), and team control is essentially just a series of one-year contracts. Here are the last five free agent starters the Yankees signed to guaranteed multi-year contracts:

Gerrit Cole: 9 years, $324M in Dec. 2019
J.A. Happ: 2 years, $34M in Dec. 2018
Masahiro Tanaka: 7 years, $155M in Jan. 2014
CC Sabathia: 7 years, $161M in Dec. 2008
A.J. Burnett: 5 years, $82.5M in Dec. 2008

Before Burnett and Sabathia, you have to go back to Mike Mussina (two-year extension) and Kei Igawa (five-year deal) during the 2006-07 offseason. Before them it was the Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright deals in Dec. 2004. It’s like the Yankees said you know what, we’re going to avoid multi-year deals for non-elite starters after Igawa, Pavano, and Wright blew up on us.

There’s no top tier starter who warrants a multi-year commitment sitting in free agency now. I guess you could argue Rodon, though it would have to come with a lower base salary given his long injury history. Pineda might get a low cost two-year deal, and maybe Duffy and Matt Boyd get two-year deals in which 2022 is treated as a rehab year. That’s about it though.

So, if the Yankees are going to add a starter after the lockout, it will be another one-year “we think this guy can be better than he has been” free agent, or a trade. The A’s are the obvious trade partner, but the Marlins theoretically have pitching to spare too, and the Reds are listening on Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle (and Gray, but that ain’t happening). There is some pitching out there.

I’m still hopeful (foolishly?) the Yankees can swing a Matt Olson trade, and ideally they’d nab a pitcher in that deal as well. I prefer Chris Bassitt personally, but Frankie Montas has the extra year of control, and Sean Manaea is pretty good too. Any of the three would work. It’s just a matter of nitpicking and the cost. Get Olson and a starter and hey, things are looking up.

Absent that, I think giving Rodon an outsized one-year contract is the way to go at this point. The Yankees offered Justin Verlander one year and $25M, right? So offer it to Rodon. One year deal means minimal risk, and hey, if it works out, you might even be able to get a draft pick for him next offseason since the White Sox didn’t make him the qualifying offer this year. If it doesn't, who cares, it's just money and it's just one year.

Rodon was dominant before the shoulder issue popped up this season – BP’s Deserved Runs Average adjusts for quality of competition and says Rodon was on par with Cole and Scherzer this year even after adjusting for the weak AL Central – and he turns 29 today, so it’s not like this is some over-the-hill hanger-on. He’s in his physical prime and was great when healthy.

The long arm injury history means the Yankees (or whichever teams signs him) would have to handle Rodon carefully, and the Yankees are so obsessive with extra rest that it shouldn’t be too big an issue. Their starters made only 58 starts on normal rest in 2021, ninth fewest in baseball, and Cole and Montgomery account for 17 of those 58. Extra rest is already part of their plan.

For me, an A’s pitcher is Plan A and Rodon on a large one-year contract is Plan B. Plan C is not something I want to think about right now. The upside of the lockout is we can examine various pitching options and not worry about them coming off the board in the interim. There are a few pitchers worth highlighting. The top free agents are almost all off the board though. It’s trade or squint your eyes at a free agent time.

2. LeMahieu and the two baseballs. Last week Bradford William Davis (subs. req’d) reported MLB used two different baseballs in 2021. The report dropped the day before the lockout, which was great timing for MLB, because the two baseballs thing quickly became overshadowed. This should – should – be a huge scandal. At a minimum, MLB has a few questions to answer.

The short version is this: MLB used both the pre-2021 rocket ball and the 2021 deadened ball this year, and blamed it on the pandemic. Production couldn’t keep up with demand and Rawlings, which MLB owns, used leftover inventory to keep up. Reasonable, right? Except the batch codes (a mark on the ball identifying when it was made) say the rocket balls were produced in 2021, so it doesn’t add up.

We don’t know which baseballs were used in which games. Best case scenario is they were distributed randomly. Worst case is certain balls were sent to certain games to juice the betting lines seeing how MLB is all-in on gambling revenue these days. Home run prop bets are very popular. You don’t have to try too hard to see how messing with the ball can be profitable.

Derek at Views from 314 Ft. looked at the numbers last week and found that, for the Yankees, similar batted balls traveled farther on the road than at Yankee Stadium. It’s fairly consistent across different bands of exit velocity and launch angle too. That suggests (but doesn’t confirm) the deadened ball was used at Yankee Stadium. The entire point of the deadened ball was to reduce home runs and Yankee Stadium is as homer happy as it gets, so it makes sense.

I’ve been thinking about the two baseballs scandal and what it means for DJ LeMahieu. LeMahieu had a down 2021, at least relative to his 2019-20, and there’s been some thought that the deadened ball contributed to it. Chet Gutwein looked into it a bit in September and found LeMahieu tends to hit the kind of batted balls most hurt by the deadened ball, so that fits. Now though, we know it wasn’t the deadened ball all the time.

LeMahieu’s 2019-20 success was built largely on being a god at Yankee Stadium and merely very good on the road. In 2021, he was actually better away from the Bronx:

2019-20 at home: .366/.421/.642 (183 wRC+) with .378 BABIP in 418 PA
2019-20 on road: .309/.354/.439 (112 wRC+) with .334 BABIP in 453 PA

2021 at home: .257/.334/.329 (88 wRC+) with .292 BABIP in 319 PA
2021 on road: .279/.363/.393 (111 wRC+) with .310 BABIP in 350 PA

How do you bat over 300 times in Yankee Stadium and slug .329? That feels like it should be impossible, yet LeMahieu did it in 2021. Relative to the league average, LeMahieu was more or less the same hitter on the road in 2021 as he was in 2019-20 (111 wRC+ vs. 112 wRC+). At Yankee Stadium though, he was a far inferior hitter. The decline in home production is huge.

Here’s a spray chart from Derek’s LeMahieu season review. These are LeMahieu’s barrels and solid contact (as defined by Statcast) at Yankee Stadium. These are essentially his most well-struck batted balls. Ideal exit velocity and launch angle, etc.

Sure are a lotta well-struck balls falling just short of the wall, huh? I count seven balls right at the wall that were caught for outs. Turn them into home runs and LeMahieu’s .329 SLG at home becomes a much more respectable .425 SLG. That’s obviously a gross oversimplification, but geez, a little more juice in the ball and we might be talking about LeMahieu’s season very differently. Then again, you could say that for a lot of players across the league.

Three things about this. One, we don’t actually know whether the deadened ball was used at Yankee Stadium. We don’t know which ball was used in which games! Seems like a problem, MLB. Might want to fix that. The numbers kinda sorta suggest the Yankees were given one ball at home and one ball on the road, at least part of the time, because similar batted balls behaved differently in different places, and that shouldn’t happen.

And not only do we not know which balls were used in which games in 2021, we have no idea what the 2022 ball will be like, because we didn’t know what the 2021, 2020, 2019, etc. balls were like until we saw them in action. Who’s to say we won’t see an even deader ball in 2022? It’s hard to trust anything MLB says about the baseball.

Two, LeMahieu played part of the season with a sports hernia. The idea that his entire season was compromised by a hernia is a little too convenient an excuse for me and I don’t buy it. Hernias hurt like hell and it wasn’t until September that LeMahieu started missing games. He started 44 straight games from May 27th to July 18th. I don’t think that happens with even a mild hernia (is there even such a thing as a mild hernia?) given how much the Yankees rest and protect their players.

Given the fact that LeMahieu didn’t start missing games until September and that he actually hit pretty well in the middle of the summer, both in terms of results and exit velocity, I think the hernia popped up late in the season. I don’t think it was an all-year thing. Still, it did compromise LeMahieu’s season to some degree. It wasn’t entirely the deadened baseball. There was an underlying physical issue as well.

And three, LeMahieu will turn 34 in July. He’s at the point in his career where we should expect some age-related decline, particularly given the historically harsh second base aging curve (it wasn’t too long ago that Brian Dozier cratered at age 31). And let’s be real here, LeMahieu’s track record as an elite hitter is one 162-game season and one 60-game season. Most of the rest of his career looks a lot like 2021. This isn’t Giancarlo Stanton …

… suddenly becoming an average hitter, or a young player who is supposed to be on the rise stalling out, like Gleyber Torres. It’s a guy who was a pretty average hitter most of his career reverting back to an average hitter after 1.37 excellent seasons. Factor in his age and LeMahieu taking a step back this year wasn’t the most shocking thing in the world.

The two baseballs nonsense makes me feel a bit better about LeMahieu’s season, because he was weirdly unproductive at Yankee Stadium, where the data suggests the deadened ball was used. A return to a normal baseball (whatever that is) and good health are reasons to believe in a rebound. At the same time, LeMahieu is entering his mid-30s, and his track record as a top tier hitter is pretty short. I know this much: the Yankees need LeMahieu to be better in 2022. I’m not sold on them adding enough difference-makers this offseason to make up for it if he’s not.

3. Minor league Rule 5 Draft. According to J.J. Cooper, the Major League Rule 5 Draft will be held soon after the lockout ends. There had been some thought MLB would cancel it entirely rather than try to squeeze so much (free agency, arbitration, Rule 5 Draft, etc.) into the little time between the end of the lockout and Spring Training, but nope. There will be a Major League Rule 5 Draft.

The minor league phase of the Rule 5 Draft was held as scheduled earlier this week. It does not involve the 40-man roster in any way (there are no roster strings attached to the minor league Rule 5 Draft, select a player and he’s yours to keep and employ at any level) so MLB was able to hold it during the lockout without ruffling any feathers.

There are more minor league Rule 5 Draft success stories these days than in the past because teams are better at finding and developing talent, and because not too long ago MLB changed the rules to create a larger pool of available players. Tyler Gilbert threw a no-hitter in his first MLB start this year after being a minor league Rule 5 Draft pick last winter. Ryan Thompson, that annoying sidewinder with the Rays? He was a minor league Rule 5 Draft pick once upon a time too.

Here’s Jonathan Mayo on how the minor league phase of the Rule 5 Draft works:

In the Major League phase, any player not on a 40-man roster who needed to be protected can be taken. For this year, international or high school Draft picks signed in 2017 -- assuming the player was 18 or younger as of June 8 of that year -- had to be protected. A college player taken in the 2018 Draft was in the same position.

For the Minor League phase, any player not protected on a 38-man Triple-A roster from that same group can be selected. Any team with a full 38-man Triple-A roster is not allowed to make a selection, but teams can make as many picks as they want until they get to 38 players.

That 38-man Triple-A roster is just an offseason paper roster. Those players don’t have to play (or have played) at Triple-A at any point. Those rosters are never public, possibly because they would bore the internet to a halt, but it’s safe to assume all the Rule 5 Draft eligible prospects who weren’t put on the 40-man roster were put on the 38-man Triple-A roster.

Here’s a list of the notable Yankees minor leaguers eligible for this offseason's Major League Rule 5 Draft who were not put on the 40-man roster, and thus had to be placed on the 38-man Triple-A roster to avoid the minor league Rule 5 Draft:

Catchers: Josh Breaux, Saul Torres
Infielders: Roberto Chirinos
Outfielders: Anthony Garcia, Brandon Lockridge
Righties: Jhony Brito, Barrett Loseke, Addison Russ, Matt Sauer, Shawn Semple, Greg Weissert
Lefties: Matt Krook

The Yankees selected Krook from the Rays in the minor league Rule 5 Draft last offseason and he had a 62.7% ground ball rate in 76.2 Triple-A innings in 2021. I’m sure he was on the 38-man Triple-A roster. Same with Garcia, the best prospect of that bunch. The 6-foot-5 switch-hitting behemoth hit .306/.444/.678 (187 wRC+) with insane exit velocities between the Florida Complex League and Low-A. Garcia wouldn’t stick as a Major League Rule 5 Draft pick but you can’t let another team take that guy in the minor league phase. No way.

Here are the minor league Rule 5 Draft results. Before switching over to the results, that page said the Yankees had 36 players on their 38-man Triple-A roster, allowing them to make two picks. And make two picks they did. They also lost one player. Let’s dedicate entirely too many words to the minor league Rule 5 Draft now, shall we?

Yankees select Jennings

By no means am I a hardcore gamer, but I play video games to keep myself busy and unwind. Since the start of the pandemic I’ve been nursing a Pirates franchise in MLB The Show 20 (the Pirates are very bad and had a tiny budget, so it's a fun challenge). I simulate most games, jump in when I feel like it, and chug through the season. I’m currently in July 2031 and Nestor Cortes became a multiple time All-Star closer in this franchise:

I bring this up because the Yankees selected Pirates righty Steven Jennings in the minor league Rule 5 Draft, and I only know Jennings exists because I had him in my farm system the first few years of this Pirates franchise I’ve been playing. Jennings never did pan out for me. Bad omen, I guess.

In all seriousness, the 23-year-old Jennings was once a pretty high draft pick ($1.9M bonus as the No. 41 pick in 2017), though Baseball America has not ranked him among Pittsburgh’s top 30 prospects since 2019. Eric Longenhagen ranked Jennings the team’s No. 31 prospect in February. Here’s his write-up:

Jennings did remote work (in 2020) and wasn’t seen, so there’s no change to his report: How much velocity can we still hope for Jennings to grow into? He’s 22 now and isn’t especially projectable, but he has had non-arm injuries (an ACL tear in high school, a broken rib) that have cost him reps and compromised his physicality for long stretches. He can still really spin it and his fastball, which was in the 88-92 range in 2019, has other traits that give it some room to breathe at lesser speeds. There’s a small chance more velo arrives, but I’m more inclined to project Jennings as a strike-throwing fifth starter who relies on his secondary stuff quite often.

In 2019, Baseball America (subs. req’d) said Jennings has a “tight slider with late life that is currently his best secondary pitch, but he also has feel for a curveball and a change up, and he can throw all four of his pitches for strikes.” Jennings had a 4.99 ERA (4.50 FIP) with 18.0% strikeouts and 6.4% walk in 74 relief innings at High-A and Double-A this year. Here’s video.

My guess is the Yankees like the secondary pitches and believe they can help Jennings add velocity to a fastball Longenhagen says already has good spin. Adding velocity is sorta the Yankees’ thing, so maybe it works. Considering the minimal cost ($24,500 selection fee and nothing else), seeing whether Jennings has more velocity in him is a worthwhile gamble.

Yankees get Manny

At long last, Manny Ramirez is a Yankee. The Yankees selected this Manny Ramirez, a just turned 22-year-old right-handed pitcher, from the Astros in the minor league Rule 5 Draft. He did not pitch in 2020 because of the lost minor league season and did not pitch in 2021 because he was on the 60-day injured list all year. I don’t know the nature of the injury.

Not too long ago Ramirez was a top 30 prospect in a thin Astros system. Baseball America (subs. req’d) ranked him their No. 28 prospect in 2019. Longenhagen had him No. 29 in April. Baseball America’s scouting report is a bit more informative, so here’s a snippet of that one:

Ramirez is undersized (listed at 5-foot-11 and 215 lbs.) without much room to fill out further, but his arm strength is big league-caliber. He already has a plus, 95-97 mph fastball that can blow hitters away. He generates velocity from a compact, fluid motion. His inexperience is much more apparent when he breaks off his curveball. He flashes an ability to spin it, but his control of the breaking ball wavers and he mixes loopy, slow curves with harder, tighter, power breakers. Ramirez's control also has a ways to go, but with his delivery, he has the building blocks to develop at least average control.

Longenhagen says reports from Instructional League last year “indicate that he remains quite wild (but) Ramirez’s velo and breaking ball give him considerable ceiling.” When healthy in 2019, Ramirez had a 4.97 ERA (4.56 FIP) with 27.0% strikeouts and 23.5% walks (!) in 38 innings at two Single-A levels. He’s walked 77 in 95.2 career innings. Here’s video.

This is pretty clearly a “this guy has a big league arm and rookie ball control, so let’s see if we can bridge that gap” pick. Whatever the injury is, it wasn't serious enough to scare away the Yankees, not that the $24,500 fee puts the dent in the bottom line. Jennings is more of a work in progress. Ramirez is a total lottery ticket. If it clicks, he could have real MLB value.

Red Sox select Keller

The Red Sox hit on Garrett Whitlock last year and now I guess they’re going to take a pitcher from the Yankees in every Rule 5 Draft. This year it was righty Brian Keller, who I would have guessed was eligible for minor league free agency a year or two ago, but nope. Feels like he's been around forever. The 39th round pick in 2016 has managed to hang around and get to Triple-A.

Keller, now 27, had a 2.77 ERA (4.37 FIP) with 25.7% strikeouts and 18.2% walks in 55.1 innings as a swingman with Triple-A Scranton this past season. He has never appeared on a top 30-ish Yankees prospect list at any site. He was included in Baseball America’s (subs. req’d) minor league Rule 5 Draft preview though. A chunk of their write-up:

His control was a big issue as a starter (29 walks in 30.1 innings). It wasn’t great as a reliever either (17 walks in 25 innings), but he gave up very little hard contact as a reliever, so it generally worked for him. Keller works up and down in the strike zone with a four-seam 91-95 mph fastball and a downer curveball, but he also can mix in a slider and cutter. His upper-level experience could make him useful for a team looking for pitching depth.

Keller was obviously behind Brody Koerner on the internal depth chart seeing how Koerner got the call when the Yankees needed COVID replacements, not Keller. This is nothing like the Whitlock pick. Whitlock was a legit prospect before his injuries. Keller is an organizational arm. If he spends time as anything more than an up-and-down emergency arm, good for him.

The Yankees selected a 22-year-old and a 23-year-old who were once considered one of their previous team’s better prospects, and lost a 27-year-old organizational arm. All in all, the minor league Rule 5 Draft was a net upgrade for the organization, even if these players are so very unlikely to make any sort of lasting MLB impact. Also, there’s a decent chance these are the last transactions we see until the lockout ends, so savor them.

4. Rapid fire thoughts. Sung Min Kim passes along word that old pal Mike Tauchman has signed with the Hanwha Eagles in Korea. He gets a one-year deal worth $1M, which is the maximum salary for a first year foreign player. The Yankees traded a fringy lefty relief prospect (Phil Diehl) for Tauchman, got the best year of Tauchman's career (+3.9 WAR in 2019!), then traded Tauchman for a better lefty reliever than the one they originally gave up (Wandy Peralta). Pretty nifty little sequence. I hope Tauchman kills it and makes himself a bunch of money over there. Good luck, Sockman ... And finally, a private equity firm is coming for the minors. J.J. Cooper reports Endeavor Group Holdings, which owns UFC and a bunch of other stuff, is in the process of purchasing nine minor league franchises, including Triple-A Scranton and High-A Hudson Valley. Endeavor, ahem, endeavors to eventually own 40 (!) of the 120 minor league franchises. Minor league franchises are distressed assets after losing an entire season's worth of revenue to the pandemic, so Endeavor is swooping in to gobble them up. Minor league baseball is hyper-localized and if one entity owns a third of the minors, you’re going to lose that local touch. Promotions will become less creative and more uniform, the entire operation will become more corporate, etc. Maybe Endeavor will surprise us and continue the baseball-first minor league tradition. I’m not going to get my hopes up. Been a tough, tough for years for minor league baseball.

Mailbag Questions of the Week

Tom asks: Now that Frazier is DFA, and we can assume anything the Yankees get back for him will be a non-factor, how do you evaluate the Miller trade from 2016? Kind of a bust right? The Yankees could have really used Miller in 2017 (and 2018), and while Paxton pitched well in 2019 and Frazier played well in the short season in 2020, neither team was as close to a title as the ‘17 team. The Yankees had to be hoping for a better outcome here.

Tom sent this question in after Clint Frazier was designated for assignment and before he was released. We now know there was no trade, so the Yankees didn’t get anything in return.

The book isn’t completely closed on the Andrew Miller trade just yet – the Yankees traded J.P. Feyereisen for infielder Brenny Escanio and he’s still in the system – but it is mostly closed, and yeah, it was a dud. I looked back at the 2016 trade deadline last offseason. Here’s an update on what the Yankees got out of the Miller trade:

Three mop up appearances from Justus Sheffield plus whatever portion of the James Paxton trade you want to ascribe to him (Paxton had +2.1 WAR as a Yankee)
+0.2 WAR in parts of five seasons from Frazier
+0.7 WAR in parts of four seasons from Ben Heller
Escanio via the Feyereisen trade

Who had Heller accruing the most WAR as a Yankee among the four players they received in that trade? Can’t say I saw that coming. The Yankees also gave up righty Erik Swanson and outfielder Dom Thompson-Williams to get Paxton, though Sheffield was the headliner, and Paxton’s 2019 is the only difference-making part of the Miller trade for the Yankees.

Escanio is only 18 and he hit .250/.401/.442 (138 wRC+) with six homers and 20 steals in 50 Dominican Summer League games this year. He’s not a top prospect and Eric Longenhagen calls him an “athletic, switch-hitting infielder with a narrow frame.” The Yankees also received a small sum of international bonus money in the Feyereisen trade. Who they signed with that money is anyone’s guess. It wasn’t much pool money though, I know that much.

Surely the Yankees were hoping to get more than one good starting pitcher season (Paxton) and two up-and-down players (Frazier and Heller) out of the Miller trade. Miller was hurt and ineffective in 2018, though he was dominant in 2016 and 2017 for Cleveland, putting up +4.4 WAR. Plus he threw 19.1 excellent innings during Cleveland’s run to the 2016 World Series.

You can play a pretty good game of “what if” with the Miller trade. For example: what if the Yankees had just kept him? Maybe they don’t re-sign Aroldis Chapman after that season. Or maybe they re-sign Chapman but don’t make the David Robertson trade at the 2017 deadline, which would mean no Tommy Kahnle or Todd Frazier. The Cubs traded Jorge Soler for Wade Davis during the 2016-17 offseason. Do they trade Soler for Miller instead, and Soler plus Aaron Judge means no Giancarlo Stanton? There are infinite possible alternate universes.

The Miller trade wasn’t a total loss (Paxton was the Yankees ace down the stretch in 2019) but the return has definitely fallen short of expectations. Frazier had success here and there but never consistently enough to lock down a full-time lineup spot. This is just another reminder that when you trade stars for prospects, the team that gets the star usually comes out ahead.

Alessandro asks: Looking at the Yankees payroll, and their ability to churn out strong bullpen options, do you think they’d be better served not paying RP big money? That luxury tax $ could go elsewhere on the roster. In a perfect world, they’d just just do both, but I’m trying to get into their mindset.

Yes and no. Relievers are generally volatile, though there are always a few top of the line guys who are reliably excellent year after year, and when you have the Yankees’ resources, I’m cool with paying them. Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman have been pretty great overall the last few years. They’re the rare big money relievers who are worth it.

At the same time, the Yankees have set a payroll limit for themselves, and when you crank out as many power arms as they do, saving money on the bullpen so you can spend elsewhere is smart. Wouldn’t it be nice to not have $14M tied up in injured Britton next year? Wouldn’t it be nicer if the Yankees ran a payroll commensurate with their revenue? That’s the real issue.

My guess is 2022 will be the last time the Yankees carry two big money relievers at the same time, at least for the foreseeable future. Britton and Chapman are free agents next offseason (Chad Green too) and I don’t see them committing $30M+ a year to two relievers again. I could see one big money closer (Josh Hader?), but a big money setup man too? Eh. Britton and Chapman feels like a special case.

As much as I complain about the payroll, the Yankees do spend a ton of money on players, and if you believe a guy is truly an elite reliever, then pay him accordingly and lock things down at the end of games. There’s value in that certainty. Churning through middle relievers constantly is exhausting, and you will hit a point when the well runs dry. Papering over it with money is fine.

Michael asks: I know you expressed some concern about Story, but do you think it would be a good idea if the Yankees offered a very high single year contract that might tempt him to delay signing a longer-term contract elsewhere at a lower among? A 1/35 or even a 1/40?

For sure. To be clear, my only concern with Trevor Story is his throwing. I think he’ll hit and steal bases and catch everything hit his way (and even some things not his way). It’s just that his arm has gone from well above average to pretty mediocre, if not a liability, in such a short period of time. The lingering elbow injury ostensibly explains it, so maybe with good health it’ll bounce back?

But yeah, I’d totally take Story on a one-year contract, even something outrageous like one year and $40M. The one-year term mitigates the risk and the upside is considerable, and if things go well, the Yankees could always pursue an extension. At this point Story is far and away the best available non-Carlos Correa free agent shortstop. If you’re not going to sign Correa, Story’s the way to go.

Story is said to be close with DJ LeMahieu, his former double play partner with the Rockies, and I’m sure LeMahieu would put in a recruiting call if the Yankees asked. And really, would there be a better place to take a one-year prove yourself contract? Story would get to play with LeMahieu and call a good home run park home. A long-term deal would worry me. One year though? Sign me right up.

Brain asks: Green, Loaisiga and Chapman were among the team leaders in wins last year, and other than Cole, Yankees starters generally averaged just above or below 5 innings per start. Is this trend here to stay… ie, Is the "5 and fly" starter going to make the bulk of starts? Or do you think this reliance on relievers is just a cyclical thing in baseball (with the Yankees as an extreme version with a particularly strong bullpen and particularly fragile rotation last year)? How does it impact roster construction?

If it is cyclical, it’s a very long cycle. There have been three constants throughout baseball history: pitchers suck at hitting, strikeouts are going up, and teams are using pitchers less and less. The increase in strikeouts and decline in pitcher usage are not linear, some generations are more extreme than others, but they’re constant trends moving in the same direction.

I think baseball is at the point where intervention is needed to halt the reliance on bullpens. Teams use openers and bullpen games because they’re effective (and also because they keep salaries down a bit). It is so difficult to be a hitter nowadays. Everyone throws hard with breaking balls literally designed in labs, and you’re lucky to see only two different pitchers in one game. I think it's time we cut them a break.

The rise in strikeouts and decline in pitcher usage are tied together. Force teams to lean on their starting pitchers more and there will be more contact because starters will face batters multiple times and they’ll have to pace themselves rather than go max effort. Also, there might not be an increase in injury risk. Throwing max effort all the time is pretty dangerous too.

I think the best way to accomplish this is by limiting the number of pitchers each team can carry on their roster. I was against this idea initially, but I’ve come around, and I honestly can’t come up with a good alternative. Limit teams to, say, 11 pitchers with restrictions on call ups and send downs, and starting pitchers will return to prominence. I think that would be good for the game. Starters are the closest thing baseball has to a main character.

The Yankees were 13th in starting pitcher innings this past season, so they’re not as reliant on the bullpen as you may think. The marginalization of starting pitchers definitely impacts roster construction though. It means more relievers in general, more roster moves (to shuttle in fresh arms), short benches, etc. The Yankees lean on their bullpen a lot and make near daily roster moves to make sure they’re well-stocked, but that’s the norm these days. They aren’t an outlier.

Anonymous asks: Did the Jacoby Ellsbury matter ever get resolved?

No idea. The last update I can find came in May, when Jim Callis said the grievance had not yet been resolved. The grievance (and the MLBPA’s counter-grievance) was filed in late 2019 and these things often sit on the docket for years. Kris Bryant’s service time grievance was filed in Nov. 2015 and not resolved until Feb. 2020. Could be a while until we get word on Ellsbury.

2020 was the final guaranteed year on Ellsbury’s contract and, if he wins the grievance, it just means the Yankees have to pay him all the money they withheld ($21M salary in 2020 plus the $5M buyout of his 2021 option). Because they released him, his $21.9M luxury tax hit was still on the books in 2020. The grievance has no bearing on the luxury tax situation. That’s all done.

Had the Yankees kept Ellsbury on the roster in 2020, his salary would have been prorated down to $7.8M, saving the team $13.2M. But because they released him, they will owe him the full $21M if he wins the grievance. Pro-ration only applied to players on the 40-man roster and Ellsbury was not on the 40-man at the time. (The Marlins had to pay Wei-Yin Chen his full $22M salary in 2020 because they released him before the pandemic. Tough luck on the timing.)

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