September 2nd, 2021: Cole, Chapman, Taillon, Voit, AL East, Mailbag

So long, West Coast. You will not be missed. It gets a little harder each year to bounce back from those late start times the next day. Anyway, the Yankees begin a 20 games in 20 days stretch tomorrow, and all things considered, it could be worse. 16 of the 20 games are against the Mets, Orioles, Rangers, Twins, and Cleveland. Not exactly powerhouses. The Yankees are on pace to go 94-68 with 29 games remaining. Here are Friday morning’s thoughts Thursday evening since today is an off-day.

1. Weekday observations. Most of the time I would consider a 5-4 West Coast trip a success. After winning the first four games though? Blah. Really would have liked to walk away at 7-2 or even 6-3 at that point. Alas. A few thoughts on the last few days.

Gerrit the Great

So I guess COVID only made Gerrit Cole stronger? Cole has allowed two runs total with 39 strikeouts and four walks in 23.2 innings across four starts since returning from the COVID list last month. Last night he held the Angels to one run on four hits in seven innings. He struck out 15 and walked zero. Anaheim’s 2-3-4-5 hitters were 1-for-11 with 10 strikeouts against him.

“He’s had some really good ones in his career. For me, that was up there,” Aaron Boone told Bryan Hoch about Cole’s start. “That was a guy in control and a step ahead of those guys all day. His fastball was probably as good as it’s been all year.”

This GIF tells you everything you need to know about the Gerrit Cole experience (and answers oh so many “why would he swing at that???” questions) (GIF via Rob Friedman):

“We were executing really well with four pitches,” Cole told Hoch. “I thought that we were unpredictable and able to use the fastball to challenge guys over the plate once we got the lead. That’s helpful.”

The 15 strikeouts are a) tied for the most in baseball this season (Corbin Burnes and Jacob deGrom each had a 15-strikeout game), b) Cole’s most as a Yankee, c) one short of his career high, and d) tied for the fifth most in Yankees history. Ron Guidry had his 18-strikeout game; David Cone, Michael Pineda, and David Wells had 16-strikeout games; and Cole, Roger Clemens (in the postseason), Whitey Ford, Bob Shawkey, and Masahiro Tanaka all had 15-strikeout games. Cole, Pineda, and Tanaka are the only guys there who didn't issue a walk.

Cole also generated 32 swings and misses last night, including misses on seven straight swings to close out the sixth inning. The 32 whiffs are a career high and tied for the most in baseball this year (Angels lefty Patrick Sandoval had 32 on June 6th). They’re also the most by a Yankee in the pitch tracking era (2008 to present). Here are the team’s highest swing and miss totals since 2008:

1. Gerrit Cole: 32 vs. Angels (Sept. 1st, 2021)
2. James Paxton: 29 vs. Mariners (Aug. 23rd, 2019)
3. Gerrit Cole: 27 vs. Orioles (Sept. 11th, 2020)
4. Masahiro Tanaka: 27 vs. Orioles (Sept. 14th, 2017)
5. CC Sabathia: 27 vs. Rays (June 6th, 2012)

Last week I answered a mailbag question about Cole’s chances of breaking the franchise's single-season strikeout record (Guidry had 248 in 1978). A nine-strikeout game and a 15-strikeout game later, Cole owns an MLB leading 215 strikeouts with five starts remaining (maaaybe six). He only needs to average 6.6 strikeouts per start to get to 248. Breaking the record is very doable thanks to that big game last night.

As for the Cy Young, Cole has to be the front runner, right? He can’t be any worse than third in the race right now, behind Lance Lynn (who just went on the injured list with a knee problem) and Robbie Ray. Here are Cole’s AL ranks:

• Innings: 155 (4th, Zack Greinke leads with 159.2 in two more starts than Cole)
• ERA: 2.73 (3rd, Lynn is at 2.59 and Ray is at 2.71)
• FIP: 2.53 (1st, Nathan Eovaldi is second at 2.80)
• WHIP: 0.97 (1st, Ray is second at 1.01)
• K%: 35.4% (1st, Ray is second at 31.9%)
• K/BB: 6.72 (1st, Eovaldi is second at 5.92)
• fWAR: +5.2 (1st, Eovaldi is second at +4.6)
• bWAR: +5.4 (2nd, Ray leads at +6.1)

Looks pretty Cy Young-y to me. The Yankees have not had a major award winner since Aaron Judge won Rookie of the Year in 2017. Before him it was Alex Rodriguez (MVP in 2007), and their last Cy Young winner was Clemens in 2001. There’s still a month to play and a lot can change, but Cole is as well-positioned to win the Cy Young as any Yankee since Clemens.

Most importantly, Cole stopped the losing streak -- the Yankees became the first team to follow a 13-game winning streak with a four-game losing streak since the 1982 Braves -- and allowed the Yankees to maintain their two-game lead for the top Wild Card spot. The road trip was going south in a hurry, then the ace put a stop to the bleeding. What a player.

“It’s a special day,” Cole told Hoch about having that performance near home. “It’s always a nice time to come out and see some people back where you’re from. Any player, any person can relate to that. There was a little bit of intensity, trying not to get swept on the road. To do it in front of my family is a cherry on top.”

Chapman’s adjustment

Aroldis Chapman closed out last night’s win with an 11-pitch 1-2-3 ninth inning and it was the best he’s looked in a while. The fastball had life through the zone and he threw strikes. Eight of ‘em among the 11 pitches. Chapman has also made a slight adjustment. He’s standing more upright and beginning his delivery from a taller position.

Here are the obligatory before and after shots. These are screen grabs from Chapman’s three appearances on the road trip (full-size image):

That’s Atlanta on the left, Oakland in the middle, and Anaheim on the right. Looks like Chapman made this adjustment following that adventurous Braves game, when he retired only two of the six batters he faced, and Wandy Peralta had to bail him out with the bases loaded. Since then Chapman has retired six of seven batters and thrown 16 of 24 pitches for strikes (67%). He threw 54% strikes in his first three outings off the injured list.

“I was looking back at video of previous years and where I am today and there were things I wanted to change,” Chapman told Dan Martin, adding pitching coach Matt Blake and bullpen coach Mike Harkey helped with the adjustment. Boone said standing taller allows Chapman to stay more on line with the plate, which helps with his control.

Last night’s outing was encouraging. It was also one outing in what is now a three-month slog, and Chapman has a tendency to look like the best pitcher on Earth one day and completely broken the next. I’m nowhere near ready to declare him fixed. The adjustment at least gives us a little hope, and a tangible reason to believe that maybe this time Chapman really is fixed.

Taillon’s wall

Looks to me like Jameson Taillon is hitting a wall. He’s up to 131.2 innings this season after not pitching the last two years, so it’s understandable, but it’s unfortunate and happening at a bad time for the Yankees. Taillon’s velocity is down quite a bit from where it was from May through mid July, though it bounced back a tick earlier this week in Anaheim:

In each of his last three starts Taillon was dominant early on -- he looked fantastic the first three innings Tuesday night -- before beginning to fade around 45-pitch mark. Taillon had 12 swings and misses in first 41 pitches Tuesday then just eight in his final 51 pitches. The outs weren’t as easy to come by and the hittable mistake pitches became too common.

“It’s something I've unfortunately done a few times lately, where I'm cruising throughout the game and just hit a roadblock,” Taillon told Hoch following Tuesday’s game. “I was really close to getting away from it. Could almost taste the ending and then wasn’t able to make the big pitch when I had to.”

Taillon has allowed 17 runs and five homers in his last four starts (18.2 innings) after allowing 18 runs and seven homers in his previous 10 starts (59.2 innings). He won AL Pitcher of the Month in July, so part of this is a simple return to Earth. Taillon was never going to pitch at that level all season. Few do, and these last few starts have restored balance to the pitching universe.

The signs suggest Taillon may be wearing down though. It’s been three years since he threw this many innings and pitched this deep into the season, his velocity has slipped the last few weeks, and he’s faded in the middle innings in each of his last three starts. Individually, all three things would indicate some level of fatigue. When they happen simultaneously, the alarm should ring.

Taillon is the only Yankees starter to make every start this season (who saw that coming?) and the Yankees have been careful with him. They give him extra rest regularly and don’t let him throw more than 90 pitches all that often, and hey, I’m sure that’s played a role in keeping Taillon on the field. Alas and alack, it does not guarantee he won’t wear down late in the season.

Hopefully Taillon gets a second wind at some point, and if the Yankees need to give him extra rest down the stretch, they can do that with Andrew Heaney or Luis Gil (or a bullpen game). If he doesn’t get a second wind, that would be a bit of a problem going into the postseason, so fingers crossed for the time being. We’ll see where Taillon is at in a few weeks.

Voit’s playing time

The Yankees just wrapped up a nine-game road trip and Luke Voit started only four of the nine games. Granted, two of the nine were in a National League park with no DH, but a) Voit could have started those games anyway (Anthony Rizzo was in a slump at the time), and b) he still started only four of the seven games with a DH. That ain’t enough.

“I like where he’s been and his preparation,” Boone told Martin earlier this week. “I think he’s handled it well. His at-bats have been regular enough. I expect him to be a big contributor this final month.”

Voit has started seven of 13 games since Rizzo returned from the injured list, so he’s essentially become a half-time player. This is a guy who went 16-for-50 (.320) with four home runs in his first 13 games back from the injured list and was the AL Player of the Week two weeks ago. Also, Voit led MLB in home runs last year. He’s really good! He should play more.

The Yankees begin a 20 games in 20 days stretch tomorrow (17 of the 20 games in American League parks with the DH), so I’m sure there will be plenty of rest to go around and plenty of at-bats for Voit. How about this five-day plan?

Gardner plays three out of every five games (probably one too many but let’s roll with it), Rizzo and Voit play four out of every five games, Gallo and Stanton play nine out of every 10 games (alternate their off-day each time through the five-day schedule), and Judge plays every single day. It’s September and the Yankees are in a postseason race. Let’s lock down a postseason spot before taking the foot off the gas.

Of course, this is all easier said than done. Pitching matchups will throw a wrench into things. So will the weather, probably. Maybe Gallo should sit more? He’s hitting .139/.301/.333 (80 wRC+) with a 38.3% strikeout rate in 31 games as a Yankee. For all the good he does (walk and play defense, mostly), that’s pretty bad. Scaling back on his playing time wouldn’t be crazy.

I don’t expect it to happen though. Based on the last two weeks, the Yankees have Voit at the bottom of the playing time pecking order, and he’s just going to have to live with it. It’s a shame, because when he’s swinging the bat well like he was two weeks ago, he’s the third best hitter in that group behind Judge and Stanton. I understand Voit won’t play every single game, but surely the Yankees can do better than four starts in nine games like on the road trip, right?

GIDPs back with a vengeance

Good thing I wrote that blurb about the Yankees avoiding double plays last week, huh? That was a close call. I very nearly held it until this week and I’m glad I didn’t.

You: “You jinxed it, you idiot.”
Me: “Yeah, but at least the topic didn’t go to waste.”

The Yankees hit into five double plays Tuesday night, one fewer than the franchise record for a nine-inning game and one more than they hit into during the entire 13-game winning streak. In the last five games, they’ve hit into 10 double plays. That’s after hitting into six double plays in their previous 16 games. The first half offense is back, baby.

“It’s a game we should have broken open and didn’t,” Boone told Scott Miller following Tuesday’s game. “(David Fletcher) turned some really impressive double plays.”

Things have gotten so bad on the double play front that Gallo is now hitting into them. He hit into nine -- nine! -- double plays in his first 2,288 career plate appearances, then he hit into three double plays in the span of 12 plate appearances from Saturday through Tuesday. It did not take long for the 2021 Yankees stink to infect him, huh.

The super low double play rate during the winning streak was never going to last. The Yankees are still too station-to-station for that, and no team’s true talent level is 0.31 double plays per game (the Rays have the lowest double play rate in baseball at 0.44 per game, and the league average is 0.69). You get these little outlier spurts throughout the long season and it always sucks when they end.

Given everything we’ve seen the last five months, the Yankees are closer to the team that is a threat to hit into five double plays in one night than they are a team that could hit into only four double plays in a 13-game stretch. This is who they are. They’re going to hit into double plays because they’re still predominantly right-handed and they’re slow. It is what it is, and what it is is very annoying. Those 13 games were a nice reprieve.

Florial and Kriske called up

Passing on September call ups because they would have been mildly inconvenient never made any sense and the Yankees did indeed summon Estevan Florial and Brooks Kriske yesterday. Both played for Triple-A Scranton on Sunday, so they were not on the taxi squad and flew all the way out to Anaheim for one game, then flew right back East with the team.

The Florial and Kriske call ups may not be as temporary as they appeared earlier this week. Gio Urshela has a hand issue and went for an MRI today. If it brings back bad news, he could head to the injured list*, in which case Gleyber Torres would take his spot tomorrow and Florial would remain on the roster. If Gio can avoid the injured list, then Florial goes down for Torres.

* Tyler Wade just had the best month of his life. Can he get a start over Andrew Velazquez and Rougned Odor please? The Yankees have stuck with Wade how many years now, and they’re not going to give him a chance to build on that success so they can play the backup flavor of the month and literally Rougned Odor? Come on. Get Wade in there once in a while.

Luis Gil threw 78 pitches Sunday and wasn’t available to pitch Wednesday, which is why Kriske was called up instead. Gil could take his spot tomorrow, though Boone indicated the plan is to use Gil as a spot starter during the upcoming 20 games in 20 days stretch. That leads me to believe he’ll remain in Triple-A on a regular turn and be prepared to start.

Kriske staying on the roster while Gil stays in Triple-A would make it all but certain Albert Abreu will return next Thursday, once his 10 days in the minors are up. I could see the Yankees keeping Gil over Abreu. Kriske though? No chance. Kriske until Abreu is eligible to return with Gil being held back for strategic spot starts is the most likely outcome here.

2. The AL East race. It’s over. It was over before the calendar flipped to September when the Yankees were on the West Coast. The Yankees won 35 of 46 games to get within four games of first place, the Rays said that's cute, and four days later the Yankees were eight back. Tampa is on a 2015 Blue Jays-esque run where they’re just not going to lose, and there’s nothing the Yankees can do about it.

The Yankees will play their third Wild Card Game in the last four 162-game seasons this year. Hopefully, anyway. There is a month left in the season and the Yankees could go from the first Wild Card spot to out of postseason position just as quickly as they went from four back to eight back in the AL East. The Wild Card standings:

1. Yankees: 77-56
2. Red Sox: 76-59 (2 GB)
3. Athletics: 73-60 (4 GB)
4. Mariners: 72-62 (5.5 GB)
5. Blue Jays: 70-62 (6.5 GB)

The Red Sox are in dire straits right now. They’re dealing with a COVID outbreak (eight players are out, most notably Xander Bogaerts, plus a few coaches and staffers), and because they’re among the teams not over the 85% vaccination threshold, they’re subject to stiffer protocols with no chance for an early return from quarantine. Their guys are going to miss some time.

Don’t dismiss the Blue Jays either. They have seven games remaining with the Yankees, four above-average starters (Jose Berrios, Alek Manoah, Robbie Ray, Hyun-Jin Ryu), and a great offense. Did I mention they have seven games remaining with the Yankees? That’s a big deal. The official RAB power rankings of teams most likely to annoy Yankees fans in September:

1. Yankees
2. Blue Jays
3. Red Sox

The Blue Jays are serious enough about a postseason run that they designated Brad Hand for assignment earlier this week. Hand has been diminished since last year and he gave up 10 runs in 8.2 innings after coming over at the trade deadline. Rather than wait around and hope he got right, the Blue Jays admitted the mistake and moved on. It’s the kinda thing the Yankees don’t do often. We’re going to watch Andrew Heaney give up dingers and Rougned Odor contribute nothing but vibes right through Game 162.

To me, the Red Sox falling out of the Wild Card race is the best case scenario. I want nothing to do with Chris Sale in a winner-take-all game. The Yankees have a strikeout heavy lineup and Sale is one of the most extreme swing and miss pitchers in the game. Gerrit Cole is great and could match Sale zero for zero, but Sale is about as bad a matchup as possible for the Yankees.

The Athletics are no pushover, of course. They just beat the Yankees twice and held down their offense pretty well in those two games. I’d rather take my chances with Oakland than Sale though. The Blue Jays are far enough back that they’re not a primary concern right now, but they’re close enough to be a headache. I suspect they’ll make life miserable at some point.

The Yankees went on their big second half run and it wasn’t good enough to get back into the AL East race. Credit to the Rays. They’re just a better team. The focus now shifts to the Wild Card race and a) holding onto a postseason spot, first and foremost, and b) keeping home field advantage. If the Yankees have to play a winner-take-all game, I want it in the Bronx.

3. Rapid fire thoughts. Zack Britton will have his bone chip surgery next Wednesday and he said they’re going to check his elbow ligament when they’re in there, because the bone chip is in such a position that it could have damaged the ligament. Removing it back in March would have done “more harm than good,” Britton told Dan Martin, meaning the bone chip was tucked behind the ligament and there was no easy way to get to it. Either way, Britton is not out of the Tommy John surgery woods just yet. We’ll get an answer next Wednesday … Conor Foley has a notable Triple-A injury update: Stephen Ridings is out with a minor elbow problem. “Ridings is full go. Had a little issue with his elbow, not structural at all, so he’s just working his way back,” RailRiders manager Doug Davis told Foley. At least it’s not a structural issue (inflammation, I guess?). Ridings has been out since Aug. 23rd and we were unlikely to see him in September anyway given the 40-man roster situation and only two extra roster spots, and the injury likely takes him out of play entirely. No reason to rush him back this late in the season. Ridings made enough of an impression to get a 40-man spot this winter … TD Bank Ballpark, home of Double-A Somerset, is underwater following last night’s storm. The Patriots are on the road until next Tuesday and the team says they’re still evaluating the damage. Not sure what the Patriots will do if the park isn’t playable come Tuesday. I guess they’ll have to play next week's series against Hartford in Hartford, and call it a “home” series? … Joel Sherman reports MLB proposed free agency at age 29.5 for all players, and a $1 billion pool for arbitration-eligible players, during the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement talks. Arbitration-eligible players will make about $650M this season, but the $1 billion pool is a salary cap by another name (it’s a set pool of money that can’t be exceeded, so it’s a cap), so the MLBPA will balk. Free agency at age 29.5 would help most players. Aaron Judge, for example, would have been a free agent this offseason rather than next under that plan. It also means guys like Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Juan Soto would have to wait a decade to hit free agency, and those star free agents in their mid-20s are the guys who really raise the salary bar. This would stifle that growth. Six years of service time or 29.5 years of age, whatever comes first, would be a way to fix that, though it wouldn’t prevent service time manipulation for anyone age 22 or younger. Not sure this proposal moves the needle much. Fortunately it is just a proposal, not a final offer. The CBA expires Dec. 1st, so the two sides have less than three months to figure this all out … And finally, John Ourand and Evan Drellich (both subs. req’d) have stories about MLB’s long-term concern over television revenue. Television money is a bigger piece of the pie than ever, but with more and more people cutting the cord, the value of regional sports networks is slipping. MLB could launch a blackout-free streaming service, though only baseball fans will subscribe. Countless non-baseball fans in New York pay for the YES Network just because it’s part of their cable package. You don’t get those subscribers with a streaming service. Once sports betting became legal all over the country, it was inevitable MLB would lean into it (because money), and now they need gambling revenue even more given the long-term television prospects. Once the television well dries up, no longer will owners be able to run bad teams out there in front of half-empty ballparks year after year and still turn a huge profit. MLB could soon face the nightmare scenario of having to convince people to pay attention to the sport to ensure money comes in. Having to actually sell the product is the last thing MLB wants.

Mailbag Questions of the Week

Colin asks: When the Yanks first got Giancarlo, I feel like you wrote a lot about how you don't need lefties just to have lefties, and you focused on how well Stanton and Judge mashed righties. Given the impact of a balanced lineup now (or lack thereof earlier in the season) has your thinking on righty/lefty changed? Is it the new bullpen rule (min. 3 outs)? Is it the Yanks struggling in the postseason against power righty arms? The lineup just weaker now so they can't overcome it with sheer might?

Yes, I did write that, and yes, my thinking has definitely changed after seeing close to an all-righty lineup the last few years. It became far too easy to match up, and while the overall numbers say the Yankees hit righties just as well as they hit lefties overall …

• 2018-20 vs. RHP: .257/.335/.464 (114 wRC+)
• 2018-20 vs. LHP: .256/.335/.477 (116 wRC+)

… that doesn’t reflect how easy it can be to match up in certain situations, or how a starter could settle into a groove (sliders down and away repeatedly, etc.). The Yankees didn’t give pitchers much of a reason to change things up nor did they disrupt their game plan. The Yankees like to talk about “lanes” for their pitchers and their lineup was a giant “lane” for the other team.

That said, you can’t just throw any lefty hitter into the lineup and call it balanced. The Yankees tried that with Jay Bruce, Mike Ford, Brett Gardner, and Rougned Odor earlier this year and they didn’t help. You need quality lefty hitters who give the other team a reason to worry. The Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo trades were a clear acknowledgement of that by the Yankees.

The three-batter minimum contributes to it to some degree, though my change in thinking stems largely from watching teams match up so easily against the Yankees the last few postseasons. The Astros and Rays in particular threw hard-throwing righty after hard-throwing righty at the Yankees, and the Yankees gave them no reason to consider doing otherwise.

Of course, the Astros and Rays have had really good pitching staffs the last few years and they shut down most teams. The Yankees seemed uniquely ill-equipped to deal with them though. It was clearly advantage pitcher far too often.)

Gallo and Rizzo have helped this year but I think the Yankees still have work to do balancing their lineup for next year. It will require difficult decisions (do they dump Luke Voit for a lefty first baseman? Gio Urshela for a lefty third baseman? etc.) but that’s baseball. The all-righty lineup was a vulnerability and maintaining the status quo wasn’t working.

Chris asks: With a month left in the regular season, Brett Gardner hasn't said anything about whether he plans to play in 2022. With his dip in production this season, should Yankee fans assume this is his last season with the team? And if so, is there anything the Yankees organization or fans can do to make him feel appreciated this last month?

Gardner hasn’t said anything about his future and the last few years, it wasn’t until after the season ended that he said he wants to come back. If he does retire, I hope he announces it ahead of time so the Yankees and their fans can give him a proper farewell during the last homestand, but if he wants to take his time and discuss it with his family, I’d get it.

I think the chances Gardner returns next year are better than most people think. The Yankees will obviously decline their $7.15M club option, but then Gardner has a $2.3M player option. Even if he’s retiring, pick up the player option and make them release you. (The Yankees will get hit with a $2.575M luxury tax charge for Gardner either way next year.)

The Yankees will need a fourth outfielder next season. Preferably someone who hits left-handed and can play center field. Gardner can still go get in center -- he made several great catches in Oakland -- and he has a 104 wRC+ against righties since June 1st. Add in his clubhouse value and the fact he may pick up the player option and yeah, it’s not hard to see Gardner back in 2022.

Also, Estevan Florial is hitting .210/.307/.374 (83 wRC+) in Triple-A this season -- moving him up from Double-A Somerset because of the Aaron Hicks injury was such a dumb, shortsighted move -- and he won’t be ready to take over as the fourth outfielder next year. Next year is his final minor league option year, so it is essentially the Yankees’ last chance to send him down.

If it were up to me, I’d move on from Gardner after the season, leave Florial in Triple-A all next year, and find a new fourth outfielder. It’s not up to me though, and Gardner has played well enough the last few weeks that I could see the Yankees simply bringing him back one more time once he picks up his player option. It is the path that requires the least work.

I know this much: whenever he retires, Gardner will go home to South Carolina, and we will see him at most three times a year: Spring Training as a guest instructor, Old Timers' Day, and maybe to throw out a ceremonial pitch in the postseason. That's it. Gardner's gonna go home after retiring and rarely be heard from again.

Marcus asks: There is a narrative right now that Deivi Garcia is struggling because the Yankees changed his delivery. It seems odd that they would take a young pitcher who started in a playoff game for them and try to give him an overhaul unless it was an effort to avoid an impending injury. If Garcia's mechanical issues are evident (only going off what I've read), do we know those are the fault of the Yankees and not Garcia making changes on his own?

Aaron Boone gets asked about Garcia every so often and he gives a generic “sometimes young pitchers struggle” comment, and that’s really it. The Yankees have been very tight-lipped about Garcia’s issues this season. Good luck getting any information out of them at this point.

A few weeks ago Keith Law said someone messed with Deivi’s delivery and he’s a “low slot slider-slinger now.” Here’s the side-by-side comparison. This is 2020 on the left and 2021 on the right:

Garcia’s arm slot is noticeably lower this year. I have no idea whether he did this on his own or whether the Yankees coached him to do this. Either way, it’s a disaster. Deivi has a 7.01 ERA (6.84 FIP) with 22.7% strikeouts and 16.2% walks in 77 Triple-A innings, and the Yankees do not consider him an MLB option. He’s been passed over for several call ups.

Players and teams tinker all the time, even top prospects. Sometimes things don’t work out and it gets sorted out fairly quickly. It’s not often a mechanical adjustment goes this wrong this long. The top pitching prospect in the organization regressing this much is a fireable offense. You can’t trust whatever coach did this (if it was a coach) to handle another pitcher after things go this wrong with a prized young arm.

The good news: Garcia is healthy and only 22, and he’s shown the aptitude to make adjustments throughout his career, so we don’t have to bury his career just yet. Give him time to work on things and try to get this right (with different coaches, obviously), and see what happens. Clearly though, Deivi has regressed badly. I can’t remember the last time a top pitching prospect went south so quickly without getting hurt.

Dan asks: Why is the media acting like a thumbs down is some obscene gesture? These players are subjected to truly abusive language and behavior from fans, if a player wants to push back, then what's the issue? When did it become acceptable for players to be treated like zoo animals for the amusement of a mob anyway?

First things first, what’s up with the Mets stealing thumbs down from the 2017 Yankees? I know it’s a very generic gesture, but it is commonly associated with the 2017 Yankees around these parts. It’s not like the Mets can claim ignorance here. It started at Citi Field and Francisco Lindor had a front row seat for the Yankees thumbs-downing their way to the ALDS comeback in 2017. I’m not even mad about it, just … don’t the Mets want to do their own thing?

Anyway, no one cares about the thumbs down gesture itself. The outrage came from Javy Baez admitting the Mets were doing it to stick it to the fans who were booing them. Here are Baez’s initial comments, which led to this whole thing:

"It feels bad when I strike out and I get booed. It doesn't really get to me, but I want to let them know that when we have success, we're going to do the same thing, to let (fans) know how it feels ... They got to be better. I play for the fans and love the fans. If they're going to do that, they're going to put more pressure on the team."

Criticizing fans is a no-win situation. That was Baez’s mistake, admitting the gesture was a negative response to fans. All he had to say was “it’s an inside joke, we’re just playing the game and having fun” and that would have been that. It would’ve been a two-sentence blurb in the next day’s notes column. Instead, it became a three-day story. Only the Mets.

Baez and Lindor were marched out in front of reporters to apologize before the next game, and Baez got booed prior to his first at-bat that day. He had to know it was coming. Calling out the fans for booing is only going to lead to more booing. Also, shoutout to the guy in the Aaron Judge jersey and the kid in a Yankees hat for protecting the sanctity of thumbs down:

The Mets scored five runs in the ninth to win that game, and Baez scored the game-winning run on a mad dash from first base on a single to left field (Jorge Alfaro bobbled the ball and Baez never hesitated rounding third). That made things right more than any apology could have and Mets fans have loved the guy since. One big happy ending.

Did the media overreact? Of course, it’s what we do. But a player criticizing fans for booing is not going to go over well in this town. At the time the Mets were 7-19 in their last 26 games and they went from 3.5 games up in the NL East to seven games back, and Baez was hitting .222/.276/.444 (96 wRC+) as a Met. How did they expect fans to react?

I have grown apathetic about booing in my old age. As long as it doesn’t veer toward offensive, go nuts. I’m sure it sucks getting booed as a player, but making gobs of money to play a game for a living decidedly does not suck, so deal with it. Calling out the fans for booing is a no-win situation and the three-day headache was 100% avoidable, but it wasn’t avoided, because Mets.

(Imagine if Giancarlo Stanton said what Baez said? The Yankees are very good about coaching their players to say the right things. They put the players through media training every Spring Training and the message is “be as boring and non-controversial as possible,” basically.)

El asks: If the Yanks had been over the luxury tax, how would that affect their slot money and their ability to sign Arias? Would you prefer they go over to win now and possibly lose out on the Ariases and Dominguezes of the world?

Unless the upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement rewrites the rules (doubtful but not impossible), going over the luxury tax this year would change nothing for the signing period that opens Jan. 15th, 2022. That’s when the Yankees are expected to sign Roderick Arias. The 2022 signing period is technically the 2021-22 signing period, which would have opened last July 2nd. The signing period was pushed back due to COVID but is still covered by the current CBA, and is tied to free agency during the 2020-21 offseason.

Long story short, non-luxury tax payers forfeit $500,000 in international bonus pool money when they sign a qualified free agent while luxury tax payers forfeit $1M. There’s also a draft pick component, though for international free agency, those are the penalties. You lose forfeit an extra $500,000 when you go over the luxury tax threshold and sign a qualified free agent.

The Yankees exceeded the luxury tax last year but they did not sign a qualified free agent over the winter (you aren’t penalized for re-signing your own players, so DJ LeMahieu doesn’t count). Because of that, they’ll still have their full bonus pool when the signing period opens in January. Last year’s March agreement said the 2021 and 2022 bonus pools will be the same as the 2020, so the Yankees will have a little more than $5.2M to spend (Arias is reportedly getting $4M or so).

Given where the Yankees are on the win curve (i.e. World Series or bust), I’m in favor of going over the luxury tax and incurring whatever draft pick and international bonus pool penalties come my way. The Yankees do well with later round picks and smaller bonus international signings, so it’s not like they’d have to completely punt their amateur acquisition for a year.

This is slightly complicated, however. Many of these international deals are agreed to months in advance, sometimes even years in advance, so you need a pretty good idea of what you’ll be able to spend. You can’t lock down $5M in deals today for two years down the road, then go back on all them because you suddenly decide to sign a bunch of free agents. Agents and players won't like it and it could hurt your ability to sign kids in the future.

Anytime you’re in position to win a World Series, I think you owe it to yourself and your fans to do all you can to improve your team. I’m not crazy, right? This is pretty basic stuff and should in no way be controversial. I understand international free agency is a multi-year endeavor and there are agreements to honor. Generally speaking though, prioritize the MLB team over the farm system when you’re in position to win a championship. It’s going to be a few years before guys like Arias and Jasson Dominguez are anything more than prospect eye candy.

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