August 13th, 2021: Field of Dreams, Stanton, Higashioka, COVID, Mailbag

Through 115 games, the Yankees are 63-52, which is okay. Not great, not terrible, certainly well below expectations. Through 115 games in 1998, the Yankees were 86-29. Ridiculous. Once or twice a year I like to go back and compare the current Yankees to the 1998 Yankees just to remind myself of their greatness and usually to make myself feel better. That team was unreal. The present day Yankees are on pace to go 89-73 with 47 games remaining. To today’s thoughts.

1. Weekday observations. Tyler Wade is 11-for-20 (.550) with three doubles and five steals in his last 10 games. It’s the best 10-game stretch of his career and it has raised his batting line to .273/.347/.341 (93 wRC+). Gleyber Torres is hitting .253/.328/.351 (91 wRC+). Who had Wade outhitting Gleyber on Aug. 13th? Some thoughts on the last few games.

Field of Dreams Game

I have a confession: I’ve never seen Field of Dreams. Haven’t seen Major League either. I know the plots and I’ve seen bits and pieces, but I’ve never sat down and watched either movie start to finish. I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on anything. I watch enough baseball. I don’t need to watch movies that are about baseball or are baseball themed.

Anyway, the Fields of Dream Game last night was very neat. The ballpark itself looked great. FOX overdid it with the movie nostalgia but I get it. Dingers into the corn were pretty cool, as was the hot air balloon floating by in the third inning. I’m a fan of baseball in unusual places and a cornfield in Iowa certainly qualifies as unusual. Great way to break up the dog days of August.

“Guys were just glued to the windows, checking out the scenery,” Aaron Judge told Bryan Hoch. “A lot of guys from different countries have seen big cities, but they haven’t seen open fields like this. It was pretty cool dropping in and seeing everybody in town, standing on the sides of the roads with signs and cheering us on as we were coming in. It was a pretty cool experience that I know I won’t forget.”

As for the game itself, it was terrible. I mean, it was awesome and a great showcase for MLB, but it was terrible. Andrew Heaney never stood a chance against that White Sox lineup (he’s up to 15 runs and eight homers in 15 innings as a Yankee) and he has no business being in a contender’s rotation. The White Sox vs. Heaney in a cornfield:

“I’m giving up a lot of runs and not getting a lot of outs,” Heaney told Hoch, stating the obvious. “I’m not making good pitches. It’s very, very frustrating.”

Scoring four runs in five innings against a pitcher as good as Lance Lynn is great. Coming back against a closer as dominant as Liam Hendriks is amazing! Judge and Giancarlo Stanton taking Hendriks deep* in a showcase game like that should’ve been the most memorable moment of the regular season. Instead, their homers were rendered meaningless. Couldn’t lose 7-4 like a normal team, huh?

* Kinda seemed like they played with the rocket ball last night, no? Long live the rocket ball.

Walk the No. 9 hitter after getting ahead in the count 0-2 with a one-run lead and you get what you deserve. Zack Britton is the closer because of his reputation, not because he’s the most qualified reliever for the job. Just a bad performance by him in a bad season, and Aaron Boone needs to recognize Britton is not trustworthy in high leverage spots right now, and adjust. I have no faith Boone will actually do that though. Maximizing the talent on the roster and putting the team in the best position to win is not his specialty.

“That ruined it a little bit, honestly,” Boone told Hoch about the loss. “We’re here with  business to do and these games are huge. It’s tough to walk in here after a tough loss, after it looked like you stole it back. But that said, it was as special and breathtaking a setting for a baseball game that I can ever remember being a part of.”

The Yankees are 12-5 in their last 17 games and they’ve gained a half-game in the Wild Card race. They played well and banked a lot of wins the last two weeks, yet they’ve made minimal progress in the standings. It’s disheartening, and 12 of the next 16 games are against the White Sox, Red Sox, Braves, and Athletics. There are no more Marlins and Mariners and Royals on the schedule. They’re moving up a weight class. The Field of Dreams Game was fun even if the outcome stunk, and starting tomorrow, the Yankees have to show us they can do more than punch down. Their season depends on it.

(Also, the Yankees have allowed five walk-off home runs this season, tying the franchise record set in 1970. They have six losses when leading in the ninth inning or later, their most since 1997, and their eight walk-off losses overall are tied with the Rays for the most in the league. This team just can’t lose normally.)

Stanton’s power

Last night Stanton did something for only the third time in his last 30 games: he hit a home run. He has six homers in his last 50 games. At one point during his MVP season in 2017, Stanton hit 30 (!) homers in 50 games (really 48 games). He’s been healthy for the most part this year, but the power just hasn’t been there consistently.

The good news: Stanton is still hitting the everloving crap out of the ball. He ranks at the top of the league in average exit velocity (94.9 mph) and hard-hit rate (56.1%), and the other day he hit the hardest hit ball of the Statcast era (122.2 mph). It went for a double play because that’s what the 2021 Yankees do, but the point is Stanton is still hammering the baseball.

Launch angle is the problem more than raw power. Stanton is hitting the ball on the ground too much -- his 50.0% ground ball rate is a career high by three percentage points and well above his 43.6% ground ball rate from 2016-18 -- and the next ground ball I see go over the fence will be the first. The increase in ground balls certainly helps explain the decline in homers.

In addition to the increase in grounders, Stanton is also hitting more low line drives rather than high fly balls. The ideal launch angle is the 10-35 degree range. The lower end of the range produces line drives and the upper end produces fly balls. Above 35 degrees and the fly balls become more routine and closer to popups.

Here are Stanton’s batted ball percentages in each little launch angle range over the years. I’m ignoring 2019 and 2020 because he barely played those seasons.

Big increase in the 15 degrees and under range thanks to all the grounders. Also an increase in the 35+ degrees range, equaling more cans of corn. Stanton’s rate of batted balls in the 15-35 degree range, that “oh hell yeah that’s great contact” range, is just 20.8%. It was 27.9% in 2017 and 27.8% in 2018. That there explains the decline in homers.

When Stanton gets the ball in the air, it’s leaving the park at the same rate. His 24.0 HR/FB% is in line with his 26.5% career average and his 25.0% in 2018 (it was an insane 34.3% in 2017 and that’s not happening again). The exit velocity is there and the HR/FB rate is there. Stanton just isn’t hitting the ball in the air enough. That’s why his power is down.

How do Stanton and the Yankees fix that? I’m not sure. That’s for them to figure out. And, frankly, it’s a team-wide problem. Lots of guys are hitting too many grounders this year. Stanton hasn’t been bad this season, but he hasn’t been as good as in the past, and his trademark power is way down. The Yankees have to get this right. It’s gone on too long.

Higashioka’s throwing

Kyle Higashioka had a terrible throwing series in Kansas City. It was alarmingly bad. For whatever reason Statcast is not publishing catcher throwing data this year, but in 2019, the last time they did, they had Higashioka's average throw at 78.7 mph that season, which is middle of the pack (Gary Sanchez was sixth at 84.6 mph). Arm strength wasn’t the problem this weekend though. Higashioka’s throws were all over the place. Look at this:

Those throws weren’t competitive. The Royals saw a weakness and exploited it. Higashioka is 4-for-27 (15%) throwing out runners this year and 13-for-70 (19%) in his career. The league caught stealing rate typically sits around 27%, though it’s down to 24% this year. Either way, Higashioka has thrown out way fewer runners than average. It’s bad.

"Pretty infuriating,” Higashioka told Erik Boland about his two poor throws Tuesday (which sailed into the outfield for errors and extra bases for the runners). “I hate to make errors like that, especially since one directly led to a run. It’s not acceptable.”

To be fair to Higashioka, the Yankees have several pitchers who are slow to the plate and prone to stolen bases, and they could contribute to his throwing issues by forcing him to rush. Fatigue could have been a factor too. Higashioka caught all 11 innings in that wild game Tuesday night, then was right back behind the plate Wednesday.

I’m not sure we can blame the pitchers for every single throw being off-line in Kansas City. The fatigue could be real though. Higashioka is not a good thrower and hopefully that was just an especially bad series, because surrendering two bases per steal because the throw sails into the outfield is untenable. It won’t be long until Higashioka is tested again.

Missing whiffs

Tuesday night Yankees pitchers threw 126 pitches in eight innings and they generated only four (4) swings and misses. Nestor Cortes had three in 90 pitches and Joely Rodriguez had one in nine pitches. Stephen Ridings (11 pitches) and Nick Nelson (26 pitches) did not get a single whiff between them. That’s hard to believe.

Here are the lowest swing and miss games in baseball this season:

By total whiffs
1. Tigers vs. White Sox: 3 on June 6th
2. Yankees vs. Royals: 4 on Aug. 10th
3. Diamondbacks vs. Cardinals: 4 on June 30th
4. Mets vs. Nationals: 4 on June 28th
5. Orioles vs. Astros: 4 on June 23rd
6. Rays vs. Royals: 4 on April 21

By percent of pitches
1. Orioles vs. Astros: 2.3% on June 23rd
2. Tigers vs. White Sox: 2.5% on June 6th
3. Rays vs. Royals: 3.1% on April 21
4. Diamondbacks vs. Cardinals: 3.1% on June 30th
5. Yankees vs. Royals: 3.2% on Aug. 10th

The four swings and misses are the fewest ever by the Yankees in the Statcast era (2015 to present), and the 3.2% swing and miss percentage is the 11th lowest. The Yankees have a very high swing and miss pitching staff -- they rank fourth in baseball in strikeout rate (25.9%) and second in swing and miss rate (12.8%) -- yet they couldn’t get any Tuesday.

That game was a bit of a perfect storm. The Royals are a high contact team (fourth lowest strikeout rate at 22.0%) and the Yankees had their B-team on the mound most of the night. Maybe even their C-team. If that happened against, say, Gerrit Cole and Chad Green, it would be worrisome. Against Cortes & Co.? Eh, just a weird little blip. I just thought it was worth noting. Rare to see the Yankees get so few swings and misses in a game.

COVID updates

The Pinstripe Variant has claimed another: Clay Holmes was placed on the COVID list earlier this week. He has symptoms and is vaccinated, so he could return before his 10-day quarantine ends, but that’s not how things have been going lately. Even the vaccinated guys have needed the full 10 days (and then some). Get well soon, Clay. See you in two weeks or so.

Fortunately, there is good news involving the various other Yankees on the COVID list. Here’s the latest:

Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery. Cole and Montgomery played catch with each other during their quarantine period (Cole’s wife has been posting about it on social media) and they were with the team in Iowa. They’ll throw bullpen sessions this weekend, and if those go well, they could rejoin the rotation sometime next week. Thank goodness.

“(We’ll) kind of evaluate along with them where they are, and as far as when we insert them back in,” Boone told Kristie Ackert. “I have some ideas in my mind and I’ve spoken with them a little bit about it. But first things first is they’re both doing well. They’ve both been able to throw with one another and work out and things like that. So they’re doing well. But let’s get a bullpen under their belt, see where they are and then decide when we want to insert them.”

The Yankees have a doubleheader with the Red Sox on Tuesday and boy, it would be great to get Cole or Montgomery back that day (preferably both). Right now Tuesday lines up with the bullpen day rotation spot and that’s a problem. Can’t expect 14 innings from the bullpen. Cole has not pitched since July 29th, Montgomery since Aug. 1st. That layoff is juuust short enough to get away with no rehab start, but also juuust long enough to maybe have a pitch limit in their first game back.

Anthony Rizzo. Rizzo is six days into his 10-day quarantine, though it doesn’t sound like he’ll be able to return right when the 10 days are up. He still has symptoms and has not yet started any baseball activity. “Anthony’s doing a little bit better today and feeling okay. Has some symptoms ... Anthony’s slowly getting better,” Boone told Ackert.

Thanks to Luke Voit, the Yankees are better able to weather Rizzo’s absence than they are their other COVID guys. The pitching staff is thin and the Higashioka/Rob Brantly catcher combo is the cringe emoji come to life. The Yankees definitely miss Rizzo’s low strikeout lefty bat though. Hopefully he gets healthy soon and can return next week, soon after his 10 days are up.

Gary Sanchez. It has been nine days since Sanchez last played in a game, and his symptoms have subsided and he was able to resume workouts recently. He’s been hitting and things like that. It sounds like he could return around the same time as Cole and Montgomery, though that’s not set in stone.

“Gary had some symptoms there for several days, but he felt really good (Wednesday),” Boone told Ackert. “I think he was hitting off a tee and getting a workout in and things like that. So he’s doing well. He has really turned a corner the last couple of days.”

Gary might need a rehab assignment at this point. He’s looking at two weeks or so on the shelf and that’s pushing it. Triple-A Scranton and Double-A Somerset are on the road next week, but High-A Hudson Valley will be home, so maybe Sanchez plays a game or two there before he rejoins the Yankees. Either way, good news. The Yankees miss Gary. I do too.

Schmidt activated

Clarke Schmidt made his fourth minor league rehab start Wednesday (two runs in 3.2 innings on 52 pitches, here’s video) and, after the game, the Yankees activated him off the 60-day injured list and optioned him to Triple-A Scranton. He’s healthy and a phone call away now. Given the ongoing wave of injuries and COVID, we might see him soon.

Schmidt stepped into Holmes’ 40-man roster spot when Holmes went on the COVID list, and the Yankees currently have 52 players on the 40-man (40 active, six COVID list, six 60-day injured list). The COVID guys are expected back soon-ish and Luis Severino could return next week, so the Yankees have 40-man decisions coming. I think this is the chopping block:

1. OF Trey Amburgey (COVID replacement but on 10-day injured list)
2. C Rob Brantly (COVID replacement)
3. RHP Stephen Ridings (COVID replacement)
4. RHP Brody Koerner
5. OF Jonathan Davis
6. 1B Chris Gittens (on the 10-day injured list)
7. RHP Brooks Kriske
8. UTIL Andrew Velazquez

(As a reminder, players designated as COVID replacements do not have to go through the usual process to be taken off the 40-man roster. They can be dropped without going through waivers.)

Amburgey started a rehab assignment earlier this week, so he’s already in “activate him off the injured list and drop him from the 40-man” territory. The Yankees can do that whenever they need a 40-man spot. Ridings has been great in limited time, but the roster situation tells us he’s going down at some point. Brantly’s spot is tied directly to Sanchez. Sanchez will take Brantly’s 40-man spot whenever he comes off the COVID list.

Koerner is a non-prospect up as an emergency arm (he has pitched once in 10 days on the roster) and the best thing for him is getting claimed on waivers when the Yankees drop him from the 40-man. He’ll never be anything more than a deep depth option for this team. A rebuilding club like the Orioles or Pirates could claim him and give him big league time as a long man. For his sake, I hope Koerner gets claimed when the Yankees drop him from the 40-man.

After Koerner, you can list the guys I have in the 5-8 spots in any order. Gittens started a minor league rehab assignment a few days ago and I imagine his 40-man spot is safe until Rizzo returns. After that, there’s no reason to carry three first base only guys on the 40-man. Kriske is just a depth arm, Davis is a spare player at a position of depth, and Velazquez is an emergency infielder. None are safe.

Clint Frazier started a rehab assignment this past Tuesday and position players can spend up to 20 days on a rehab assignment. The full 20 days would take Frazier to Aug. 30th. He’s been on the injured list since July 2nd, so if the Yankees transfer him to the 60-day injured list to clear a 40-man spot, Clint would be eligible to return … Aug. 30th. Funny how that works.

I don’t think the Yankees want to put Frazier on the 60-day injured list though. With their luck, the Yankees will put him on the 60-day injured list, then the next day Joey Gallo and Aaron Judge will run into each other in the outfield and disintegrate on contact, and the Yankees won’t be able to call up Clint. They want to be able to call him up at any moment. We’ll see.

The 40-man roster is overstuffed and the Yankees have a few guys coming back very soon (hopefully). Clearing space shouldn’t be too painful though. Amburgey and Ridings don’t require waivers, so the worst case scenario is they lose Gittens or Kriske on waivers, and that isn’t so bad at all. I look forward to everyone getting healthy, he says fully understanding other players will probably get hurt in their place.

2. Rapid fire thoughts. Cool note about the Field of Dreams Game from Lindsey Adler (subs. req’d): Dwight Schmidt, Clarke’s father, flew the Yankees from Kansas City to Iowa. Dwight flew combat jets as a Naval Aviator back in the day, and he’s currently a pilot and flight instructor for Delta. Every so often a spot opens up to fly the team’s charter (they fly Delta), and it was arranged for Dwight to fly the team. Pretty cool. Too bad Clarke isn’t with the big league team. Bet that would’ve been a fun experience … Jon Schwartz recently spoke to the 6-foot-5, 250-pound Joey Gallo about playing with the 6-foot-7, 282-pound Aaron Judge and his response was a hoot. I try to avoid cursing on the blog, but this is a direct quote, so I’m going to leave it in. Here’s Gallo on playing with Judge:

“I don't like it. He's too fucking big. He's too big! I don't understand how he's that big. I don't like to look up at people like that. I'm used to being big, and I don't really care that much about being the biggest, but he's like huge. And then Stanton's there. Alright, I'm like the skinny tall guy now. I'm the weak guy in the outfield now.”

Too funny. Now please start hitting some dingers, Joey … And finally, longtime Orioles slugger Chris Davis announced his retirement yesterday. He had major hip surgery earlier this year and is medically unable to play. Davis and the O’s restructured his contract, and the $23M he is owed next year will be deferred and spread out over several years. He became a punchline at the end, but Davis was a beast from 2013-15 (.252/.347/.544 and 126 homers), and he was a major part of those Orioles teams that gave the Yankees fits in the early-to-mid-2010s. We’ve been fortunate to see a lot of great home run hitters pass through the Bronx, though I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone generate power as effortlessly as Davis. Look at this swing. Laughable power. Davis is a former Yankees draft pick too, you know. They selected him out of his Texas high school in the 50th round in 2004, though he didn’t sign and went to college. I covered the Orioles-Royals ALCS in 2014 for CBS and Davis wasn’t on the postseason roster because he had a bad year, but he traveled with the team, and is an unbelievably nice guy. I was an out-of-towner parachuting in to cover the series. He had no reason to even acknowledge my existence, especially as a non-roster player coming off a poor season, yet he was cool as hell. I felt bad for Davis when he went through that 0-for-54 stretch a few years ago and I was terrified whenever he stepped into the box during his peak. A worthy foe, he was.

Mailbag Questions of the Week

Andrew asks: During the game tonight (Monday night) Loaisiga lost a batter in the 7th inning (same inning as the ridiculous balk call) on a 3-2 count going with a slider. His fastball is probably his best pitch and certainly was tonight. David Cone questioned the pitch selection on air and I am just curious who is to blame for that. Is analytics behind that seemingly questionable pitch selection? How much freedom to Higgy and the pitcher have in that situation to decide pitches? It feels like just the Yankees' style to stubbornly stick with a strategy no matter what the results are as long as it conforms with analytic data.

The front office and coaching staff build the game plan, disseminate it to the players, and then it’s up to the players to follow it and execute. The catcher calls pitches and is the eyes on the ground who makes adjustments based on how the pitcher is throwing that day, etc. Ultimately, the pitcher has the final say. He can shake off to get to any pitch he wants in any situation.

The at-bat Andrew is talking about came in the seventh inning Monday. Loaisiga walked Cam Gallagher, the light-hitting backup catcher and No. 9 hitter, on a 3-2 breaking ball with two outs. We can debate the pitch selection until we’re blue in the face. Bottom line, Loaisiga didn’t make a good pitch. It was noncompetitive (video):

Higashioka wanted it down below the zone and Loaisiga instead threw it way outside. That pitch was never a strike out of Loaisiga’s hand. It was an easy take, even for a hitter as bad as Gallagher (career .225/.291/.336 and 68 wRC+ in parts of five MLB seasons).

Loaisiga threw Gallagher four breaking balls in the six-pitch at-bat and nine of the 18 pitches Gallagher saw that night were breaking balls, so clearly that was the game plan. Did Higashioka and Loaisiga get too cute with the backup catcher in the late innings of a tie game? Maybe. Loaisiga didn’t shake off though, so he was comfortable with the pitch. He just didn’t execute.

The game plans teams put together these days are insane. They go so far beyond “this guy is a good breaking ball hitter” or “he’s 7-for-12 against him in his career.” This is from Marc Carig in 2018 (subs. req’d):

The concept itself is not new. There’s no shortage of publicly-available data to expose which hitters might have trouble against cutters buried in on the hands, or two-seamers that nick the corners. But the Yankees have used their blend of data to tailor those projections. With their tools, it’s possible to estimate a hitters’ performance not against just two-seam fastballs in general, but two-seam fastballs thrown by Britton, or curveballs thrown by Robertson, or sliders thrown by Chapman. Specific velocity and spin is taken into account and matched up to a hitters’ bat path, which can also be precisely measured.

Given that information, computers can simulate an expected result. From there, game plans can be formulated, strategies mapped out, scenarios anticipated. If they choose, pitchers can use those insights in their own preparation.

Again, that was 2018. Imagine what teams are doing these days? A few years ago MLB switched from Trackman to Hawk-Eye, the same system used to track the ball in professional tennis, and the new system tracks everything. These days teams have data on how players move their limbs, etc. Publicly available Statcast data is the tip of the iceberg. Teams have so much more information.

To answer the question, the game plan and pitch selection are a collaborative effort, though the catcher has the freedom to make adjustments on the fly depending on the situation. The pitcher does too, and really he has the final say. Using the information provided by the team is not mandatory (if you don't use it though, you put yourself at risk of being replaced by someone who does, especially if you're not effective).

The 3-2 breaking ball to Gallagher looks like it was part of the plan given how the Yankees pitched him all game and the fact Loaisiga did not shake off. If he locates better, maybe we don’t notice the pitch selection and aren’t talking about this right now.

Matthew asks: How much blame does Marcus Thames deserve for this season? I tend to think it’s up to the players to execute....that being said, nobody is hitting, and it’s largely the same problem. Everyone smashes the ball into the ground with such incredible consistency it’s almost impossible to score runs. In the same way that we praise Blake, and criticize Boone, shouldn’t we be critical of Thames?

When we autopsy the 2021 Yankees after the season, the cause of death will be offensive underperformance. The defense and baserunning have stunk, and the bullpen has let too many winnable games slip away, but the single biggest reason the Yankees are fighting for their postseason lives is the fact they’ve been a bottom 10 offense all year.

Projections aren’t the be all, end all, but for the hell of it, here’s what ZiPS saw for the Yankees coming into the season vs. what the players are actually doing (as a reminder, projections are not predictions, they are an attempt to estimate talent level):

• Aaron Judge: 139 OPS+ projected vs. 142 OPS+ actual
• Giancarlo Stanton: 138 OPS+ projected vs. 123 OPS+ actual
• Gleyber Torres: 136 OPS+ projected vs. 89 OPS+ actual
• DJ LeMahieu: 119 OPS+ projected vs. 99 OPS+ actual
• Gio Urshela: 110 OPS+ projected vs. 106 OPS+ actual
• Clint Frazier: 109 OPS+ projected vs. 77 OPS+ actual
• Brett Gardner: 106 OPS+ projected vs. 81 OPS+ actual
• Gary Sanchez: 100 OPS+ projected vs. 113 OPS+ actual
• Rougned Odor: 90 OPS+ projected vs. 96 OPS+ actual (projection with Rangers)

I didn’t even include Luke Voit (134 OPS+ projected) or Aaron Hicks (112 OPS+), who haven’t played much around all the injuries, but haven’t played well when healthy (86 OPS+ and 74 OPS+, respectively). 

I'm willing to chalk Gardner's underperformance up to age. He turns 38 in two weeks. Players get old and their skills decline. That's baseball. Judge is where he needs to be, Sanchez has been better than projected, and I guess we can give the Yankees credit for Odor. Otherwise everyone is underperforming, in many cases significantly.

Now here are the most underperforming offenses. I’m comparing the FanGraphs Opening Day projections with each team’s offensive output:

1. Yankees: -1.30 runs per game (5.53 projected vs. 4.23 actual)
2. Mets: -1.07 (4.87 vs. 3.80)
3. Rangers: -0.81 (4.52 vs. 3.71)
4. Twins: -0.74 (5.31 vs. 4.57)
5. Cubs: -0.70 (4.83 vs. 4.13)

I should note only five teams (Astros, Giants, Rays, Reds, White Sox) are overperforming their preseason projection, and the Astros (+0.07) and White Sox (+0.04) only barely. The projections expected more offense this season in general, and I imagine the new deadened baseball is the primary culprit. Even then, the Yankees have the most underperforming offense by far.

The general disregard for strikeouts is not a Marcus Thames problem. Those are the players the front office has given him. A bunch of fly ball hitters becoming ground ball hitters though? And LeMahieu and Torres seeing their power completely disappear? That’s something that reflects poorly on the hitting coach, for sure. The ground ball thing is a team-wide problem.

It’s impossible to unravel who is responsible for what. It’s on everyone, both the players and the hitting coaches (don’t forget assistant hitting coach P.J. Pilittere). Given some of the alarming downward trends, yeah, it’s probably time to replace Thames (and Pilittere) after the season, which is a bummer because Thames is awesome.

How much will a new hitting coach help? Unclear, but it’s easier to fire the coach than it is to replace the roster, and this kinda offensive season is going to results is someone being scapegoated. You can’t fall this far short of expectations and not do something.

(The last time the Yankees scapegoated a hitting coach, it took them three months to replace Kevin Long with Jeff Pentland. It felt like the Yankees didn’t have a plan after canning Long, and had to scramble to find a new hitting coach. How often does it take a team three months to find a new coach?)

Ben asks: Quick scan on Baseball Reference says DJ is the only Yankee in the top 10 of any major offensive stat. (He's in on singles...) what, if any, Yankee team has made the postseason without anyone in the top 10 of the major offensive stats. (hr, hits, rbi, avg, ...etc). Also, I'm not counting Gallo since he wasn't with the team the whole year.

The last time the Yankees finished a season without a player in the top 10 of a major offensive category was 2016, a year they didn’t make the postseason. Their closest top 10 finisher that year was Brett Gardner, who finished 20th with eight triples. Otherwise their leaders in AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS+, doubles, and homers all ranked in the 50-90 range (!). It was a bleak year.

As for the last Yankees postseason team without a top 10 finisher in a major offensive category, there are a few recent candidates, and it depends how you define “major.” Look:

• 2005: Alex Rodriguez was tenth in walks.
• 2001: Alfonso Soriano was fifth in steals and Chuck Knoblauch was seventh.
• 1996: Paul O’Neill was tenth in walks.

Otherwise the Yankees had at least one top 10 finisher in something we would all agree is a major offensive category (AVG, OBP, SLG, HR, etc.) every time they’ve made the postseason since at least 1976. Oftentimes they had multiple top 10 finishers, and even when they didn’t make the postseason, they usually had a stray top 10 finisher somewhere.

I didn’t bother to check the pre-1965 teams because a) I think we can safely assume those legends era teams had top 10 finishers (Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, etc.), and b) it was a really long time ago, and I’m comfortable with answering this question with a general “it was a really long time ago.”

Barring a surprising surge from someone, the Yankees’ best hope for a top 10 finisher this year is Aaron Judge, who is tied for 11th in home runs (one behind tenth place) and 14th in OPS+ (four points behind tenth place). Unless you count DJ LeMahieu’s singles, that is. He has 91 of them, trailing only David Fletcher (109) and Adam Frazier (102).

Tyler asks: Do you think the famously forthcoming Yankees have been misleading the public about the team's vaccination status? Otherwise, I can not understand why there aren't louder, more public calls to investigate what went wrong with their specific vaccination events.

No, I don’t think the Yankees are being misleading (or outright lying) about their vaccination status, though it honestly wouldn’t surprise me at this point. MLB isn’t strictly enforcing the protocols anymore, and they seem to be getting more lax as the season progresses. Two examples:

• The Phillies and Red Sox are known to be under the 85% vaccination threshold and yet no one is wearing a mask in those dugouts. If a team is under 85%, everyone is supposed to mask up, even the vaccinated folks.
• Trea Turner tested positive in his last game with the Nationals and had to be pulled in the first inning. Test results are supposed to be in before the game, and last year several games were delayed until the results came in.

Those are two visible examples of MLB not enforcing the COVID protocols. It’s right there, out in the open, and if MLB is letting the easy-to-see stuff slide, what are they letting slide behind the scenes? I don’t think the Yankees or MLB would mislead about vaccination status, but they don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt either.

The majority of the Yankees received the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine a few weeks ago and the J&J shot is less effective at preventing infection from the Delta Variant. I think that, combined with a few guys probably being a little reckless away from the field (and then being crammed together at the park, on the plane, etc.), is the most likely explanation for the outbreak.

Will the Yankees try anything to stop the spread (i.e. more strict protocols, etc.), or will they just go the rest of the season with a new positive test every few days? The Yankees are trying to get to the postseason and avoiding COVID is a competitive advantage. I know the protocols suck and we’re all sick of this, but at some point they’ll have to try to get a handle on things.

“I think in a lot of cases, we already are being more careful,” Aaron Boone told Greg Joyce when asked about possibly tightening up protocols earlier this week. “But yeah, those’ll be conversations that we have to make sure we’re not doing anything that’s too outgoing. Without being restrictive, making sure that we’re taking care of ourselves.”

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