February 16th, 2021: Bruce, Wilson, Chirinos, Robertson, Heller, Minors

Welcome to the final post of the offseason. Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training tomorrow (the Yankees will get around to announcing their non-roster invitees one of these days, right?) and real live baseball is less than two weeks away. Will we be able to watch it? Unclear. Fingers crossed, everyone, about that and a lot of other things. Let’s get to today’s thoughts.

1. Yankees sign Bruce. The Yankees have their “hey, I know that guy!” non-roster veteran. Over the weekend Ken Rosenthal reported the Yankees signed Jay Bruce to a minor league contract that pays $1.35M at the MLB level. He’ll earn another $50,000 each for 400, 450, and 500 plate appearances. You may remember the Yankees trying to trade for Bruce at the 2017 deadline.

Bruce, 34 in April, has been pretty bad the last three seasons, hitting .217/.282/.448 (92 wRC+) in just under 800 plate appearances overall and .218/.287/.463 (95 wRC+) against righties. Last year it was an 83 wRC+ overall and a 109 wRC+ against righties in small samples. Bruce does pull the ball in the air though, which would serve him well as a lefty in Yankee Stadium.

Bruce has long been a defensive liability in the outfield and he’s played a handful of games at first base in his career. If it ever gets to the point where he is playing the outfield semi-regularly, something terrible has happened (i.e. lots of injuries or illness). In a perfect world Bruce is a lefty platoon option at first base and DH, and that’s about it.

As for Bruce as a potential pinch-hitter, that’s not really a thing the Yankees do. They have 164 pinch-hit plate appearances in three years under Aaron Boone, second fewest in baseball and more than only the Royals (156). Among those 164 plate appearances are:

• 23 for the pitcher in a National League park
• 19 late in blowouts (score separated by at least five runs)

That leaves 122 “strategic” pinch-hitting plate appearances in 384 games, or less than one every three games, and 62 of those 122 went to regulars (Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, etc.) who pinch-hit for a bench player who started that day. The Yankees rarely pinch-hit for their regulars and I don’t think they’re about to start with late career Jay Bruce.

The Yankees shouldn’t let Bruce stand in the way of re-signing Brett Gardner. Gardner is the better hitter and defender (and baserunner), and it’s not all that close. This team has earned zero benefit of the doubt when it comes to keeping players healthy and I strongly prefer Gardner to Bruce (or Greg Allen or Mike Tauchman) as the fourth outfielder.

I think it’s unlikely Bruce ever plays for the Yankees, though the chances he plays for them in 2021 are better than the chances would’ve been in previous years only because the pandemic threatens to ravage rosters at any time. Bruce has enough service time to opt out of his contract at the end of camp, so if he doesn’t want to go to Triple-A, he doesn’t have to.

Bruce is on a harmless minor league contract and he is the kind of seemingly washed up veteran who would inexplicably hit .250/.350/.500 with 28 homers in pinstripes. Aside from re-signing Gardner, this is about as good as bench additions are going to get in the austerity era. Bring Bruce to Spring Training, see what’s what, and go from there.

2. Yankees agree to sign Wilson. Welcome back, Justin Wilson. The Yankees have signed the lefty reliever, reports Sweeny Murti. Ron Blum says the one-year contract includes a player option and a club option for 2022, similar to Darren O'Day's deal. Wilson, Luis Cessa, and Chad Green all in the same bullpen. Baseball is a flat circle.

Wilson, 33, spent the last five seasons doing pretty much exactly what he did for the Yankees in 2015. He also gave the baseball world this towering GIF a few years back (via Bleacher Nation):

Wilson had a 2.91 ERA (3.62 FIP) in 58.2 innings with the Mets the last two seasons. He still throws hard (94-97 mph), he still throws almost exclusively four-seamers and cutters (92.8% combined from 2019-20), he still strikes plenty (26.6% from 2019-20), and he still walks a few too many (11.1% from 2019-20). Same guy we saw in 2015, basically.

What we didn’t know about Wilson in 2015 is that he’s an elite exit velocity suppressor. Exit velocity and hard-hit rates were not yet a thing back then (i.e. they weren’t available publicly), but Wilson has been consistently excellent at preventing hard contact throughout his career. Here are the last two years (min. 150 batted balls):

1. Justin Wilson: 83.9 mph average exit velocity allowed
2. Ryan Yarbrough: 83.9 mph
3. Alex Claudio: 84.6 mph
4. Julio Urias: 84.6 mph
5. Jimmy Cordero: 84.9 mph
   (MLB average: 88.5 mph)

As I noted when the Yankees signed O’Day, the Yankees have a thing for guys who limit hard contact, and that makes perfect sense. They believe in exit velocity as an evaluation tool and pursue hitters who hit the ball hard. It’s only natural then that they’d gravitate toward pitchers who don’t let hitters hit the ball hard, like Wilson.

Wilson’s walks are annoying but a) they will hardly be out of place in a bullpen that features Aroldis Chapman (10.4% walks since 2019) and Zack Britton (12.1%), and also featured Dellin Betances and Adam Ottavino in recent years, and b) he’s mitigated those walks with strikeouts and weak contact. Walks, strikeouts, and weak contact are what Wilson does. They’re his thing.

Righties (.311 wOBA) gave Wilson a harder time than lefties (.272 wOBA) the last two years, so there will be times he gets hung out to dry against righties because of the three-batter minimum. The Yankees only need Wilson to be the fourth or fifth best reliever in the bullpen, and I don’t think that platoon split from your fourth or fifth best reliever is the end of the world. It’s fine.

One thing signing Wilson does is limit roster flexibility. Assuming an eight-man bullpen -- I could see the Yankees rolling with a nine-man bullpen early in the season, but let’s assume an eight-man bullpen for now -- this is how things shake out:

• Guaranteed contracts: Britton, Chapman, O’Day, Wilson
• Locked into a spot: Green
• Out of options: Albert Abreu, Cessa

The four veterans on MLB deals aren’t going anywhere. Abreu and Cessa have to go through waivers to get to Triple-A. Green could technically be optioned down, but he’s not someone the Yankees would shuttle up and down to get a fresh arm. He’s a core reliever and something will have to go wrong (like early 2019) to land him in Triple-A.

That leaves one spot available in the eight-man bullpen for shuttle purposes, and hey, maybe that’s enough. Mike King, Brooks Kriske, Jonathan Loaisiga, and Nick Nelson are the obvious shuttle candidates, and I wouldn’t rule out Deivi Garcia or Clarke Schmidt either. If the Yankees want to give Abreu an honest-to-goodness look, there’s one shuttle spot available.

For me, having only a single shuttle spot is a “problem” more than a Problem. I’d rather have a quality reliever like Wilson than a little more flexibility to move guys in and out. Besides, these things have a way of working themselves out. Injuries, ineffectiveness, whatever. How often is the Opening Day bullpen the end-of-season bullpen? Almost never.

The Yankees will need to open a 40-man roster spot for Wilson (by time he goes through intake testing and takes his physical, they should be able to put Luis Severino on the 60-day injured list) and Andy Martino says the contract is worth about $4M this year. My back of the envelope math has the Yankees roughly $7.5M million under the $210M luxury tax threshold after signing Wilson. Getting harder and harder to see Brett Gardner coming back.

As much as I don’t like the Ottavino salary dump, turning his salary into O’Day and Wilson (plus another $2.5M or so leftover) is nifty work. If you insist on sticking to the fake salary cap, that’s how you maneuver around it. Righties, lefties, hard-throwers, funky arm angles, strikeouts, grounders, weak contact … the Yankees have it all in the bullpen right now.

(The Yankees-Wilson rumors stretched out across a few days and that usually doesn’t happen with this team. I thought Wilson was using the Yankees as leverage against the Mets. Glad that wasn’t the case. A fine addition to the bullpen, this is.)

3. Yankees sign Chirinos. It took a little longer than I expected, but the Yankees finally have a much-needed veteran third catcher. Late last night Ken Rosenthal reported the Yankees have signed Robinson Chirinos to a minor league contract. No word on the financial terms.

UPDATE: Jon Heyman says Chirinos gets a $1M base salary at the MLB level plus another $500,000 in incentives.

Chirinos, 36, was pretty terrible last season, putting up a .162/.232/.243 (32 wRC+) batting line in 82 plate appearances with the Rangers and Mets. He is just one year removed from hitting .238/.347/.443 (114 wRC+) with 17 homers in 437 plate appearances as the primary catcher for the Astros, a team that went to Game 7 of the World Series.

Last year was a short season and a weird year overall, but anytime a 36-year-old catcher has a sudden decline like Chirinos, there’s a chance he’s just done. His average exit velocity (84.5 mph) and hard-hit rate (24.1%) were easily the worst of his career, and the batted ball data doesn’t say he deserved better despite a .208 BABIP (.212 wOBA vs. .225 expected wOBA).

If Chirinos doesn’t hit, he’s kinda useless, because his defense isn’t good and he’s been a bat-first catcher throughout his career. Here are his last five seasons:

Chirinos has been a better than average blocker the last five seasons and he gave basically all that back and then some with his poor framing and throwing (the MLB average caught stealing rate hovers around 27% each year). I imagine the Yankees plan to approach Chirinos about the one-knee stance catching coordinator Tanner Swanson preaches.

The Yankees surely sought Gerrit Cole’s opinion about Chirinos as a catcher and clubhouse fit (Chirinos was behind the plate for 16 of Cole’s 33 starts in 2019), so the fact they signed him strongly indicates he has Cole’s stamp of approval. Chirinos dumped on Yankees fans two years ago (I didn’t even know this was a thing that happened) but obviously that wasn’t a deal breaker. Who cares? Hardly the worst thing that’s been said about Yankees fans.

Chirinos has enough service time to opt out of his contract if he’s not on the MLB roster at the end of Spring Training, which is not insignificant. Catching is always in short supply and all it takes is one injury (or illness) to open a spot elsewhere. Carrying three catchers with a 26-man roster would be overkill, and Chirinos would undoubtedly take an MLB job with another team over going to Triple-A with the Yankees. We’ll see where things stand come late March.

For now, Chirinos slots in as the No. 3 catcher on the depth chart behind Gary Sanchez and Kyle Higashioka, and ahead of Rob Brantly. It’s entirely possible the team that will need a catcher come late March is the Yankees (injuries happen), and although I worry last year was a sign Chirinos is toast, you’re not going to do much better than this on a minor league contract two days before Spring Training opens.

4. Other hot stove happenings. Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training tomorrow and 22 of the top 100 free agents (by projected 2021 WAR) remain unsigned, which is more than I would have guessed after the flurry of signings the last three weeks or so. Anyway, here are two small Yankees-related nuggets.

Robertson holds showcase

In other former Yankee reliever news, David Robertson held a showcase last week and the Yankees were among the teams in attendance, according to Jon Heyman. Robertson, 36 in April, has not pitched in an MLB game since April 2019 because of Tommy John surgery and a setback. The Phillies gave him two years and $25M and received 6.2 innings in return.

I wouldn’t read too much into the Yankees attending Robertson’s showcase only because they always attend these things, so it’s not necessarily an indication of sincere interest. Robertson is forever cool with me and I’d give him a non-roster deal no questions asked. Worst case is he’s bad and you cut him loose, best case is you have another bat-missing high-leverage reliever.

I don’t think the Yankees are going to bring Robertson back. They smeared him on the way out the door last time -- the entire team votes on postseason shares yet the blame was conveniently placed on the guy entering free agency -- and he’s probably looking for an easier path to an MLB roster spot. Not sure Robertson wants to compete for a spot at this point in his career.

"He looked really good in terms of arm action and delivery," a scout who attended Robertson's workout told Peter Gammons. "Was 89-91, but give him a Spring Training, he should be back up to 94. He will get signed."

Yankees release Heller

The Yankees designated Ben Heller for assignment to clear a 40-man roster spot for Darren O’Day late last week, and he was released over the weekend. The fact no team claimed him on waivers tells us Heller probably isn’t getting an MLB deal elsewhere, so it seems there’s a chance the Yankees will be able to bring him back on a minor league deal.

Of course, it takes two to tango, and Heller will look for a better opportunity elsewhere before circling back to the Yankees. He’s going to be 30 in August and he’s not yet established at the big league level. If I were him, I’d take a minor league deal with the Orioles or Pirates or Tigers before re-signing with the Yankees. I hope the Yankees can retain Heller but I’m not optimistic.

5. Minor league notes. Late last week MLB announced the 120 minor league franchises have signed their 10-year player development licenses, so the new minor league structure is official. Also, they’re technically not the “minor leagues” anymore. Minor League Baseball and related offices have been eliminated, and MLB is calling the minors their “player development system.”

Because minor leaguers are not unionized, MLB will set health and safety protocols unilaterally (COVID-19 testing frequency, etc.). Last week’s announcement came with a bunch of new details about the 2021 season and the minor leagues moving forward. Here’s the important stuff, via Ron Blum and J.J. Cooper (subs. req’d).

Minor league structure

As promised, MLB realigned the minors to cut down on travel and get Triple-A teams closer to their MLB parent club. The leagues make more sense geographically now and that is a great big plus. Here are the new leagues and divisions (full-size image):

The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders now play in the Northeast Division of the Triple-A East League. The Somerset Patriots are in the Northeast Division of the Double-A Northeast League, the Hudson Valley Renegades are in the North Division of the High-A East League, and the Tampa Tarpons are in the West Division of the Low-A Southeast League. What a mouthful.

The generic league names are placeholders and MLB is expected to (try to) sell the naming rights, similar to the NBA’s Gatorade sponsored G League. Some of the old minor leagues have long histories and rich traditions -- the International League was founded in 1884! -- and man, it would be lame to see those wiped away in favor of the Triple-A Pepsi League or whatever. This is commissioner Rob Manfred’s vision for the future of baseball.

Minor league season

The Triple-A season is scheduled to begin in April but that isn’t set in stone. It may be pushed back, and MLB would roll with the alternate site model in the interim. Pushing the season back makes sense. It would be safer, and it’ll allow more games to be played with fans. Gate revenue is the lifeblood of minor league franchises. They don’t have lucrative broadcast deals.

One concern with starting the Triple-A season on time: travel. Triple-A teams fly commercial and MLB’s health and safety protocols essentially prevent players from being exposed to the general public, so I doubt they want to bring Triple-A players into MLB clubhouses after they’ve spent a few weeks shuttling between series on commercial flights. Delaying the season kicks the can down the road.

(Any Triple-A trips over 350 miles now require a flight. Scranton is centrally located within its division, so they’re able to bus everywhere, but not every team is so lucky.)

The Double-A and Single-A seasons are scheduled to begin May 4th and extend into early October, so it will be a full season pushed back a few weeks. The start date for the two rookie leagues (Arizona League and Gulf Coast League) are to be determined. They usually begin in late June and hopefully that’s doable. MLB is not ready to commit just yet though.

Pay raises

Minor leaguers will get raises out of this. The pay increases range from 38% to 72% depending on the level. That’s good, though non-40-man roster players are still incredibly underpaid. Here are the new league minimums:

• Rookie: $400 per week (up from $290)
• Class A: $500 per week (up from $290)
• Double-A: $600 per week (up from $350)
• Triple-A: $700 per week (up from $502)
• First year 40-man roster players: $46,600 per year (up from $46,000)
• Second year or later 40-man roster players: $93,000 per year (up from $91,300)

Those are the league minimum salaries and teams can pay their players more, though it must be uniform across the board. You can’t pay one High-A player $500 a week and his teammate $650, for example. That prevents teams from promising a draft pick something way over the minimum salary to skirt around the bonus pool.

2021 roster rules

As part of the new minor league structure, teams will be limited to 180 non-40-man roster contracts during the season and 190 during the offseason. There was no limit previously, and when all this minor league restructuring talk started, the Yankees had approximately 250 players signed to non-40-man contracts. They have some whittling down to do.

Triple-A teams will have a 28-man roster this year and the lower levels are expected to be in the 26-28 man range. MLB is willing to let teams be flexible within that roster limit. Teams can carry as many position players and pitchers as they want, though that sounds like a one-year thing after the lost season and during the pandemic. There may be a pitcher limit in the future.

Miscellany

Triple-A will again use the MLB baseball this year, though teams will use their leftover 2020 stock before starting with the new 2021 ball, which will be deadened a bit. Gonna be fun when the Triple-A home run rate drops 10% or whatever for different teams at different points of the season … The High-A Florida State League was going to use the automated strike zone last year, and all Single-A levels and below were going to require pitchers to completely step off the rubber on pickoff throws. No word on whether those rule change experiments will take place in 2021 … Minor league teams have three years to upgrade their ballpark to meet MLB’s new standards (larger clubhouses, separate workout facilities, etc.). Double-A Somerset has already started on their ballpark upgrades and I imagine High-A Hudson Valley has some work to do too. I think Triple-A Scranton and Low-A Tampa will be good to go, or close to it. PNC Field in Scranton is practically brand new (extensively renovated in 2012) and the Tampa complex has everything a team could need and then some.

6. Remembering a random Yankee: Chris Britton. This week’s random Yankee comes by request and is a massive (listed at 6-foot-3 and 275 lbs.) reliever we campaigned for heavily in the early days of RAB. Here's the random Yankee archive. You can find links back to everyone we've covered there.

Originally an eighth round draft pick out of high school in 2001, Britton dealt with several serious injuries early in his career -- he took a comebacker to the face in 2002 and missed 2003 with elbow surgery -- and didn’t break out until moving into the bullpen full-time in 2005. He had a 1.60 ERA with 110 strikeouts in 78.2 High-A innings that year.

The Orioles put Britton on the 40-man roster after that season and he made his MLB debut early in 2006. The then-23-year-old appeared in 52 games with Baltimore that year and had a 3.35 ERA in 53.2 innings. He struck out 41 and held opponents to a .228/.286/.351 batting line. Not bad for a guy who was essentially jumping from High-A to the big leagues. Not bad at all.

The Yankees went 97-65 that season (the O’s went 70-92) and they went into the 2006-07 offseason looking to get younger and cheaper. On Nov. 10th, they traded Gary Sheffield to the Tigers for three pitching prospects, including random Yankee Humberto Sanchez. Two days later the Yankees landed Britton in a one-for-one trade with the Orioles. The full deal:

• Yankees get: Britton
• Orioles get: Jaret Wright and $4M

“My goal was simple with these two trades: to continue doing what we have been doing, which is to get younger (and) more flexible with our roster and less expensive in our payroll,” Brian Cashman told Michael Morrissey. “We need to add depth and choices, and this helps.”

Wright’s two years in pinstripes were a disaster. He failed his pre-signing physical but George Steinbrenner signed him anyway, reportedly because he believed it would help land former Braves pitching coach Leo Mazzone. Wright alternated being hurt and ineffective from 2005-06, throwing 204 innings with a 4.99 ERA. Yuck.

Despite that, the Yankees picked up Wright’s $7M club option after 2006. The option came with a $4M buyout, so the trade amounted to the right to sign Wright to a one-year deal worth $3M for Britton. A minor miracle, really. Wright made three starts with the O’s in April 2007, allowed 11 runs in 10.1 innings, then got hurt and never pitched again.

"It only hurts when I throw,” Wright famously told the Associated Press at the time.

Britton joined Sean Henn, Jose Veras, and random Yankee Edwar Ramirez in what the Yankees hoped would be a cheap middle relief crew. He didn’t make the Opening Day roster in 2007 and rode the Scranton shuttle most of the year. Britton made four MLB appearances from April through August (three runs in 7.2 innings) and had a 2.51 ERA in 57.1 Triple-A innings in the meantime.

As a sparsely used September call-up, Britton allowed two runs in five innings spanning seven appearances, and it was almost entirely mop-up duty. Rather than get a chance to build on his solid rookie year with the Orioles, Britton spent most of his age 24 season in Triple-A, and folks, we at RAB were not happy. A trip through the old archives is cringe worthy. Good grief.

ANYWAY, Britton was again part of the bullpen mix in 2008, though while Ramirez and Veras were given extended auditions, then-manager Joe Girardi buried Britton in low-leverage work. At one point in April and May he spent 26 consecutive days on the MLB roster but pitched only twice (!). Eventually the Yankees sent Britton to Triple-A to get regular work.

Cashman was asked about Girardi’s reluctance to use Britton in late May. From Tyler Kepner:

The Yankees’ reluctance to use Britton has been confounding to many Yankees bloggers, and Brian Cashman sounded similarly baffled when asked about Britton on Wednesday. Cashman said he would never tell his manager how to run a game, but he seemed hopeful that Joe Girardi would give Britton more of a chance.

“It’s about opportunity,” Cashman said. “He has not failed in any capacity at any level. Every chance he’s gotten, he’s had success, period. That’s what defines Chris Britton. I can’t tell you any more than that.”

Britton made two appearances with the Yankees in May, two in June, one in July, then four in August before returning as a Sept. call-up. He was again great in Triple-A, pitching to a 2.28 ERA in 27.2 innings, and it was beyond frustrating to see Britton stuck in the minors while veterans like Kyle Farnsworth and LaTroy Hawkins struggled in high-leverage work.

Girardi used Britton a total of 15 times in 2008 and his unwillingness to use him in close games was almost comical. Here are the situations Britton was brought into in his 15 games that year, in chronological order:

1. Yankees down 4.
2. Yankees down 5.
3. Yankees down 4.
4. Yankees down 6.
5. Yankees down 5.
6. Yankees up 11.
7. Yankees up 10.
8. Yankees down 4.
9. Yankees down 9.
10. Yankees up 4.
11. Yankees down 6.
12. Yankees down 10.
13. Yankees down 7.
14. Yankees up 8.
15. Yankees up 14.

Never once did Britton enter a game with the score separated by fewer than four runs, and, on average, the score was separated by 7.1 runs in his 15 appearances. Hilarious. In the history of the Yankees, 685 pitchers have thrown at least 20 innings in a single season, and none had a lower average leverage index than Britton in 2008. It’s not close either:

1. 2008 Chris Britton: 0.10 Leverage Index
2. 2002 Randy Choate: 0.21
3. 2003 Jason Anderson: 0.27
4. 2015 Branden Pinder: 0.37
5. 1990 Jimmy Jones: 0.37

To be fair to Girardi, Britton had a 5.09 ERA in 23 innings in 2008 and only seven of those 15 appearances were scoreless. Can’t imagine the sporadic work and the manager very obviously having no faith in him helped though. Britton pitched to a 4.54 ERA (100 ERA+) with a 5.67 FIP in 35.2 innings as a Yankee. He walked (15) nearly as many batters as he struck out (17).

Britton burned his final minor league option in 2008 and the Yankees non-tendered him after the season. He signed a minor league deal with the Padres soon thereafter, struggled in the minors in 2009 (25 runs in 20.2 innings), then got released in May. Britton spent the rest of the year as well as 2010 and 2011 in independent leagues, and has been out of baseball since 2012.

(Fun fact: The last two player-for-player Yankees-Orioles trades involved a Britton coming to the Bronx (Chris in 2006 and Zack in 2018, no relation). The two AL East rivals made several minor deals between Britton trades but they were all cash or international bonus money deals.)

7. Rapid fire thoughts. Late last week MLB released the revised Grapefruit League schedule. The exhibition season will start one day later than originally scheduled, and the Yankees will only play the nearby Blue Jays, Orioles, Phillies, Pirates, and Tigers. Their longest road trip is a 60-mile jaunt south to Sarasota to play the O’s. Here is the new Grapefruit League schedule the Yankees will play this year (full-size image):

Still no word on whether Spring Training games will be televised. I hope MLB and the Yankees won’t leave fans in the dark this spring, but it really wouldn’t surprise me. No spring broadcasts would save money and they can claim it’s for health and safety reasons (a valid excuse!). Going back to the no televised Grapefruit League games era would be incredibly lame. Anyway, MLB and the MLBPA agreed to new Spring Training rules last week, and now we have the new Grapefruit League schedule … The Mets traded catcher Ali Sanchez, who I mentioned as a possible depth target for the Yankees last week, to the Cardinals for cash over the weekend. It’s never as simple as “all they had to do to match the offer to get the player,” but damn, it sucks whenever a player who makes sense for the Yankees lands elsewhere at little cost. A just turned 24-year-old catcher with good defense and two minor league options remaining would have been a nice get for a Yankees team that is very thin behind the plate.

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