March 13th, 2020: COVID-19, Grapefruit League, Torres, Kahnle, Prospects, Rule Changes, Mailbag

I don't know how to put together an intro for today's post given everything that's happened in the last 48 hours or so. The sports world has shut down and our daily lives are trending that way too. It's all very surreal. Let's jump into today's thoughts.

1. COVID-19 outbreak. I love baseball very much and I will miss it dearly, but the sooner we shut things down, the sooner things can go back to normal. Major League Baseball (and Minor League Baseball) is on indefinite hiatus as we combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Here's the press release. Spring Training is done and the start of the regular season will be delayed at least two weeks (I suspect it'll be quite a few more when it's all said and done). It's insane MLB played games yesterday (including the Yankees!), but the shutdown is better late than never. The NBA and NHL shut down in the middle of their playoff races, the Masters has been postponed, and March Madness (and the College World Series) has been canceled. Do you know how hard it is to get the NCAA to do the right thing? This really must be the end of days. MLB had it relatively easy. They shut Spring Training down and can start an abbreviated regular season once it's appropriate. The NBA and NHL are in the middle of their playoff races and March Madness is maybe the most profitable sporting event of the year. Those sports are at an unfortunate point in their schedule. We're not waiting out a thunderstorm though. This isn't the common flu and the virus won't be intimidated by defiance. You may be young and healthy, but what about the people you come into contact with? Containment is the priority and the best way to do that is staying away from each other. "I’m more worried about going and saying hello to my parents. They’re 62, 63 years old. I got teammates with kids. Relatives. I’m just more worried about that, the safety of everyone else that may not be able to fight it off," Jason Heyward told Patrick Mooney. Playing games in empty stadiums is a half-measure. That still puts a lot of people at risk. Playing games at alternate sites is a terrible idea. The virus is almost certainly more widespread than we know, and even if immunity zones do actually exist (they don't), bringing people in from high-exposure locations is how you spread it. Thirty-plus players plus coaches and support stuff packed into cramped Spring Training clubhouses and dugouts is not how we get this under control. "We'd be naive to think that one player across every MLB camp doesn't have it yet," Max Scherzer told Mark Zuckerman yesterday. As much as I will miss baseball and wish MLB didn't have to close its doors, delaying the start of the season until it is safe for the public at large is the responsible thing to do. We'll discuss the on-field impact of the shutdown once I wrap my head around everything -- most obviously, the Yankees will play fewer games without their injured players early in the season (Aaron Judge, James Paxton, Giancarlo Stanton, even Aaron Hicks) -- but, for now, let's focus on the big picture. MLB is doing the only thing it can do at a time like this. Wash your hands religiously and don't touch your face, folks. "It’s unfortunate but I think it’s the proper measure we need to take now given the situation the country’s in and the world’s in. It’s important to know that some things are bigger than baseball, bigger than sports," Stanton told Erik Boland.

2. Grapefruit League thoughts. Can we talk about baseball? There are bigger and more important things going on in the world right now, but baseball is still a part of life, and we're allowed to miss it while it's gone without feeling guilty. Here are a few observations from this week's Spring Training games. To start with a positive, Thomas Milone is an interesting little player, eh? The Yankees signed him as a minor league free agent over the winter and he is 7-for-23 (.304) with a double, a triple, and a homer this spring. Here's the homer. He hit it off actual big leaguer Mychal Givens. Not a bad looking swing, that is. Milone will play the entire season at age 25 and he's a former third round pick who split his amateur career between baseball and football. Two-sport guy from a cold weather state (Connecticut)? That screams potential late-bloomer. Milone hit .309/.370/.485 (151 wRC+) while repeating High-A last season. I asked around and apparently the Yankees are trying to help him clean up a little noisiness in his pre-pitch setup, something the Rays either never tried to correct or simply couldn't correct earlier in his career. Milone's a lefty hitter, he runs well, and he plays good defense. The Yankees needed a Double-A center fielder this season and, if nothing else, Milone is a pretty good roll of the dice for that spot. That the Yankees signed him relatively early in the offseason suggests they see real potential. They didn't wait around. The big spring and the mechanical fix probably won't amount to much, but maybe? ... Luis Cessa has a knack for looking like the best pitcher in baseball one day and the worst pitcher in baseball the next. Wednesday was one of the good days. He struck out seven in 3.2 spotless innings and is up to 13 strikeouts in 9.1 innings overall this spring. Here's video of Wednesday's outing. Cessa's slider was razor sharp and this is why he keeps getting chances (2019 slider numbers):

• % thrown: 49.9% (vs. 34.1% fastballs)
• Whiffs-per-swing: 40.7% (vs. 35.8% league average)
• xwOBA: .246 (vs. .269 league average)

It's a legit out-pitch slider and Cessa complements it with a mid-to-upper-90s fastball. The tools are there and you can understand why the Yankees stick with him. I don't think Cessa throwing 3.2 innings the other day indicates the Yankees are stretching him out to be the fifth starter. I think they're just stretching him out because he's the long reliever and they want him to be able to throw three innings at a time. Is this the year Cessa puts it all together and becomes the next great Yankees reliever? Eh, probably not, but I'm going to keep believing ... This doesn't matter now, but before the Spring Training shutdown, the rotation was lined up Gerrit Cole, Masahiro Tanaka, and J.A. Happ to begin the season. Those three guys lined up to pitch the first three regular season games in that order based on their spring schedules. Nothing surprising. Jordan Montgomery was on roughly the same schedule as Cole, indicating the Yankees may have been planning to use the opener in the fourth starter's spot and Montgomery in the fifth. Not sure, but that's how the rotation was lined up ... Mike Tauchman is 2-for-25 (.080) this spring and I don't think I saw him hit a single ball hard. His first hit was a weak ground ball single (video) and the second was an infield single (video). I usually don't fret about Grapefruit League stats and I'm sure Tauchman would've snapped out of it soon enough, but geez, he looked about as bad as a hitter can look these last few weeks. Brutal spring for a guy that is (was?) likely to play everyday early in the season due to injuries. I think is Tauchman is the biggest regression candidate on the roster -- he swings through a lot of fastballs in the strike zone (19.6% whiffs-per-swing vs. 16.4% league average) and he's not an exit velocity guy (averaged 88.5 mph last year), so I worry about what he can do with an unjuiced baseball -- and these last few weeks didn't made me feel any better. Once baseball is back up and running, hopefully we start to see signs of life in his bat. 

3. Gleyber's errors. In his first Spring Training as the full-time shortstop, Gleyber Torres has made five errors in 56 innings. Only one player (a random minor leaguer) made more errors before the spring shutdown. “It’s a little bit (frustrating) because I’m coming everyday early, trying to get really good defensively, and I go to the games. Like I said, it’s tough, but it’s the spring. I can make 20 errors. It doesn’t matter what I do in the spring. I just try to be perfect right now and try to get ready for the season,” Torres told Ken Davidoff. I didn't realize it at the time, but the Yankees had Torres play more second base (56 innings) than shortstop (43 innings) last spring even though Didi Gregorius was hurt and Gleyber was going to start the season as the shortstop. Huh. Torres made zero errors in those 43 shortstop innings last spring and he's already up to five this spring. Only two errors were made in televised games -- Torres did that thing where he doesn't get in front of the ball on Feb. 26th (GIF) and he made a high throw on March 10th (video) -- so we have no idea what happened with the other three errors. Routine play he botched? Difficult play he couldn't complete? Who knows. Errors are subjective and I don't like to rely on media descriptions because they can be alarmist when a Yankee has the audacity to make a mistake, though Aaron Boone indicated at least one of the non-televised errors was a routine play that should've been made. "The jump he gets on it, the read, the range that he showed, then he had plenty of time. (He) probably didn’t quite set his feet enough to complete that play," Boone told Randy Miller last week when asked about an error following a non-televised game. To me, Gleyber has looked much more comfortable at short than second in his MLB career, and it's understandable. He came up through the minors as a shortstop and he didn't start playing second base regularly until 2018, really. Torres had 18 games worth of experience at second prior to 2018 and he has still played only 197 career games at the position. A little more than a full-season's worth. That's compared to 428 career games at short, including 98 at the big league level (77 last year). The numbers match the eye test too. He's been better at short. We have a lot more data telling us Torres is an average to good defensive shortstop (98 big league games plus minor league scouting reports) than we do data telling us he's a bad defensive shortstop (56 innings this spring). I'm not in panic mode yet, not even close, but we shouldn't ignore the errors this spring either. There is a sloppiness to Gleyber's game right now and it has to be cleaned up. The shutdown means this isn't a pressing issue, so Torres has time to get it right. Until further notice, I consider the errors something to monitor rather than a cause for concern. Players fall in and out of defensive slumps all the time. If the errors continue into the regular season though -- I don't mean the first few games either, I mean through a few weeks -- then it'll be time to worry and start thinking about alternatives. I'm not at that point yet. Not after what amounts to three bad weeks. “The thing with Gleyber is there’s kind of that fine line between he plays the game with such ease that you don’t want to take that away. There’s a calm. There’s a relaxed way in which he plays the game, which contributes to his confidence. You don’t want to lose that, but you also have to balance that with making sure he’s dedicated to being real fundamentally sound all the time. That’s what he does in his (pregame) work, and he does that really well, so I do feel like he can be that, and I feel like he’ll continue to make  strides that way," Boone told Miller.

4. How can he improve? Tommy Kahnle. We're nearing the end of our series breaking down each core 2020 Yankee and how can they can improve. We've already covered Zack Britton, Aroldis Chapman, Gerrit Cole, Brett Gardner, Chad Green, J.A. Happ, Aaron Judge, DJ LeMahieu, Jordan Montgomery, Adam Ottavino, James Paxton, Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Giancarlo Stanton, Masahiro Tanaka, Gleyber Torres, Gio Urshela, and Luke Voit, and today we'll cover the club's borderline insane (in a good way) setup man. Kahnle was better last year than his 3.67 ERA would lead you to believe. He got bit by the home run bug a bit (1.32 HR/9), but the strikeout (35.5%), walk (8.1%), and ground ball (50.4%) rates were good to outstanding. His 27.4 K-BB% was a top 20 mark among the 341 pitchers who threw at least 50 innings. Aaron Boone often used Kahnle as a lefty specialist because his changeup is so good:

• vs. RHB: .191/.262/.327 (.255 wOBA) with 32.8 K% and 8.2 BB%
• vs. LHB: .209/.278/.400 (.288 wOBA) with 38.1 K% and 7.9 BB%

Kahnle was better against righties than lefties but he was really good against lefties, so yes, using him against tough lefties was the right move. Limiting home runs going forward is as much about the baseball as it is anything Kahnle can control. Keeping the ball in the park is an obvious way he can improve. Beyond that, I wonder whether Kahnle is a candidate to scale back on his changeup a tiny little bit, and throw more fastballs. Look at his pitch selection the last three seasons:

Kahnle's changeup is absurdly good -- he threw a first pitch changeup to 101 of the 248 batters he faced last season, so he'll often throw it before setting it up with a fastball -- and he should throw it a lot. Nearly 60% of the time though? Could that be too much? It's not like Kahnle needs to pick his spots with an 89 mph fastball. His heater averaged 96.5 mph last season. Masahiro Tanaka is the poster boy for the anti-fastball philosophy and even he upped his fastball usage last season. Hitters knew they were likely to get offspeed, so he adjusted and started giving them more fastballs. Perhaps Kahnle could be a candidate for a similar adjustment? The book is out. Hitters know they're probably getting a changeup. Seems like a good opportunity to sneak fastballs by them. Otherwise Kahnle almost falls into the "he's already so good that it's hard to see how he could be better" category alongside Gerrit Cole, DJ LeMahieu, and a handful of others. He was a mess in 2018 when he was hurt and his velocity and command weren't there. Last year was a good year though, and Kahnle's healthy. That dead fish changeup is the great equalizer.

5. Consensus prospect rankings. I finally had a chance to look through MLB.com's top 30 Yankees prospects list and FanGraphs' top 54 (!) Yankees prospects list and, honestly, I don't have much to say about them. I've already said what I have to say about the system this spring and much of the same information can be found in my top 30 list. FanGraphs does note Estevan Florial either has made or is in the process of making a swing change, which is interesting. From their blurb:

Florial’s older swing was stiff-wristed (I’m unsure if it had to do with, or was because of, the injuries) and long, and he was often beaten by fastballs near the top of the strike zone and and swung well inside on soft stuff away from him. His newer swing enables him to get around pitches better and his groundball rate dropped for the second straight season last year ... His TrackMan data indicates the strength and power were intact coming off of the wrist injury. All of this is evidence that Florial remains a talented work in progress capable of making adjustments, which he clearly needs to continue doing.

A swing change could be nice, though Florial's biggest flaw remains pitch recognition. He's gotta figure out how to tell a fastball from a breaking ball, otherwise tinkering with his swing is only going to help so much. I know prospect fatigue is setting in, but Florial turned only 22 in November, and he still has all three minor league option years remaining. The Yankees will remain patient and keep working with him because the upside is so great. Also, FanGraphs tells me the Yankees have a prospect named Yoljeldriz? Yoljeldriz Diaz. That's fun. I hope John Sterling has to pronounce it one day. Anyway, since the usual suspects have released their top Yankees prospects lists, I compiled consensus rankings. Here's my spreadsheet and here is the consensus top 10:

1. OF Jason Dominguez (1.67 average rank)
2. RHP Deivi Garcia (2.00)
3. RHP Clarke Schmidt (3.83)
4. RHP Luis Gil (7.33)
5. RHP Luis Medina (7.50)
6. SS Anthony Volpe (9.83)
7. RHP Albert Abreu (10.00)
8. RHP Roansy Contreras (11.33)
9. OF Kevin Alcantara (11.33)
10. RHP Yoendrys Gomez (12.50)

All told, 56 different players appeared on a Yankees prospects list this spring, including 27 players who appeared on at least four of the six lists I included in the consensus rankings. For players who did not appear on a particular list, I plugged 55 into the open spot(s) to calculate their average rank (FanGraphs' top 54 plus one). The average rankings reveal distinct tiers. Dominguez, Garcia, and Schmidt are in their own tier at the top of the system. Look at the spreadsheet and you can see the second tier runs from Nos. 4-11, the third tier from Nos. 12-20, the fourth tier from Nos. 21-26, and then the fifth tier is everyone else. Ezequiel Duran is the most polarizing prospect in the system right now. He appeared on all six prospect lists, but three had him in the top eight and the other three had him in the 20s. Pretty big divide there. I suspect the Yankees internally rank Duran among their top 10 prospects. He's an exit velocity darling and they brought him over from minor league camp a few times this spring. Duran went 3-for-5 with a triple during Grapefruit League play. Here's video of the triple. He did what he was supposed to do with a hanger. Anyway, I hereby proclaim spring prospect season over. We've seen all the top 100 lists and we've seen all the individual Yankees lists. That's enough of that.

6. Rule changes. Several new rule changes have been announced or reported in recent weeks. Things beyond the stuff we've already talked about (three-batter minimum, 13-pitcher/13-position player roster, etc.). Let's go through them one-by-one real quick:

MLB will crack down on foreign substances

Joel Sherman and Jeff Passan report MLB is planning to enforce Rule 6.02 and crack down on pitchers using foreign substances this season. I assume it will be on the umpires to call out any possible substances, because you can't count on managers to do it. Managers only call out egregious cheating (like Michael Pineda having pine tar on his neck). Anything else isn't worth it because their pitchers are cheating too. I've always felt MLB should do one of two things with foreign substances. Either enforce the rule rigorously, or don't enforce it at all and let pitchers use whatever they want. Anything in the middle is essentially the status quo. Maybe MLB should come up with an approved substance beyond rosin? That way everyone will be on level ground, in theory. I dunno. We'll see how this goes once the season begins, whenever that is. (Foreign substances became a thing again last year when Trevor Bauer accused Gerrit Cole and the Astros of using substances to increase spin rate. Bauer then did it himself in September to prove it can be done.)

MLB, MLBPA haggling over video access

In the aftermath of the Astros (and Red Sox) being outed as serial cheaters, MLB and the MLBPA are working on revised protocols for video access, according to Mark Didtler and Tom Verducci. The two sides aren't far apart and they plan to limit in-game clubhouse access to players, seven coaches, trainers, and interpreters. They're also working on a system that would allow players to watch video during games (to review their at-bats, etc.) with the catcher's signed blurred. That's better than nothing, I guess, but it still feels like this would be ripe for exploitation. As I've said before, I am totally cool with eliminating access to video during games. Watch has much video as you want before and after games -- try to decipher the other team's signs then -- but nothing during games. No watching at-bats, no scouting the incoming reliever, no watching a play before deciding whether to challenge. Nothing. That is unrealistic though, so I guess this is the next best thing. I look forward to MLB's next plan once it's discovered teams figured out how to use live video to cheat anyway.

Automated strike zone coming to Florida State League

Over the winter it was reported the automated strike zone (ABS for "automated balls and strikes") would be used in some minor leagues this season, and now we know it will be the Florida State League, thanks to J.J. Cooper. This is relevant to the Yankees because High-A Tampa plays in the FSL, and because several of their top pitching prospects are expected to begin the season at that level. Roansy Contreras, Luis Gil, Luis Medina, and Alex Vizcaino all figure to begin the season in Tampa. Yoendrys Gomez and T.J. Sikkema could be there too. Those guys will be the first Yankees to experience the automated strike zone. Wouldn't it be something if ABS turned Medina into a 5.0% walk rate guy? Hopefully they adjust quickly and it doesn't cause any headaches. I think we're still a few years away from ABS reaching the big leagues because MLB will want it widely tested at the Triple-A level, but the automated zone is now that much closer to becoming a reality.

New minor league pickoff rule

Starting this season pitchers in Single-A and below will be required to step off the rubber before making a pickoff throw, according to J.J. Cooper and Kyle Glaser. This eliminates Andy Pettitte-style pickoffs and inside moves to second base. The new pickoff rule was tested in the independent Atlantic League last year and three things happened:

• Stolen base attempts increased roughly 60% (!).
• Stolen base success rate jumped from 75% to 81%.
• Double plays decreased approximately 30%.

We have to see what the numbers look like with more data as pitchers adjust, but, initially, runners were able to take larger leads and the running game came back in style. I have no real opinion of the new pickoff rule. Stolen bases are fun. This could be cool. I am cautiously optimistic the new pickoff rule will make the game more entertaining to some degree.

Mailbag Question of the Week

Dave asks: I would love to see Giancarlo put in a healthy and productive season, but it seems he just can't get it going. Now that Clint Frazier is coming on strong, what are the chances that Stanton could get "Wally Pipped" by Frazier?

Zero chance it happens. For starters, there are two corner outfield positions plus the DH spot, so the Yankees can have Giancarlo Stanton and Frazier in the lineup at the same time. This isn't like trying to squeeze the positionally inflexible Luke Voit and Mike Ford in at first base. Stanton and Frazier can be in the lineup together.

Secondly, Stanton's contract ensures he will be in the lineup. The Yankees owe him $214M through 2027. They're not going to marginalize him yet. Way too early for that. And third, Stanton is really good! When healthy, anyway. The guy hit .266/.343/.509 (129 wRC+) with 38 homers in 2018 and it was widely considered a down year. 

I love Frazier as much as anyone and I was bummed the Yankees pretty much refused to play him last season, and I hope he gets to play alongside Stanton this year, not in place of him. If Giancarlo is hurt, so be it. But, if he's healthy, I see no way he is not just in the best possible Yankees lineup, but at the center of it. Frazier ain't Wally Pipping him.

Bonus Mailbag Question of the Week

Bob asks: Do you think the Yankees are delaying contract extension talks with D.J. until they see proof that Gleyber Torres can be a championship level shortstop and not have to move him back to second base?

That might be a small part of it, sure. I think DJ LeMahieu has shown enough versatility for the Yankees to know they'd be able to pencil him in somewhere though. If Gleyber has to go back to second base, they could put LeMahieu at third, or first, or maybe even have him try the outfield. Seems like there will always be a way to get him in the lineup.

Brian Cashman recently said the Yankees haven't had any contract talks with LeMahieu and I think it mostly boils down to the team preferring to let contracts expire before negotiating new ones. They don't give out many extensions and that applies to everyone (manager, front office, etc.), not just the players. I think that explains the lack of talks more than anything.

(Send your questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)