January 24th, 2020: Jeter, Top 100 Prospects, Ottavino, Avilan, Minor League Signings, IFA Deals, Mailbag

Some news: I've decided to put together my annual Top 30 Prospects post. I am certain it will take no more than 24 hours to regret this decision, but I figure once I announce it, I'm committed, so here's the announcement. Patreon's editor is limiting, so the post won't look as pretty as I usually try to make it, and we'll just have to live with that. My plan is to post it the Friday before pitchers and catchers report, as always, and then unlock it 10 days later and make it a free post so I can link to it and promote it. Consider it a free post with a 10-day advance preview for Patreon subscribers. It'll be an extra post too. I'll run that week's regularly scheduled Friday post on Thursday instead, and that post will include the annual Not Top 30 Prospects list. The Top 30 will be published on Friday, Feb. 7th (two weeks from today) and unlocked on Monday, Feb. 17th. Thanks as always for the support. I'm really looking forward to the upcoming season. Should be a blast. Now here are today's thoughts.

1. Jeter not unanimous. As expected, Derek Jeter was announced as the newest Hall of Famer earlier this week. I was pleasantly surprised Larry Walker was voted in as well. He cleared the 75% threshold by six votes. Jeter, meanwhile, fell one vote short of being unanimous. He was named on 396 of 397 ballots. Mariano Rivera remains the only unanimous Hall of Famer in history. Jeter settles for the second highest voting percentage ever and the highest for a position player:

1. Mariano Rivera: 100.00%
2. Derek Jeter: 99.75%
3. Ken Griffey Jr.: 99.32%
4. Tom Seaver: 98.84%
5. Nolan Ryan: 98.79%

We don't know who omitted Jeter from their ballot or why that person did it, and chances are we never will. (We still don't know the three people who didn't vote for Griffey.) I'm curious to know who it was because it is human nature to be curious, but there is no rule requiring voters to reveal or explain their ballots -- the Hall of Fame rejected the BBWAA's proposal to make all ballots public a few years ago -- so we're not owed anything. And ultimately, it doesn't matter. Once you're in the Hall of Fame, you're in. It doesn't matter if you cleared the threshold by six votes like Walker or were one vote short of unanimous like Jeter. Once you're in, you're in, and Jeter is in, as he should be. I hope this doesn't turn into a witch hunt and the person who didn't vote for Jeter gets ostracized. It's not worth the effort or outrage. (I haven't seen much of that the last few days, thankfully.) I promise you all right now I will write something explaining my ballot each and every time I have a Hall of Fame or awards vote (if I ever do), but we're under no obligation to do so, so the non-Jeter voter remains a mystery. Whatever. Now that Jeter is in, the next player to go into the Hall of Fame as a Yankee will likely be CC Sabathia, unless Alex Rodriguez manages to get in. I'm not holding my breath. If Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens can't get in while never failing a performance-enhancing drug test, A-Rod's definitely not getting in after serving the longest PED suspension in the sport's history. I don't think Sabathia is a Hall of Fame lock but I think he has a decent chance to get voted in. He's likely the next player to go into the Hall of Fame as a Yankee. After him? No idea. Could be a long wait after Sabathia.

2. Top 100 prospects. Baseball America (subs. req'd) published their annual top 100 prospects list earlier this week. Rays shortstop Wander Franco sits in the top spot with recently extended White Sox outfielder Luis Robert the runner-up. Three Yankees made the top 100:

38. OF Jasson Dominguez
62. RHP Clarke Schmidt
65. RHP Deivi Garcia

That order matches the top of Baseball America's top 10 Yankees prospects list, which isn't always the case because different people compile different lists. The mini-scouting report says Dominguez's "combination of elite tools, athleticism and performance have him primed to follow the path of Ronald Acuna, Juan Soto and other international stars who raced to the majors by the time they were 20," so that's cool. The scouting reports include each hitter's 2019 average exit velocity and each pitcher's 2019 average fastball velocity, which is neat. Alas, there is no exit velocity number for Dominguez, presumably because he has not yet played in an official game. Dominican Instructional League games only. Bummer. Next year I guess. (Several players tie for the lead with a 93 mph average exit velocity, most notably Angels outfielder Jo Adell.) Schmidt's average fastball velocity is listed at 94 mph and Garcia's at 93 mph, which is a bit higher than I expected. Deivi's been billed as a low-90s guy, and averaging 93 mph indicates he gets up to 94-95 mph with some regularity. That is kind of a big deal. Velocity isn't everything but it's not nothing either. The more velocity you have, the less time the hitter has to react. It really is that simple. I expect the Yankees to have only two consensus top 100 prospects this season: Dominguez and Garcia, ranked right around where Baseball America has them. I'm pleasantly surprised to see Schmidt get top 100 love on at least one list. He's come back very well from Tommy John surgery and cleaned up his mechanics a bit, and is in position to make his MLB debut this summer. In a separate piece, J.J. Cooper (subs. req'd) listed every prospect who received consideration for the top 100 list but did not make the top 100. The players are listed alphabetically and five Yankees are among them: RHP Roansy Contreras, RHP Luis Gil, RHP Luis Medina, SS Oswald Peraza, and RHP Alex Vizcaino. Oswald Peraza, huh? Oswald Peraza. Notably absent among the just misses is OF Estevan Florial, who's appeared on several top 100 lists over the years but is losing luster. Also among the top 100 just misses: Justus Sheffield. His stock started to slip late in 2018 and it has apparently continued to slip heading into 2020. The Yankees have been pretty good at trading players at the right time in recent years. Bold prediction: Dominguez will be a top five prospect in baseball at this time next year. Slightly less bold prediction: Contreras will be a top 100 prospect next year. Big Roansy fan here.

3. How can he improve? Adam Ottavino. We're going to continue our series looking at each core Yankee heading into 2020 with Ottavino. We've already covered Zack Britton, James Paxton, Gleyber Torres, and Luke Voit. Ottavino grew up in Park Slope and signed with the Yankees last offseason, and he was dominant in 2019: 1.90 ERA (3.44 FIP) with 31.1% strikeouts and 14.1% walks. The walk rate was annoyingly high, but his exit velocity (85.1 mph), hard-hit rate (27.6%), and xwOBA (.271) allowed were all elite. When hitters did make contact against Ottavino, they didn't hit the ball hard all that often. I mean:

Ottavino struggled in the postseason, which really threw a wrench into the bullpen plan, but that was more of a poorly timed slump than evidence he can't handle October, I think. He pitched eight times in the team's nine postseason games after making 73 regular season appearances, the most by a Yankee in three years. I reckon fatigue was a factor for the now 34-year-old. To improve in 2020, three things come to mind. First is trimming that walk rate, which is fairly obvious, though I'm not sure whether it's possible. Everything Ottavino throws has a ton of movement -- the guy's stuff is straight out of a video game -- and that makes it difficult to control. In the last three season's he's posted 14.1%, 11.7%, and 16.1% walk rates. Earlier in his career he had some very good walk rates (5.9% in 65 innings in 2014), but that was before Tommy John surgery and before he reinvented himself in his Harlem pitching lab and became the pitcher he is today. Ottavino's true talent is almost certainly a double-digit strikeout rate at this point. Hopefully he can sit closer to 10% than 14% this coming season. That'd be cool. Secondly, and probably most importantly, I'd like to see Ottavino improve against lefties, especially with the three-batter minimum rule about to kick in. He crushes righties (.177/.292/.266 and 36.0% strikeouts in 2019) but has struggled against lefties the last few years (.241/.361/.392 with 15 walks and 21 strikeouts in 2019), so much so that Aaron Boone used Ottavino almost as a true righty specialist in October. He brought him in to face Nelson Cruz and only Nelson Cruz on two occasions. He didn't want him facing switch-hitter Jorge Polanco before Cruz or lefty hitter Eddie Rosario after Cruz. The cutter could be the key to improving against lefties. Ottavino throws three distinct pitches: mid-90s two-seam fastball, upper-80s cutter, low-80s slider. It can be easy to confuse the cutter for a slider with shorter break (i.e. different variations of the slider), but it is a cut fastball with its own grip and everything. Here are Ottavino's pitch selection numbers last season:

• vs. RHB: 34% fastballs, 49% sliders, 16% cutters
• vs. LHB: 54% fastballs, 37% sliders, 8% cutters

Cutters, like changeups, are often used to combat batters on the opposite side of the plate. CC Sabathia carved out a nice second phase to his career when he learned to bust righties inside with the cutter. David Robertson has been so effective throughout his career against lefties because he can pitch them in with cutters. We all saw how many left-handed hitters would shatter their bats against Mariano Rivera. Ottavino, for whatever reason, doesn't use his cutter on the inner half against lefties all that often. Here are his cutter locations against lefties the last two years:

Ottavino generally pitches hitters away, lefties and righties. Here are his pitch location heat maps against righties and lefties. Against righties he likes to sweep the slider away and backdoor the two-seamer for called strikes. Against lefties, he throws the two-seamer away and tries to backdoor the slider. It mostly works. Throwing the cutter in on lefties may help Ottavino going forward. I'm not saying he has to come in off the plate and really jam them. Just use the inside part of the plate a little bit to keep hitters from leaning out and sitting away. This is a good example of what I mean. That cutter is inside and there's not much more the hitter can do than foul it away, either straight back or pulled down the first base line. Of course, the catcher set up on the opposite side of the plate on that pitch, so Ottavino missed his spot considerably, and therein lies the problem. His control isn't very good and executing an inside cutter is easier said than done. The result could be more hit batsmen or more misses out over the plate, which would be the worst outcome. Ottavino's a smart dude and very self-aware, and he puts a lot of work and thought into his craft. He knows he has a weakness against lefties and is surely working to come up with a solution. Pitching inside with the cutter more often -- or even just using the cutter more often in general -- is just my dumb idiot idea. The third way Ottavino could improve involves holding runners. He's slow to the plate and an easy target for stolen bases -- runners went 15-for-16 stealing bases against him last year and 24-for-27 the year before -- which ain't good when your walk rate is that high and you're a high-leverage reliever who typically pitches in close games. A walk could become a double real quick. The Yankees went through this with Dellin Betances not too long ago and worked with him on varying his times and even making a few pickoff throws, which he wasn't comfortable doing. Runners went from 21-for-21 stealing bases against Betances in 2016 to 8-for-11 in 2017, so there was improvement (runners went 13-for-15 against him in 2018). Maybe they can help Ottavino in a similar way, and hey, maybe going from 24-for-27 in 2018 to 15-for-16 is an indication he is working on it. He cut his stolen base attempt rate against by a third or so. Ottavino is slow to the plate and that will always make him susceptible to stolen bases. That's just the way it's going to be. If he can vary his times a little better, maybe develop a better pickoff move, and cut down on the stolen bases even a tiny little bit, it would help. In a close game, the difference can often be preventing or allowing a stolen base in the late innings. Anything the Yankees and Ottavino can do to curb his stolen base issue will be a positive.

4. Yankees sign Avilan. Last week I said I expected the Yankees to sign a non-roster lefty reliever and, sure enough, they've inked southpaw Luis Avilan to a minor league deal with an invitation to big league camp, reports Jon Heyman. Second time this month I said I expected the Yankees to sign a certain type of player and they signed that player a few days later. Happened with Nick Tropeano too. Too bad the Yankees only listen to me when I say I expect them to sign some minor league depth piece and not, you know, trade for Francisco Lindor or Nolan Arenado. Sigh. Anyway, Avilan immediately becomes the odds-on favorite to be the guy who surprises everyone and makes the Opening Day roster, and somehow spends the entire year with the Yankees. There seems to be a reliever like that every few seasons. Jonathan Holder and Chasen Shreve are recent examples. The 30-year-old Avilan spent last season with the Mets, throwing 32 innings with a 5.06 ERA (4.96 FIP) and middling strikeout (21.9%) and walk (9.9%) rates. He has gotten grounders throughout his career (46.8% in 2019 and 50.5% career) and Stephen Tarpley's greatest strength was his ability to get ground balls, so we might as well consider Avilan the Tarpley replacement. The Yankees can't shuttle Avilan up and down because he's out of options, but he's a lefty with a big platoon split ...

• vs. LHB: .102/.185/.184 (.171 wOBA) with 31.5 K%, 9.3 BB%, 59.4 GB%
• vs RHB: .373/.460/.587 (.441 wOBA) with 14.9 K%, 10.3 BB%, 40.3 GB%

... and a good sinker who keeps the ball on the ground. It's a specific skill set the Yankees seem to value. Of course, the new three-batter minimum rule marginalizes relievers like Avilan, who have huge platoon splits and are best used as specialists. Doesn't seem like the best use of a roster spot in this day and age, but there's no harm in a minor league deal, and perhaps the Yankees have plans for Avilan. A way to improve his breaking ball to help him be competent against righties. Something like that. Avilan has six full years of service time, so his minor league deal automatically includes a $100,000 retention bonus if he's not on the Opening Day roster and a June 1st opt-out, and I assume the opt-out will be very much in play. Avilan's been close to a full-time big leaguer the last few years and I doubt he'll want to spent the season in Triple-A. The three-batter minimum rule complicates things but it does not automatically make a guy like Avilan, who is a legitimately great lefty matchup guy, valueless. Not really sure what the plan is here, but the Yankees need arms for Triple-A, and Avilan could be quite useful if the club runs into a stretch of games against lefty heavy lineups. Something tells me we're going to see a lot more of this dude than we all expect.

5. Minor league signings. The Yankees made a few minor league depth signings within the last month, according to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle: IF Kaleb Cowart, LHP Elvis Escobar, and LHP Tyler Lyons. Lyons is back after spending September with the Yankees and making the ALDS and ALCS rosters. Last week I said I expected the Yankees to sign a non-roster lefty reliever and now they have Lyons and Luis Avilan. Safe to assume the veteran journeyman will be in MLB camp. Imagine carrying a guy on your postseason roster and then making him report to minor league camp the next spring? Cowart, 27, is a former top Angels prospect who hasn't hit in parts of five big league seasons (43 wRC+) but is a very gifted defender, especially at third base, his natural position. He's also played second base and shortstop. Earlier this week I said I expected the Yankees to sign a non-roster infielder and here you go. Interestingly enough, Cowart started pitching last season in an effort to carve out a niche as a two-way player. He allowed 23 runs with 15 walks and 16 strikeouts in 17.2 innings split between Double-A and Triple-A. I'm curious to see whether the Yankees continue with the two-way experiment. Maybe they hope to use their 26th roster spot on a backup infielder/spare mop-up man, or have a plan to turn him into the next Gio Urshela. Surely Cowart will be in big league camp with Lyons. Escobar is the most interesting minor league signing if only because he's the least known player. The 25-year-old made the conversion from outfielder to pitcher in the middle of 2018 -- Jarrod Prugar says Escobar threw well in a mop-up outing and the Pirates decided to keep him on the mound -- though he missed most of 2019 with a shoulder injury. In 44 career innings, most at High-A, he has a 3.07 ERA (3.81 FIP) with 26.3% strikeouts and 12.2% walks. Huh. Escobar has exactly one game worth of Triple-A experience and he's never been in the big leagues, so I would bet against him being in camp as a non-roster guy. More likely, the Yankees were intrigued by what they saw in his limited time on the mound, and decided to scoop him up and see how he develops. Escobar is a tiny little guy (listed at 5-foot-8 and 181 lbs.) and I can't find a scouting report on him as a pitcher, so I can't tell you much more than what's in this blurb. Chances are he's a lottery ticket that won't pan out because that's usually how it goes. Who knows though? Maybe he turns into a useful lefty reliever. Would be neat. Either way, the Yankees have their depth infielder (Cowart) and two depth lefty relievers (Avilan and Lyons). They've now signed nine non-roster players (that we know of): Avilan, Cowart, Lyons, outfielder Zack Granite, utility man Rosell Herrera, catcher Chris Iannetta, catcher Erik Kratz, righty Nick Tropeano, and injured righty Adam Warren

6. International signings. Ben Badler (subs. req'd) started his annual international signing period review a few weeks ago and he covered the Yankees last month. New York's class is of course headlined by $5.1M wunderkind Jasson Dominguez, an outfield prospect the Yankees internally describe as "a player who might be constructed by taking the best tools from other players throughout their system and molding them into a single player." Dominguez is not the only prospect the Yankees signed during the 2019-20 period. They also gave Dominican third base prospect Enger Castellano, who Badler compares to Miguel Andujar, a $337,500 bonus. Here's Badler on Castellano:

Castellano is strong and well-proportioned (6 feet, 190 pounds) for a third baseman with a fast bat and above-average raw power. He's an aggressive hitter who goes up to the plate looking to drive the ball for extra-base damage, and he generally performed well in games as an amateur. He showed ability to react to breaking pitches, hitting one over the fence at 108 mph off the bat before signing. Castellano has the tools to stay at third base. He will need to improve his agility, but he has a plus arm and hands to stick in the dirt.

The Yankees also gave Venezuelan catcher Manuel Placencia an unknown bonus. Badler describes him as an "offensive-oriented catcher with a sound swing and a chance to hit for power from the right side of the plate." The Yankees had a $5,398,300 bonus pool this signing period and they added another $28,300 in the Nestor Cortes trade, so their bonus pool is up to $5,426,600. Dominguez and Castellano received $5,437,500 combined, plus there's whatever the Yankees gave Placencia, though signings of $10,000 or less do not count against the bonus pools. The Yankees acquired undisclosed sums of bonus pool money when they sent Ryan McBroom to the Royals and J.P. Feyereisen to the Brewers, which I assume covers the $28,500 gap between Dominguez and Castellano and the known bonus pool, plus whatever they gave Placencia. Badler (subs. req'd) notes the Yankees were expected to sign Dominican outfielder Jhon Diaz, but when they couldn't add the necessary bonus pool space before the single July 31st trade deadline, he signed with the Rays for $1.5M. That's a bummer and I don't blame the kid one bit for signing with Tampa rather than waiting until the Yankees could trade for more bonus pool space in the offseason. It's a capped system. Get yours before someone else does. The 2019-20 signing period opens each July 2nd but it doesn't close until June 25th, so the Yankees still have a few months to spend whatever bonus pool money they're sitting on, and possibly add more and spend that (if any teams have any left to trade). MLB.com's top 30 international prospects are almost all accounted for, so there aren't any high-profile players available now. The Yankees are really good at identifying lower profile prospects though. I wrote about third baseman Maikol Escotto recently and he's a good example. Roansy Contreras ($250,000), Yoendrys Gomez ($50,000), Luis Medina ($280,000), Oswald Peraza ($175,000), Alex Vizcaino ($14,000), and Miguel Yajure ($30,000) were all smaller bonus guys who developed into legitimate prospects. We could even go back to Jorge Mateo ($250,000) and Luis Severino ($225,000). They were smaller bonus guys. Given the club's ability to find and develop unheralded prospects, Dominguez might not be the only worthwhile player they signed this period.

7. Rapid fire thoughts. You know what's crazy? Aaron Boone is the sixth longest tenured manager in the American League. Only the Athletics (Bob Melvin), Indians (Terry Francona), Rays (Kevin Cash), Mariners (Scott Servais), and White Sox (Rick Renteria) have had their managers longer. Only six National League managers are longer tenured than Boone, so he's already in the veteran half of the league. The Astros' scandal and subsequent firings plays a part in that, but geez. So much manager turnover in such little time (technically the Tigers hired Ron Gardenhire a few days before the Yankees hired Boone, so he's really the seventh longest tenured AL manager, but I'm just looking at seasons managed) ... the automated strike zone (ABS) is coming to Spring Training, sorta. During a recent interview commissioner Rob Manfred said MLB will test ABS during spring games this year. The umpires' union later clarified it will be used during nine Grapefruit League games and will only run in the background, according to Buster Olney. The human umpire will still call balls and strikes. "We believe over the long haul it's going to be more accurate. It will reduce controversy in the game and be good for the game," Manfred said. MLB will test ABS in select minor leagues this year, and the fact they're only running it in the background this spring is a good indication the system is still a few years away from being perfected and implemented at the big league level, but it's coming. Not gonna lie, before the umpires' union chimed in, I was looking forward to the chaos of an unrefined system being used in meaningless Spring Training games ... amateur scouting director Damon Oppenheimer was at the University of Michigan on a scouting trip earlier this week. The college season starts in a few weeks, but practices and workouts and scrimmages are underway. Michigan's best prospect is righty Jeff Criswell, who MLB.com (52nd) and Baseball America (53rd) have in roughly the same spot in their latest draft rankings. From MLB.com's scouting report:

He maintained his velocity while transitioning from reliever to starter (in 2019), showing the ability to work at 93-96 mph with heavy sink for several innings at a time. Both his slider and his fading changeup are solid secondary pitches that arrive in the low 80s ... If he can do a better job of locating his pitches, he could develop into a mid-rotation starter.

Chances are this means nothing -- Oppenheimer will travel all over the country and see countless players between now and the draft -- but it's not often the scouting director will tweet out his whereabouts, so I figured I'd pass it along. 

Mailbag Question of the Week

Brian asks: In the spirit of HOF voting being released, do you think Bernie and Ken Singleton deserve to be elected by the veterans committee? Am I crazy to think Cliff Lee should’ve gotten more votes?

Well, if the committee voted Harold Baines (121 OPS+ and +38.7 WAR) in, Bernie Williams (125 OPS+ and +49.6 WAR) and Ken Singleton (132 OPS+ and +41.8 WAR) have to be voted in too, right? The numbers say so. Singleton played 15 years and got MVP votes in seven of them. Baines played 22 years and got MVP votes in four of them. Hmmm.

I've always felt "this guy got in so that guy should get in too" is a bad way to look at the Hall of Fame though. We shouldn't be beholden to the mistakes of voters past. Just because Hank Aaron and Willie Mays weren't unanimous, it doesn't mean no player should ever be unanimous, you know? Baines shouldn't lower the bar for the Hall of Fame.

Jay Jaffe's JAWS says Bernie is well below the Hall of Fame standard for center fielders and Singleton is well below the Hall of Fame standard for right fielders. JAWS is not the be all, end all, but it is a useful tool, and in this case it shows how far short of the standard Bernie and Singleton are. Maybe the committees will vote them in. I wouldn't count on it.

As for Lee, he received two Hall of Fame votes, same number as Eric Chavez and eight fewer than Paul Konerko. Lee had a Hall of Fame peak -- he was arguably the best pitcher in baseball from 2008-13 -- but not Hall of Fame longevity. He only played 13 years and was bad to mediocre outside 2008-13. He only barely got over 2,000 innings for his career.

Did Lee deserve more than two votes? Yeah, probably. I think he deserved at least another year on the ballot. He was too good to be a one-and-done guy. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. You're either a Hall of Famer or you're not, and Lee was not. Whether he got two votes or two hundred votes and still fell short doesn't really matter. (Here are the full voting results.)

Bonus Mailbag Question of the Week

Mike asks: In today's post you mentioned the Tarpley trade added another branch to the Nova trade tree. What's the longest trade tree on the Yankees?

Gleyber Torres. The Yankees got Torres for Aroldis Chapman, who they got for Tony Renda (and others), who they got for David Carpenter, who they got for Manny Banuelos. So yes, the Gleyber trade originated with Banuelos. I always knew Manny B. would help the Yankees.

The longest transaction tree (all transactions, not only trades) on the Yankees belongs to Aaron Judge and it's a doozy. It dates all the way back to Ruben Rivera. Here is the sequence of events that led to Judge in pinstripes:

• Nov. 1990: Yankees sign Ruben Rivera as an amateur free agent.
• April 1997: Rivera traded for Hideki Irabu.
• Dec. 1999: Irabu traded for Jake Westbrook.
• June 2000: Westbrook traded for for David Justice.
• Dec. 2001: Justice traded for Robin Ventura.
• July 2003: Ventura traded for Scott Proctor.
• July 2007: Proctor traded for Wilson Betemit.
• Nov. 2008: Betemit traded for Nick Swisher.
• June 2013: Yankees draft Judge with compensation pick for Swisher.

Pretty crazy, huh? Know what else is crazy? Rivera was active last season. He went 8-for-41 (.195) in 35 games with the Acereros de Monclova in the Mexican League. Dude is 45 years old and he's been playing pro ball nonstop since the early-90s.

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