August 6th, 2019: Injuries, Urshela, Paxton, Bullpen, Torres, Seigler

The dog days of summer have arrived. The Yankees have 50 games remaining this year -- is it really only 50? -- and FanGraphs puts their AL East odds at 98.0%. More importantly, their World Series odds are 12.8%. Only the Astros (27.5%) and Dodgers (17.8%) are higher. I'll take it. Here are today's thoughts as Bob Costas complains about people complaining he complains about baseball too much.

1. Injuries injuries injuries. Good gravy, this injury stuff is getting ridiculous. The Yankees were hit hard in April and May, then it slowed down a bit and a bunch of players returned from the injured list, and now they're back to losing what seems like a player a day. The Edwin Encarnacion injury was just bad luck. A slider backed up and managed to him on his right (back) wrist. The Yankees say he will be reevaluated in a week and Encarnacion said he hopes to return in 3-5 weeks. We'll see. The whole "three-week timetable for a fractured wrist" thing hasn't worked out too well for the Yankees lately. Encarnacion's season may be in jeopardy. The Aaron Hicks injury really scared me. I was expecting the worst. I mean, when was the last time a player made a throw, complained of elbow pain, and didn't get bad news? Fortunately, Hicks was diagnosed with "only" a right flexor strain and tests confirmed his ulnar collateral ligament is intact, which means no Tommy John surgery. Ex-frickin-hale. The Yankees expect him back at some point this season. "I think we were all kind of worried that it could be (Tommy John surgery). That's ruled out. Now it's just making sure it's healed and recovered," Aaron Boone told Bryan Hoch. Hicks is not out of the woods yet -- flexor strains can lead to more serious problems -- but, all things considered, he got good news following that throw. Among others, the Yankees are currently without these players:

• Starting catcher Gary Sanchez (groin).
• Starting first baseman Luke Voit (sports hernia).
• Starting third baseman Miguel Andujar (shoulder).
• Starting center fielder Aaron Hicks (elbow).
• Starting designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton (knee).
• Replacement designated hitter Edwin Encarnacion (wrist).
• Ace starter Luis Severino (shoulder, lat).
• Ace setup man Dellin Betances (shoulder).
• Fifth starter candidates CC Sabathia (knee) and Jordan Montgomery (elbow).
• Depth arms David Hale (back), Ben Heller (elbow), and Jonathan Loaisiga (shoulder).

Sunday night Gio Urshela managed to foul pitches into both legs in one at-bat -- Gio's legs were reportedly so stiff following the game that he needed help putting on his sweat pants for the ride to Baltimore -- and Gleyber Torres had to go to the hospital with a core issue. Fortunately both escaped without serious injury. Imagine losing those two the day after losing Encarnacion and Hicks? I like Mike Ford and Breyvic Valera, but I'm not sure I want to see them starting on the right side of the infield right now. The Yankees have lost 1,748 man games to injury this year, nearly 500 more than any other team -- I wish there were an easy way to see projected WAR lost to injury, I imagine the Yankees would lead in that by a mile as well -- and it is truly remarkable this team is where it is right now. Rather than wilt, they're battling for the best record in baseball. I hope they start getting healthy soon, but, for now, it is impossible not to be proud of this team's resiliency. What a group. "One of the greatest strengths of this team is its ability to overcome adversity and just keep pushing forward. Obviously (Encarnacion and Hicks) are All-Star caliber, middle-of-the-order players for us. So I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that any sort of missed time with them is not great, but the thing about our team is that we just keep moving forward. Guys come in and try to pick the guys up and we just kind of continue to move that line," Mike Tauchman told Coley Harvey following Saturday's doubleheader.

2. No waiver trades. August is only six days old and we're already seeing how eliminating August trade waivers can impact a contender. Forget about pitching. Given their record, the Yankees are so far down the waiver priority order that no half-decent starting pitcher (Madison Bumgarner, Zack Wheeler, etc.) would have made it to them. Those guys would have been claimed long before the New York's turn came. More realistically, the Yankees no longer have a chance to bring in players to replace Edwin Encarnacion and Aaron Hicks, or even Gary Sanchez should he suffer a setback. They couldn't go out and get, say, Justin Smoak to fill in at first base. They couldn't add Jarrod Dyson for center field depth*. I'm not saying the Yankees should or would definitely go out to make moves like that had August trade waivers still existed. I'm just saying it's not even an option now. Even small, low-impact trades like Smoak and/or Dyson are completely off the table. Sucks. I don't like it, but it is what it is. Fortunately the Yankees have a large division lead and replacements who are playing out of their collective minds. Imagine if the Yankees were only two or three games up in the AL East though? Suddenly that hypothetical Smoak and/or Dyson trade would sound more appealing. In year one of this post-waiver trades era, the Yankees aren't affected too much. They're near the top of the standings and seemingly every player they plug in to cover for an injury plays at his 90th percentile projection. They Yankees won't be in such an enviable spot every year in the future though. Not being able to add help to cover for second half injuries could create some real problems in the years things don't go as well as this one.

* Hot Take: I don't believe the Yankees consider Mike Tauchman as good defensively as they let on. If they do, shouldn't he be in center field rather than soon-to-be 36-year-old Brett Gardner? The Yankees spent all winter and all Spring Training saying they wanted to control Gardner's workload, now they're making him run down balls in both gaps on a full-time basis. Shrug.

3. Gio's legit. It was easy -- and completely understandable -- to be skeptical about Gio Urshela's staying power earlier this season. It's not just that he came into 2019 with a career .225/.274/.315 (57 wRC+) batting line in 499 MLB plate appearances. It's that he's also a career .275/.316/.412 (103 wRC+) hitter in over 1,500 Triple-A plate appearances. There was nothing in Urshela's track record to suggest what he did earlier this year was sustainable. And yet, here he is with a .314/.359/.522 (129 wRC+) line in early August, with the underlying numbers to back it up:

• Exit velocity: 90.7 mph (79th percentile)
• Hard-hit rate: 41.0% (60th percentile)
• Expected AVG: .308 (97th percentile)
• Expected SLG: .506 (89th percentile)
• Expected wOBA: .369 (87th percentile)

Granted, Urshela is not putting up Judgian exit velocities, but he's making quality contact and is being rewarded appropriately. The expected stats and actual stats match up very well. This isn't a guy playing over his head. "Since last year when we got him, he really focused on staying in his legs a little bit more. He did that work with (hitting coach) Phil Plantier at Triple-A and he brought it into winter ball and into the spring. He hasn’t skipped a beat, man," hitting coach Marcus Thames told Brendan Kuty back in May, so there is an adjustment behind Urshela's success. He changed his hitting mechanics to get into his legs more and the result is hitting the ball with more authority. That 90.7 mph average exit velocity may not jump out at you, but you know what? It was 86.9 mph from 2015-18. It is an enormous improvement. Add in his defensive excellence -- Urshela is at -4 DRS and -3.3 UZR, which tells you all you need to know about half-season samples of defensive stats -- and boy oh boy, it sure looks like the Yankees have found themselves a keeper in Urshela. I was skeptical earlier this year and I thought the other shoe dropped in June (74 wRC+), but Urshela has surged since the London Series, and has been an indispensable member of the 2019 Yankees. "I think everyone keeps waiting for him to fall off, and it’s more good at-bats. It seems like the better the competition, the bigger the spot, he seems to be a little better, too," Aaron Boone told Coley Harvey last week.

4. Two-out magic. On Saturday the Yankees strung together five consecutive two-out hits against Chris Sale to score six runs. (Sale giving up five straight hits with two outs is something that just never used to happen.) Then, on Sunday, they strung together seven consecutive two-out baserunners (six hits and one walk) to score six runs against David Price. It seems like the Yankees have had a lot of sustained two-out rallies this year, but I thought maybe it was recency bias, so I checked the numbers. Here are the club's ranks with two outs:

• Runs: 266 (second)
• AVG: .275 (second)
• OBP: .349 (fourth)
• SLG: .490 (second)
• wRC+: 119 (first)

Okay, so it's not recency bias. The Yankees are indeed among the best hitting teams in baseball with two outs. In fact, the Yankees and Red Sox are the only teams to rank top five in AVG, OBP, and SLG with two outs. (Boston's season is circling down the drain, but it's because of their pitching, not their offense.) I'm not sure how well the ability to put together two-out rallies corresponds to World Series success -- the 2018 Red Sox were sixth in two-out wRC+ and the 2017 Astros were first, but the 2016 Cubs were 20th, so who knows -- but I do know it's fun to watch, and I do know giving up two-out runs can be demoralizing. There's not much worse in baseball than being a pitch or two away from escaping a jam, then bam, two or three runs are on the board. The Yankees have done that very well overall this season. The rallies against Sale and Price this weekend were a bit extreme. Five or six straight hits at any point in an inning is hard to do, and that is especially true with two outs, but this offense is capable of it. They are never out of an inning. Even with two outs, the Yankees can put a hurtin' on you. "That’s the coolest thing about this team, no one’s trying to take a load on themselves. Everyone’s trying to pass the baton and share their responsibility. If I do my job, I know the guy behind me is going to do his job," Aaron Judge told Ken Davidoff following Sunday's win. 

5. Paxton's adjustment. Every once in a while I suggest something and it comes true on the field, and it feels like a million bucks. Last week I said James Paxton should cut back on his four-seam fastball and begin to emphasize his cutter and especially his curveball. Also, I thought he needed to work both sides of the plate better as well. Paxton was getting hit hard on the regular and it was time to make an adjustment. Something to change speeds and sight lines seemed obvious. Sure enough, in his start last Friday, Paxton scaled back on his four-seamer and used more cutters and curveballs. Some numbers:

• Four-seamer: 52.0% on Friday (63.8% season average previously)
• Cutter: 28.0% on Friday (22.2% season average previously)
• Curveball: 19.0% on Friday (13.7% season average previously)
• Changeup: 1.0% on Friday (0.4% season average previously)

The changeup is basically a non-factor for Paxton. He's a three-pitch guy who threw 64% fastballs and 36% non-fastballs prior to his most recent start. Then, last time out, he cut it down to 52% fastballs and 48% non-fastballs. One start is just one start, so we have to see whether Paxton sticks with throwing fewer fastballs going forward. My hunch is he will stick with what amounts to a 50/50 fastball/non-fastball split for at least a few more starts, then maybe ramp up his fastball usage as he has success and feels more comfortable. We'll see. For now, I'm glad he made the adjustment, because what he was doing before was not working. Something had to change, something did change, and it worked well. Hooray for that. "It’s something we talked about. Just bringing (the curveball) in a little more to slow them down. Mix it up a little bit, speed-wise," Paxton told Ken Davidoff when asked about mixing in more cutters and curveballs.

6. Bullpen workload. I did not realize this until this past weekend: Zack Britton, Tommy Kahnle, and Adam Ottavino are all on pace for north of 70 appearances this year. Britton is on pace for 72 appearances and both Kahnle and Ottavino are on pace for 77 appearances (!). Here are the last five Yankees relievers to make 70+ appearances in a season:

• 2016 Dellin Betances: 73 appearances
• 2015 Dellin Betances: 74 appearances
• 2015 Justin Wilson: 74 appearances
• 2014 Dellin Betances: 70 appearances
• 2013 David Robertson: 70 appearances

The Yankees are on pace to have as many 70-appearance relievers in 2019 as they had from 2015-18 combined. That seems ... bad. The game has changed in recent years and bullpens are more prominent than ever, but still, the Yankees rely heavily on their primary relievers and the appearances -- the stressful high-leverage appearances -- are piling up. The good news is the Yankees have a huge AL East lead, so they should be able to back off their top relievers down the stretch, especially once rosters expand in September. I feel it's necessary. I really do. The pitching plan come October is get as much as possible from the starting pitcher, even if it's only three or four innings, then smother the other team with power bullpen arms. That means the Yankees should prioritize getting Britton, Kahnle, and Ottavino (and Aroldis Chapman and Chad Green) fresh and rested prior to the postseason. Hopefully Betances gets healthy and gives Aaron Boone another option, and hopefully Deivi Garcia can have a late-season impact -- Brian Cashman told Bryan Hoch that Garcia will work as a reliever if he is called up in September -- but the key late-inning guys are the key late-inning guys. I don't see that changing. The sooner Boone and the Yankees can start giving them a breather, the better off they'll be come October.

7. Gleyber's glove. I don't know whether this is something new or something that's been going on a while that I just noticed, but Gleyber Torres really likes to play the ball off to his side. Torres has 15 errors this season (ten throwing, five fielding), and one of the fielding errors came on a relay play (he muffed the transfer) and another came on a pickoff play (the throw clanked in and out of his glove). Here is my incredibly amateur screen grab compilation of the three true fielding errors (ground balls Gleyber muffed):

Amateur hour on the screen grabs, I know. Sorry. Point is, on all three plays, Torres played the ball off to his side rather than get in front of it. It's not just the errors either. Even on successful defensive plays, Gleyber tends to play the ball off to his side. I wouldn't necessarily call it careless, but it's not fundamentally sound. And, in theory, this is easily fixable. The Yankees, specifically infield instructor Carlos Mendoza, can work with Torres to get in front of the ball rather than play if off to his side, which is presumably his natural instinct. This isn't like trying to improve Miguel Andujar's defense, where he might not have the physical tools to get better. In Gleyber's case, it's more about fighting that natural urge to ole the ball, and instead get in front of it. It could save Torres a handful of errors per season and maybe some extra bases as well, because when he misses a ball off to his side and it gets by him, a runner could go first-to-third or second-to-home. When he gets in front of a ball and boots it, he can still knock it down and potentially stop that runner from taking the extra base. Playing the ball to the side is a bad habit more than anything, and I hope this incredibly talented 22-year-old corrects it soon. An infielder getting in front of the ball is Defense 101.

8. Seigler's season. Catcher Anthony Seigler, last year's first round pick, is done for the season with a fractured kneecap. Brendan Kuty says Seigler was hit by a foul tip, Lindsey Adler says it was a cross-up. Either way, Seigler's season is over. He has now suffered three significant injuries in his 14 months as a professional ballplayer:

• Season-ending concussion in August 2018.
• Quad strain in Spring Training 2019.
• Fractured kneecap in July 2019.

That's a real bummer. Granted, the concussion (foul tip) and the broken kneecap (foul tip or cross-up) are fluky things that could happen to any catcher, but it's still a bummer. Around the injuries Seigler authored a .175/.328/.206 (74 wRC+) batting line with three extra-base hits (all doubles) in 30 games with Low-A Charleston this year. Ouch. On top of that, Josh Norris recently passed along word the "reviews have not been particularly positive on either offense or defense." All things considered, this was a pretty terrible first full pro season for last year's first round pick. Keith Law summed up my thoughts on Seigler in a recent chat:

Three major injuries in 13 months, and he’ll finish this year with just 54 pro games since he signed. He has ability but he needs at bats he hasn’t getting, and catchers who get hurt a lot are worrisome  propositions. 

Pretty much. It's easy -- very easy -- to be discouraged by Seigler's season, and I'm not going to pretend everything is fine, but the kid turned only 20 in June and catcher development is rarely linear. There are usually bumps in the road. More than anything, Seigler needs to get healthy and stay healthy, and pile up at-bats and defensive innings. Hopefully the kneecap heals well over the winter and he can be a full player come Spring Training, then get a full 500-ish plate appearances with Low-A Charleston next year. What a rough start to Seigler's career though. The injuries have been brutal.

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