June 25th, 2019: Torres, Maybin, Happ, Paxton, Chapman, All-Stars, Prospects, London

The season is 78 games old and the Yankees have received a combined 325 plate appearances and +1.8 WAR from Didi Gregorius, Aaron Hicks, Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton. Those four were worth +18.4 WAR last season. Somehow the Yankees are still five games up in the AL East. Pretty great. Can't wait for everyone to get locked in. Here are today's thoughts.

1. Gleyber's greatness. Folks, Gleyber Torres is a 22-year-old middle infielder and he's hitting .285/.350/.539 (130 wRC+) with 18 home runs. He is on pace for 37 home runs. The Yankees have not had an infielder hit 35+ homers since Mark Teixeira hit 39 in 2011. They haven't had a non-first base infielder hit 35+ homers since Alex Rodriguez hit 54 in 2007. They haven't had a middle infielder hit 35+ homers since Alfonso Soriano hit 38 in 2003. Gleyber is on pace to do it this year. Yes, the ball is juiced to the gills, and yes, Torres plays his home games in homer happy Yankee Stadium, but hot damn. The kid is becoming a superstar right before our eyes. Know what else is exciting? This:

• Torres vs. non-fastballs in 2018: 38.4% whiffs-per-swing (.293 xwOBA)
• Torres vs. non-fastballs in 2019: 28.3% whiffs-per-swing (.322 xwOBA)

Gleyber's numbers against fastballs are mostly unchanged (26.1% and .374 vs. 26.5% and .370), but he's made some very nice gains against breaking balls and offspeed pitches this season. He's cut his whiffs-per-swing rate by roughly a quarter and he's added about 30 points in expected wOBA given the quality of his contact. That is all very encouraging. Torres is gaining experience and that, along with natural development and progression, is leading to improved results on the field. "I'm a little bit older right now. I still learn, but I'm a little bit mature. For sure, I know the pitchers a little bit, too. I faced them last year. I know a little bit about that," Torres told Randy Miller over the weekend. Recent extensions for players with 1-2 years of service time have run in the $5M to $6M range, annually. That's what Ozzie Albies and Ketel Marte received. If the Yankees can lock Torres in for six or seven years and something like $6M to $7M per season this winter, they should jump all over that. He is a budding megastar, and the sooner they sign him, the more it helps the all-important luxury tax situation down the road. Either way, Gleyber is under team control through 2024, and I think he will be the Yankees' best player no later than 12 months from today. Not because Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton and Gary Sanchez and everyone else will decline, but because Torres will be that damn good.

2. Maybin's injury. The seven-man bullpen/four-man bench lasted exactly three innings. Don't these things always manage to work themselves out? Always and forever. Cameron Maybin is out with a calf strain -- Lindsey Adler says he's expected to miss six weeks -- and Aaron Boone said Maybin first felt something chasing a ball down in the outfield last Friday, the day after surviving the Aaron Judge roster cut. Then, when he was running the bases later in the game, Maybin felt a pop in the calf, and that was that. The Yankees used the injured list stint to recall Nestor Cortes before his ten days in the minors were up, so it's back to an eight-man bullpen and a three-man bench. So it goes. Maybin will remain with the Yankees until it's time to ramp up his rehab work -- "I'm the hype man now," he told Adler when asked about his role -- and he'll hit ten full years of service time during this injured list stint, locking in the full pension and various other benefits. I doubt Maybin wanted to reach ten years like this, but getting to ten years was not a given coming into the season, so at least he'll get there now. Give the Yankees a truth serum and I think they would tell you they'd love to be able to stash Maybin (and Kendrys Morales?) on the injured list until rosters expand on September 1st, though that doesn't seem realistic given his timetable. They'll have to make a decision about his roster spot sometime in early August. Worry about that when the times comes. For now, it stinks the Yankees have lost yet another productive player to injury, but at least Maybin remains in the organization and will stay around the team to provide support. That's not nothing. Pretty amazing how quickly this roster crunch took care of itself, huh? It's uncanny.

3. Happ's struggles. J.A. Happ stinks out loud. Halfway through his season he has a 5.23 ERA (5.48 FIP) with the 16th lowest strikeout rate (18.6%) and the second highest home run rate (2.13 HR/9) among the 83 pitchers with enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. Pretty much the only positive is his much better than average 5.4% walk rate. So far this season opponents are hitting .268/.314/.494 against Happ, which is dangerously close to 2018 Didi Gregorius (.268/.335/.494). Seems bad. It is bad! Happ has been bad this year. Very bad. The eye test says Happ's stuff is flat and the numbers test is ugly:

Happ's fastball, the pitch he has relied on heavily for his success the last five years or so, is down a full mile-an-hour this year. Opponents have put up an expected .377 wOBA against Happ's four-seamer this year based on exit velocity and launch angle and all that, up from .325 last year and .309 the year before. A 36-year-old pitcher losing something off his fastball is in no way uncommon, and it is especially problematic when the pitcher leans on his heater as much as Happ. The rest of his arsenal (sinker, slider, changeup) isn't good enough to compensate, obviously. Happ needs to make an adjustment to have success at this point, similar to adjustments CC Sabathia and Mike Mussina made when they lost their good heater. The problem? It took Sabathia and Mussina years to make those adjustments and those dudes are Hall of Fame caliber talents. That doesn't mean Happ can't figure something out between starts and have success going forward. It just means it's really unlikely. The good news is this weekend's London trip and the upcoming All-Star break allow the Yankees to avoid Happ the next few weeks. They'll need him to make one start sometime next week and that's it between now and July 16th. He is needed once in the next 14 days. I would bet against the Yankees limiting Happ's work that much, but they should do it. He puts them in a hole seemingly every start. “I just think I’ve been a little inconsistent. That’s certainly fair to say. I felt good about some (starts), and I felt like I could’ve been a lot better in (others). Over the last few years, I’ve been more consistent than I’ve been this year. I’m trying to nail that down and be more consistent for the team. Be somebody that we definitely can rely on ... I can execute better. I know that much," Happ told Ken Davidoff following his disaster start Sunday.

4. Trading Happ. I know the Yankees will focus on adding a starter(s) at the trade deadline, but what about trading Happ? Is it even possible? The Reds (per Ken Rosenthal), Angels (via Jeff Fletcher), and Phillies (via Matt Gelb) all tried to sign Happ over the winter, with Cincinnati reportedly willing to offer three guaranteed years. Any chance one of those teams wants him now? And, if yes, is there even a deal that makes sense? As poorly as Happ has pitched this year, the Yankees aren't in position to give away pitching depth. A straight salary dump might be a good idea in the big picture, but giving away a starter could hurt in the short-term. The Angels have a few interesting starters (Tyler Skaggs, Andrew Heaney) so maybe there's a Happ plus more for Skaggs or Heaney trade to be made. The Brewers make sense on paper given their desperate need for rotation help, though their $112.5M Opening Day payroll was the highest in franchise history (by a lot). Even with nearly $30M coming off the books after the season and all their best players locked up long-term, I don't think Milwaukee would be interested in taking on Happ's contract. My trade proposal sucks: Happ for Alex Wood, straight up. Wood went to the Reds in the Yasiel Puig/Matt Kemp trade and has been out all season with back trouble. He is set to begin a minor league rehab assignment later this week but is still a few weeks away from rejoining the rotation. Cincinnati is only four games behind the second Wild Card spot! They're in the race. As noted earlier, they had interest in Happ over the winter. Trading Wood for Happ gives the Reds a healthy starter they could plug into their rotation right now to help their postseason push. No more waiting around. The downside is the money, obviously. Happ makes $7.75M more than Wood this year, which is a gap that would have to be bridged, plus there's another $17M next year. Cincinnati has almost $70M (!) coming off the books after the season, though they will have to replace several key players (Puig, Scooter Gennett, Tanner Roark, etc.), so that $70M doesn't necessarily mean they can easily absorb Happ's contract. As for the Yankees, the trade nets them a lefty who fits their anti-fastball philosophy (Wood threw 43.0% fastballs last year) and has a history of missing bats (23.4% strikeouts from 2016-18) and getting grounders (51.3%). I mentioned in the previous point that the Yankees can avoid Happ's rotation spot the next few weeks, which makes it a little easier to get by while Wood is on his rehab assignment. The downside is what, starting an unreliable lefty every fifth day (exactly what the Yankees are doing with Happ now) and freeing up money when Wood becomes a free agent after the season? Well, no, the downside is Wood suffers a setback and doesn't pitch at all this year, but I think you catch my drift. I doubt the Reds go for it because Happ's contract is onerous for a small market team (I can't imagine the Yankees would be eager to eat money to facilitate a trade) and because Wood is inching closer a return. They've waited this long, so what's another two or three weeks? Anyway, that's my dumb idea. It (probably) won't happen, but unloading Happ should be a consideration. It could be addition by subtraction.

5. Paxton's fastball. Since returning from the injured list James Paxton has looked ... off. He's been mostly fine aside from the disaster start against the Mets (2.75 ERA in the other four starts), though he's still ... off. I can't really explain it. First of all, Paxton's fastball velocity was down when he first returned. The obligatory graph:

Paxton's velocity has ticked back up the last two times out, so that's good. Maybe he just needed to rebuild arm strength? He didn't go on a proper minor league rehab assignment, remember. Paxton did his rehab work in simulated games and threw a few innings in an Extended Spring Training game, and that was it. In addition to the dip in velocity, Paxton has struggled locating his fastball as well. There is no good way to measure location or command, but we can look at zone rate, and here is his fastball zone rate by start:

Paxton sat around 60% with his fastball zone rate before the injury (it sat between 58.9% and 60.3% annually from 2016-18) and it's down below 50% since the injury, including close to 40% during that start against the Mets. That matches the eye test. Paxton has consistently missed the mitt with his fastball since coming back. Perhaps that is related to the dip in velocity. He could be overthrowing to generate velocity, leading to poor location. It happens. Or maybe the knee is still giving him problems? Remember, Paxton admitted he still had discomfort in his left (push off) knee after throwing in that Extended Spring Training Game. "I felt it a little bit, but I still was able to make my pitches, which is what I wanted to see," he told Mark Didtler at the time. It could be the knee is still bothering him and leading to what looks like poor location. Whatever it is, Paxton doesn't seem to be where he was prior to the injury, even if the results have been fine overall. The Yankees have a light schedule coming up between London and the All-Star break -- ten games in the next 17 days! -- so hopefully the extra rest gets Paxton back on track and he gets back to dominating rather than grinding through starts.

6. Chapman's durability. The Cardinals announced yesterday that hard-throwing closer Jordan Hicks has a torn ulnar collateral ligament, so presumably he will soon undergo Tommy John surgery. It's a bummer. Hicks is fun and I am pro-fun. I bring this up only because it's a reminder how crazy it is that Aroldis Chapman has not suffered a major arm injury in his career. It kinda sorta seems like we've reached the limit of what the human arm can withstand in terms of velocity. Hicks averaged -- averaged -- 101.7 mph with his fastball last year and topped out at 104.5 mph. This year it was 102.6 mph (!) and 104.6 mph, respectively. That is bonkers velocity, and Hicks' elbow just said nope, this is too much. We have reliable pitch tracking data back to 2008. Here is the league average fastball velocity by year:

2008: 91.8 mph
2009: 92.2 mph
2010: 92.4 mph
2011: 92.7 mph
2012: 92.8 mph
2013: 93.0 mph
2014: 93.2 mph
2015: 93.4 mph
2016: 93.5 mph
2017: 93.5 mph
2018: 93.6 mph
2019: 93.7 mph

There was a steady rise from 2008-15 that saw the league average increase by 1.6 mph. That's an average increase of 0.2 mph per year. Since 2015 though, the league average has increased only 0.3 mph total. So that's 0.2 mph each year for eight years to 0.3 mph total across five years. The league-wide increase in velocity has definitely slowed, which lends some credence to the whole " reached the limit of what the human arm can withstand in terms of velocity" thing I mentioned earlier. And again, I bring up Hicks only because it is a reminder that Chapman has been freakishly durable. He missed a month with shoulder inflammation in 2011 and a month with shoulder inflammation in 2017, and that's it. His arm has been healthy otherwise. The term "freak of nature" is overused these days but Chapman is a true freak of nature, and I mean that as a compliment. It's not just that he threw harder than anyone in baseball history at his peak, it's that he did it while basically never getting hurt. The list of guys who've been able to do that is very short. Chapman, Randy Johnson, Nolan Ryan, Justin Verlander ... that's pretty much it.

7. All-Stars. The All-Star Game rosters will be announced in a few days. Specifically, the starters will be named Thursday night (7pm ET), with the rest of the rosters set to be revealed Sunday (5:30pm ET). MLB announced the three finalists at each position last week and six Yankees made it to the second round of the voting, including the entire infield. The list:

C: Gary Sanchez (vs. Robinson Chirinos and James McCann)
1B: Luke Voit (vs. C.J. Cron and Carlos Santana)
2B: DJ LeMahieu (vs. Jose Altuve and Tommy La Stella)
SS: Gleyber Torres (vs. Carlos Correa and Jorge Polanco)
3B: Gio Urshela (vs. Alex Bregman and Hunter Dozier)
OF: Aaron Judge (vs. eight others)

Man, Francisco Lindor isn't among the finalists at shortstop? The All-Star Game is in Cleveland! Way to show up, Indians fans. Anyway, that's six finalists for the Yankees. The second voting phase runs from 12pm ET tomorrow to 4pm ET on Thursday. It's a 28-hour mad dash. Since this is my last post before the All-Star starters are named, I figured I'd offer up one last Yankees prediction. I am sticking with five All-Stars: LeMahieu, Sanchez, Torres, Voit, and Aroldis Chapman. Five All-Stars is a lot these days, but I think the Yankees can swing it. Sanchez should win this week's voting easily and start the game. Santana could give Voit a run for his money with the Cleveland bump, especially since it's kinda embarrassing Lindor isn't a finalist, but I think Voit wins and starts alongside Gary. LeMahieu and Torres then make it as reserves, with Chapman in the bullpen. The infield logjam is very real. There are 12 (!) non-first base infielders in the American League at +2 WAR already (plus another at +1.9 WAR). Inevitably, some deserving infielders are going to be left on the outside looking in. The advantage LeMahieu and Torres have over guys like Brandon Lowe, Yoan Moncada, and Marcus Semien is that, well, they're Yankees, and they're more well-known. Once upon a time the All-Star Game managers picked the reserves. That's why the Yankees had like nine All-Stars each year from 1999-2002. Joe Torre used to take all his own guys. That's no longer the case. The reserves are selected through a player vote now. Even when an injury replacement is needed, they take whoever is next on the players' ballot. LeMahieu has been so good this year, especially with runners in scoring position (.485/.500/.712) and in high-leverage situations (.522/.536/.739), and the players will eat that up. They'll remember the big hits. Torres has been so good that he'll be hard to ignore. The fact he's a Yankee and was an All-Star last year will help his case. Chapman has everything working for him. Name value, performance, the works. So that is my final official prediction: Chapman, LeMahieu, Sanchez, Torres, and Voit will be all All-Stars. The Home Run Derby participants and Futures Game rosters will be announced next week. I'll chime on them one last time this Friday.

8. Pulaski Yankees. The rookie Pulaski Yankees opened their 2019 season last week and their Opening Day roster was much more fun than Short Season Staten Island's. Righty Yoendrys Gomez, one of my Preseason Not Top 30 Prospects, started Opening Day and struck out eight in five innings of one-run ball. He's got a chance to be really good. Not Deivi Garcia good, but good. Pulaski's outfield is stacked: Anthony Garcia, Ryder Green, and Antonio Cabello (RIP Prospect Watch). That is about as tooled up as it gets. Green, last year's third rounder, is 6-for-20 (.300) with five extra-base hits (two doubles, one triple, two homers) through five games, and he hit for the cycle over the weekend. Garcia is doing Garcia things: 3-for-14 (.214) with eight strikeouts. Cabello had offseason shoulder surgery (he dove for a ball and dislocated his non-throwing shoulder during the final week of last season) but did return to game action in Spring Training. Holding an 18-year-old kid back in Extended Spring Training is in no way uncommon, so I don't know whether that was a developmental decision or to continue his shoulder rehab work. Either way, Cabello is a full go now and he is 4-for-20 (.200) through five games. It'll get better. Give it time. Also, first rounder Anthony Volpe has since been added to the Pulaski roster, though he's yet to appear in a game. The team tweeted a photo of Volpe at the airport yesterday. Including infielder Roberto Chirinos, Pulaski has themselves a fun little roster this year. Cabello and Volpe are the obvious headliners. Chirinos, Garcia, Gomez, and Green are worth following as well. Plus whichever pitchers randomly show up with a huge strikeout rate and an extra 3-4 mph on their fastballs. Happens a few times each year, without fail, especially in this organization.

9. GCL Yankees. The two rookie Gulf Coast League affiliates began play yesterday and their Opening Day rosters are pretty stacked (East, West). The East roster includes outfielder Kevin Alcantara ($1M bonus) and shortstop Alex Vargas ($2.5M bonus), two of last summer's top international signings. (The Yankees signed Vargas away from the Dodgers after adding bonus money in the Adam Warren trade.) FanGraphs gave a glowing write-up on Alcantara prior to the season:

We ranked Alcantara fourth among the 2018 international amateurs because he has some of the group’s more advanced in-game feel to hit, he has a really good chance of not only staying in center field but might also be great there, and he has the best physical projection in the entire class. The more recently a source has seen Alcantara, the nuttier the reports get. Now that he has access to pro-quality athletic facilities, he’s already put on some good weight and has been hitting for more power during batting practice in the Dominican Republic. At one point he hit several BP homers, not just over the outfield fence, but over the fence that encloses the complex itself ... (There) are no early indications that strikeouts are going to be an issue for him. It may take physical maturation and little else to enable a breakout, and the comps industry personnel are placing on Alcantara (Devon White, Dexter Fowler, and Alex Rios to name a few) are very strong.

Righty Denny Larrondo ($550,000 bonus) and catcher Antonio Gomez ($600,000 bonus) are also on that East squad. They are two dudes to watch. As for the West team, second rounder T.J. Sikkema is on the roster, though I imagine he'll only be there for a quick tune-up before joining Short Season Staten Island. A high draft pick who spent three years in the SEC isn't staying in the GCL long. Outfielder Raimfer Salinas is a bit of a forgotten man in the system after missing pretty much all of last year with injuries, but he signed for $1.85M in December 2017 and is a big deal. I ranked him 22nd in my Preseason Top 30 Prospects list. Also, lefty Ronald Roman is on the West team. The Diamondbacks signed him last summer, then traded him to the Yankees for utility man Tim Locastro over the winter, before he ever played a pro game. Seems like a clear case of "we liked him as an amateur but didn't have the bonus pool space to sign him" for the Yankees. I know basically nothing about Roman beyond that, but I'm looking forward to learning more. Real nice group of prospects in the GCL this year.

10. London trip. The Yankees are headed to London this weekend for a quick two-game series with the Red Sox. They're leaving after Wednesday's game and will take part in some MLB events and clinics Thursday and Friday before playing Saturday and Sunday. A few quick notes on the trip. One, the Yankees and Red Sox will have a 26-man active roster for the series, according to Chris Cotillo. They can also bring two other players on the trip in case a roster move is needed, so the traveling party will be 28 players. The one stipulation: 13 pitchers and 13 position players. No ninth reliever. That would seem to be good news for Clint Frazier. Thairo Estrada and Chance Adams make sense as the two taxi squad guys (Adams threw 108 pitches Sunday, so I doubt he gets called up today to replace Jonathan Holder, who was demoted following last night's debacle). “We are trying to zero in on a few guys and what makes the most sense to take advantage of the 26th man and obviously protect yourself with the 27th and 28th if something were to come up. Those are conversations we started having in earnest in the last 12-14 hours," Aaron Boone told George King yesterday. Two, Boone announced yesterday that Masahiro Tanaka will start the first London game. The starter for the second game is still TBA. Gotta be CC Sabathia (on one extra day of rest) over J.A. Happ (on two extra days of rest), right? Right. Giving that start to Happ over Sabathia would be something. (The Yankees would need to use a spot starter tomorrow to push James Paxton into the London series and I don't see that happening after the Nestor Cortes game tonight.) Red Sox manager Alex Cora told Jen McCaffrey they will start Rick Porcello and Eduardo Rodriguez in the two London games. No Chris Sale? Sign me up. And three, here's the London Stadium setup (via @MLB):

That is all foul territory. They're not going to squeeze in more seats on the field. Marly Rivera has the field dimensions: 330 feet down both lines and 385 feet to center field, but with a 16-foot wall. I guess it'll be a normal eight-foot wall elsewhere. Also: Turf. Going to be same playing surface as Tropicana Field and Rogers Centre, apparently. As a reminder, Saturday's game will begin at 1pm ET (6pm in London) and Sunday's game will begin at 10am ET (3pm in London). They'll be on FOX and ESPN, respectively. Should be pretty cool.

(Remember to send your mailbag questions to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)