June 7th, 2019: Keuchel, Frazier, Gregorius, Tanaka, Mariners, All-Stars, 2019 Draft, Mailbag

So, losing those three straight games earlier this week really stunk, huh? Especially that game Tuesday night. Three-run lead in the sixth? That's usually an automatic win given the bullpen. Alas. Those guys are going to have a game like that once in a while. Anyway, here is today's post.

1. Keuchel deal. It is both disappointing and not at all surprising the Yankees missed out on Dallas Keuchel. When presented with the opportunity to spend money and make big upgrades, the Yankees tend to hold back nowadays and settle for The Next Best Thing. Similar to what that dude in Billions said, the Yankees have f*ck you money but aren't willing to say f*ck you. Keuchel agreed to a one-year deal with the Braves yesterday that will pay him $13M the rest of the season, according to Tim Brown. Joel Sherman said the Yankees were willing to give him roughly $11M (the pro-rated qualifying offer) and that's it, which is pretty much the bare minimum "we tried" offer. I've been saying since last year that I wanted no part of Keuchel on a long-term deal. There are too many red flags (declining strikeout and ground ball rates, most notably) and command guys don't age as gracefully as everyone seems to think. ("He'll age like Andy Pettitte," is a common refrain. Well, how many guys actually age like Pettitte?) A one-year deal though? A half-a-year deal though? Sign me the hell up. As I said last week, acquiring Keuchel for cash in early June is better than trading prospects for Madison Bumgarner or whoever in late July. I know the Yankees do not love Keuchel analytically. They're all about their high spin/elevated fastball pitchers and he is decidedly not that. Not everyone needs the organizational stamp though. The Yankees could've had Keuchel for nothing but cash, their single biggest advantage over every other team, and now they'll have to trade from their thinned out farm system to get the help they need. I just do not get it. Then again, the organizational philosophy has shifted from "World Series or bust" to "good enough is good enough," so I'm not surprised. Despite all the injuries, the Yankees have been great this year, and it is fun as hell. I just can't help but be a little disappointed thinking about what this team could've been had they been willing to raise payroll beyond what it was 5-10 years ago, when revenue was a few hundred million dollars lower than it is now. Losing out on Keuchel over a few million is disappointing, frustrating, and par for the course.

2. Trading Clint. Now that the Yankees have to trade for a starting pitcher, I have to think Clint Frazier's name is going to pop up in rumors quite a bit these next few weeks. He's young and he's good -- he stinks at defense, for sure, but he's good overall -- and there is nothing teams want more than young and good. Let me make this perfectly clear: I do not want the Yankees to trade Frazier. It's just that he's their most attractive trade chip. We know the Yankees offered him to the Pirates during Gerrit Cole trade talks last year, and we know Clint didn't exactly endear himself to the higher-ups when he ducked out on reporters last week. It's dumb, I know, but this stuff matters. People care. That move may have hastened his exit. Also, the Yankees are pretty well set in the outfield. Aaron Hicks and Giancarlo Stanton are signed long-term and Aaron Judge is under control another three years beyond this one. The Yankees could keep Frazier and rotate the four outfielders through the DH spot, but don't they have to at least consider cashing him in a trade chip given the roster situation? Remember, bad defensive corner outfielders are a dime a dozen in free agency. Rarely do they offer Frazier's kind of offensive upside, but, if you need a corner outfielder, there's always a Nick Markakis or Avisail Garcia or Adam Jones to be had for $5M or so. I don't want the Yankees to trade Frazier and I don't know that the Yankees will trade Frazier. All I know is we're going to hear a lot about the Yankees possibly trading him now that they missed out on Keuchel. Realistically, who is the pitcher the Yankees trade Clint to acquire that that doesn't leave them saying "you know, we really should've just signed Dallas Keuchel?" It's not rental Madison Bumgarner and it might not be declining, post-broken forearm Corey Kluber either. (I'll believe the Nationals will trade Max Scherzer when I see it, and hard pass on trading for Trevor Bauer. Zero interest in rooting for that dude. I'll take my chances without him.)

3. Didi's back! Sir Didi Gregorius is set to return to the Yankees tonight. He missed 61 games while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and, to be honest, I thought he would end up missing closer to 100 games. To me, Gregorius returning this quickly is pretty much the best case scenario. The sooner he comes back, the sooner he shakes off all the rust, and the longer he can make an impact. And there will be rust. It's inevitable. I mentioned Corey Seager in a post a few weeks ago and it took him about a month to really get into the swing of things. (Seager bottomed out at .233/.317/.339 on May 4th and has hit .292/.373/.583 in 26 games since.) It's not an apples to apples comparison because Seager kinda rushed through Spring Training to get ready for Opening Day, but it is a reminder it could take Gregorius some time to settle in. What can you do? That process has to start at some point and it will start tonight. As for the roster move, the Yankees sent Thairo Estrada to Triple-A following last night's game, and I assume either Troy Tulowitzki or Giancarlo Stanton will be moved to the 60-day injured list to clear a 40-man roster spot. (Both have already been down more than 60 days.) Estrada was great as the utility guy (.280/.321/.521) but the kid needs to play. He has 35 plate appearances in the last 38 days. Thairo missed pretty much all of last season following the whole "got shot during a robbery" thing. He needs to play. He handled himself very well and forced the Yankees to find a way to get him back on the roster as soon as possible. Right now, with Gregorius set to return, Estrada is best served taking what he learned in the big leagues and using it to get better with regular at-bats in Triple-A. Kendrys Morales has been pretty terrible, but the best thing for Thairo's development is actually playing. He'll be back up soon enough. The Summer of Thairo is not a period of time. It's a state of mind.

4. Tanaka's splitter. The season is 61 games old and Masahiro Tanaka is still having issues with his trademark splitter. That Angel Hernandez blown call got a lot of attention the other night and understandably so (video), but that didn't cause Tanaka's problems. The two home runs came on hanging sliders right out over the plate. The Freddy Galvis homer came after he fouled away three straight two-strike splitters. Galvis has one of the highest out-of-zone swing rates (38.0%) and one of the lowest out-of-zone contact rates (52.2%) in baseball. Translation: He swings and misses a ton on pitches outside the strike zone. Yet he fouled away three two-strike splitters before Tanaka hung the slider for a homer. When Tanaka is right, Galvis is walking back to the dugout after the first two-strike splitter. "It’s a priority for me to get that split back ... Not necessarily the location of the pitch. It’s the feel of the pitch, the movement and everything. I feel that’s not there and that needs to be adjusted," Tanaka told Chris Ryan last month. Here are some average splitter movement numbers:

2018 vertical break: +1.52 inches
2019 vertical break: +2.76 inches

2018 horizontal break: -5.82 inches
2019 horizontal break:  -7.19 inches

Those numbers tell us Tanaka's splitter isn't dropping as much as last year -- positive vertical break means the pitch is staying up -- and it's moving in to righties and away from lefties more than last year. More horizontal movement is fine, generally speaking. It's the lack of drop. Long story short, Tanaka's splitter is going more side-to-side this year rather than tumbling down and out of the zone. The numbers confirm what my eyes have been telling me. The whiffs-per-swing rate on Tanaka's splitter the last three years is pretty telling: 38.1% to 36.4% to 17.3%. Yikes. When hitters take a swing at Tanaka's splitter, they're missing less than half as often as last year. That ain't good. Could it be the current baseball is giving him problems? There is some evidence the balls have changed again this year. I dunno. Just spitballing here. Tanaka's so smart and able to self-correct that, when his split wasn't cooperating in April, I assumed he would get it worked out soon enough, certainly sooner than, well, now. Even with the misbehaving splitter, Tanaka is sitting on a 3.42 ERA (4.09 FIP) with a 3.53 K/BB ratio. I can't imagine many guys would pitch that well without their top pitch. Hopefully he gets this splitter business resolved soon. He probably will. The longer this goes on though, the more I worry the pitch just isn't coming back as what it was in the past.

5. Mariners targets. The Mariners are in sell mode. They started 13-2 with a +42 run differential and are 13-38 with a -109 run differential since. That seems impossible. Well, whatever. The Mariners traded Jay Bruce to the Phillies earlier this week and it was a total salary dump. They ate $18M of the $21.5M remaining on his contract and took a 23-year-old High-A utility man in return. A non-prospect, basically. Bruce had limited value as a one-tool (power) player so Seattle saved as much money as they could, and that was that. Soon after the Bruce trade Jeff Passan reported the Mariners are looking to trade pretty much every veteran on their roster, and they're willing to eat money to do it. So, naturally, I looked at their roster to see whether anyone could fit the Yankees, and yikes. There's not much. Some possibilities:

• Edwin Encarnacion: If Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton continue having injury troubles, renting Encarnacion for DH duty would have to be a consideration.
• Felix Hernandez: He's hurt and bad now. It's been five years since Felix was an attractive trade target. Plus, I'm not sure Seattle would trade a franchise icon anyway.
• Mike Leake: A league average-ish innings eater has value. Not sure a guy with a 2.0 HR/9 is a fit in Yankee Stadium though. Leake is signed through next year.
• Kyle Seager: Stopped hitting and bringing in a third baseman signed through 2021 doesn't make sense with Miguel Andujar, Thairo Estrada, and Gio Urshela in-house.

Catcher Omar Narvaez could interest the Yankees. He's hitting .282/.360/.460 (126 wRC+) this year after hitting .275/.366/.429 (122 wRC+) last year, and he's on the heavy side of the platoon as a lefty hitter. The downside is he is just an awful defender who can't thrown (20% caught stealing rate) or frame (-18.9 runs since 2017). The 27-year-old Narvaez is under team control through 2021 and, in theory, the Yankees could bring him in to replace impending free agent Austin Romine as the backup catcher. In reality, the Yankees love Romine, and I don't see them making a trade to replace him midseason. Also, Narvaez is one of the few Mariners worth keeping around. They traded Alex Colome to get him over the winter and Colome's a pretty good reliever. I doubt Seattle looks to salary dump a productive and controllable catcher, so while Narvaez fits, he's probably not a realistic target. Point is, the Mariners don't have a whole lot to offer the Yankees for their specific needs. Definitely keep Encarnacion in mind in case the Judge and Stanton injuries linger, which I know we all hope will not be the case. Leake can not be your No. 1 pitching acquisition, but maybe he could be this year's depth starter pickup a la 2017 Jaime Garcia and 2018 Lance Lynn? I guess it depends on the price. Either way, he gets a great big meh from me. The Mariners are open for business but there's not much to see here. You don't lose 38 of your last 51 games and get outscored by two runs a game by having an abundance of good players, after all.

6. All-Stars. Might as well re-up the All-Star Game discussion. Two weeks ago I said I expected Aroldis Chapman, Domingo German, Gary Sanchez, and Gleyber Torres to represent the Yankees at the All-Star Game. My updated All-Star Game projection: Chapman, Sanchez, DJ LeMahieu, and Luke Voit. German has labored the last few times out and he's no longer among the league leaders in, well, pretty much anything. That bumps him out. As for Torres, he is having an All-Star season, but shortstop is stacked in the American League. I assume Francisco Lindor will win the fan vote with the All-Star Game in Cleveland (and I am totally cool with that). Then there's Tim Anderson, Xander Bogaerts, Carlos Correa, and Jorge Polanco. They all deserve to be there. (Correa's hurt and that could cost him an All-Star Game spot.) Gleyber has been great this year. The shortstop position is so loaded this year that several deserving players will be left on the outside looking in. Right now I have Torres as one of them. Voit jumps into the All-Star Game picture because the first base position is very weak in the so-called Junior Circuit. Voit and Carlos Santana are heads and shoulders above everyone else. Voit goes. Even if Jose Altuve does not win the fan voting at second base -- Altuve has been on the injured list since May 11 -- there are still guys like Tommy La Stella, Brandon Lowe, and White Merrifield who deserve All-Star consideration. This is a roster crunch I think the Yankee survives. LeMahieu has been so good and he's been arguably the best player on a first place team. Lowe has slowed down since his big April and Merrifield is playing more right field than second base these days. (By next week he'll have played more games in right than at second.) My guess is LeMahieu would happily give his All-Star Game roster spot to Torres so he could instead spend the week chilling out. It doesn't work like that though. Anyway, that is my latest All-Star Game projection: Chapman, LeMahieu, Sanchez, and Voit. We'll check back in two weeks and see where things stand.

7. Leiter's kid. The Yankees did eventually draft Jack Leiter, Al's kid, earlier this week. They took him in the 20th round. Had he been considerable signable, Leiter would have been a surefire first round pick. Here is a snippet of MLB.com's scouting report:

From a velocity standpoint, Leiter often utilizes an average fastball, thrown in the 91-92 mph range, though he can go get 94-95 mph when he needs it. It plays up because he throws it with some sink and has outstanding command of the pitch. He has shown distinct breaking balls in the past, though he's been leaning on the curve more frequently this spring, and it was a true knee-buckling out pitch during his NHSI win. He has feel for a solid changeup as well, even if he doesn't need it much at his current level ... Leiter is much more advanced than most high schoolers in terms of his feel for pitching and command, he presents himself more like a polished college starter.

For what it's worth, Jack Curry says Al told teams Jack is definitely going to Vanderbilt. Could be a negotiating ploy, sure, but the math doesn't check out. The Yankees would have to cut several extreme underslot deals in rounds 2-10 to have enough bonus pool space to sign Leiter and the players they picked in those rounds aren't signing that cheap. Leiter and first rounder Anthony Volpe are high school teammates, so maybe Volpe can convince Jack to turn pro as part of a package deal. Or maybe Leiter is willing to take a big haircut financially because his father banked nearly $70M as a player (plus plenty more as a broadcaster and analyst). I can't see it though. It always seemed likely Leiter would go to school and being drafted in the 20th round doesn't change things. The Yankees took Leiter for two reasons. One, there is a 0.01% or so chance he changes his mind and decides to turn pro, and the Yankees control his rights. And two, the Yankees are letting Leiter know they like him and want him to keep them in mind down the road. Building that relationship is not nothing. "In the 20th round, I'm weighing my odds there; that less-than-1% chance or those relationships, they're worth it at that point. Jack is going to be a draft-eligible sophomore in two years, and the idea that the Yankees will have been a big part of his graduating from high school and moving on, it could help us out with information at that point, access to him at that point, stuff like that. There's a time where there are relationships that are built through some of this," scouting director Damon Oppenheimer told Mark Feinsand about the Leiter selection. These big name Day Three draft picks are always exciting. They almost never sign though, and I have no reason to believe Leiter will buck that trend.

8. 2019 Draft. I wrote about the Yankees' Day One picks earlier this week. As for the rest of the draft, the Yankees picked several live-armed pitchers in the late rounds, and will turn them over to their player development machine. They've had a lot of success doing that in recent years. No reason not to go back to the well. You can see all the team's 2019 draft picks here. Here are a few names that stand out to me (draft round in parenthesis):

• St. Mary's LHP Ken Waldichuk (5th): A 6-foot-4 lefty with a low-90s fastball, a good curveball, two other secondary pitches, and pitchability. Jordan Montgomery-esque.
• South Alabama RHP Zach Greene (8th): College reliever with three pitches, including a mid-90s fastball and a good slider. I bet the Yankees try him in the rotation.
• Nevada LHP Ryan Anderson (12th): Big (6-foot-6) with a whippy arm, good velocity, and a very good breaking ball. Needs refinement, but the raw tools are intriguing.
• Cal State Bakersfield LHP Edgar Barclay (15th): Lefty reliever with mid-90s gas and a high-spin curveball. Expect big strikeout numbers during his pro debut this summer.
• Vanderbilt OF Pat DeMarco (17th): Brooklyn kid with power with a great glove. The Yankees drafted him out of high school and, after being drafted low as a draft-eligible sophomore, DeMarco may return to Vandy for his junior year.
• Texas JuCo LHP Garrett Van Zijll (22nd): Low-90s fastball and a bat-missing slider. He missed several years while battling Lyme Disease, so Van Zijll's a feel-good story.

The Yankees drafted 41 players this year and 31 of the 41 are college players, including 26 of their top 29 picks. Once upon a time, that would've been noteworthy. It is not at all unique these days though. As Jared Diamond and Tom McGinty wrote earlier this week, there are fewer high school players being drafted now than at any other point in draft history. Teams rely on analytics heavily and college players are much easier to project than high schoolers. Also, in the draft pool era, you can no longer buy late round high school kids away from college with an overslot bonus. Or, rather, it's not as easy to buy them away from school. All that has resulted in college-heavy draft classes. Day Two and Day Three of the draft were pretty normal. Usual mix of college kids with good arms and shot in the dark high schoolers (like Leiter). I was hoping the Yankees would go after a little more upside on Day One given the extra pick (acquired in the Sonny Gray trade) and extra bonus pool money. Anthony Volpe and T.J. Sikkema are fine prospects, to be sure. It just seems to me the Yankees are putting a lot of stock in Volpe's makeup and work ethic, and are counting on their player development folks to help Sikkema improve. That early in the draft, I was hoping for guys with louder tools and a higher perceived ceiling. What do I know though.

Mailbag Question of the Week

Andrew asks: We all know that Gary Sanchez has been far and beyond the best hitting catcher in baseball and his blocking has improved but looking at these BP leaderboards, it seems like he’s been a bad defensive catcher overall. It doesn’t seem to pass the eye test. Is there anything you can point to that state otherwise? 

The eye test tells me Sanchez has been much better defensively this year than last year. He had some weird throwing issues very early in the season that have since been cleaned up. Sanchez has allowed 14 passed pitches (ten wild pitches and four passed balls) in 299.2 innings, or one every 21.4 innings. Last year it was one passed pitch every 8.9 innings. Huge improvement there (albeit in a small sample).

Looking at the numbers, Gary's defensive decline is tied up almost entirely in his pitch-framing. His framing was worth +7.7 runs in 2017 and +3.3 runs in 2018. This year he's at -6.2 runs. Steven wrote about this at Views from 314 Ft. just yesterday. I can't find it now, but within the last year or two Jeff Sullivan wrote about the correlation between framing and passed pitches. Simply put, the best framers also let the most pitches sneak by.

The numbers are the numbers, they are the factual record of what happened on the field, but intuitively this make sense. Guys focus on receiving the pitch and moving their glove in such a way to present it as a strike. Sometimes they move their glove imprecisely and clank, passed ball. Gary went from good framer/bad blocker the last two years to bad framer/good blocker this year. Hmmm.

Is it better to be a good framer or a good blocker? I guess it depends on the situation. There are times stealing that strike is more valuable than keeping the ball in front of you, and vice versa. Sanchez is allowing passed pitches at a much lower rate than last year, so he looks better defensively. Is it worth it if he's not framing as well? The numbers say no, but let's give it some time. Perhaps Gary can find the sweet spot between good framer and good blocker.

Bonus Mailbag Question of the Week

Anonymous asks: Can you talk about Breyvic Valera for a second? They claimed him off waivers from the Giants and he's done nothing but mash since joining Scranton. He has an OPS over 1.300 and has cut his ground-ball rate dramatically. I know the Yankees are pretty stacked on the infield at the major-league level, but is there any way he could get a look in the future? 

We have two good mailbag questions this week and I'm a Valera fan, so I figured I'd throw in a bonus mailbag question. I said I was irrationally excited about the Valera pickup when it was made a few weeks ago and he's making me look smart. Doesn't happen often. I appreciate that, Breyvic. My man is hitting .421/.491/.803 (223 wRC+) with seven homers and more walks (ten) than strikeouts (nine) in 22 games with Triple-A Scranton.

Those seven homers with the RailRiders are two fewer than Valera's previous full season career high set last year. He's spent parts of the last four seasons in Triple-A and his current 34.4% ground ball rate is his lowest at the level. The numbers:

• 2016: 51.5% in 73 Triple-A games
• 2017: 41.8% in 117 Triple-A games
• 2018:  39.1% in 94 Triple-A games
• 2019: 34.4% in 22 games with Triple-A Scranton

As far as I can tell, no one has spoken to Valera about his monster showing with Scranton and whether he's made any mechanical changes. To be honest, I chalk this up to small sample size noise right now. He doesn't even have 100 plate appearances with the RailRiders and they are using the juiced ball in Triple-A, so numbers are all out of whack.

With Didi Gregorius returning tonight and Thairo Estrada having already been optioned to Triple-A, that infield call-up depth chart presumably looks like this:

1. Thairo Estrada
2. Tyler Wade
3. Breyvic Valera

I like Valera as a possible utility guy. He switch-hits, he never strikes out, and he's played all over the field. Useful guy to have stashed in Triple-A. Next year MLB is going to the 26-man/13-pitcher roster, which means an extra bench spot. Valera and Wade are both in their final minor league option year and chances are there will only be room for one next year. Heck, there might not be room for either.

As good as he's been with the RailRiders, my guess is Valera is closer to being cut from the 40-man roster than he is being called up to the big leagues. Estrada and (probably) Wade are ahead of him on the infield call-up depth chart. I think it would take another few injuries to get Breyvic to the Bronx and no one wants that. He's been great so far, and, if he continues to be great, it'll force the Yankees to consider a call-up. For now, I'm in wait and see mode.

(Send mailbag questions to RABmailbag (at) gmail (dot) com.)