Guess Who?
Four days now, sports fans, four days until the day. It is a day akin to Christmas Day, nay, better. On that day the best franchise known to man opens another season of the best sport ever contrived. Opening Day is going to be especially awesome because I will actually be there. So yeah, I’m excited.
Here’s a preview of a team who is opening their season before Opening Day (Because it isn’t Opening Day unless the Redlegs are playing).
It’s kind of a historical team. You might have heard of em, they’ve won the last game of the year more than a handful of times (too soon, Bill Beane?). They’ve also had arguably three of the best baseball players ever wear their uniform. Still not sure who I’m talking about? How about I profile this year’s team and you tell me who this is.
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Lots of youngsters with one or two veteran holdovers in the lineup
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One old pitcher, one oft-injured pitcher, and one up and coming pitcher anchor the rotation
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A highly touted middle infield prospect that is currently blocked by a not-that old, solid vet
Guesses, anybody?
If you said the Baltimore Orioles, you’d have been right 116 years ago (look it up). Today they are known as the New York Yankees.
The 2017 season marks the first year of committing to rebuilding the Bronx Bombers. Don’t get too excited, Yankee-haters, a rebuild for a franchise this flush with cash is practically a six month operation. With that in mind, the Yanks have the #2 farm system in baseball, according to MLB.com Pipeline’s rankings. Those same folks also say the #3 ranked prospect in the game wears Pinstripes in former Cub prospect, Gleybar Torres. (Side note, that’s what loaded owners get you in baseball: you trade away a high-profile loaner of a closer for a top 5, overall, prospect and then turn around a resign that closer in the offseason, but I digress.) So as rebuilds go, this one started half-way done.
Look out for Gary Sanchez, too. Heard it here first.
Assuming all are healthy, let’s check out my amateur opinion’s projected lineup:
Leadoff hitter – Brett Gardner /OF
Put the ole wiley vet in front. Got on-base a lot last year (.351 to be exact) and struck out just 16% of the time. While Fangraphs predicts an uptick to 18%, Gardner will be reliably consistent with a walk rate around 11%. His ability to be on base will prove invaluable for the next man up…
The Sabremetrician’s Favorite Spot – Gary Sanchez C
I am fully ensconced on the Gary Sanchez hype train. Kid had a 1.032 OPS in 201 at-bats and put together a 3.2 WAR in 53 games. Many Yankee-centric outlets gush about this kid, and I can’t argue. Blah, blah, small sample size, blah, blah. Sanchez is going to be the reason, not the exception, to any amount of success the Yankees squeeze out of 2017.
A Garish Bopper – Matt Holliday DH
The man is past due, I get it. St. Louis threw him overboard after two straight years of sub-one WAR performances. I see one number that says comeback, to some degree, for Mr. Holliday though: his BABIP. Last year he had a head-scratchingly low .253 average on ball in play. His career average, you ask? How about .333? That’s right folks, we have a discrepancy of 80 points. In fact, his best year, 2010, when he posted a WAR of 6.9, his BABIP was .331. Mattsy is going to hit in GABP East and the Yankees will benefit from it.
Cleanup on Aisle Four – Greg Bird
Joe Girardi named this kid the starting first baseman back on March 22nd and with good reason. He isn’t quite as talked about as Sanchez, but if you’re boorish on Adam Duvall’s spring homer total, see Bird, Gregory. Dude has seven dingers. Bird has also drawn the most walks on the team and sports the most hits for the Yankees this spring. I’m not confident with his sample size, but in his 178 ABs in 2015, Bird had a .268 isolated power leading to a .529 slugging percentage. The strikeout rate is something to keep a watchful eye on, if I’m Girardi, but his power should make for a solid slot in between Holliday and…
High Five Guy – Didi Gregorious
Remember this guy? Missed beating out Cozart to the Bigs by that much. Didi-bird (If that isn’t his nickname, I call dibs on creating the hoopla) hit 20 bombs and totaled 2.7 WAR in 2016. Fangraphs’ consensus prediction seems to see an uptick in walk rate, boosting his projected OBP to somewhere around .315. There’s also a possibility Gleybar Torres supplants him…but I’m not a genie, here. Though, my thoughts on Didi-bird’s ability to keep his job now that he’s hurt for a small chunk of the beginning of the season are not good. Torres could take it over, if the Yankees don’t lent too much credence to the whole service time thing.
The Last, Uninspiring Half of the Lineup –
I’m starting to bore myself looking at the rest of these guys, so I’ll save you all the winks and sum it up with some form of order involving Chase Headley/Ronald Torreys, Jacoby Ellsbury, Starlin Castro, and Aaron Judge. The only moderately interesting player to talk about in there is Judge, but he’s a mixed bag of hype and no-production-to-date. Now on to something much more interesting…
PITCHING
This is, possibly, one of the most interesting things I will be watching this year when I catch the Yankees on TV. (Wait, the Yankees do get to play on National TV sometimes, right?) They are not deep. Beyond Opening Day starter Masahiro Tanaka and up-and-comer Luis Severino, there are some question marks. Not that you aren’t sure what you’re going to get from C.C. Sabathia at this point, it’s whether this Yankee squad can handle what they’ll get from ole Sabathia’s golden arm. Can Michael Pineda stay healthy? He’s almost Homer Bailey. Almost, because he actually pitched all of last year. But he’s a case…
Michael Pineda’s 2016 was interesting. He set career highs in starts (32), innings pitched (175.2), strikeouts (207, losses (12), and homers allowed (27). Three out of five ain’t bad, though, right? He struck out 10 batters per nine innings he pitched, but he held an ERA of 4.82. What was most baffling was what he did when he was about to walk in to the dugout. With two outs, opposing hitters had a .980 OPS against him. What’s worse is 13 of his 27 home runs allowed came with two outs.
Luis Severino was named the fourth starter a few seconds ago as he looks to redeem himself from a lackluster 2016. Severino lost command of his fastball and relegated himself to just a combo of fastballs and sliders, spelling doom to his effectiveness as a starter. FIP seems to think he shouldn’t have done as bad as his 5.83 ERA, but not much better than that. In fact, his first campaign in the rotation in 2015 saw a discrepancy in FIP and ERA, but the other way. Severino tossed 62.1 innings and held an ERA of 2.89. His compiled FIP, however, seemed to say that was luck, being that it was 4.37. The 23 year old has been working on adding a reliable changeup to his repertoire, but if he cannot reign in his number one, he will be the weak link in a shallow rotation.
The fifth hurler may very well be Bryan Mitchell, or it could be Chad Green, or maybe Luis Cessa. Whoa, two Luis’s’s’s’s in the same rotation? Could be psychedelic.
The ‘Pen
We Reds fans may recall the closer of the Yankees, as he is a dear friend. He did bring Cincinnati the talents of Rookie Davis, but I still can’t help but miss looking at the radar gun every time that glorious Cuban frame curled up and subsequently released in a furious motion plate-ward. So the ninth will be barrels of fun for Yankee fans.
The eighth may be almost as interesting to behold. The setup man to the Cuban Missile throws pretty hard, himself. Since becoming a regular out of the bullpen in 2014, Dellin Betances has averaged no less than 12 strikeouts per nine innings pitched. His totals are 135, 131, and 126, respectively, in the three years of service he’s provided. His FIP has also never breached 2.50 since he began appearing in 70+ games. If a starter can give the Bombers seven innings and maintain a lead, it’s going to be very difficult for opposing teams to regain the scoreboard in the eighth or the ninth with these two fireballers.
If a starter cannot go seven, then there are still a few good options for Girardi. Adam Warren and Tyler Clippard stand at-the-ready for the Yankee’s skipper. Clippard struggled last year, to his standards, but still sported a 3.57 ERA. He was on the unlucky side of the fly ball, though, as 12.7% of all fly balls he allowed made their way over the outfield wall. That’s double the percentage it was in the two seasons prior to 2016. Warren may not have a nice baseball card, but he gives up more ground balls than fly balls, which is essential to success in GABP 2.0. The rest of the bullpen may be more fluid with youngins and no-names looking to prove something.
PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER
All in all, the Yanks have a bright future coming up. Those bullish on the job Bryan Cashman has done say the farm system is similar to that of the 90’s. Most pundits have the Pinstripes around 81 wins…good enough for last in a stacked AL East. I disagree. In my humble, completely idiotic, unprofessional opinion, I see the Yanks making a play at the wildcard. I fear our old pal Didi-bird may lose his job partway through the season to Gleybar Torres, but that’s a good thing for NYC. I know most of you probably loathe the fellows from the Bronx, but maybe this will help if you turn on ESPN one Sunday night during the summer and see them playing the much more hyped gang from Boston. It doesn’t take a sage to predict a generous national broadcasting of Yankees-Red Sox.
Miss you, Aroldis!