Anatomy of a Collapse: How the Yankees Went From Shoo-Ins to Free Fall in the Playoff Race
How much longer is Aaron Boone’s leash after a stretch of terrible play in critical games? (Adam Hunger/AP)
As we mentioned on our recent podcast, the Yankees were in first place in the Wild Card race with a 3-game lead over the second spot on August 27. Fast forward a couple of weeks, and the Yankees are now on the verge of being on the outside looking in after falling into a dead heat with the Red Sox and Blue Jays due to some awful performances against truly bad teams.
Despite the best efforts of stars like Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, and resurgent performances from… not really anyone, the Yankees have melted down over a span of nearly three weeks. Hardly anyone has been reliable, the injury bug has bitten them again (Cole, Taillon, Loaisiga), and the bullpen has been woefully unreliable, with Chad Green alone blowing numerous games during this critically important stretch.
It’s easy to look at this stretch and think that nothing has gone right. One of the reasons that it is easy to do that is because during this stretch nothing has gone right.
The Yankees are 4-12 since their winning streak ended, and in that time they profile as what I would say is a pretty horrible team. Their .250 winning percentage over that time is a 40.5 wins per 162 games pace, which would not make them the worst team of all time, but would put them pretty close (third worst winning percentage since 1900 and worst 162 game record). The Yankees also snuck their worst 13-game stretch ever into this slide (2-11) after having their longest winning streak in six decades.
Why, after looking absolutely unbeatable, have they played so horribly since?
Let’s consult a very simple table.
When a top-5 offense becomes a bottom-5 offense, you don’t win much.
As I mentioned on the podcast, there are a number of things that are not to blame for this collapse. Defense is not to blame. Failure to make productive outs is not to blame. Aaron Boone is not (wholly) to blame (although there are some lineup construction concerns we can get into here). The Yankees have slugged 120 points worse in their last 16 games than they did in the 13 prior. That’s how a 13-0 stretch becomes a 17-12 stretch. The Yankees went from scoring 5.8 runs per game to 3.9 runs per game. That drop in production (1.9 runs per game) is larger than the gap in runs scored per game between Tampa Bay, the league’s best offense, and Pittsburgh, the league’s worst offense (1.7 runs per game). Given that, we should not be all that surprised that the Yankees went from being the best team in baseball to (one of) the worst ones.
So we know that on the surface the Yankees’ offensive numbers have taken a significant hit, but what’s behind that? BABIP appears to have some pretty good explanatory power here. During the futile stretch, the Yankees are 28th in the league in BABIP in spite of being fifth in the league in average exit velocity, ninth in barrel rate, and third in hard-hit rate. All of the teams around them in these stats (Toronto, Houston, Boston, Tampa, etc.) have incredibly good offensive numbers (and records) during this time, because those peripherals are very strong. Fangraphs doesn’t provide expected stats (xBA, xSLG, xwOBA) by team, so it’s a bit more difficult to quantify just how unlucky the Yankees are getting, but the quality of contact stats suggest that there is a significant component of bad luck contributing to this poor stretch.
With that said, there are certain offensive moves that the Yankees are not making that have obviously hurt them during this stretch. Luke Voit only has seven starts and 36 PA in the futile stretch. He has not set the world on fire (or even come close to doing so) in those 36 PA, but we know what regular playing time tends to do for a player’s production, and he is not getting that regular playing time. Brett Gardner, Andrew Velazquez, Rougned Odor, and Tyler Wade have combined for more than twice as many PA as Voit. It’s puzzling that Boone has been so unwilling to put him on the field.
Does Luke Voit necessarily carry the offense over the past couple of weeks if he is in there? No. Have we seen him do it before? Yes. Is he absolutely too good to be kept out of the lineup at such a critical time? Yes.
Look, I know what you’re thinking. “Every loss is Chad Green’s fault and Will is an idiot for saying he still trusts him on the most recent Yankees Files Podcast, the best baseball podcast on the entire internet.”
Let’s take a look at the pitching statistics over the two stretches.
The pitching staff has gotten a bit unlucky during the recent stretch, but this is disgusting.
The Yankees had the best pitching staff in the American League by both fWAR and ERA during the 13-game win streak. The combination of that dominance on the mound and their potent offensive attack was deadly, and it showed.
Unfortunately, the pitching and hitting have regressed to the mean at the same time. The staff, by most metrics, has ranked in the bottom third of the league since August 28, and some normally-reliable performers are either unavailable or just bad.
Jonathan Loaisiga got injured and has not pitched since September 3rd, when he blew a save against the Orioles. Jameson Taillon went to the IL after a great start (albeit in a loss) against Toronto on September 6. Zack Britton had Tommy John surgery on September 9 after not pitching since late August. Gerrit Cole left a bad start against Toronto on September 7 with a lower body injury. Chad Green has an ERA over 6.00 and a FIP over 7.00 during the bad stretch. Andrew Heaney has an ERA over 10.00 in the same span. Brooks Kriske has a 45.00 ERA in one appearance during the slide. Luis Gil has regressed significantly, posting an ERA over 7.00 in his recent starts, and Clarke Schmidt had to make a spot start as well. Wandy Peralta, who became the darling of may Yankee fans, has allowed more hits than strikeouts during the slide. For whatever it’s worth, Aroldis Chapman has been kind of good, and so has Clay Holmes.
The Yankees have been backed into a corner from a pitching perspective during this time. The available good pitchers have pitched poorly, the rest of the good pitchers have not been available, and bad pitchers have pitched too much.
The Yankees have 19 games to get this figured out. They have 19 games for people not named Aaron Judge to start hitting. They have 19 games for Jonathan Loaisiga to get healthy. They have 19 games for the pitching staff to start firing on all cylinders again. We have seen the team when it is firing on all cylinders, and in that configuration they are a very dangerous playoff team. The last two weeks have inspired very little confidence, and it’s time to shake that off.
So how does the rest of the season project?
The Yankees currently occupy a playoff spot, and control their own destiny for the rest of the season as a result. Let’s hope they tear up the rest of the schedule, play the Wild Card game at home, and make a good run. This team has underachieved, inexcusably at times, but this season still has a chance to be a good one. Make it happen.
It’s a sprint to the finish. Hit bombs. Let’s go Yankees.
