Are We Doing This Again? Thoughts on a 5-5 Start

Thoughts
Written By Will Harris

Josh Donaldson rounds the bases after his first home run of the year (Julio Cortez/AP Photo)

The Yankees have won a series, split a series, and lost a series while scoring just 30 runs.  The pitching looks dominant, but the bats look even more lost than they did last year.

IKF has a .538 OPS.  Kyle Higashioka has three hits all year.  Gerrit Cole hasn’t pitched well yet.  Jordan Montgomery got hit with a ball.  No starter has thrown 6 innings yet.  Joey Gallo hasn’t hit.  Josh Donaldson has a .581 OPS and Stanton basically has DJ’s OPS from last year.  All the hitters, even the formerly-disciplined ones, are chasing a TON of pitches.  The Yankees have already been shutout twice, lost three games in which they had more hits than their opponent, and lost three games in which they gave up 4 runs or fewer.  

If you told me all of that and asked if it was more likely that the Yankees were 0-10 or a game out of first place, I would not have chosen “a game out of first place…” But here we are.

The Yankees successfully navigated their first two series of the year against Boston and Toronto on the strength of some clutch hitting, a dominant bullpen, and a couple of well-timed, strong starts by Nestor Cortes and Luis Severino.  Though they faltered in Baltimore, they gave up just nine runs in three games.  It’s almost impossible to lose a series while doing that, especially when you give up five of those runs in the same game.

The beginning of the season is always weird.  Tack on that Spring Training was abbreviated this year, and the beginning of this season is even weirder.  You have players getting accustomed to a new team (Donaldson, IKF), players coming back from injury (Hicks, Severino, Taillon), and players looking to rebound after down years (Gleyber, DJ, Joey Gallo if you ignore what he did before he was traded).  You have to fit all these guys into a lineup, allocate playing time properly, manage your pitchers carefully, and identify what trends/stats/performances you care about to determine your strategy moving forward.

Let’s run down what I’ve liked, what I haven’t liked, and what I’d change moving forward based on this first week of games.

Things I Liked

1. Anthony Rizzo

Rizzo felt like a consolation prize when the Yankees signed him this offseason after failing to sign Freddie Freeman (apparently not even making an offer) and not trading for Matt Olson.  Don’t tell Anthony Rizzo that.  His .896 OPS through these first 10 games is slightly down in the past few days, but he’s been a steady contributor in the first couple weeks of the season.  This is a significant improvement over last year, when Jay Bruce, Mike Ford, Chris Gittens (and DJ at times, to be fair) turned first base into a black hole of offensive production for the Yankees.  

On top of this, Rizzo’s production has been timely.  HIs home run on opening day took the momentum back from Boston after they put up three runs against Cole in the first inning, and he provided a similarly-valuable homer in game two against Boston after Severino struggled early.  This is not to mention his homer against Toronto (back-to-back with Judge) to get the Yankees back into the Vlad Jr Game, and the single he had to start the scoring during the lone win in the Baltimore series.

Let’s take a second to appreciate a thread of this year’s visits to the Rizzone.

2. Luis Severino

How can you not love this guy?  As we discussed on our latest podcast, I was lucky enough to be in attendance for Sevy’s first start since 2019 last Saturday against Boston.  He came out strong, overcame a couple of bumps in the road (looking at you IKF), and kept the Yankees in the game.  He hit 100 MPH with his fastball, struck out five batters, and managed contact reasonably effectively.  Frankly, I would’ve been able to find positives in any start from Sevy given how the last few years have gone, but I’m even more encouraged by how he followed it up.

The day after Vlad Jr made Gerrit Cole look like his name should be Vlad Guerrero III, Sevy STRUCK HIM OUT THREE TIMES.  Sevy is the first pitcher ever to strike Vlad Jr out three times in the same game.  He did that in a six-strikeout performance over five innings en route to the Yankees shutting Toronto out and splitting the series.  It honestly looks like Sevy is ready to be the big game ace we all knew and loved once again.  If that’s the case, this season could be very, very good.

3. The Bullpen

It should be enough to note that I saw the bullpen (Ronnie Marinaccio and all) throw six no-hit innings on Saturday against Boston, but they’ve already done so much more than that.  Mike King has been particularly impressive so far, pitching a couple of the most critical innings of the year to this point, including the 11th on opening day and the 9th, to bail out a wild Aroldis Chapman, on Thursday against Toronto.  King has been special, but from top to bottom the bullpen arms have performed very well.  Chad Green, Jonathan Loaisiga, and Clay Holmes have been terrific as advertised, and Lucas Luetge and Wandy Peralta look to be keeping up their strong form from last year.

Does it suck that they imploded a little bit in Baltimore on Sunday?  Yes.  Do I care?  Eh.  Not really.  The offense didn’t score any runs.

Mike King has been quite cool, I like that at least.

Things I Didn’t Like

1. The Offense

It was very fashionable to blame the underperformance of the 2021 Yankees on a number of scapegoats.  Among those were Gleyber’s defense at shortstop, Gary’s defense behind the plate, a general lack of team speed or “athleticism,” and a lineup that was not diverse enough and struck out too much.

The Yankees addressed all of those concerns. They have a new starting shortstop, who’s also got some speed. They jettisoned Gary Sanchez to prioritize defense at the catcher position.  They routinely start two lefties and a switch hitter.  So what gives? Weren’t those changes supposed to fix the team?

In a word, no.

Last year’s problem was an inability to score runs. The team was plagued by a tendency to hit into double plays and a dearth of extra base hits.  Those problems haven’t gone away.  While the Yankees added contact bats in Anthony Rizzo, Josh Donaldson, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa, they are all relatively ground ball happy.  Ditto Aaron Hicks (I recognize that he’s been productive, but he’s hit into some huge double plays and I do not forgive him), who made reference to a different approach at the plate prior to the season.  The Yankees still hit the ball on the ground too much and it curses them with runners in scoring position.  They still don’t slug enough, although it may be too early to make that proclamation.

Katie Sharp tells us these problems have persisted as well.

It’s not good.  I wish the Yankees actually were super homer happy.  I wish they only struck out and hit fly balls.  I wish they were as feast or famine as they are made out to be.  In reality, the Yankees are more fast or famine.  When they do score, it’s not in bunches.  They squander opportunities with RISP routinely, and seem reluctant to do anything productive.  It was nice to see Stanton’s double and Donaldson’s homer in Baltimore on Saturday after the hail delay, but that was basically the first time they elevated the ball and hit with RISP all year.

My launch angle plea is as follows.  In spite of having the second-highest average exit velocity (and barrel rate) (and hard hit rate) in all of baseball, the Yankees have the ninth-lowest average launch angle.  This means that their average batted ball distance is 15th in the league.  

There’s some bad luck here too, but as we saw last year, bad luck can follow guys for much longer than it should.  They have the third-highest xwOBA in the league, but are 12th in wOBA.  It’s kind of brutal. 

Bad luck is out of your control.  Launch angle is under your control, at least to an extent.  Balls in the air only, please.

2. Gerrit Cole

Look, I get it. Sometimes you get got.  Gerrit Cole has gotten got a bit too much for my liking early in this season, though.  Devers, Bogaerts, Martinez, and Vladdy are all great hitters, but try getting them out a LITTLE more consistently? Maybe?

We said on the podcast that it’s not fair or accurate to launch the “Gerrit Cole needs to bounce back this year” takes, but it is fair to say that the second best starting pitcher in baseball shouldn’t give up two homers and a double to the same guy in the same game.

Look, I’m not worried about Gerrit Cole.  He will be dominant this year.  He will contend for the Cy Young.  Vladdy is a monster and mashed a couple pitches that were hardly (or not even) in the strike zone.  His peripherals are fine and he will strike a ton of guys out.  It’s just disappointing that he has started twice and the Yankees are 1-2 in those games.  After going 16-14 in his starts last year in spite of his Cy Young candidacy, it’s a worrying trend.  I’d like to see the Yankees win his starts more often, and the best way to make that happen is for him to be even more dominant this year.

Weird stat: every time the Yankees won one of Cole’s starts last year, he got the win.  The only time they won one of his starts this year (so far) he didn’t.  Baseball’s funny.

3. Hal Steinbrenner

Without a single injury, the Yankees started Kyle Higashioka, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and Tim Locastro in the 10th game of the year.  They got shut out.  Of COURSE they got shut out.  I sure am glad this team doesn’t have Javier Baez or Corey Seager or Carlos Correa or Marcus Semien or Freddie Freeman or Matt Olson or Matt Chapman or even Gio Urshela or Gary Sanchez.  Striking out on every big fish this offseason just to end up with Josh Donaldson, IKF, Ben Rortvedt and a bill for $50 million is looking pretty bad, and we only have Hal Steinbrenner to blame.  If the Yankees wanted to operate like the Yankees, they’d disregard the luxury tax and try to field the best roster.  That’s not what they’re doing.  They’re trying to build a roster that’s competitive enough (and I’m confident this one is) without breaking the bank (you know, the bond holders and shareholders quote). That should be offensive to all of us as fans.  It is offensive to the legacy of the New York Yankees.  It is an embarrassment.  

Don’t get me wrong, I think this team is going to be good.  I think they’re going to win a lot of games.  I think they’re going to remember how to hit, string some rallies together, and ride their strong pitching performances to a successful season, but they should be embarrassed that we are already having some of the conversations we are having.  It’s awful not to have built a better team.

Stay with us for the rest of the season.  It’s gonna be a weird one, I’m sure.  We’re here for it.

Will Harris
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