Angelo Gumbs has always been one of a favorite Yankee prospect among the TYA staff, and not only because of his dynamic athletic ability and raw tools. Gumbs has often been overshadowed by other members of his draft class, including million dollar bonus baby Mason Williams and 1st-round selection Cito Culver. Gumbs’ pedestrian performance for Staten Island last year (.738 OPS), albeit at the tender age of 18, did not do much to impress the statistically-oriented analysts.
Jason Parks of Baseball Prospectus was the first person in the scouting community to really take a shine to Gumbs (prospect-crush, if you will). Parks declared Gumbs to be a superior prospect to Culver while scouting the Staten Island team back in July 2011, and ranked him #5 in the Yankee system prior to the 2012 season. For reference, the highest anyone on the TYA staff had him was at #8 (that was Dominic, I had Gumbs at #11), and we both considered those ratings to be very aggressive. Parks had Gumbs ahead of more proven guys like Jose Campos and Dante Bichette who have fairly substantial ceilings themselves.
While Parks and others have seen plenty of room for improvement in Gumbs’ current skill set, his athletic ability and bat speed, combined with his young age, make him the type of player that scouts can dream on and project to make massive improvements. They look at his bat speed and see the potential for 20+ home runs from a middle infield position. They look at his speed and see the possibility of a major basestealer. Some see his defensive skill set as fitting best in centerfield long term, but they seem ok with Gumbs’ present ability to handle 2nd base (since Mason Williams has the Charleston centerfield job on lockdown).
Since 2012 is Gumbs’ first taste of full season ball, it was not surprising to see him struggle somewhat out of the gate. Unlike other more heralded teammates who came surging out of the gate (Tyler Austin, Gary Sanchez, and Williams), Gumbs has always been considered a raw player who still has work to do to convert his prodigious tools into usable baseball skills. Gumbs looked the part in April, putting up a meager .206/.295/.309 line (in 19 games), with 1 homer, 21 strikeouts, 9 walks, and 5 stolen bases.
May has been an entirely different story for Gumbs. In 12 games this month, he is hitting .353/.393/.471 with a homer, 11 strikeouts, 4 walks, and a ridiculous 14 stolen bases. Gumbs recently earned the South Atlantic League player of the week award for his strong performance. Gumbs is now just 1 home run short of his career high (3, compiled in Staten Island last season) and has already eclipsed his career high stolen base total (11 last year, compared to 19 total in 2012).
While his k:bb rate appear to have held constant (possibly indicative that there has not been a major change in approach), Gumbs has likely been hitting the ball with more authority this month, and being more aggressive on the bases. This is of course a small sample size, and Sally League pitchers will likely make adjustments to slow Gumbs down, both at the plate and on the bases. However, his peformance this May gives us an idea of the type of prospect (and player) Gumbs can eventually become if all goes well.
Whether he can put in the effort to make the adjustments necessary to get there is another matter, and one that will likely have a major impact on Angelo’s future. There will certainly be plenty of successes and struggles along the way for Gumbs as he moves up the ladder, but he has done a good job rebounding from a slow start this year. While there is still a long way to go, the tantalizing promise of Gumbs’ potential is somewhat closer to becoming a reality.
Alex Rodriguez is not having a bad season. He’s put up a 134 wRC+, good for 4th best among American League third basemen. He’s gotten there mostly by getting on base, hitting .292/.391/.431 on the season. He has just 5 home runs and 3 doubles. He’s improved significantly on his batting line over 2010-2011.
He turns 37 years old in July. At this point in his career, we should probably expect Alex Rodriguez to enter his decline phase. He’ll still be effective at times, but slowly fade into obscurity. Or will he? A closer look at Alex’s batted ball outcomes could lead us to some information here.
Arod has a 20% HR/FB ratio right now, not far off his 22.5% career rate. Last season, he got a bit unlucky with 14.5%. However, Alex is hitting fewer fly balls than ever before, at just 24%, versus a career rate of 40%. He’s managed to be effective because he has evenly distributed those remaining balls in play to both ground balls and line drives – he has career highs by miles in both categories.
I’m no swing expert, so I’m not going to make a nice little .gif about how Alex Rodriguez’s swing is different than it used to be. But he definitely seems to have changed his approach significantly. He’s not getting different results on a fly ball, he’s just getting different results on a ball in play. That’s a very important distinction. Arod may be transforming his late career into a high-OBP, moderate-power decline. Maybe this is the best way for him to remain effective late into his contract?
I think the important thing to draw from these numbers is that we’re not dealing with random luck. We’re dealing with different inputs from Alex, possibly for the first time in his Yankee career. Previously, his GB, FB, and LD percentages were very stable. Now, they are different. Regression and luck won’t drag him back to 35 home runs.
(The following is being syndicated from An A-Blog for A-Rod)
There wasn’t much hype when the Yankees signed Cory Wade to a MiL deal last June. He had already been let go by the Dodgers and Rays in less than a year and hadn’t pitched all that well the last time he found himself in a Major League bullpen (5.53/4.40/5.03 slash for the Dodgers in ’09). He was basically a low-risk, scrap heap pickup for the Yankees during a time when they needed bullpen depth; a guy who could hopefully eat innings while they waited for Rafael Soriano to get healthy.
Once he put on the pinstripes, though, Wade did more than just eat innings. He posted a solid 2.04/3.76/3.80 line in 39.2 IP for the Yankees and became a reliable piece down the stretch to cover the middle innings, earning himself a new contract for 2012 in the process. It was only natural to assume that Wade’s performance would regress this season thanks to his unsustainably high strand rate from 2011 (91.2%) and his low strikeout numbers, but here we are 5 weeks into the 2012 season and Wade finds himself as arguably the best pitcher in the bullpen.
In 17.0 innings pitched over 15 appearances, Wade has allowed just 3 earned runs and 16 total unintentional baserunners, good for a 1.59/1.14/2.18 slash line and a 0.88 WHIP. He ranks at or near the top of almost every statistical category amongst Yankee relievers and has been the most consistent member of the bullpen. The 17.0 IP are the 2nd highest amongst Yankee relievers behind David Phelps‘ 18.2, and they point to Joe’s growing confidence in Wade as he has been apt to use Wade in a variety of different situations this season. After this past Sunday’s outing, Wade has only allowed an earned run in 2 of his 15 appearances, and both of those were instances in which he was stretched beyond 1.1 innings and 25 pitches thrown, a situation that typically puts many short relievers at risk of getting dinged. In only a fraction of the innings he pitched last season, Wade has already accumulated more WAR than he did in 2011.
What makes Wade’s performance even better is the transition he seems to have made from flyball contact pitcher with “good but not great” stuff and plus command to strikeout pitcher with plus stuff, even better command, and the ability to generate lots of groundballs. Wade’s current 10.59% K rate and 1.06% BB rate would both be career bests, as would his 52.3% GB rate. All of these seismic statistical shifts (admittedly accumulated in a small sample size) help explain how Wade’s performance has been better this year despite some of his key stat outliers from 2011, specifically strand rate (75.05%) and BABIP against (.295), regressing as expected.
The drastic change in peripherals for Wade hasn’t been an accident either. He has changed up the way he pitches and it’s been working for him. Wade was primarily a 4-seamer,curveball, changeup guy during his time with the Dodgers and last year with the Yanks. According to PITCHf/x, those 3 offerings made up 95.1% of all pitches he threw in 2011. This season, Wade has cut back on all 3 of those pitches (74.2%) and instead is using more 2-seamers (12.7%), sliders (9.2%), and cutters (3.9%) to keep hitters off balance. The increase in 2-seamers and cutters could certainly help explain the big jump in groundballs, and the mixing of all these pitches could certainly explain the spike in strikeouts. When Wade is throwing all of these pitches for strikes and commanding them down in the zone, that’s a lot for hitters to have to take into account when they step in the box. So far, they haven’t been able to keep up.
There are a few areas of concern, particularly the decrease in swinging strikes (just 5.4%) and 0.0% HR rate. For a pitcher like Wade who has traditionally been more of a flyball pitcher, it’s unlikely that we will see him go through the entire season without allowing at least one long ball, and at some point opposing teams are going to adjust to his new approach and start putting better swings on his pitches. It’s also fair to point out that Wade hasn’t exactly been doing the heaviest of lifting in his relief work. According to FanGraphs, only 2.2 of his total innings pitcher have qualified as high-leverage innings. But Wade has performed at his best in those high-leverage innings and his overall body of work certainly warrants him getting more of those innings moving forward.
Everybody knew it was going to have to be a group effort to make up for the loss of Mo at the back end of the bullpen. Cory Wade has certainly held up his end of the bargain thus far, and looks very capable of handling a bigger role. He was a luxury as a reliable middle-inning guy at the start of this season, but has become much more important with Mo on the shelf. If he can continue to perform at or close to the level of his early dominance, Wade can help the Yankee bullpen stay just as deep and dangerous as it was with Mo.
Hiroki Kuroda has had a bit of an up and down season. He’s had some stinkers and some gems, and his last start against the Mariners on Friday night was successful in that he gave up just two runs, but he walked three while only striking out two and allowing two homers, the second game this year in which he’s allowed more than one homer. Overall, his HR/FB% is at 14.6, which would be the highest of his career by a lot (2011, 11.3%). He’s also got a career high BB/9 at 3.14 (career 2.16) and a career high BB% at 8.2 (career 5.8). His strikeouts are pretty down, too. After sitting over 7 K/9 and at just over 19% in 2010 and 2011, Kuroda’s down to 5.02 K/9 and a 13.2% K percentage. This is definitely the most alarming trend we’ve seen from Kuroda. The control is concerning and so are the home runs, but the latter will likely come down and the former can be mitigated by strikeouts and ground balls; to Kuroda’s credit, his 48.6% groundball rate is definitely acceptable and exactly matches his career rate. Let’s take a look at the strikeout numbers pitch by pitch in 2011 and 2012, and see if we can find out where exactly Hiroki’s problem has been. Numbers, as always, via Brooks Baseball
2011:
| Pitch | Whiff/Swing% | GB% | HR/(FB+LD) |
| Fastball | 23.63 | 32.76 | 10.34 |
| Sinker | 12.69 | 53.21 | 6.40 |
| Slider | 34.52 | 37.74 | 11.11 |
| Curveball | 13.79 | 37.50 | N/A |
| Splitter | 36.67 | 52.05 | 12.12 |
2012:
| Pitch | Whiff/Swing% | GB% | HR/(FB+LD) |
| Fastball | 15.38 | 22.22 | N/A |
| Sinker | 6.96 | 62.16 | 7.41 |
| Slider | 34.07 | 43.24 | 20 |
| Curveball | 16.67 | 14.29 | 16.67 |
| Splitter | 42.50 | 53.33 | N/A |
Let’s break this down pitch by pitch. On the fastball, Kuroda’s getting whiffs on swings a whopping 8.25% fewer times than he did last year. The pitch’s groundball percentage is also way down, 10.54% to be exact. On the plus side, though, Kuroda hasn’t given up a homer on old number one thus far.
The sinker is a bit of a mixed bag. While whiff/swing is way down (5.73%) and HR/FB is slightly up (1.01%), that pitch is still doing what it should be doing and getting a metric ton of grounders (up 8.95% from 2011).
Whiff/swing and GB% aren’t changed much on the sinker, but the HRs are way up, just under 10%.
The curveball has led to many more homers and many fewer grounders this year, and like it was rumored to be (and was in 2011), Kuroda’s best pitch in 2012 has been his splitter, with its ridiculous whiff/swing, great GB%, and complete lack of HRs.
Looking over this data, we can see that Kuroda is having the most trouble with his slider and his curveball. The home runs are coming on those pitches, which tells us he’s most definitely not locating those pitches well. And while it hasn’t led to home runs, Hiroki’s fastball has not been effective enough. The low whiff/swing tells us that he’s either not getting the same velocity behind the fastball or that it’s located poorly enough that the batters are laying off of it. Kuroda has thus far lost a bit off the fastball. Last year, it averaged 92.68 MPH; so far in 2012, it’s averaged 91.49 MPH. His ball percentage has also risen to 50% from 41.57% last year. Like all pitchers in the history of baseball, Kuroda’s going to need to start locating his fastball better if he wants his other pitches to be successful.
First things first both Ivan Nova and Clay Rapada left the game with various injuries. Raul Ibanez also got plunked and exited We’ll keep you posted if anything comes down. Also, David Robertson apparently has a set of sore ribs. When it rains it pours, eh?
As for the game itself, it was pretty back-and-forth. The Orioles struck first in the opening inning, getting a run on a J.J. Hardy single before an out was recorded. Hardy was chased home two batters later by an Adam Jones double. The score stayed 2-0 Baltimore until the top of the fourth. Alex Rodriguez led the inning off with a single to center. The next batter, Robinson Cano, also singled. After a Mark Teixeira groundout, Nick Swisher hit a double of the wall in right center, scoring A-Rod and Cano and tying the game at 2.
The very next inning, the Yankees would keep their momentum rolling. Russell Martin led off with a walk, and the Yankees looked poised to break the game at that point, but Derek Jeter grounded into a double play. Curtis Granderson, however, picked up the slack and hit a long home run to right and put the Yankees on top 3-2. Needing a shutdown inning from starter Ivan Nova, the Yankees got anything but that in the bottom half of the fifth. The first three batters of the inning came not only all reached base, but they all scored. Robert Andino started things off with a walk before scoring on an Xavier Avery triple. J.J. Hardy followed with a two run homer to break the tie and put the Orioles up 5-3. The Orioles seemed to be wrestling momentum back from the Yanks, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long.
In the top of the sixth, the Yankees loaded the bases before recording an out thanks to a Cano double and back-to-back walks by Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher. Raul Ibanez then hit a ball down the first base line off of the glove of first baseman Chris Davis, who was charged with an error. The error scored Cano and Teixeira, and tied the game at 5.
The combination of Ivan Nova, Clay Rapada, and David Phelps held the O’s scoreless in the 6th, despite a Nick Johnson walk and a Robert Andino infield single. In the top of the seventh, the Yankees took the lead again and wouldn’t give it back for the rest of the game. After an A-Rod single and a Robinson Cano fly out, Mark Teixeira took ex-teammate Luis Ayala‘s pitch over the high wall in right field to give the Yankees a 6-5 lead. They added a run on a sac-fly in the top of the 9th to make it 8-5, the game’s final score.
Notes:
David Phelps got the win tonight and it was his first Major League win.
Every Yankee starter except Ibanez had a hit tonight. The only Baltimore starters without hits were Nick Johnson and Chris Davis, but Johnson walked twice.
Johnson, Russell Marin, and Nick Swisher all walked twice.
Four of the seven hits Ivan Nova gave up went for extra bases (two doubles, a triple, and a homer).
Jason Hammel gave up four earned runs tonight; he’d given up nine all year before tonight.
Boone Logan now has 24 strikeouts in 15.2 innings (14.21 K/9; 35.29 K%).
Sorry for the late thread. The Yanks are down 2-0 in the bottom of the third. Discuss here.
"And then I'm going to be manager of the Yankees and you'll be closing out the World Series for me."
While Yankee fans have always appreciated Mariano Rivera– to say the least– the fan base may have also taken him for granted. I grew up watching Mo pitch the late innings. That made it easy for me to forget that he makes something exceedingly difficult look deceptively easy. He just runs onto the mound, and far, far more often than not he gets the last three to six outs of the ball game without breaking a sweat, just a few bats. The last week without him has been a quick wake up call: Not everyone can do what Mo does. That’s what makes him special.
Last week I argued that the Yankees would be ok in Mariano’s absence because the team had David Robertson. If there was one player in baseball who looked primed to step into Rivera’s enormous shoes, it was Robertson. For more than a year he’d been lights out for the Yankees, a strikeout waiting to happen (in the good sense). Of course, no sooner do I write that and David promptly struggles mightily closing. He made us all sweat a bit before he picked up his first save against the Rays, looking a bit more relieved than a professional athlete should once the game ended. The next night, with the Yankees clinging to a one run lead, he imploded, allowing his first run of the year, blowing the save, and looking completely overwhelmed with his new responsibilities in the process.
It would be easy to dismiss Robertson as unprepared to close after those two shaky outings. He didn’t inspire confidence in his first audition for the job. He’s also extremely valuable as a lights out set up man, especially since the Yankees already have a proven closer on the team in Rafael Soriano. The Yankees have the option to end the Robertson as closer experiment, promote Soriano, and have David get back to doing what he does best: striking out the side in eighth.
There is one flaw to this logic, unfortunately. It is highly unlikely that the Yankees will keep the expensive, petulant Soriano after his current grand theft contract expires. And, sadly, no matter how he returns from injury Mariano Rivera cannot be counted on to save games forever. This season has been a shocking reminder that the legendary Yankee closer is mortal, and one day he really will retire. One way or another the Yankees will need to find a new closer, and soon. David Robertson looks like he has the stuff, regardless of how this past week went.
Those of us who watched the series against the Rays may have noticed that Michael Kay pointed out several times that Rivera himself wasn’t lights out when he first began closing. As much as it pains me to write this, Kay was right. Rivera was anything but legendary when he first took over closing after John Wetteland left.
I’ve written this before, but I’ll write it again because I seem to enjoy writing it every time. I distinctly remember Mo breaking out in 1996. I remember it because I was certain that there was no way anyone could hit his fastball. I was certain Rivera’s 94 mph pitch was rising as it reached the plate (later I would find out that if this were true it would defy the laws of physics). It had a break, and that break appeared to send the pitch up and in on left handed batters. I wouldn’t find out until years later that Rivera was throwing the most devastating cutter the game has ever known, but I knew the Yankees had backed into something special. The Yankees knew it too. In 1996 Rivera tossed a ridiculous 107.2 innings (ridiculous for a reliever) with an ERA of 2.09 and a WHIP of 0.99. Wetteland’s numbers in 1996 were nothing to laugh at, but Rivera was better. When Wetteland left for free-agency, Mariano became the closer.
Mariano became the closer and promptly blew three of his first six save opportunities. He was stellar in his first two opportunities, allowing zero runs and just two hits while striking out four over three innings of work. Then, the wheels came off a bit. In opportunities three and four Rivera was mortal. He allowed seven hits in three innings of work, striking out just one and allowing a run to score in each inning. Rivera righted the ship in his fifth opportunity, before imploding in his sixth chance, allowing two runs to score on three hits in a single inning of work. While I have no memory of this, I trust that Kay is correct when he says the Yankees were questioning whether or not Mariano was up to the job of closing. In the end the Yankees kept running the skinny right-hander up there, he proved up to the job, and the rest is history.
The Yankees made the right decision giving David Robertson the opportunity to close now that Rivera is injured. Robertson hasn’t shined in his first couple of opportunities as the closer, but that doesn’t mean anything. I was a skeptic before, but I’ve now watched enough top flight relievers look like the guy trying to land the plane in Airplane when asked to close to believe that there is something challenging about finishing the ball game that defies the cold reason of numbers. There is something about the job that has to be learned and Robertson hasn’t been given enough chances to learn it yet. There’s no reason to doubt him. After all, not even Mariano was a natural, all those years ago before he was the Sandman.
For the third time this year, and the second time in Baltimore, the Yankees and Orioles will hook up for a matchup. However, this one’s a quick two-gamer before the Yanks fly up to Canada to take on the Jays for two games before coming home to host the Reds over the weekend.
When we last saw the O’s, they had just won two of three games in the Bronx, something they hadn’t done in a loooong time; they allowed just two runs in the entire series. Since then, they’ve swept the Red Sox out of Fenway, lost three of four in Texas, and won two of three against the Rays in Baltimore.
As of Sunday, the Orioles ranked first in the AL in homers (54) followed by the Yankees (53) and Rangers (52); fourth in runs (160); first in Iso (.196); sixth in average (.248); ninth in OBP (.310); fourth in SLG (.444); and fourth in wOBA (.326).
On the mound, they’re ranked ninth in K/9 (7.03) and 8th in K% (18.6); seventh in BB/9 (2;96) and seventh in BB% (7.9); fifth in HR/9 (0.99) and sixth in HR/FB% (10.6); seventh in GB% (45.3); second in ERA (3.30); and sixth in FIP (3.93).
They might be overachieving in the tiniest way, but the O’s are playing well overall right now. The Yanks will see Jason Hammel and Wei-Yin Chen on Monday and Tuesday.
I don't care if he wasn't his old self, it still feels good to see Andy back on the mound.
There are some games you have to win. Count among those games against the piddling Seattle offense when Kevin Millwood is on the mound. This game had Yankee slug fest written all over it. Kevin Millwood is not a very good pitcher. He entered today’s game with a very hittable 5.09/3.61/4.38 pitching line. Furthermore, the Yankees have been facing him for years. There’s nothing new, or good about him, but in today’s game you could have fooled me. The Yankees managed just three hits over seven innings against Millwood. The Bombers were not without their opportunities. Millwood walked four and the Yankees loaded the bases in fifth with no one out, but Greg Maddux Kevin Millwood found a way to battle through. The Yankees scored only two runs on the game, and each of those came via the bases loaded walk.
Not only was this an opportunity to pound Millwood and sweep Seattle, but it was also the first time Andy Pettitte has pitched in a game in more than a year. Much will be made of Pettitte’s 6.1 innings of work. He was very efficient, but the swing-happy M’s made his job easier. While Andy demonstrated that he has enough left in the tank to help the big league club, his performance was nothing to celebrate. He allowed seven hits, including two homers, and walked three. Pettitte did show some signs of promise, but he also labored to find the zone and his pitches looked a little too flat. A four earned run performance against the lowly Mariner’s easily would have been seven runs against a higher octane offense like, say, the Rangers.
There wasn’t much to be happy about in this one. The Yankees let a very winnable game walk away looking more tired than anything else. With the score still just 4-1 the Yankees did load the bases once more in the 8th, but the team came away with just another bases loaded walk to show for it, and nothing else.
That was annoying enough, but the Yankees added insult to injury in this one. In the top of the ninth with the score still 4-2 Joe Girardi inexplicably let Clay Rapada issue two walks to load the bases, facing righties no less. The move completely backfired as Rapada tried to make an ill-advised play on a Casper Wells bouncer up the mound. Clay slowed the ball down instead of fielding it, thereby eliminating the play at home. He then threw the ball away for good measure, letting another run score.
With the 6-2 ball game pretty much out of hand at that point, Nick Swisher started the ninth inning by scorching a ball off the wall in the corner in left. Swisher got greedy and tried to turn what would have a been a stand up, lead off double into a triple. While replays showed he was safe, he was called out on the throw, making the team’s first out at third base. Nick brings a lot to the Yankees, so we’ll forgive him for the few times when he takes something away.
All in all this was a cruddy way to end what was an otherwise strong home stand. The Yankees will take to the road next, heading down to Maryland to face the Baltimore Orioles, the first place Baltimore Orioles. Hopefully the reversion to the mean for Buck Showalter’s boys begins tomorrow.
Mariano Rivera‘s unfortunate injury reminded me just how much I’ve enjoyed watching the Yankees over the years. The team may not feel the same to me on that fateful day when every member of the late nineties dynasty, the Yankees’ incarnation I grew up with, has retired. Fortunately for all of us we are one step FURTHER away from that day today. On Mother’s Day Andy Pettitte returns to the Bronx, hopefully kicking some life into the Yankees rotation in the process. Granted, the Bombers have been playing the Mariner’s, but the team is starting to look a little livelier. The M’s counter with Kevin Millwood. All in all this should be fairly one sided, just what Mrs. Pettitte would want. Enjoy.
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