Archive for New York Yankees

If there was any mystery about J.A. Happ’s status with the Yankees, it got resolved on Thursday, when general manager Brian Cashman announced that the 37-year-old would begin the 2020 season as the team’s fifth starter, as reported by the YES Network. The lefty has elicited a yawn in early NFBC drafts, as his 474 ADP has him well outside the top 150 pitchers. Maybe the previous lack of clarity around his role has played some role in the low level of interest, but given the dropoff in his productivity from 2018, this news probably won’t move the needle much on Happ’s ADP. That means, at best, that Happ won’t be viewed as anything more than a reserve round pick in 15-team mixed leagues.

It was a mere two seasons ago that Happ was a top 20 starter in terms of Roto value (and a top 25 pitcher overall), sporting a 17-6 record, 3.65 ERA, 1.13 WHIP and 193 strikeouts in 177.2 innings. It was Happ’s fourth straight season with an ERA in the 3.00s. That performance is being heavily discounted as we head into the 2020 season, largely due to Happ’s ERA soaring to 4.91 in 2019. The fact that he is now in his late-30s amplifies last season’s slide. Also, while Cashman has ensured us of Happ’s place in the starting rotation for the start of the season, he would seem to be at risk of losing it once Domingo Germán has completed serving his 81-game suspension for his violation of Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy in early June. He could also face competition from Jordan Montgomery, Jonathan Loaisiga and prospect Deivi Garcia, among others.
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The only time that recent history shows me discussing Chase Headley is that time during the offseason where I declared that the New York Yankees should look at Luis Valbuena as a potential upgrade at the position. Obviously, whatever points were made there were moot, as Valbuena went on to sign with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim later on in the winter. Nonetheless, I wasn’t terribly high on Headley coming into the 2017 season, and you’d be hard-pressed to find folks (who aren’t liars) that were or even are.

Regardless of expectations, Headley is off to the best start of any player at the third base position. Yes, the same position that includes Bryant, Donaldson, and Machado, among a handful of other high-end players currently sports Chase Headley as the class of the hot corner. He was the first third sacker to eclipse the 1.0 WAR mark and the early trends have him returning to a level of offensive prominence that we haven’t seen since, like, 2013 when he was still in San Diego.

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As thin as this free agent class of the winter of 2016-17 is, collectively, the third base group represents an especially barren group among the positions, something that I covered a couple of weeks ago. Justin Turner is obviously the only true prize of the bunch, but I did also note that Luis Valbuena could be an intriguing option for a number of teams, due to the pop and approach that he brings, as well as his oft-noted versatility. As it would turn out, early suitors are already emerging, with the New York Yankees appearing to be at the front of the line for the 31-year-old infielder.

It’s interesting that the Yankees would be after Valbuena as an option, especially given that he’s believed to be pursuing a situation where he has an opportunity to get regular starts, even if those starts don’t come at the hot corner. The Yankees wouldn’t appear to be that opportunity, with Chase Headley and Starlin Castro currently locked into third and second base, respectively.

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At this time of the season, it’s a good idea for those of you in deep leagues to have a couple of second-half sleepers on your roster. Seeing as I cover the second-base beat here at Rotographs, I’ve identified a promising youngster with the potential for significant playing time at the keystone going forward.

One of the crucial aspects of identifying these players is finding holes on major-league rosters. So, seeing as we’re talking about second base, let’s discuss the Yankees. The days when Stephen Drew seemed like a legitimate major-league baseball player seem like ages ago, as the hapless second-sacker has followed up last year’s hilariously inept .162/.237/.299 season with a not-much-better .178/.239/.372. At least he’s hitting some homers, but that still hasn’t been enough to make him even a replacement-level player.

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Episode 190

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Eno Sarris and Paul Sporer talk about the news topics which include notes on: Victor Martinez, Josh Hamilton, Ken Giles, Dayan Viciedo, James Shields, and Yoan Moncada (no player page, link goes to Carson’s contract crowdsourcing article).

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The New York Yankees saw two of their starting three outfielders miss the end of the season due to injuries last year. Both Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran lost some time, with Beltran being limited to 109 games last year. Ellsbury did managed to play the vast majority of the season however, as both he and Brett Gardner posted over 630 plate appearances each, though Gardner himself is coming off of surgery for a sports hernia this off-season. When healthy, all three starting OFers offer fantasy owners various stats, but the outfield reserve for the Yankees could prove valuable as well.

Center Field
Jacoby Ellsbury
Chris Young

Left Field
Brett Gardner
Chris Young

Right Field
Carlos Beltran
Chris Young
Garrett Jones

In the minors
Jose Pirela
Tyler Austin
Mason Williams
Rob Refsnyder
Taylor Dugas
Ramon Flores
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The 2014 Baseball America Prospect Handbook left outfielder Taylor Dugas off the Yankees’ Top 30 prospect list, and the New York system isn’t particularly well regarded, coming in 18th in BAs system rankings and 23rd in Baseball Prospectus’. It’s not hard to understand why he was omitted: Dugas turned 24 earlier this offseason and has yet to play in the upper minors. Across 172 games in three different levels in the low minors, he has a career .351 slugging percentage. The 5’8″, 170-pound lefty swinger certainly isn’t built to grow into a lot more power than that, either.

But those who consider Dugas an afterthought rather than a prospect are missing the boat.

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Love ’em or hate ’em, they are the New York Yankees and they are still the face of American baseball. They are about winning, they are about hardware (or bling if that’s the word you prefer) and they are all about the big market spending. But we’re not here to judge right now. Whether you think this year’s plundering of the free agent market was more Brittney Spears “Oops, I did it again,” or more Urkel “Did I do that?”, it doesn’t matter, because this is the fantasy baseball section of FanGraphs and that’s what we’re talking here. Our assignment is to tell you who is in this team’s outfield and what that means to fantasy owners, so let’s bypass the small-market, crybaby tantrums and let’s talk game. Read the rest of this entry »

When the New York Yankees signed free agent outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury to a ridiculous seven-year, $153M contract, not only did they likely say adios to second baseman Robinson Cano, but they also reiterated the fact that they simply don’t trust Brett Gardner enough to be their regular center fielder or leadoff hitter. Is he not capable of playing well defensively out there? Can he not get on-base at a reasonable rate? Is he not fast enough to steal bases and set the table properly for the heart of the order? Apparently not, if the Yankees continue to push him aside for every over-priced marquee name that looks their way. Forget about the fact that last season, his first real opportunity to play center field and bat leadoff, he posted a .271/.344/.412 slash line and played a strong defensive game. In Yankee-land, that’s role-player material, at best, worthy of move to left field and trip back to the bottom of the order.

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Yankees pitching prospect Rafael De Paula entered the season cloaked in mystery. There were three basic things known about him to the general prospecting community. First, despite being a coveted international free agent, he didn’t sign a contract until he was almost 21 due to maintaining a false identity, being suspended, and taking a long time to acquire a visa in the aftermath of the incident. Second, once he finally was officially a professional, he went out and tore up the Dominican Summer League in 2012, with a 1.46 ERA and 85/18 K/BB in 61 2/3 innings. Of course, his advanced age made those statistics even less relevant than typical DSL numbers, which mean little on the prospecting scene to begin with. What was more important was the third fact, which was that he supposedly had good stuff.

I saw De Paula show that stuff on April 21 against Hickory, where he threw five hitless innings with ten strikeouts. Today, I’m going to examine what allowed him to roll through South Atlantic League lineups with ruthless efficiency in the first half of the year, but also look at some of the rough edges that contributed to a drop in production following De Paula’s promotion to High-A at midseason.

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