I am extremely high on your rotation.
Sabathia's had one arm injury since he broke into the show. He was shelved for 15 days in 2012 with elbow soreness. He's tallied basically 200 innings every season this century, excepting last year, due to knee problems. He's fat now, that's good. He's sitting 93 this spring, fast as he's ever thrown, with one radar gun pegging him at 96! Velocity is perhaps the lone meaningful spring training stat.
That's the least of it. I've posted
elsewhere on this site, to generally negative fanfare, my belief that fastballs as a pitch are overused. Well. It seems CC is just a hell of a pitcher. In response to declining MPH he cut his fourseam usage in half and threw three times the number of sinkers. Splendid idea. 2014 offers a limited sample (798 pitches), but Sabathia's swinging strike rate leapt from 9.6
% to 10.5
%. It was 46 innings, to be sure—his ERA eclipsed 5—but the SIERA was his lowest ever. CC Sabathia, I think, will garner a Cy Young vote.
Then there's Pineda, who is exceptional. Pineda's whiff rate across 1140 pitches would've ranked eleventh among qualified starters and tied Strasburg's. We can
comfortably surmise that his averageish K rate is due for some pretty severe positive regression... his SIERA, bloody 3.33 anyhow. He pounds the everliving hell out of the strike zone and walks no one. He's a righty with a flyball bent, and your stadium is a travesty. But HR/FB juju, a clean bill of health, and some subtlety doctoring the baseball are all that's separating Pineda from the game's elite.
Chase Whitley is very good. His swinging strike rate lags 0.1
% behind Pineda's! At AAA his whiff rates have been dizzyingly strong, and he's offered a groundball profile there as well. His Zone% is rather low, but first-pitch strikes are far more important, also a disparate skill. Whitley was a shade above average in that regard across 330 batters faced. He's the real deal. At some point you guys will come to—not "love" him, certainly, as none of you have hearts, but you'll be highly appreciative of his efforts.
If Nate Eovaldi's
splitter is for real,
that guy could really be something. He's been toying with it all March: 9
IP, 1
ER, 9
K, 0
BB. His UCL tear might be hailed as tragedy.
I genuinely believe Masahiro Tanaka is either your fourth- or fifth-best starter pending the previous item. Hitters were Travis Hafner in '06 against his fastball. They were Albert Pujols in 2010 versus the curve. '13 Edwin Encarnacion with the sinker. That's 175, 164, and 144 wRC+ respectively. Randy Wolf against the splitter, though. (Slider was good. A stone's throw from average according to
this.) He's entirely dependent upon that splitfinger, which is double plus ungood. (Notice the use of Ingsoc when I speak from the Yankees' perspective.)
Tanaka threw the splitter outside the strike zone a blasphemous 71
% of the time. Hitters chased more than half! He would've thrown the eighth-fewest strikes among qualified starters, sporting the eight-best K rate, the seventh-best walk rate. (Second-worst line drive rate.) I dunno about y'all, but I give big league hitters a ton of credit. They've had a year now to scout that one pitch. Tanaka has Hideo Nomo written all over him and I think you're better served subsidizing a trade.
Bullpen's great, though. You have two of the ten best relievers in baseball, to say nothing of Carpenter and Shreve, who are both excellent. (As an aside:
How in the hell did you parlay
Manny Banuelos, he of the 4.07 minor league SIERA, into
two firemen!?! We turned Anthony Ranaudo—consecutive sub-3 ERA seasons—into
Robbie Ross.)
Win Probability Added has me believing relief pitchers to be fundamentally undervalued, which would explain why Billy Beane is so eager to pay them eight-figure sums. When I picture the Yankees bullpen, I imagine a boot stamping on a human face—all season.
Your fucking offense is sneaky-great as well. I'm just carrying on, not making separate posts. Seven above-average hitters by my estimation, plus Stephen Drew at second.
Didi Gregorius had a .336 xBABIP. He became a star in my OOTP save, and I was pleased. Seemed legit.
You have one of the
absolute best defenses. McCann is comfortably plus framing pitches. It would surprise me not at all to see the Yankees take the division. I think 100 wins is within reach. I can hear derisive commentary now. Go, Red Sox.
Feeling poorly of late—amazing how therapeutic it can be to laud the Yankees.
