Good afternoon everyone, it’s time to dive back into the mailbag and answer some of your questions. Remember to send in your questions for our weekly call by e-mail to pinstripealleyblog [at] gmail [dot] com.
The idiot that said, “Harper is coming” asks: How do you feel about this deadline for the Yankees?
I went into detail on the Trade Deadline a couple of hours after it wrapped up, and you can read those full thoughts here, but to give a more concise answer I think circumstances wound up hurting
the Yankees but they still failed to do as much as they probably should’ve. The teams that I think lined up the best to be trade partners with the Yankees, the Padres and Twins, decided in the final days to push themselves into the buyer camp instead of the seller camp. After sitting on it for a few days, the former makes some sense relative to where they are in the field, and the asking price for trading Mason Miller clearly wasn’t being met so they might as well try to make the most of having him. Still, that blocked them out of some significant upgrades they could’ve pursued and pushed them into conversations for some backup options, which still didn’t materialize.
The failure to land a catcher at the deadline at all though, coupled with trading away a good portion of relief depth without landing a reliever, is a big miss on Brian Cashman’s part. Austin Wells had been a deadweight with the bat the entire season, and his backup options could neither outhit him nor handle the pitching staff nearly as well as he could. A backup at the very least was warranted, but instead they’ve had to settle for some minor league signings with Christian Bethancourt and the recently-added Mitch Garver to perhaps shake up the depth chart there. The bullpen became less of a need as their journeyman pieces started to go on elite runs becoming the new core of the bridge to David Bednar, but there’s still some valid concern that they’ll get worn down from overuse so getting at least one arm when so many of them got shipped out to augment the lineup would’ve been a good countermeasure. Ultimately, Cashman did get a good deal swiping Luis García Jr. from the Nationals and he got the right-handed outfielder the Yankees were seeking, so it wasn’t a dud deadline, but it’s safe to say it was overall disappointing.
Lidbit asks: If Spencer Jones provides league average offense this year, will the Yankees, and should the Yankees, pencil him in for center field next year and allow Grisham to walk?
I don’t believe they’ll pencil Spencer Jones into starting center next year, as he’s still definitely a work in progress at the plate and his defense is passable but not anything to write home about yet. I don’t think they’ll need Jones to shine to impact their decision-making on Trent Grisham though, as the Yankee center fielder has had a turbulent year since signing his qualifying offer. Grisham’s first month was not pretty, but his underlying metrics indicated that he was getting significantly unlucky at the plate and that there was hope he could turn things around. That came about in May has he posted a .797 OPS and turned into a heater for Grisham in June, the outfielder smacking the ball to the tune of a .981 OPS that month.
Unfortunately, he cratered again in July posting even worse numbers than he did in his ice cold April, and he hasn’t shaken out of it in August yet. His defense, meanwhile, has gotten exposed in an outfield that no longer flanks him with Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger, two of the games best corner outfielders. Grisham himself is probably due for a shift over to a corner position, and that would put him out of the running for another year in pinstripes as those two stars are firmly entrenched long-term. It was worth a shot bringing Grisham back, surprising as it was at the time that he took the QO, but I don’t think he’ll be getting re-signed in the winter (or whenever free agency opens considering the impending lockout).
Jmack175 asks: Assuming Judge and Stanton come back at some point, how will they get García Jr. and Rice in the lineup at the same time without Rice having to be behind the plate (which I assume is off the table at this point as it should be)?
It’s a question worth asking, as while the Yankees surely saw the need to upgrade the offense here and now and worry about slotting in the healthy lineup later eventually they’ll need to do that. I don’t know how much you can bet on Stanton contributing to this season (and for that matter, I have no idea how much of Judge we’ll see despite his reassurances), but if they do get the full arsenal of bats to deploy then Aaron Boone will have to manage around a trio of bats that would benefit from the DH slot in García, Rice, and Stanton. Only two of them can play first base, and only García has any positional flexibility that the team could utilize as Rice’s catching days do seem to be a thing of the past. García has played second base prior to this season, but since he’s a platoon bat who should be playing against right-handed pitchers that doesn’t give us a solution — Jazz Chisholm Jr. has been a far better hitter against right-handed hitters as well with a 105 wRC+ compared to a 70 wRC+ against lefties.
The logjam ultimately might only be solved by having Stanton take occasional starts away from one of García or Rice and sitting as a pinch-hit option otherwise. There just isn’t a perfect answer to give to the positional dilemma the Yankees would face trying to deploy their full strength lineup, though if you insert Judge and Bellinger back into the starting picture suddenly you’re a lot less desperate to stuff every bat that can perform above replacement level in. That can work in September when the rosters expand to 28 players, but in the postseason perhaps that costs someone like Paul Goldschmidt his spot as the team will need to carry a backup outfielder still. Goldschmidt stepped up early in the year when the team needed him most, but much like last season his bat has faded as the year has gone on, and I can see the team viewing him as the most expendable come crunch time.
