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.
RememberBobbyMurcer asks: Should Boone consider giving more starts to Escarra given how poorly Wells is performing on offense at the 1/4 pole?
No, I don’t think it would be beneficial to give more leeway to J.C. Escarra over Austin Wells for a few reasons. At the top of the list, catcher is a unique
position that has to account for how well the pitching staff is working with the catcher, and Wells is a key component in the Yankees’ staff being among the best in baseball thanks in no small part to his 97th percentile framing. As for their offensive performance though, nothing Escarra has done in his limited opportunities would give Aaron Boone and company any indication that he’d hitter better: Escarra owns a 47 wRC+ and has struck out at a 23.4 percent rate compared to just a 6.4 percent walk rate, while Wells has a much-closer-to-passable 70 wRC+ and a 15.8 percent walk rate alongside similar strikeout numbers. I don’t think we’ll ever see the Wells that hit for an .800 OPS or better down in the minors as a Yankee at this point, but I do think that he’ll turn his performance at the plate around enough to not be deadweight while orchestrating exceptional numbers for the staff at large.
BetweenThePinstripes asks: The NL currently appears to have stronger teams and greater depth than the AL. For a long time, this balance of power was reversed. Why this recent shift?
The interleague records don’t lie, do they? Outside of the Giants and Marlins, who have gone a combined 6-18 against AL teams this year, every other NL team has either a winning or even record in interleague play thus far, of which there’s been a lot with the more balanced schedules that MLB has concocted over the last couple of seasons. Perhaps that leveling of the schedule has revealed strengths in the NL that were getting ignored for the biases of media outlets that favored the likes of the AL titans the last decade or so, and perhaps the introduction of the full-time DH to the NL has also altered the equation as NL teams can more reliably shop for big bats in free agency with the thought process of having the position as a fallback in the twilight years of a big contract.
The money is, I believe, the biggest factor to consider here. Six of the top ten payrolls in the league belong to NL franchises, with both of the outlier big spenders in the Dodgers and Mets belonging to them. The Yankees and Blue Jays come next with the Phillies in a similar stratosphere as them, and Atlanta a step below that, before it goes down another peg for both the Astros and the Cubs, before we see a glut of teams hovering around the $200 million threshold. The arms race for the top spots in the NL are more competitive right now, and that fuels the need for more depth and a bigger disparity between the haves and have nots, even if some of those teams like the Mets and Phillies have been bad to start the year.
86w183 asks: The Yankees have two choices: one, send Weathers or Warren to the bullpen. The obvious choice would be Weathers who has never thrown 100 innings in a season and threw just 38 1/3 last year. He’s already up to 45 this year. Warren on the other hand threw 166 last year. Two, trade one of them for bullpen help. If they could get Jhoan Duran for Warren that would be very tempting.
Max Fried’s health may not necessitate either of these options, as the team awaits news on his elbow after leaving his latest start early, but if he remains in the rotation after a short IL stint at worst then the first option will be the one the Yankees pick. The Yankees dealt from their starter surplus two offseasons ago to get Devin Williams for Nestor Cortes Jr., and while Cortes had a lot of success in New York I think the writing was on the wall that he wouldn’t remain a key component of the rotation for long. Warren, on the other hand, is an ascending pitcher with a future that looks a lot brighter than sitting at the bottom of most rotations — it’s only in one where former Cy Young contenders are abundant that he sits as low as he does currently.
You don’t trade a pitcher like Warren away for a reliever, even one as good as Duran with another year of control after this season. If Warren were still a prospect that hadn’t touched MLB, or at most gotten a cup of coffee at the level? Then I could see the argument, but Warren has already proved that he belongs and is currently working on proving that he could be among the better pitchers in the league. The team will probably target bullpen help with an aggressive tone this year, and they may even go after Duran if Philadelphia is offering him (currently I wouldn’t bet on it), but this isn’t a situation where dealing from a surplus to get a need makes sense. The team has prospects to spend, and they should do so if they aren’t going to contribute this season.
