At 6-4, the Yankees are on pace to win 97 games, which is pretty darn good. The problem is that while their offense is off to a historic start, their pitching staff has struggled to be much more than a pedestrian group, resulting in some tough losses where an early hole cost them. Whether it was one-run losses to the Pirates and Diamondbacks that were caused by early deficits or walks in late-game situations that propelled Arizona to make an eighth-inning comeback, the Yankees have had some serious location issues early in the season.
This rotation isn’t going to be a strength for the team as currently constructed, but they need to have a better collective effort throwing strikes as a staff if they want to win ballgames. Walks are making them less effective in high-leverage, and while crummy weather might be a variable, it hasn’t affected their opponents as much as it has affected them to this point.
Command, Not Stuff, Is the Culprit For Yankees’ Early Pitching Woes
The Yankees have a 4.48 ERA and -0.43 Win Probability Added as a pitching staff, from a results-only perspective this group has hurt the team’s chances of winning way more than they’ve helped. It’s not as if they’re fully healthy, opening the season with 10 pitchers on the IL, but that doesn’t mean this group isn’t equipped with enough to be better than that near 4.50 ERA. Underlying metrics are far more favorable towards this team, with FIP believing that both their rotation and bullpen have run into some poor luck.
Truth be told they have absolutely run into some tough luck, as their staff has a 63% Left On Base% which is the second-lowest mark in the sport. Last season the lowest LOB% for a team was 67.8%, which was a dubious number held by the Rockies, so you can expect that the Yankees will have some better outcomes in high-leverage situations soon. Part of what hurts them is the fact that these are usually unforced mistakes; guys reach base on the Yankees because of free passes, not because they’re racking up hits and home runs.
It’s not walking the best hitters in a lineup either; the Yankees have walked the opponent’s nine-hitter 10.8% of the time this season. Bad hitters are getting on base way too much against this pitching staff, and they’re creating a self-inflicted wound by not immediately attacking this part of the lineup to avoid letting the top of a lineup come up with runners on base. This alarming trend is costing them baseball games, and Eno Sarris’ Location+ model captures their struggles with command perfectly.
While the bullpen has played a part in their command issues, they have such a high strikeout rate and also hold the second-lowest batting average allowed in MLB. They seem to be avoiding the zone as a way to avoid damage contact, trusting in their ability to get strikeouts or groundballs and get out of a jam. That’s not a terrible strategy, although it does lead to some frustrating innings at times. This group is also getting tons of support this month, as Ian Hamilton joins the fray today and Tyler Matzek could follow in the coming weeks.
It’s the rotation where these issues are the most obvious; this staff is seventh in Stuff+ (104) and has three starters with an above-average score in that metric. Where they struggle is with command, their 99 Location+ is a problem and it’s an even greater concern with Will Warren and Carlos Rodon specifically. Marcus Stroman and Carlos Carrasco only make this problem worse because their stuff is so bad that they cannot attack the zone aggressively, resulting in a group that has two guys underperforming their swing-and-miss potential and two more guys incapable of missing bats at all.
Swinging Strike% is a good litmus test for whether a staff has good stuff and command, and this rotation has the fourth-lowest mark in the sport (not shocking). No rotation throws pitches in the zone less than the Yankees’ starting five (36.7%), and that’s a product of again talent coupled with frustratingly bad command from two pitchers who can attack the zone more aggressively. Now the question becomes, is this issue going to ever get better?
Don’t worry; not all hope is lost with this rotation’s ability to help the Yankees win baseball games.
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Clarke Schmidt’s return to the rotation will help a lot of the Yankees’ issues because he has a cutter he can use to go after hitters and has a sinker he’s fine-tuned. This time he’s throwing a one-seam sinker, which has more vertical depth than the old sinker he threw and should be able to keep the ball on the ground more and keep Schmidt in games past the fourth inning. Sometimes he loses steam after two times through the order and the fifth inning is almost always his worst in a given start.
Better weather should also help the Yankees; Carlos Rodon and Will Warren are the two guys I called out for not having great command to start the year, but their fastball velocity is down as well. I think warmer weather will bring back their 2024 heaters and that will make them more comfortable attacking the zone to get ahead in counts. The Yankees should not pull the plug on Will Warren until they get an extended sample size of failure because neither Marcus Stroman nor Carlos Carrasco presents the upside to be strike-throwers with swing-and-miss stuff.
One weird idea I have is to let Brent Headrick join the decimated Scranton RailRiders rotation, stretching him back out as a starter with that new splitter he added and the zip he’s gained on that fastball. He’s currently sitting 93.1 MPH on his heater in weather that has affected almost every fastball thrown by the Yankees over the last week; if extended to 5-6 innings of work I think he could hold a 92 MPH fastball for that start, which is more than good enough for him to miss bats still.
He’s a weird pitcher to evaluate but someone I would totally take that kind of flier on, so while there really isn’t much to deduce that the Yankees’ rotation will be dominant without Luis Gil coming back and a potential deadline addition, there is some hope that they can stitch this group together for now and still win games. This is an execution issue; not a talent one for most of their pitchers.