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Overreactions and Underreactions: Week 2

At this point I’m not planning to make this a weekly piece, but with the Yankees finishing up their first tour of the division, I felt it was appropriate for us to follow through on our end. Like last week, we’ll start by taking the temperature of the two opponents the Yankees faced this week, the Orioles and Rays, then pull out a stethescope, tongue depressor, and reflex hammer for a more extensive examination of our dear old friends from New York.

(If you’ve enjoyed these and would like me to make “Overreactions and Underreactions” a weekly article, or even if you just want to say hi, please comment below)

Orioles

Overreaction: Stability

After losing to the Royals in the playoffs last year, the Orioles front office probably took a vacation together. Maybe they stayed local in Ocean City or Atlantic City, but it was late October so I’d put my money on the Caribbean. Rumor had it, GM Dan Duquette considered buying himself a one-way ticket to Toronto. Wherever they ended up, they must have had a great time because they forgot about their day jobs and spent the entire offseason there.

The only major league free agent contract they signed was a one-year, $2.25M deal to bring back fan-favorite and defensive stalwart, Delmon Young.  Whether through a lack of interest, effort, or available money in free agency, the Orioles entered 2015 counting on pretty much the same cast of characters they’ve had for a few years now: Tillman, Gonzalez, Jimenez, Norris, and Chen in the rotation; Britton, O’Day, Hunter, Matusz, and Gausman, still in the bullpen; Jones, Davis, Pearce, Machado, and Young in the lineup, with Wieters and Hardy due back soon.

Problem is, after this season, all that perceived roster stability gets thrown right out the door.  According to Spotrac, nine of those players I just mentioned are free agents in 2016 and a tenth, Alejandro de Aza, is the current leadoff hitter.  With that many key players hitting free agency in one year, the Orioles roster will look much different ten months from now.

Some teams might have splurged in free agency in an effort to go all in for a World Series this year, but the Orioles took a more methodical approach; I suspect they’ll use this first third of the season to feel things out.  If in June or July they are have a good-sized lead in the division they might try to add a big piece to help make a run come October.  They could also be twelve games out and put all ten of those impending free agents on eBay.  In the most likely scenario, they’ll be hanging around the top of a middling AL East and need to be both buyers and sellers, conscious of both the future and the present.  The Orioles entire roster, save for a few untouchables, will be made available and from this July through to next spring, the roster will undergo massive overhaul

Underreaction: Missing Pieces

I got a little long-winded with my O-verreaction so I’ll try to move things along quickly.  Right now the Orioles are not playing with a full deck, yet they still sit above .500 with a typical Orioles +2 run differential.  JJ Hardy and Matt Wieters are out right now and when healthy, these guys have been very productive Orioles.  Full returns from injury are no guarantee, especially with Wieters’ elbow problems, but if they can, moving Jimmy Paredes / Caleb Joseph and Everth Cabrera into a backup role will help the team tremendously.  PECOTA projects Hardy to hit about 10 TAv points better than Cabrera and Wieters to hit about 20 TAv points better than Paredes or Joseph.

Another missing piece right now is Kevin Gausman and as former BP writer Jonah Keri explains, Gausman may be the best pitcher on the Orioles.  Yet with five veteran starters on the staff, Buck Showalter currently has him stashed in the bullpen. He made 20 starts last year to the tune of a 3.44 FIP and at only 24 years of age, with a growing repertoire, Gausman is expected to improve on that figure this year.  Sooner rather than later, the Orioles will move a starting pitcher to get Gausman into the fold and the AL East should be on alert when that day comes.

 

Rays

Overreaction: The Sweep

Yes I’m writing for BP Bronx, but no I wouldn’t exactly call myself a Yankee fan…yet…the team is growing on me.  But I must say I was a little disappointed in the sweep for the simple fact that it ruined my 2-1 Yankees series prediction.  I’ll get over it, and the Yankees should give themselves a nice pat on the back, but I think it would be prudent to keep the boastful broomsticks tucked away in the closet for now.  The sweep felt great sure, and seeing A-Rod hit like it was 2007 again was amazing, but for the Rays, this isn’t even their final form.  The team they rolled out this weekend is not the team that will be taking the field come August.

As I laid out in my series preview last Friday, the Rays are ravaged by injuries right now.  Alex Cobb and Drew Smyly were two of the best three starters down the stretch for the Rays last year and this year PECOTA projects both to finish with ERA’s below 3.50 once they return.  Incumbent closer, Jake McGee and swingman Alex Colome are also on the shelf right now.  Matt Moore is recovering from Tommy John surgery and aims to return in the second half.  On offense, John Jaso may be near the end of his career as he’s dealing with severe concussion problems, but Nick Franklin and James Loney are both on the 15-day DL with oblique injuries.  The rotation especially, will look a lot different in a few months.  So take heed when bragging about beating Nate Karns and Matt Andriese and know that the next time the Yankees visit the Trop, the team wearing home whites could be much improved.

Underreaction: Bullpen Issues

In the series preview, I said ” The Rays perennially turn water into wine in the bullpen.”  And while this has been true for many years, that bullpen turned into spoiled milk this weekend.  I will grant you that a three game sample is small, but the issues looked very large.  As mentioned above, Jake McGee is injured and that does not help bullpen depth but the two trouble-spots were two key setup men: Grant Balfour and Ernesto Frieri.

After a few years scaring Bud Black, Mike Scioscia, and his fantasy owners with uncomfortable, high-stress saves, Ernesto Frieri had a year from hell in 2014.  His strikeout-rate dropped, his hit-rate rose, and with it came his ERA.  After posting a 7.34 ERA and blowing a few saves in a part-time closer role, the Angels traded him to the Pirates where he was just as ineffective the rest of the year.  He joined the Rays hoping to return to form and his appearance on Friday was no different than 2014.  So far this year fastball velocity is down about 2.5 mph from where it was in 2013 and he is hanging everything in sight.

Speaking of decreasing fastball velocity, let’s talk about Grant Balfour.  Balfour broke into the league in 2007, quickly establishing his ironic name and excellent fastball. His best year came in 2008, when he posted a 1.58 ERA in nearly 60 innings, throwing a remarkable 91% fastballs and averaging over 95 mph.  Since then, he’s steadily lost velocity, but maintained his success throwing more offspeed pitches each year.  His ERA hovered around 2.50 through 2013.  But in the little over one season since then, his velocity dropped over 4 mph and his ERA has risen up over 6.00.  At 37, it looks like the Australian’s career may be nearing an end and the Rays designated him for assignment on Saturday.  In the coming days we should all order a Foster’s at our favorite pub, and pour some out for one of the most awesome, exciting, and consistent relief pitchers in baseball over the last eight years.

 

Yankees

Overreaction: Chris Young, Starter

Chris Young has been hitting the cover off the ball and with Belt-less still struggling, fans might start requesting some Alphaville.  Still in shock from A-Rod’s 470-foot home run, we hardly noticed Chris Young’s grand slam off the aforementioned Grant Balfour flew an impressive 424 feet itself.  Chris Young has been a godsend since he arrived in the Bronx last September.  And I’d love to believe that this 100+PA sample of him since he started donning pinstripes is real, but let’s have a look…

Year PA AVG OBP SLG TAv BWARP
Career (2006 – 2015) 4362 .234 .313 .429 .265 16.4
2014 NYY 79 .282 .354 .521 .308 0.8
2015 NYY 33 .276 .344 .690 .386 0.4
Projected Rest of Season 243 .227 .309 .402 .266 1.1

Chris Young was always a decent hitter.  His poor average frustrated every manager he ever played for, but he always maintained a sharp eye and a powerful bat keeping his TAv above the mean.  Since he joined the Yankees, he’s kept up his vision and pop…but now he’s hitting for average too?  Yankee Chris Young is the Chris Young the Arizona Diamondbacks believed he would eventually turn into until they couldn’t anymore.  Yankee Chris Young is the guy I hoped would show up when I talked myself into drafting him every year in fantasy baseball.  These are superstar numbers!  Sadly, 102 plate appearances does not a superstar make and for the rest of those season, that average will in all likelihood fall back down towards his career clip of .234.

The important takeaway from his Yankee numbers are that Joe Girardi is deploying him properly.  At 31 years old he isn’t as spry or as excellent a fielder as he once was, two aspects of his game that could keep him in the lineup everyday.  He is a platoon outfielder who mashes lefties.  He’s had a career OPS of .822 against lefties and an OPS of .712 against righties.  So far this year he has a 1.343 OPS against lefties and while this figure is obviously inflated by the small sample, Joe Girardi should continue to take full advantage of Chris Young, platoon weapon.

Underreaction: A-Rod’s Hip Problems

Congratulations on making it this far, you may now collect your prize: this sexy guy.  Also Huzzah! Bet you thought A-Rod would be in overreactions, didn’t you? Nope! Instead I’m going to cheat a little bit and get retrospective.

Flash back about two years.  A-Rod spent the first few months on the disabled list with his second serious hip surgery in four years and a quad strain.  A-Rod and Brian Cashman fired shots at each other daily in the New York media.  They were bickering about the handling of hip rehab and then on August 5th, the day of his 2013 debut, Bud Selig announced A-Rod was to be suspended through the entire 2014 season.  He played out the remainder of 2013 under appeal, finally hanging up his spikes after a meek line of .244/.348/.423 over 44 games.

At that point I thought A-Rod was done, destined to keep cashing those checks while winning the “Worst Contract in Sports” award every year he remained employed.  From a production standpoint he wasn’t Ryan Howard-level awful in 2013, but a 1992 rap album befit his injury problems and he was about to take a year off of baseball at the tender age of 37.  The most exciting thing left for his career was the cage match brewing between him and Cashman upon his return.

Now here we are in 2015, A-Rod has turned heel, he’s being screwed out of awards for his on-field play, and at 39 years old he’s carrying the Yankees.  Sure he’s about to take out Willie Mays’ home run mark and bring a few tears to my eye, but I can’t get enough of A-Rod.  And the best part about his resurgence: it kinda makes sense.  It all goes back to the hip – I believed his hip problems were a sign of his deterioration and that all the surgery in the world couldn’t restore his ability to turn on the inside pitch.  But I think I was mistaken – that hip was a huge issue and a year off really helped it heal.  From what I’ve seen this year and data from before this past weekend, he’s turning on pitches better and from the early statcast data available, A-Rod is hitting the ball harder than any other hitter so far this year.

No, he won’t keep up this .364 BABIP.  No, he probably won’t win the MVP and even if he was deserving there’s no chance in hell Rob Manfred would give it to him.  But for now let’s enjoy this ride and hope his hip stays as healthy as it seems right now.

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