It’s hard for Yankees fans to admit that Joe Girardi is a very good manager, mostly because he’s the clearest scapegoat for the struggles the Yankees have experienced on the field this season. Still, most would agree that Girardi happens to be one of the better managers in the league. He certainly has his flaws—the shift has haunted the Yankees on both sides of the ball—but so does every manager.
Likely Girardi’s biggest strength is his ability to successfully manage a bullpen, which has earned him the nickname “the bullpen whisperer.” Not only has the relief corps been dominant, but Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller, and Aroldis Chapman have all had their workloads effectively managed.
Although one may say that it’s no surprise the bullpen has been so good (seeing as Girardi was handed the keys to a legendary backend of the ‘pen) the Yankees’ manager deserves credit for maintaining a fairly successful middle relief despite multiple injuries (Jacob Lindgren, Chasen Shreve, Bryan Mitchell, and Brandon Pinder, to start). It takes more than just throwing the pitcher with the best ERA on the mound at any given situation, and Girardi’s done a remarkable job of making sure the later innings are locked down.
Considering Girardi’s acumen for handling a bullpen, it’s practically a given that he uses myriad strategies to keep his bullpen well-rested but productive. This makes it all the more surprising that one of the oldest tricks in the book, using platoon splits to the pitcher’s advantage, is one that Girardi rarely employs.
| Leverage | High | Med | Low |
|---|---|---|---|
| SFG | 70.0.% | 67.7.% | 55.9.% |
| CHC | 62.2.% | 62.9.% | 56.8.% |
| LAD | 55.6.% | 67.5.% | 58.8.% |
| BOS | 59.0.% | 61.0.% | 56.9.% |
| ATL | 58.4.% | 64.1.% | 53.4.% |
| CHW | 58.2.% | 64.6.% | 53.1.% |
| MIN | 57.5.% | 64.2.% | 53.2.% |
| TBR | 62.9.% | 56.3.% | 55.4.% |
| TOR | 54.7.% | 57.1.% | 60.7.% |
| OAK | 53.8.% | 60.0.% | 54.1.% |
| DET | 54.6.% | 61.9.% | 48.9.% |
| LAA | 53.9.% | 59.5.% | 51.9.% |
| COL | 52.0.% | 59.4.% | 53.0.% |
| ARI | 54.6.% | 52.7.% | 56.6.% |
| NYM | 53.9.% | 55.2.% | 54.6.% |
| MIA | 56.5.% | 53.4.% | 52.4.% |
| CLE | 53.9.% | 53.5.% | 54.5.% |
| HOU | 55.9.% | 55.1.% | 50.4.% |
| STL | 53.0.% | 54.0.% | 51.7.% |
| WAS | 55.7.% | 48.8.% | 54.2.% |
| BAL | 55.5.% | 54.7.% | 48.4.% |
| PHI | 55.8.% | 53.5.% | 45.7.% |
| TEX | 53.1.% | 54.5.% | 46.8.% |
| SDP | 49.0.% | 54.6.% | 49.3.% |
| CIN | 52.2.% | 48.8.% | 51.6.% |
| MIL | 48.7.% | 50.5.% | 48.7.% |
| KCR | 46.4.% | 54.6.% | 46.5.% |
| PIT | 48.9.% | 49.3.% | 48.9.% |
| SEA | 48.9.% | 44.6.% | 51.9.% |
| NYY | 44.6.% | 47.6.% | 51.3.% |
If you sort the table, you’ll notice the Yankees finish in last place, second-to-last place, and tenth-to-last place when it came to high, medium, and low leverage, respectively.
For as a smart manager as Girardi is, it’s perplexing that he’s not taking advantage of platoons. Finding ways to give the bullpen righty-righty and lefty-lefty matchups can be a key to reliever effectiveness, especially with certain pitchers and hitters. There’s a good reason for his hesitance to match handedness, though.
The platoon advantage strategy isn’t perfect—same sided matchups don’t happen on their own; it takes lots of moving parts to gain this split. When you see a couple relievers throw 0.1 innings, it’s because of a platoon advantage. This isn’t necessarily bad, but it does mean burning through your bullpen in any given game.
This problem—mixing and matching relievers and batters—may be a main contributor for Girardi’s hesitance to take advantage of platoons. Although Yankees starters have provided an average amount of innings per start (13th in baseball), the bullpen doesn’t have enough relievers to use in platoon situations.
That isn’t to say the Yankees have a shallow bullpen, but instead that they lack the requisite pitchers to make platoon advantages happen on a regular basis. No team would use their best reliever as a LOOGY or ROOGY (left/right handed one out guy). So when a team has three ‘best’ relievers, there isn’t a ton left to work with.
Chapman is technically better against the same sided hitter, but he still holds a .169 batting average against with righties. He doesn’t need a platoon advantage. You can say the same for Dellin Betances’ .170 BAA against lefties, or Miller’s .157 BAA against righties. This explains their ranking in the basement with high and medium leverage situations.
That doesn’t answer the low-leverage ranking, though. The Yankees have always been very high on the platoon advantage usage leaderboards, so a tenth-to-last ranking is surprising. The key is that when the Big Three aren’t pitching, there’s not much left to play with. Sure, Kirby Yates and Nick Goody could benefit from the platoon strategy, but there’s not a lot of chances to match handedness when there’s only Yates, Goody, and then two fluid spots that aren’t filled by pitchers Girardi can trust.
Although it may seem weird that Girardi doesn’t use one of the most widely employed bullpen strategies often, it’s for good reason—not because platoon advantages are a bad idea, but that it would be counterproductive for the Yankees to use them on a regular basis. There’s plenty of brilliant strategies Girardi employs to make the bullpen work, but this just aren’t one of them…and there’s nothing wrong with that.
A big thank you to Dan Hirsch of The Baseball Gauge for compiling the table in this article.
Photo: Kim Klement / USA Today Sports