Whether it’s Yankee Stadium or Citi Field, the baseball fans of New York should be prepared for a summer of “Bullpen Ball.” By that we mean the large majority of Yankee and Met games being decided by an army of relief pitchers.
Of course that’s the way of life everywhere now in baseball’s era of analytics in which starting pitchers, held hostage by the “100 pitch max” and “no more than two times around the lineup” dictums, have been emasculated from the moment they sign their first pro contracts, and the bona fide, innings-eating “aces” have become dinosaurs. According to the Elias Bureau, there are only 12 active pitchers (not coincidentally all of them over 30) who have innings-per-start averages of over 6.0:
Justin Verlander (6.49), Sandy Alcantara (6.46), Clayton Kershaw (6.38), Chris Sale (6.30), Jacob deGrom (6.27), Max Scherzer (6.25), Shane Bieber (.624), Framber Valdez (6.18), Gerrit Cole (6.16), Zack Wheeler (6.09), Aaron Nola (6.05) and Yu Darvish (6.04).
Notably, the Yankees’ Cole is on the list, a big part of the reason the Yankees elected to make him the highest paid pitcher in baseball back in 2019 with a nine-year, $324 million contract. Analytics aside, it has long been the Yankees’ belief that to get to the World Series you still have to have a cornerstone top-of-the rotation starter, no matter what the cost. (See: Masahiro Tanaka, $155 million in 2014; CC Sabathia, $161 million in 2008; Mike Mussina, $88.5 million in 2000 — or the fact they were apparently willing to compete with the Dodgers over the $300 million mark last year for Yoshinobu Yamamoto.)
This winter was no different. After failing to re-sign Juan Soto, Yankees GM Brian Cashman pivoted quickly to pitching and outbid everyone with an eight-year, $218 million deal for Braves ace Max Fried. Though Fried’s career average innings per start is just 5.7, last year he pitched nine times into the seventh inning, including one shutout and one other complete game (both of which are almost unheard of today).
Though the Yankees still had some offensive question marks at third base and designated hitter, Cashman believed he had an unrivaled rotation of durable starters in Cole, Fried, Carlos Rodon, Luis Gil (all of whom had at one time or another pitched as No. 1s), plus Clarke Schmidt, that once again made the Yankees the favorites in the American League East. And then Gil went down with a lat injury that will fell him until July and Cole was lost for the season after Tommy John surgery. And all of a sudden the Yankees are looking at Marcus Stroman assuming the role as their No. 3 starter — and a whole lot of extra innings from their relievers.
By contrast, David Stearns appears to take the analytics view when it comes to starting pitchers. After losing Luis Severino and Jose Quintana (and 352 innings) from last year’s rotation, Stearns replaced them with the Yankees’ diminished closer Clay Holmes and oft-injured Frankie Montas for modest short term contracts of three-years, $38 million and two years, $34 million respectively — while taking a pass on Fried, Blake Snell and his old ace in Milwaukee, Corbin Burnes, in the free agent market. For depth he also signed Griffin Canning for $4.25 million.
I’m sure the way Stearns looks at it, he spent a combined $147 million (including $75 million to re-sign Manaea) on his rotation, which was still $71 million less than Cashman spent on one starter in Fried. Such is the unspoken analytics creed when it comes to the devaluing of starting pitchers. Limit their innings, limit their contracts.
With Montas out until at least late May with a lat injury, the Mets go into the season with a rotation of Manaea (expected to miss the first two weeks recovering from an oblique strain), Kodai Senga, Holmes, David Peterson and likely Tylor Megill. Although Holmes’ 5 1/3 innings of eight-strikeout shutout ball Friday vs. the Cardinals was an encouraging sign that he is going to successfully make the transition to starter, that projected rotation, not counting Holmes, has a collective 5.3 average innings per start.
The Mets can no doubt feel good about having one of the most formidable 1-9 lineups in baseball, and the Yankees I’m sure are heartened by the way Ben Rice has swung the bat this spring and how well Carlos Carrasco has pitched. But when it comes to their postseason/World Series aspirations, the deciding factor for both of our locals — for the Yankees by injury happenstance and the Mets by design — is going to be the effectiveness of their respective bullpens over the long haul.
