It’s approaching the halfway point of the season, and we have a pretty good idea of who these Yankees are. Their starting rotation is a top-five group in Major League Baseball, possessing both elite talent at the front and enviable depth at the back. The offense is a bit more top-heavy, but still plenty powerful, and the fact that they’ve managed to stay afloat despite missing Aaron Judge says plenty about the overall quality of the lineup. Comparatively speaking, it’s clear that the bullpen is the weakest link on the team.
However, when you step back and compare them with other bullpens around the league, the Yankees’ relief corps haven’t been all that bad. Through Tuesday’s action, they own a collective 3.39 ERA, the fifth-best mark in the majors. That ERA isn’t all smoke and mirrors, either, as their 3.69 FIP places them eighth in MLB. By fWAR they slip to ninth, but that’s mostly due to their low innings total, which is in turn a byproduct of the starting pitching holding up their end of the bargain. Just looking at the stats, it could be argued that the Yankees have a top-10 bullpen.
Reader, I know you put your phone down just now. How could this Yankees bullpen, who makes your blood boil and your stomach churn on a near-nightly basis, be a top-10 unit? Believe me, I know how you feel. This bullpen doesn’t inspire me with confidence, either. But that doesn’t mean we should dismiss data pointing to the contrary. In fact, a closer look reveals that two things can be true at the same time: There are concrete reasons why this bullpen doesn’t feel dominant, but at the same time, they do enough things well to be effective.
First, about the optics of this bullpen. My hypothesis is that it feels unreliable mainly because they lack strikeouts. Their K rate is a lackluster 22.5 percent, 15th out of 30 teams, and basically the same as the league average for relief pitchers (22.4 percent). Fernando Cruz leads the team with a 30.2-percent strikeout rate, which is certainly a robust mark; however, it’s only the 18th-best figure in MLB this year. No other Yankees reliever sniffs the top 30. There’s no sugarcoating it; this bullpen is pedestrian at generating strikeouts.
I can’t speak for everyone, for me, the less punchout-heavy a bullpen is, the more stressful the watching experience becomes. This isn’t to say that it’s always fun to watch high-strikeout relievers–most of them have a tendency to lose the zone and start walking dudes by the dozen–but there’s a certain reassurance that comes with knowing that the guy on the mound has a 40-percent chance of striking out any given batter. No contact, nothing left up to the vagaries of the BABIP gods, just pure outs. The Yankees, as currently constructed, don’t have a single guy like that. No wonder they feel a little shaky.
Fortunately, the bullpen does enough things well to make up for their lack of strikeouts. They don’t walk guys; their 8.8-percent walk rate is sixth-best in the majors. They manage contact well; their 18.4-percent soft contact rate ranks third, and their 28.3-percent hard contact rate is the best in MLB. They keep the ball in the yard; their HR/9 is a stingy 0.85, fourth-best among all teams. Put that all together, and you have a highly effective unit that succeeds without a ton of strikeouts.
This doesn’t mean that Brian Cashman should forgo upgrading the bullpen at the Trade Deadline. It’s not an especially deep group, as new additions Camilo Doval and Jake Bird have struggled, and Tim Hill appears to have lost his magic. Paul Blackburn has had his moments here and there, but his track record only inspires so much confidence and it’s telling only long man Ryan Yarbrough has a lower Leverage Index among the regular relievers than Blackburn. Right now, I count three relievers who are firmly within the Circle of Trust: David Bednar, Brent Headrick, and Fernando Cruz. With Bednar firmly entrenched in the closer role, that leaves Aaron Boone with just two reliable options to turn to in the middle-to-late innings. Adding a high-strikeout fireman would do wonders for this bullpen (and my blood pressure).
That being said, it’s important to recognize the solid work that the existing group has put in so far. Though they may not seem like it, or be easy to watch, this Yankees bullpen has been quite effective. The fact that they’re still the weakest link on this team doesn’t reflect poorly on their performance; it just goes to show you how good this team is.
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