by Tim Kabel
June 20, 2023
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The Yankees had yesterday off. They are currently in third place in the American League East, 10 1/2 games behind Tampa Bay, but only one-half game ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays. They are tied with Houston in the third wild card position. They have played 72 games this season and are on pace to win 87 games. That is not good enough.
The Yankees batting average (.195) and OPS (.599) in June are both the worst in the major leagues. Only one Yankees' regular who is on the active roster, Anthony Rizzo, is hitting above .260 for the season. He is batting .262 but has slumped badly lately. Take a look at some of these batting averages:
Anthony Volpe .189
DJ LeMahieu .232
Isiah Kiner-Falefa .233
Jose Trevino .218
Kyle Higashioka .236
Giancarlo Stanton .204
Josh Donaldson .151
Oswaldo Cabrera .190
The Yankees offense is dreadful right now. I realize that Harrison Bader and Aaron Judge are not on the team right now. Bader will be back today. The point is that the offense is doing nothing. The team is sinking fast.
The Yankees have three hitting coaches: Dillon Lawson, Casey Dykes, and Brad Wilkerson. I remember a time when teams didn't have any hitting coaches. Now, the Yankees have three and their offense is at the bottom of the barrel.
Jake Bauers, Billy McKinney, and Willie Calhoun all came to the majors this year after hitting very well for the Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders.
Look at some of these statistics:
Ben Rortvedt is batting .328 with three home runs and 12 RBI in 64 at bats.
Oswald Peraza is batting .292 with eleven home runs, 24 RBI, and eleven stolen bases in 144 at bats.
Estevan Florial is batting.304 with 18 home runs, 44 RBI, and thirteen stolen bases in 214 at bats.
Andres Chaparro is batting.238 with eleven home runs and 40 RBI in 244 at bats.
Let's see what Oswaldo Cabrera does now that he is back down there.
I'm not saying that all of these players should be called up to the major leagues. Rortvedt is currently on the seven-day IL but, when he returns, he could be considered. I believe that Florial and Peraza should already be In the Bronx.
There is a larger issue. Calling up players might not be the complete solution. It seems that almost everyone at Scranton Wilkes-Barre, at least those who are major prospects or former major leaguers, hits very well. Look at the seasons that Florial and Peraza are having in particular. Before they were called up, McKinney and Bauers were flourishing there as well.
It is amazing that Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells were able to note the flaw in Volpe's swing over a plate of chicken parm and pasta. Dillon Lawson and the other hitting coaches and Aaron Boone never stated anything publicly about a change in Volpe's swing. It was left up to the 22-year-old rookie to figure it out with a former teammate, essentially on his own. That is unacceptable. If this were the 1950s, and there were no hitting coaches, that would be expected. But the Yankees have three hitting coaches, not one, but three. Last year, Anthony Volpe, Oswald Cabrera, and Oswald Peraza all hit very well in the minor leagues, which led to the promotion of both Peraza and Cabrera last season, and Volpe being installed as the starting shortstop this season.
There is an adjustment to the major leagues, but I don't think that Volpe, Cabrera, and others suddenly forgot to hit. Aaron Boone and his coaching staff don't seem to have any answers, thoughts, suggestions, or strategy when it comes to improving the hitting on the Major League team.
The New York Yankees are an organization. They have minor league teams and affiliates. Perhaps in addition to bringing up Peraza and Florial, the Yankees could bring up the Scranton Wilkes Barre hitting coach, Trevor Amicone. Maybe he could replace one of the current three hitting coaches. Maybe he could specifically work with the younger players who are already familiar with him. It's certainly worth a try.
The point is that the Yankees are getting very little offensive production. They need to try something. Leaving things up to Boone and his current group of hitting coaches may not be the best idea. Boone said he was encouraged because Anthony Rizzo looked good in batting practice the other day. Everyone looks good in batting practice. Even Boone hit a home run in batting practice in spring training.
BC has been allowed to make this organization into one completely dependent on analytics. Analytics has it's place, and has always been around in different forms. But the downside if analytics is that it excuses too much when a player struggles. Why isn't Volpe, with his speed and struggling offensively, never allowed to drop one down for a hit? Lawson needs to go now. We need to get back to more human thinking, less logical. They let Bam Bam go after last year, probably because he wasn't analytical enough for them. Phil Planter help to fix Urshela in AAA in 2018, but did he get promoted? Nope. This organization is too reliant on pitch shape, pitch usage, swing path, barrelling,…
Firing the 3 hitting coaches is just a band aid approach… reality is LeMahieu, Stanton and now Rizzo are older players who are breaking down physically ….. lets wait and see if they start hitting. Instead of firing coaches maybe DJ and Severino along with Torres should be traded?
Can we stop talking about Wells fixing Volpe's swing? He was 0 for 7 with 5 Ks in Sunday's DH. While Wells may have spotted a flaw in Volpe's swing it hasn't seemed to help Volpe, who looks over matched, much. He needs to be sent down and Peraza brought up. I'm all for giving Florial a chance but he's not on the 40-man roster so someone has to be cut to bring him up. The Yankees seem to be set on not seeing Florial as an potential MLB player and are probably going to keep him at AAA so his trade value doesn't tank by a poor performance in MLB. I think that's a silly strategy but Florial is still…
I wish all the answers were in Scranton or Somerset, they are not. There is not a core 4 in waiting. Good players? Possibly. This team's problems are bigger. All they can do is hope their reclamation projects surpass realistic turnarounds and Boone suddenly turns into Joe McCarthy. Odds on that are low. Trust the process!
The point is that the Yankees are getting very little offensive production.
and they really, really NEED to get more.
Roetvedt and Florial and Peraza might, in some possible universe, provide more of it than LeMahieu, Rizzo and Stanton.
in some possible universe, the mystifying and irritating absence of offensive production may sanely be laid at the feet of the coaching staff and we may sanely be helping by calling for the coaches to be fired and replaced so that the veteran hitters who were hitting very well last season
will be startled into hitting very well later this week.