SSTN Mailbag: Rice, Rodon, Minor League Struggles, And One Big Move!

For a split second, I almost allowed myself to feel good. The Yankees were patient at the plate last night. They saw that the Rays' pitchers were struggling to throw strikes, and the Yankees' hitters worked counts. I was almost deluded into thinking that the Yankees were about to make a grand comeback to pull themselves out of their funk. Sadly, I was mistaken.

I heard some fans last night blaming the umpire for the Yankees' struggles in the late innings. For sure, some of the ump's calls put the Yankees in tough counts, and really took the bat out of Judge's hands, for instance. However, the ump was similarly bad for both teams, so I don't put much stock in that opinion. In the 8th and 9th innings, Yankee hitters got pitches to hit, and wasted them. One at-bat stood out to me, in particular: Anthony Volpe's 8th inning walk to load the bases. This is going to sound like, "Old man yells at cloud," but bear with me for a minute.

Volpe worked a walk, which is good. However, I have far greater concerns about the pitches that led to the walk. Strikes one and two were challenge fastballs right down Broadway. The first one, Volpe swung through with a weak hack. The second one, in a 3-1 count, Volpe fouled off. At 3-1, Volpe knew he was getting fastball, and he needed to be ready to uncoil...he couldn't do it. His hips cleared early, and he was left to try to do damage with his hands and wrists alone, which is not in Volpe's wheelhouse. He came back in the AB with patience, but the at-bat was a microcosm of everything that is wrong right now.

Volpe underwent wholesale changes this off-season to both change his swing and his approach to methods that are completely foreign to the concepts that made him a good prospect. Fans loved the idea, because many have envisioned Volpe as a lead-off hitter who slaps the ball around with a high OBP. While patience was part of Volpe's offensive profile, the rest of it wasn't. I noted having real concerns about Volpe's changes, and while he mostly proved me wrong in April and May, he has slammed back to Earth so thoroughly that even a walk seems momentous.

Volpe should be able to handle fastballs like the ones he missed last night, and more to the point, he was able to handle them on his way up the minor league ladder. It's not fair to him, but Volpe is one of the keys to unlocking this offense. His inability to do so is indicative of this coaching staff's failures.

We can talk about poor roster construction, such as why light-hitting Jose Trevino was the best option to pinch hit in the 8th inning last night, but the more glaring issues are about this coaching staff's continued inability to finish player development at the MLB level and their inability to help players shorten slumps. I have an article coming specifically about Volpe's mechanics at the plate, but his issues are instructive for the team as a whole. The Yankees need to find solutions if they hope to have sustainable success at times where Judge and Soto aren't playing like the best players in the sport.

As always, thanks for the great questions and keep them coming to SSTNReadermail@gmail.com. In this week's SSTN Mailbag, we'll talk about Ben Rice's performance, Carlos Rodon's struggles, the struggles of the minor league system as a whole this year, and my one big move to shake things up! Let's get at it:

Brian asks: Ben Rice has almost made this team watchable the last couple of weeks. Do you think his performance is sustainable and do you think the Yankees still need a 1B long term? Watching him, I feel like he can hit .260-.270 with power.

Ben Rice has grown on me from the moment I saw him last year. I was really ready to say that he was a flash in the pan; a prospect that was old for his level performing above his head without enough tools to succeed at the big league level. My live look at Rice told me something very different. The power is real - I graded him at 60-65-grade raw power that day, as he put a charge into a few balls, and even hit it over the fence without getting all of the pitch. His max exit velocity readings this year tell me I might have even been a hair light on the raw power grade. The two big knocks I had on Rice were the excessive movement in his swing, which needed to be cleaned up in order to cut his whiff rates against better pitching, and I was even more certain that he wasn't a catcher than I was about Austin Wells (who's progression has been one of the most impressive things I've seen out of the Yankee development system in years).

Rice cleaned up some of the excess movement in his swing and he looks like he'll grow to be a solid 1B once he gets more reps at the position. In fact, watching him reminds me a lot of another Yankee prospect whose career was forever altered by injury: Greg Bird. They have similar swing paths, feel for contact, both worked the count, and both caught prior to moving over to 1B. I have long felt that Bird would have been a key cog in the Yankee lineup had he not hurt his shoulder following his breakout rookie showing, and it's eerie how much Rice reminds me of Bird.

I am not ready to say that Rice is here to stay for good yet, because progression is not linear, particularly in today's game, but I love his game and I expect him to be a big league regular. Even with his improved hit tool, I don't expect him to bat .260-.270, as his contact rates will likely always be a bit low for that, plus his swing plane pushes balls to the air, where batting averages are lower, but the overall results are better. I think if Rice settles in at .235-.245 with a lot of walks and power, I think all of us will be really happy, and it is for sure better than what Anthony Rizzo has been providing since his collision last season.

I believe in Rice's bat, and I think he's close to proving that the 1B job is his to keep.

Mike M. asks: What do you make of Carlos Rodon's recent struggles? Is he on his way to being the worst signing since Carl Pavano?

I really don't like the Pavano comparisons. Pavano made it plain that he had no intention of pushing through injury to give the Yankees any return on their money, and very much gave the impression that he didn't care. That's not Rodon by any means; if anything, I think he might care too much.

That's not to say that Rodon is blameless here, at all. He gets confrontational with his teammates and his coaches when he's not going well, and that's not okay. If he were my teammate, words would be exchanged behind closed doors about his behavior. Some people chalk behavior like that up to "passion," but that doesn't fly to me; sometimes, we all have to act like adults.

The worst part about Rodon's recent struggles is that he knows what the adjustment is: throw less four-seam fastballs in the first inning. He's noted the trend in his post-game press conference each of the last few games. Recently, even Matt Blake has said the same thing to the media, yet Rodon comes out trying to establish the fastball in the first inning of every game. Slamming fastball after fastball and expecting a different result is just nonsensical. Given that the pitching coach mentions the cause for Rodon's first inning struggles after the game, we know that this bad pitching plan isn't the coaching staff's; it's Rodon himself.

Rodon appears stubborn to a fault. I don't care about pride, I care about wins. He's getting paid like an ace. Prove you can put the team on your back, just once. Do that for a couple of years, then maybe you can get agitated occasionally at those around you.

Rodon is really frustrating, because the antidote to his struggles is really clear, even to him, yet he seems unwilling to make the adjustment. He needs to get his head on straight, fast.

Dennis asks: What's with the minor leagues this year? It seems like every prospect we were excited about isn't an option to help this team right now when they need them the most. Is Yankee player development to blame?

It's not a fun or particularly inspiring answer, but the reality is that most of the decent, upper minors players who project to have any big league impact have been hurt. Of my expanded list of Top-20 Prospects to open the season, 15 have been hurt or traded. It's hard to blame player development for injuries, particularly when most of those prospects are pitchers. As we all know, pitcher is a Greek word for "breaks frequently and often irrevocably."

Alan B. asks: 2 things Andy: What would be your big move to shock this team alive?

What did David Robertson do that was so bad in that 2018 playoff shares meeting that the Yankees don't ever try to require him when he's available?

I know that some would disagree with me, but I would fire Aaron Boone, a move that might not make a difference, but I think we're at the point of knowing that Boone isn't the answer.

This has nothing to do with his tactical decisions, which are bad, and I'm not interested in debating who's making the lineup and in-game decisions. I am of the belief that the final decision is Boone's on all fronts, particularly in-game. I strongly believe that the mark of a good coach is someone whose guys consistently play hard, show accountability, and a commitment to details. We have close to 7 years of data to know that none of those are the hallmarks of Boone teams, and we also now have evidence of three straight years during which his teams collapsed without a fight. If Boone won't hold the team accountable, I think it's up to the Yankees to engineer accountability themselves. Little can do that like firing the manager.

Might it work? I don't know, but I know that Aaron Boone is replaceable.

As for D-Rob, I have zero insight beyond what has been reported publicly, but I agree that there must be lingering animosity.