SSTN Mailbag: The Early Returns on Nestor and Rodon, And Trade Needs!

What a first week of baseball!!! I may be the SSTN Optimist-In-Chief, but even I didn't expect the Yankees to go 6-1 on their opening road trip of the season, particularly when you consider the fact that 4 of those games were against the Astros (enough said) and the other 3 were against the Diamondbacks, a young, talented team that came just short of winning a World Series last year. The Yankees are opening the season with one of the most difficult schedules in baseball, and they have already done significant work in the standings by coming away with 6 wins in their first 7 games.

Unfortunately, the schedule doesn't ease much this month. The Yankees will play the Blue Jays, Rays, Brewers, and Orioles this month. They only really get breaks against the Marlins and A's, who are both awful. Coming out of this month at .500 would have been a win, but the team is much more likely to leave April with a winning record, which is a big deal, given the caliber of teams they're playing. More impressive thus far is the manner in which the team has won games. They haven't had an ace, like Gerrit Cole, dominating opposing batting orders once every five games; Aaron Judge hasn't clicked on all cylinders besides the last game in Arizona; and their closer, Clay Holmes, hasn't shown Mariano Rivera-like consistency. The Yankees have had contributions up and down the lineup, have played good defense, made good baserunning decisions, and are working at-bats like they did in 2019, only they put the ball in play more now. It's a recipe for success, and I didn't even mention the fact that the bullpen, which many projected to fall off this year, has been outstanding so far.

In short, it's a good time to be a Yankee fan. I'm going to enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts.

As always, thanks for the great questions and keep them coming to SSTNReadermail@gmail.com. In this week's SSTN Mailbag, we'll discuss the early returns on both Nestor Cortes and Carlos Rodon, and we'll evaluate the Yankees' trade priority this year! Let's get at it:

Christopher B. asks: How do you think Nasty Nestor is pitching this year? He's been bad early in games, but then it seems like he settles down and pitches pretty well after. Will he figure it out and get back to who he was in 2022?

I am far more worried about Nestor than I am about any other pitcher on the Yankees' pitching staff right now. The trends for Nestor are really bad, and I'm not convinced that his shoulder is really healthy based on some of the signs I'm seeing. Let's start with some of the superficial signs first.

In the first game of the season, the Yankees were very careful to make sure that Nestor began the year with an extra day of rest versus his normal schedule. Sure, all teams take precaution with their pitchers at the beginning of the season, but when a guy's shoulder has had a difficult time recovering between starts, there should be extra scrutiny when a team goes out of its way to give a guy additional recovery time before his very first real start of the year. Nestor looked like a guy who was having trouble getting loose in that first outing, and deferred to throwing almost entirely fastballs until almost the third inning of his outing. Now, maybe that was the gameplan going into the game, but as someone who has pitched through shoulder injuries, I can tell you that it often took an inning or two before my shoulder felt comfortable enough to throw a curveball. Sure enough, Nestor started throwing his breaking stuff later in the outing in his first game.

Now we get into the tangible evidence. In his second start, Nestor pitched on normal rest. His fastball averaged 91.6 MPH in his first start of the season; it averaged just 90.7 MPH in his second start of the season. Both of those averages are down from where Nestor sat in 2023, where he averaged 92-93 MPH on his fastball. Those might not sound wildly different, but they represent significant drops for Nestor, a pitcher who really only leapt to the level of success he managed because of a velocity jump. Nestor is not the same guy at 90-91 MPH as he his at 92-93 MPH.

More critically, the velocity dip from one start to the next tells me that Nestor really wasn't fresh to begin the game. I am really concerned that the shoulder remains an issue. Even if it's not an issue, diminished velocity is a real issue for Nestor because he already lived on the edges. I hope his velocity builds a bit as the weather gets warmer, but I have real concerns about Nestor getting back to a mid-rotation caliber pitcher this year. Nestor is a gamer, and he's proven he can keep the team in the game even without his best, but that's a back-end starter. I love the guy, and I hope his next couple of starts prove my concern to be ill-founded, but he needs to prove it.

Mike asks: What do you make of Rodon's first two starts? Not exactly ace type stuff, but better than last year. Can he be an effective pitcher or even the near ace he was supposed to be this year?

There are some good signs and clearly still some work to be done for Carlos Rodon. On the plus side, I think that his raw stuff has been excellent, and his velocity is much more consistent within his starts. The downside is obviously that he has struggled to get guys to whiff at the same rates he did in his ace-level 2022 campaign. Obviously, Rodon has battled and been pretty good for the Yankees so far, though he's likely short of what we all hoped for when he signed last off-season. Can he get back to being a near-ace? Yes, I think so.

In Rodon's 2022 breakout campaign, we saw him lean almost entirely on two pitches: his four-seam fastball and his slider. Both are well above-average pitches, with the slider standing out as one of the best breaking pitches in baseball. He also was very consistent with his location on both pitches in 2022:

He peppered his mid-high 90s fastball at the top of the zone and then spun his slider down-and-away to lefties (down-and-in to righties). It was predictable, but his stuff was good enough that hitters generally didn't do damage against those two pitches.

My perspective is that Rodon's fastball is just a bit more hittable now, and that has led to a degradation in his ability to live on two pitches alone. Hitters sit on the fastball, spit on the slider, and wait for either to catch too much of the plate. Hitters have beat up on Rodon's fastball so far this year, and while they've hit pretty well against the slider, there have been some lucky bloop singles propping those numbers up, so I think that pitch is almost as good as Rodon's .289 xWOBA against suggests on the slider.

The most fascinating development to me is Rodon's new cutter, which has been almost unhittable thus far. We have also seen him use the cutter both in place of the fastball and slider, but mostly at the expense of his slider:

As you can see, there's a significant dip in slider usage, while Rodon still throws a similar quantity of fastballs. I think the secret to making his four-seamer more effective again is to use his cutter, which still comes in at 92+ MPH, in place of the fastball more frequently, while throwing the slider just a bit more. Anecdotally, Rodon got a strikeout with the cutter up in the zone against the Astros, and though the pitch has been hit hard when contact is made, it is generally on the ground.

I think Rodon is still trying to figure out his new pitch mix, but I think he's very close to finding the right mix that can put away hitters again. I feel good about what I've seen from Rodon so far, and I believe he can get back to being a well above-average pitcher.

Fuster asks: being the obsessive sort of fan most likely to engage in musing about effective additions to the team, I was wondering whether the Yankees would find the maximum benefit for this season from adding a position player or a pitcher[?]

My answer a week or two ago would have been a position player, but the Yankees went out and traded for the exact prototype of infielder I asked for, Jon Berti. Given that fact, I think every team wants more pitching, and I think the only real weakness the Yankees have right now is starting pitching depth. They are not unique in that regard, and they certainly look a lot better if Cole comes back healthy, but no one would complain if the Yankees found another starting pitcher.

The Marlins are surprisingly bad, and have had starting pitchers tumble off the board with injuries, but the rumor is that a fire sale could be closer than one would initially expect. Interesting players, like Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Luis Arraez might very well become available, and while the Yankees don't need another position player right now, both are good enough players that the Yankees should absolutely inquire as to their availability. However, the Marlins also have some good pitching left to pluck, even with recent injuries, like Jesus Luzardo or Edward Cabrera.

I fully expect the Yankees to hunt for pitching this summer, and the Marlins match up as a trade partner.