SSTN Mailbag: Top Prospect Placement, Torpedo Bats, And Yoendrys Gomez!

Welcome back, SSTN Campers! It's been an interesting first week of baseball. The Yankees had an incredible first weekend against a Brewers pitching staff that looked as though they needed one more week of Spring Training. That record-setting weekend has led to more talk about the equipment being used in games than at any point in recent memory. I say that with the complete recognition that I spent a ton of time in recent seasons tracking the relative elasticity and consistency of the MLB baseball. The difference? I'm a die hard baseball fan; I eat, breathe, and sleep the sport. It's not just people like me talking about the bats, as it was with the baseballs in recent years; I don't have enough limbs to count the number of people I've heard talking about the bat revolution sweeping across baseball.

We'll talk more about the bats below, but the discussion has been so ubiquitous that I'm not sure many casual fans could tell you the Yankees' current record (4-2, for those who needed the update). It's a fascinating phenomenon, and I don't remember a conversation quite like this to begin a season ever, really. I'll be fascinated to see where it goes.

More importantly, the Yankee offense has been pretty darn impressive in the early going. A bit dependent on the long ball early on, but otherwise, the team is getting contributions up and down the lineup, something that has been missing for some time now. The pitching has been okay, given the circumstances. I hope one or two starters really step up, but the back of the rotation did what they needed to do to keep the Yanks in games. That'll be enough, if they can keep it up.

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 starting minor league assignments for a few top prospects, we'll have a wide-ranging discussion about the Torpedo bats, and we'll talk about Yoendrys Gomez's hot start to the season! Let's get at it:

Alan B. asks: With Triple-A starting today and every other league starting in a week, can you see any of Cam Schlittler, Alexander Vargas, or Spencer Jones starting 2025 in SWB?

Alan asked this question last Friday, and it still makes sense to have a discussion about the above players today. I was very intrigued by the manner in which Cam Schlittler was managed by the Yankees during Spring Training. He was sent back to minor league camp by the middle of Spring Training, but he continued to get a significant share of innings with the big league club. I can only assume that there are two possible reasons, and it's possible both are true at the same time:

1. The Yankees really like Schllittler, believe he might make an impact in 2025, and wanted to get him comfortable with both big league catchers and playing on a bigger stage.

2. The Yankees were showcasing Schlittler to other teams in their pursuit to grab another starter or right-handed hitting infielder.

Given those factors, I thought there was a chance that the team would be very aggressive with Schlittler and start him off in AAA. They chose to send him back to AA. I don't necessarily think that's the wrong move, given how few innings Schlittler has under his belt at AA. Let him prove it through May/June and then promote him. I think that's a fair strategy, as Schlittler still needs to prove he can consistently control the number of baserunners that reach in a game around him.

Spencer Jones needed to go back to AA no matter how he looked in Spring Training. He posted terrible in-zone whiff rates at AA despite his solid surface numbers (again, when I talk about whiffs, I don't mean strikeouts; I mean the act of swinging and missing). He needs to prove he can control his strike zone and his bat better before he moves on to the next level. If Jones can unlock that skill, he still has incredible raw tools, but he would be eaten alive moving up the ladder right now.

I honestly don't consider Vargas a prospect anymore. I know he had a nice Spring Training, but I see nothing different in his approach or mechanics that would unlock more offensive potential. He wasn't very good offensively at AA last season, so I don't see any reason for him to move up a level.

I think the Yankees did fine with all 3 assignments mentioned above. My only question mark was Schlittler, but I still think the Yankees made the right moves.

Multiple People asked some version of: What do you think about the torpedo bats? Are they cheating? How much do they help performance?

This is a huge topic, and the reality is that we just don't have a ton of public data yet. I do think it's hysterical that this became a huge topic because the Yankee broadcast crew made a huge deal about the bats during the opening series. Realistically, anyone close to the game who was paying attention over the last year would have noticed the funny-looking bats during minor league games, batting practice, and even last year's MLB playoffs. In fact, I mentioned Stanton's bat to my brother in the middle of a playoff game last year. I literally said, "huh, interesting," and moved on. Guys have been tinkering with bat designs, including the degree of taper with a stunning array of handles for years now in the amateur and professional ranks. As long as it's within the rules, why not?!?

Make no mistake; to the letter of MLB's rules, the new bats meet specification. This isn't an instance where the Yankees were quietly trying to skirt MLB's rules. This is an instance of a team trying to find an edge, no matter how large or small. That's their job; find every way possible to win baseball games as long as it's within the rules. Good for the Yankees for finding buy-in from players if they could prove something works.

Frankly, I just don't understand the crazy reactions out there. Part of that might be because of what I've seen in other sports I love. The easiest parallel to what we're seeing in baseball is golf (I am, sadly, a golf addict when I'm pulled from my baseball obsession...and that includes building and rebuilding clubs). One of the most popular movements in both professional and amateur golf over the last decade and change is the idea of "getting fit" for golf clubs. There's a lot of bad fitting out there, but the idea makes a lot of sense, and it's not about static fitting for height, arm length, and swing speed. A good fitter takes those static measurements into account when looking at the manner in which a player delivers the club to the ball on most swings. You can then build equipment that puts the player in the best position to produce their best swing more consistently, while using center of gravity and total club weight to protect against common misses, both in contact and swing faults. While the core of the game comes down to the idea that "it's the sculptor, not the chisel," getting a chisel that allows the sculptor to perform their best most consistently is an understood part of golf. I think the Torpedo bat is an example of that idea in baseball.

The idea behind the Torpedo bats makes a lot of sense, but we still have too little data to understand how large the impact will be. On some level, baseball has been looking for a way for hitters to level the playing field with the advance of pitching over the last 5-7 years. This bat might just prove to be that equalizer. It might also prove to be too large an advance for hitters such that MLB needs to create a rule outlawing such bat designs, though I doubt that's where we're heading. I think this is a natural evolution in hitting, given the analysis we've seen on the pitching side of the field in the last decade. I'll be very curious to see where all of this goes.

Brian S. asks: What are your thoughts on the first couple of outings made by Yoendrys Gomez? I assumed he would be the odd man out at some point, but now I'm not so sure.

I've highlighted Yoendrys Gomez as an important piece to the Yankee bullpen this season precisely because of the role he's filled so far. He is a bullpen arm with recent starting experience, good stuff, and he's built up to roughly 50+ pitches, if needed. Given the dearth of starting pitching depth, I think Gomez will be needed to piggyback with starters throughout the season. He's done well early on in that role, and I expect it to continue.

Gomez has seen a slight uptick in his fastball velocity, and he has changed his secondary offerings. While he used to show slider, sweeper, curve, and change-up, he is now featuring a really sweepy slider with more horizontal movement and less drop and a slurvy-curve that he can use to hitters from both sides of the plate. His fastball looks hittable to me, but the other stuff is intriguing. I think Gomez can be successful. It may not be the ceiling we all hoped for before an injury-plagued minor league career, but given the circumstances, this is not a terrible outcome by any stretch.