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New York Yankees Editorial: Should The Yankees Take A Chance On Neftali Feliz?

By Jason Evans

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Teams are starting to really re-shuffle their rosters as we get approach a week to the All-Star break. (If you can believe it). You’re going to see teams start to DFA players more and more as they figure out who they should promote from within and what they should try and get from outside the organization.

One of the more surprising DFA’s we’ve seen is the Rangers deciding to give up on Neftali Feliz and DFA him. Much like the New York Yankees with Joba Chamberlain, Feliz was called up to relieve during a pennant race, became a star out of the bullpen and then the team decided to turn him back into a starter. He got Tommy John surgery and was never the same. (Chamberlain was DFA’d by Detroit Friday as well) 

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The Yankees could use another arm out of that bullpen, so should they buy low on Feliz?

The thing that has gone wrong for Feliz this year is his line drive percentage. Per Fangraphs, it’s up from 21.6 to 24.2%.  His groundball percentage is up this year fr0m 27% to 34%. His hard hit percentage is down from 31% to 30%. Feliz may just be getting into some bad luck. His opponents BABIP is .344 which is WAY up from last year at .176.

His average fastball is up a tick from 93.1 to 93.7 this year. His slider velocity is down from 83.5 to 81.6% and that may be the issue.

Last year, he threw his fastball 58% of the time and his slider 16.4%. This year, his fastball usage is down to 51%, while the usage of the slider has increased to 27.1%. Clearly, his slider hasn’t been that effective and that may be why he hasn’t been either.

Larry Rothschild is one of the best pitching minds, and Feliz could be an interesting new project out of the bullpen for him. If the Yankees can get him for the right price, they should take a chance.

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