Yankees amazing and inconceivable season at the 40-game mark

The 2017 Yankees have played one-fourth of their games and sit near the top of the American League. It has been an interesting and exciting journey. And only now can we, and should we, taking stock of the season so far. Here, now, is the MVP, MIP, BBB, and MBT, of the season so far. And if you don’t know what those are, you’ll just have to read the article.

The Yankees have been making my life difficult. I have a rule that I will neither look at nor care about wins and losses until the season is 40 games in. And when that day arrives, my expectations every year are modest. I want the Yankees to be at or above .500. Any team in that position with 122 games to play is in good shape for a run.

But it has been difficult. Every Aaron Judge home run hit deep into the stands seemed to carry the team to a win. It has been hard not to notice the team appears to lead its division most days. However, it is the foolish baseball fan indeed who thinks a prolonged winning streak before even one-quarter of the season has been played means sustainable success.

Patience has paid off, however, and this morning finds the Yankees record an enviable one. They are currently 24-16. That makes them the third best team in the American League, second in their division by a half-game to the Orioles, and the fourth best team in all of baseball. That works.

Apparently the Yankees have arrived. While the wins and losses are the best part of the story of the 2017 New York Yankees, the most intriguing part is how they got here. So here are the MVP, the Most Improved Player (MIP), the Best Baby Bomber (BBB), and the Most Bizarre Twist (MBT) to the season to date.

Two Big Men; Two Big Contributions

First the runners up.

Aaron Judge. Aaron’s production and presence have been amazing. And there is only one thing you have to know about him to understand how good of a start the Yankees are off to; but, first his numbers.

Aaron is slashing .331/.431/.728. He leads the team in home runs (15) by almost double; Matt Holliday has eight. He is second on the team in OBP (.431) and leads the team in RBI’s, with 30. Do you wanna know how you can tell the Yankees are off to a tremendous start, on pace to win 96 games? Aaron Judge, with those accomplishments, is not the MVP.

We might see him again in the BBB category, but now it is time to move on to…

Big Mike

Michael Pineda. The Yankees have hit their way to a ton of wins. And the pitching has been better than feared. Even with their recent problems and Masahiro Tanaka’s bloated ERA, the Yankees pitching staff has the 6^th best ERA in the AL (3.98). That’s one big reason the Yankees have won 24 of their first forty games.

And the most significant reason for that is Big Mike. Read this next sentence carefully: Michael Pineda has been the steady and consistent rock the staff has leaned on. He leads the starters in ERA at 3.42. Pineda leads the team in most strikeouts (55) and fewest walks (8). And his WHIP (1.035) and winning percentage (.667) are tops on the team.

Most importantly, he has been the most reliable starter. Luis Severino’s numbers are very comparable, but he has not been as consistent. We might see him again in the Most Bizarre category, but now it is time to move on to…

MVP Starlin Castro

It might be hard to believe this after reading about the Judge. It’s true that Castro is second on the team to Judge in RBI’s, 27 to 30. And it’s also true that Starlin is second on the team to Judge in run’s scored, 31 to 35. Castro is only third on the team in home runs, 7, and in OBP (.383).

But gaudy numbers and magazine covers only win awards for players in football and basketball. Baseball is played every day and wins only pile up when the best players play the most games and do the thousand, thousand little things it takes to win every game, every day.

Here are some areas where Starlin does lead the team. He’s first in games played at 40. That means he has played in every game and is the only player to have done so. Starlin leads in hits with 58 and doubles, with 10. He is also first in plate appearances—175—but has a lower strikeout to appearance ratio than Judge, Aaron Hicks, Matt Holliday or Brett Gardner; the only player with a better rate is Jacoby Ellsbury.

Getting his Uniform Dirty

And Starlin’s fielding is at least half the reason he wins the MVP. Again he has logged the most innings in the field (350). Judge is second with 317 and Gardner is fourth with 285; as they say, you gotta play to win.

Castro does have four errors to Judge’s two, but almost every other advanced metric shows him a better fielder than Judge, including fielding percentage. And Starlin is involved in a lot more quick-thinking, high pressure plays. Here again, he leads the team. He has helped turn 19 double plays; only Chris Carter has been involved in more than eight, and it is hard to consider him integral to the process.

Before we move on to the MIP, let me give those of you who are not convinced that Castro should win this award over Judge one more good baseball stat. Judge has hit into nine double plays, which should be an opposite stat to RBI’s. A RBI is most often produced when a hit allows another player to score. We can set aside walks and solo home runs for now.

A double play is most often produced when a hit erases both you and a runner who was on base and might have scored later, if not for your hit. That means we have to subtract some points somewhere from all of those fabulous Aaron Judge numbers; I’m just not sure where.

Castro, on the other hand, has only hit into 3 DP’s. Those numbers have to be considered when evaluating offensive production and helped tip the scale in favor of Starlin Castro.

Report Card Reads: Has Shown Improvement

The 2016 Yankees started the season 18-22; the 2017 version is 24-16. That means a 20-game improvement year-to-year and a lot of improved play. Yankees fans will excuse Gary Sanchez from this category as there is no way he or anyone could do better than he did in 2016.

Sadly for poor lost 2016, there were a lot of players who finished the season needing to make this list. Fortunately for 2017, a lot of players have; here is the short version.

Michael Pineda. We have already sung his praises in the MVP category. His numbers look even better when we compare them to 2016 when he had a record of 6-12 and an ERA of 4.82. This year he has a winning record (4-2) and has shaved more than a full point off of his ERA. He is Big Mike maybe for the first time.

Aaron Judge. You have heard it a million times. Aaron struck out in 42 of his 84 AB’s—that’s a fifty percent rate—and finished with a .179 BA. This year he has cut that down to about thirty percent, with 44 SO’s in 136 AB’s, and owns a .331 BA. You wanna know how improved the Yankees are this year?

Aaron Judge did not win this award.

Aaron Hicks only likes odd numbered Years

If Aaron Judge seemed like the favorite in the MVP category, Aaron Hicks had to look like the favorite here. And why not? Last year Hicks slashed .217/.281./.336. The only guys who had lower ERA’s with at least 100 AB’s were Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez.

Mark and A-Rod each slugged at a higher percentage (.362 and .351, respectively) and Tex even had a higher OBP (.292). A-Rod was so bad he got cut; Tex was so god awful he just quit playing. How I wished a similar fate for Aaron Hicks.

But baseball has always been about redemption and Hicks has been reborn. His slash line is almost from a different player: (.301/.441/.570). He leads the team in OBP at .441 and is second in OPS (which is OBP plus slugging) at 1.011. That also makes him one of only two Yankees with an OPS above one, the other being Judge (1.159).

Hicks has fewer strikeouts than walks (21/23) and is second on the team in stolen bases. The biggest reason he wins this award, though, is his attitude. He has a better plan for each at bat and is providing pressure on the base paths. I spent all winter writing that I did not want Aaron Hicks on the team. What I meant was that I did not want the 2016 version of Hicks.

This new guy I like just fine and is the second biggest upgrade on the team, right behind…

Luis Severino Fulfills a Promise

The Yankees are like most clubs: desperate for great young pitching. And it seemed way back in 2015 as if the post-Andy Pettitte drought was finally over. Out of the minors came fastball throwing flamethrower Luis Severino. He dominated the minors and was fast-tracked to the Show.

And what a show he put on. In eleven starts he put up a 2.89 ERA while he struck out 56 batters in 62 innings. He gave up only 53 hits in those 62 innings and set the Yankees universe collective unconscious into a psychically-linked fangasm.

The reality of 2016 was not nearly so pleasant. Severino was a disaster as a starter, as YanksGoYard’s Evan Halpine-Berger points out in this insightful piece. By the time we got to Yankees 2017 spring training, Severino was more wish than hope.

And it does not Spring Eternal

Fortunately, Luis has spent the 2017 Yankees season engaging in wish fulfillment. His ERA in his first eight starts and 47 innings is good enough to be second on the team at 3.64. He is behind only Pineda in WHIP (1.128) and strikeouts (54) but leads the starters in fewest hits allowed (40), and runs (20). And he has given up thirty percent fewer home runs than Big Mike (7/10).

Plus, he has already shown himself resilient. He had a bad outing two starts ago, and the fear was it would drain his confidence. Instead, he came back in his last start to go five innings with only one earned run. That is not a great start but is a bridge back to dominance, instead of careening into a four or five game skid.

He is the most improved player and might be the Yankees best pitcher.

Of course, the season is all about the Baby Bombers. Time to find out who has come out of the cradle endlessly rocking.

The Best Baby Bombers

Luis Severino. His season has already been well documented. Severino is the youngest starter (23), even younger than newly arrived Jordan Montgomery (24). He throws 99 mph on occasion and is gaining confidence with every outing. Severino doesn’t look like a future Ace; he looks like a current one.

Gary Sanchez (honorable mention). Yo Soy Gary has not logged enough time to be considered, but he has been, well, Gary since his return from the DL. For his 66 AB’s, Mr. Sanchez is slashing .303/.395/.500 with four home runs and eleven RBI’s. That projects to roughly 35 home runs and 93 RBI’s for a guy who missed a month of the season. Usted Es Gary, indeed.

Winner Aaron Judge

Was this a surprise? He leads the Yankees in home runs with 15. The next closest is Holliday with eight. It also happens to lead all of MLB. Freddie Freeman has 14 but is currently on the DL. Mike Trout is the closest in the AL with 13.

The Judge is also sixth in the AL in batting average (.331) and second in both SLG (.728) and OBP (.431); Mike Trout leads the last two. But Judge is first in runs scored, beating Castro 35 to 31; Trout has 29. And of course, he leads in tape measure home runs and aw shucks moments.

Aaron Judge might win the Rookie of the Year award and the MVP. The fact that he is not the Yankees MVP shows just how strong of a start the Yankees have had.

And while either would be incredible, nothing compares to the almost inconceivable aspects to this still so young Yankees season.

Masahiro Tanaka and Micheal Pineda have pulled a Freaky Friday routine

Time is as fluid as your mind allows it to be. For instance, look at some of the questions from a Yankees trivia game:

Who is the Yankees best pitcher by ERA? Who is the Yankees most consistent pitcher? Name the pitcher who is maddeningly inconsistent? Name the pitcher whose stuff and results have the least conceivable correlation? Which pitcher do you least trust from a start to start basis?

If you were to let your mind wander freely over the last three years, you would have said Tanaka for the first two and Pineda for rest. If you answer them now, however, every answer is switched.

It is understandable, albeit regrettable that Tanaka is struggling. He has still gone out at times and looked like the best pitcher in baseball. But what is shocking is his Pineda-esque swings between that guy and the one who makes me cringe with every pitch. I’m starting to think Masahiro means, “Home Runs for All.”

Likewise, it would not be that surprising to see Pineda put it all together. He has electric stuff and an imposing size. Big Mike is not even so big anymore and seems to cut a better figure on the mound. And it’s not like he has turned in Clayton Kershaw. His ERA leads the team but is only 16^th best in the AL. I could understand if he finally became this good.

But both happening at once? That doesn’t happen, and it’s weird. And, to paraphrase Pacino, we’re just gettin’ warmed up.

Chris Carter has a better batting average than Greg Bird

Now that shouldn’t be. I understand that Carter is going to have more home runs (2/1) and RBI’s (11/3) than Bird. Greg went on the disabled list and has only 60 AB’s compared to Carter’s 80. Hey, Carter also has more strikeouts (35/22), which shows all the numbers are up, good and bad.

But BA? Bird has 60 AB’s; how could his average be .100? Carter’s is horrible at .216, and that is 116 points higher than Bird’s. Did you see spring training? Bird looked like he had imbibed the soul of Sanchez and was going to utterly destroy American League pitching. Instead, he made Stephen Drew look good until he finally hobbled off the field.

Everyone gets injured, and I am not down on Bird for that. But how can it be that forty games into the season, Carter has a better batting average than Bird? No one could have or did predict that one. Or the next one.

The Yankees pitching staff is better and more promising than the Mets

Could you imagine if anyone had posited that over the off-season? My editors barely put up with me now; one more article about the pun-pocalypse and I’ll be writing for the Rising Apple. Had I the temerity to write an article in which I suggested the current reality, the readers would have plotzed.

And they would have been right to. I did not write such an article because I never, ever imagined it could be true. The Yankees pitching staff has a 3.98 ERA, which makes them sixth in the AL. The Mets pitching staff has a flat 5 ERA and is ranked last in the NL. And the AL has a lot more hitting in it, skewing the comparison even more.

Overall, the Yankees have the tenth best staff, and the Mets have the 30^th. Noah Syndergaard has the best stuff of anyone on either team but has just suffered a serious injury. Luis Severino has not had any similar problems yet. Jacob deGrom has a worse ERA (3.56) than Pineda and has a hard time getting out of the sixth inning. Matt Harvey has gone from the Dark Knight to a dark hole in the rotation.

I am not saying that the Yankees cannot fall apart and the Mets cannot rebound, perhaps meeting somewhere in the middle. But this is a review of the season to date, and right now all of the above is true. And that is inconceivable.