Yankees fans should be thankful for these three Bombers this holiday season

Austin Romine

Austin Romine does not get nearly enough of the credit he deserves as the Yankees backup catcher. The backstop appeared in 77 games behind the dish last season, including 68 starts. behind the dish last season.

Gary Sanchez is obviously the starting catcher for the Yankees going into the 2019 campaign, despite the rumors of others teams having interest in him. However, Romine provides excellent insurance behind the plate when Sanchez needs a day off or when he’s the DH.

The 2018 season proved to be a huge improvement for Romine in terms of offensive production, especially in the power department. These are just some of the numbers to compare between the 2017 and 2018 seasons:

2017: 80 G, 252 PA, 19 R, 50 H, 2 HR, 21 RBI, .218/.272/.293, 67 TB

2018: 77 G, 265 PA, 30 R, 59 H, 10 HR, 42 RBI, .244/.295/.417, 101 TB

While the number of games played, plate appearances runs scored, and hits are very similar, Romine saw a huge jump in home runs, runs batted in, total bases, and slugging percentage.

Besides his offense, Romine is extremely capable of calling a game from behind the plate, as Yankees pitchers boasted a 4.09 ERA when the catcher was behind the dish. While not “lights-out” per se, the league average was a 4.27 ERA just for comparison. Not to mention, a majority of these games were played in the heavy-hitting AL East.

Additionally, Romine is clearly a superior defensive catcher in comparison to Sanchez (although Sanchez does have a cannon of an arm). Romine only allowed five passed balls and 17 wild pitches in 611.1 innings, while Sanchez gave up an MLB-high 18 passed balls and 45 wild pitches (fifth-most in MLB) in 653.0 innings.

Lastly, Romine works especially well with LHP CC Sabathia. It certainly helps that New York re-signed Sabathia to a one-year, $10 million deal for this season. Here are the numbers when the lefty pitched to both Sanchez and Romine in 2018:

Sanchez: 15 G, 77.0 IP, 3.62 ERA, 40 R (31 ER), 87 H, 11 HR, .279/.322/.433, .322 BAbip

Romine: 10 G, 54.2 IP, 3.46 ERA, 21 R (21 ER), 41 H, 4 HR, .200/.293/.298, .236 BAbip

While certainly a smaller sample sized, Sabathia dominated in every major statistical category in 2018 when Romine was behind home plate.

What particularly stands out the most is the .236 BAbip that Sabathia owns when Romine is handling the catching duties.

In case you are unsure what this means, BAbip (Batting Average on Balls In Play) records the batting average of balls put into play, but excludes strikeouts, walks, and home runs. From a pitchers perspective, BAbip measures how effectively a team’s defense recorded outs on balls that were put into play.

This relates specifically to Sabathia, as the lefty has reinvented himself into a ground ball pitcher. In 2018 alone, Sabathia owned a ground ball percentage of 44.4%.

Besides being tough as nails, Romine proved in 2018 that he can really help the Yankees with his bat, presence behind home plate, and with members of the pitching staff, even if it’s not on a day-to-day basis.