Yankees miss out on Dallas Keuchel after he signs with the Braves

It’s official. Former Houston Astros ace and Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel has agreed to a one-year $13M to deal pitch for the Atlanta Braves, not the New York Yankees.

Keuchel’s trip to Atlanta has been a long and fascinating one. Along with star reliever Craig Kimbrel, Keuchel spent the entire offseason and part of the regular season not knowing whom they would be playing for. The Yankees were in the mix until the end but reportedly only offered him $11M.

Amidst a historic off season which saw monster contracts and extensions being handed out at an unprecedented rate, one of the best relievers ever (Kimbrel) and the former best pitcher in the American League (Keuchel) remained unsigned. The Braves were considered front runners to sign Keuchel but so were the Yankees.

In 2015, The Beard from Houston (Not James Harden…) had 232 IP, had an ERA of 2.48, won 20 games, struck out 216 and beat David Price and Sonny Gray for the Cy Young Award. Since his Cy Young season, the League average for ground ball/fly ball rate has been 44%/35%.
Hitters against Keuchel in that time span have a 63% groundball rate and hit flyballs at a 21% clip.

This was one of the crucial factors in the Yankees quest for Kuechel. In the era of the ‘Launch Angle’ where it is all about keeping the ball on the ground (and striking batters out…) It would be even more important if he had ended up in the pinstripes, as he would be playing at Yankee Stadium, a notorious hitters ballpark with some of the smallest dimensions in the MLB.

In general, left-handed hitters are more prone to hitting the ball to right field, and Yankees Stadium has one of the shortest right fields in all of baseball. As is well known, LHP have more success versus left-handed hitters, and Dallas Keuchel is a left-handed pitcher.

The Yankees starting pitching this year has definitely exceeded expectations and has been a big reason why the Yankees are leading the AL East. Nonetheless, Yankee fans have begun to worry about their rotation maintaining the hot start. Domingo German is going to be on an innings limit, Luis Severino and Jordan Montgomery still don’t have a timetable, CC Sabathia is a regular visitor on the IL, and J.A Happ has had his fair share of struggles.

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If Keuchel was so great, what took so long for this former superstar to get signed by a team? One of the main reasons why teams were reluctant to sign him or Kimbrel was the compensation draft picks attached to them. After the draft took place, teams were free to sign them without giving up a compensation pick.

Keuchel’s camp reported that he has been throwing sim games every five days to stay in shape and that he will be ready to pitch in the big leagues approximately a week after signing. We’ll have to wait and see in the coming weeks if the Yankees were mistaken in passing upon the southpaw.

In the meantime now GM Brian Cashman will have to shift his focus to the trade market because as the deadline nears there’s no doubt the Yankees will look to acquire another front line starter.