Yankees’ Chad Green’s Twitter likes show he’s motivated by haters in 2022

Whatever you believe in him or not after his 2021 season spent in all the wrong places, New York Yankees relief ace Chad Green was burnt out by the end of the campaign.

Green’s age-30 season ended up with some rather absurd statistics for a reliever: 10-7 record, 3.12 ERA, 99 Ks in 83.2 innings pitched, and a sterling 0.884 WHIP.

For every immaculate inning against the Mets, though, there seemed to be an equal and opposite reaction in the other direction. Objectively, many of the hits Green allowed were of the backbreaking variety, and a good amount left the yard.

14 homers. Hey, how do you think he got to a 10-7 record, anyway? Participating in a lot of tie games, some of which he tied before the Yankees crept back ahead (Aug. 5 against Seattle when he put the Yanks down 3-2, Aug. 15 against Chicago when Jose Abreu rocked him).

Evidence in Green’s column? A good deal of the decisions he factored into occurred at the end of the season, when fatigue was evident. In fact, his record entering August was just 4-5, and four of his six blown saves came during those two months.

No matter what you believe about Green’s current skill level, you must admit he was exhausting last season. Too often, he was turned back into a one-pitch pitcher, and got summarily rocked by the league’s best hitters, who always seemed to be one step ahead of him in crunch time (Abreu, Kiké Hernández, Jose Altuve … twice).

Entering Green’s final season of team control, some fans have taken to preparing for his departure ahead of time … which, according to Green’s Twitter likes, he plans to use to his advantage.

Yankees reliever Chad Green is motivated by his haters.

In the wake of this discourse, some have taken to Twitter to rewrite history and claim Green’s 2021 wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

This is where statistics don’t always tell the full story. A star reliever is allowed to falter on occasion, and Green did do plenty of solid high-leverage work throughout the season, but six blown saves and seven losses is far too many. Fans who were left feeling uneasy about Green after ’21 are completely justified to do so, and it’s unreasonable to tell them their searing memories of failures at Fenway, Citi Field and Minute Maid just don’t count because Green was also excellent on other occasions.

The other odd thing about a potential Green resurgence? He routinely allowed extremely hard contact in 2021 (13th percentile hard-hit percentage, 7th percentile barrel percentage), and it’s not at all the first time that’s been true. He finished 2017 and 2019 in the bottom 1% of the league in hard-hit percentage, and ended 2018 in the bottom 4%. Very, very bad!

In past years, that hard contact has typically not left the yard at quite so high a rate — though Green also allowed 10 bombs in 2019 (compared to just four in fewer innings in 2017).

If the Yankees floated Green on the trade market, would a fellow contender look to snap up an upper-echelon reliever who topped his career-high in innings by eight last year coming off a 25-inning season in 2020? Or has his trade value been so far diminished that the Yanks should simply hope he gets back to being trustworthy?

Here’s to hoping Green’s Twitter mentions tick his fastball up an additional mile per hour in 2022, and we never have to see the circulating Lindor clip ever again.

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