Yankees 2021 pitching staff was good, 2022 could be better
The Yankees used 30 pitchers last season. Even though 30 sounds like a monumental number, modern managerial strategies and roster construction has changed things dramatically. In their ALCS season in 2019, for instance, they trotted out 32 different pitchers.
Many members of the 2021 group showed up at the ballpark because of baseball emergencies. Injuries or COVID-19 claimed a new pitcher at a startling rate. In turn, a few of the kiddos who had to take those spots were not ready for the big leagues yet, and their numbers reflected that.
One of the pitchers the team had to scramble to replace was Corey Kluber. Before the season, the team was putting a lot of stock in a Kluber comeback. The former Cy Young winner tore a muscle in his right shoulder while pitching for the Rangers in 2020, limiting him to a one-inning career in Texas. The Yankees took him on though and wanted him to be a mainstay of the rotation, especially knowing that Luis Severino would be on the mend from Tommy John surgery for the foreseeable future.
Nestor Cortes Jr., who was signed to a minor league contract in December worth $575,000, ended up making more starts in 2021 than Kluber, who raked in $11 million and re-injured his shoulder in May. Michael King, Luis Gil, Deivi Garcia and Nick Nelson combined to make as many starts as Kluber. Domingo German missed an important chunk of the season with a shoulder injury as well, and the mid-season acquisition of Andrew Heaney was calamitous.
The Yankees also got fewer than 30 innings from the Darren O’Day-Justin Wilson free agency duo. O’Day and Wilson each signed two-year deals to be part of the Yankees bullpen and are each already done in the Bronx. With just 18.1 innings from Zack Britton, the biggest non-Chapman name in the bullpen, things could have gone disastrously for a decimated Yankee pitching staff.
Yet, the Yankees collection of pitchers posted the fourth-highest Wins Above Replacement (22.3) and strikeout rate (26.2%), sixth-best ERA (3.76), Fielding Independent Pitching (3.90) and WHIP (1.21), and the third-lowest hard-hit rate (36.2%) of any team in the league. Even if there were some days when each pitcher who graced the mound was relatively unknown — the Aug. 3 victory when Luis Gil, Stephen Ridings and Brady Koerner stifled the Orioles comes to mind — the Yankees still found a way to reach deep into their mine of pitching and pull out a diamond.
Credit to Matt Blake, the pitching coach who understandably dodged the wave of firings that leveled the hitting coaches. The team is notoriously private about what exactly their internal analytics are, or how they use those numbers to evaluate players, but they worked enough last summer to carry a lifeless offense to the playoffs.
One area where the Yankees’ pitchers excelled was in using hitters’ aggressiveness against them. The Rays were the only MLB team to make opposing batters swing at pitches out of the strike zone more often than the Yankees. By called+swinging strike percentage (CSW%), the Yankees’ staff was the fourth-best in the majors, thanks to guys like Gerrit Cole, Aroldis Chapman and Clay Holmes who far exceeded the league average in that category. Whether they needed to dot a pitch on the corner to freeze an unsure bystander, or break off a hellacious slider to get a much-needed swing and miss, the Yankees could consistently achieve that all season.
The scary part for the rest of the American League is thinking about the improvements that could be on their way. Assuming clean bills of health for Severino and German, the Bombers could get full seasons from a pair of voltaic arms, adding what they hope is reliable depth behind Cole and Jordan Montgomery. There’s also the evergreen possibility of the Yankees adding a pitcher or two in the coming months. The starters will draw the most attention and the most money, but with bullpens never existing as a sure thing (even the Yankees’, which was excellent), Brian Cashman should not limit his search to the beginning of games.
Getting better is every team’s goal this time of year, but many fall into the trap of only prioritizing areas of weakness. While the Yankees can, should, and will address their offense, making meaningful additions to the pitching staff could be the difference between flaming out in the early postseason rounds again or making a serious run at the whole thing.
