SSTN Mailbag: 3rd Playoff Starter, Judge In LF, And Dominguez's Rookie Year!

The end of the season is near. The last games of the season matter for a host of reasons: personal accomplishments, playoff positioning, keeping guys fresh, etc. Still, I find myself ready for October baseball. I'm not normally one that wishes the baseball season to speed up, but I really am ready for October. It might have something to do with seeing Joe Torre on the Yankee Stadium field blowing the crowd a kiss on Saturday night as the Savanna Bananas took over the Yankees' home turf. In fact, I'm sure that's it. It harkened back to a more innocent time in my life. I grew up as the Yankees formed the dynasty teams, and many of my fondest Yankee memories are of October baseball when Torre managed the Yankees. Maybe the team can bring back some of the magic this year!

I have to hope so anyway, because as much as I want to see October baseball, I'm going to miss a chunk of it traveling overseas. I'll be around for the Wild Card series and Game 1 of the Divisional Series...and that's it until the ALCS. I either need the Yankees to make a quick exit in the Wild Card Round (far from preferable), or I need them to advance easily to the ALCS so that I can watch most of the series. I don't think I'm asking too much. I'm hoping for a healthy-ish end of the season while watching the Yankees roll through the early part of the playoff gauntlet. That sure sounds good to me.

As always, thanks for the great questions and keep them coming to SSTNReadermail@gmail.com. In this week's SSTN Mailbag, we'll talk about the 3rd starter candidates for the playoffs, why the Yankees don't play Judge in LF, and assess Dominguez's rookie year! Let's get at it:

Jerry M. asks: If you were Aaron Boone, who would you pick to be the third starter in the playoffs between Gil, Schlittler, and Warren? All have big upside but a lot of question marks.

A lot of people are asking this question right now, because the Yankees surely only need 3 starters for the first two rounds of the playoffs (if they're lucky). Fried and Rodon are a really, really good 1-2 punch at the top of a playoff rotation, and both are likely to give the Yankees decent length, so the 3rd starter needs to be someone who can be at least a 5-and-dive, though giving 4 innings to this Yankee bullpen is terrifying.

Each of the 3 young guys have taken their lumps in recent outings. Schlittler seems like he often hits a wall or gets a bit too predictable; Gil still doesn't look like the same caliber of pitcher post-lat strain, with lesser stuff and his typical "effectively wild" style that is effective...until it isn't; and Warren has an almost equivalent number of clunkers to dominant performances this season, though his worst performances are skewed in favor of playoff-caliber teams (LA, Toronto, and twice against Boston, for example).

That said, each of these guys is capable of true greatness. When Gil's wild style works, he can no-hit teams, as he did against Boston a couple of weeks back; Schlittler can bewilder opposing hitters with huge velocity, great stuff, and good command, like he did across 6 strong innings against Detroit as the Yankees played the most difficult stretch of their end-of-season schedule; and Warren was successful in mid-summer, going toe-to-toe with one of the best teams in the NL, the Phillies, over 5.2 innings. All 3 can generate strikeouts in bunches at their best.

Unfortunately, one of these guys is not at his best. Luis Gil is pitching with truly diminished stuff, and it shows in the way hitters are managing their plate appearances against him. Gil pitching in the heart of the plate with far higher frequency this year with diminished stuff; his zone rate of 53.4% is way above both his historical and league average rates. Guys are chasing way less against his stuff, and whiffing at a really small rate. I think Gil, at his best, can give Warren and Schlittler a run, but not right now. I also think Gil would transition really well to a bullpen role, and help solidify that part of the pitching staff in the playoffs. He's also the only one of the 3 who has ever pitched out of the bullpen in his professional career to any significant extent.

Thus, my choices are Schlittler or Warren. For me, I'd have to go with Schlittler. I just think he has the most upside, and with both Warren and Gil in the bullpen, there is opportunity to piggyback starters, if need be. Watching Schlittler against the Tigers a couple of weeks ago convinced me, even with his recent clunkers. Schlittler's bad outing against Toronto was more about bad pitch selection (sometimes, it takes a village) than it was about anything Schlittler was doing with his pitches. I think he's the right guy to take the 3rd starter spot.

Robert M. asks: I asked this in the Monday thread, but Luke Weaver managed to overshadow everything.

Judge can't throw. At all. Why not move him to LF, the famed position for behemoth defensive liabilities? Put Bellinger in RF, or really, anyone who can throw harder than a beer-league softball pitcher -- and I say that with the full understanding that right now, Judge couldn't make it through 7 innings on a slow-pitch mound.

If we were writing out a lineup on paper, yes, this makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, the games are played on the field, which is where this idea falls apart. If Judge were comfortable in LF, this is absolutely where he'd play for the remainder of the season. We have multiple years of evidence to show that he is completely out of his element in LF.

If Judge were comfortable in LF, that's where he would have played by the end of last season. Judge was gassed playing CF in deference to Juan Soto, and with Verdugo flailing away as the left fielder, there's little question but that Judge would have played there with Grisham in CF in the playoffs. The Yankees even gave Judge an occasional start in LF last season during the regular season...it didn't go well, at all. In just 18 attempts, OAA graded Judge at -1 in LF, with a -4% expected catch rate. By the eye test, Judge took very poor routes and got bad reads in LF.

The problem is that Judge has clearly not gotten a lot of game exposure to LF in his life, so he is really a fish out of water out there. I think the better defensive alignment for total defense has Judge in RF, Bellinger in LF, and Grisham in CF, even with Judge needing to wet noodle every throw. I agree that LF would be somewhat easier on his arm, but I just don't think it's realistic given what we've seen from Judge in LF.

Brian S. asks: How would you evaluate Dominguez's rookie season? Was he overhyped? Should the Yankees still plan to keep him?

Is he the second coming of Hank Aaron and Mickey Mantle? No, that was absurd, and it wasn't really the scouting community, it was the national media that took the Dominguez storyline and ran with it. That said, Dominguez was still a top-30 prospect in all of baseball prior to his full-time arrival this year. Expectations were very high among baseball observers, myself included. Heck, I predicted he'd win Rookie of the Year...which ain't happening.

I think we saw a lot of the elements that made Dominguez an exciting prospect this season: he's a fantastic baserunner, both in terms of taking extra bases and stealing bases, in addition to knowing how not to make stupid baserunning mistakes; there's real pop in his swing, as he's produced elite exit velocities and swing speeds; his speed and athleticism pop every time he's on the field; he has very good plate discipline, working at-bats more like a veteran than a rookie; and he seems to be a great clubhouse guy.

We also saw the problems: his right-handed swing is way behind his left-handed swing, and it caused his performance to suffer; he makes a lot of suboptimal hard contact, which leads to an excessive number of ground outs; and he really is a poor defensive left fielder.

Some of this falls on the Yankees; they did nothing to help him by not playing him enough in LF as he came through the minor leagues. I watched him in CF at AA and AAA, and while he was a bit rough around the edges, I think he would have performed better defensively in CF than he has in LF. Instead, he's learned a new position on the fly.

At the plate, I think we'd be talking about Dominguez very differently without a rough August, during which time he transitioned to being a part time player. He has things to work on, but the tools are there for a middle-of-the-order dynamo. We've seen flashes of it as a left-handed hitter, and now that he's seen the league once, I expect him to be far better there in his sophomore season.

Am I underwhelmed by his rookie year? Yes. Do I still think Dominguez can be an All-Star? Also, yes. Remember, progression isn't linear. Give Dominguez time; I think there's a great player in there yet.