SSTN Mailbag: Brennen Davis, Role Play, and Schmidt!

Brutal. That is the only word I can use to describe the reality of watching the Yankees play baseball at the moment. There are no fundamentals in any facet of the game. The Yankees don't use their speed effectively on the basepaths; they don't communicate with each other well in the field; when quick reactions need to be made, players often make the wrong decision; and players are put in suboptimal positions by their manager, often in deference to an inadequate or some strange affinity for hope-ium that a guy can get one more out or one more magical play.

Is the roster construction perfect? Certainly not. Is any roster perfect? Also no, definitively. Is the Yankees' roster construction worse than other contending teams? Not particularly, on paper. What is the common theme for Yankee teams of the last 5 seasons, at least? The manager and coaching staff in the dugout. The players and roster construction have changed, generally for the better over that time, but the same mistakes and player development stalls happen time and again. I was talking about this idea with a few well-informed fans a few weeks ago, and as anti-Boone as I am, I said I wasn't sure I'd fire him because I didn't see how it would change anything in-season. I think I've shifted to the other side of that argument in recent days. If this goes on much longer, I think the only correct move will be to move on from Aaron Boone as Yankee manager, a move which should have occurred in an earlier off-season.

On a positive note, I had a wonderful time going to Yankee Stadium for the first time in 6+ years. Mercifully, the Yankees were excellent, thoroughly dismantling the A's and Luis Severino. More importantly, I can't think of anything more American than spending a day at the ballpark with my brother and my father, a hot dog and a drink of choice, and baseball. I still miss the old stadium greatly, but we had a great time. I won't be at the ballpark today, but you can be sure I'll celebrate the 4th of July with family, a hot dog and a burger, and baseball. Happy 4th, everyone!

As always, thanks for the great questions and keep them coming to SSTNReadermail@gmail.com. In this week's SSTN Mailbag, we'll discuss Brennen Davis' candidacy for the roster, I'll put my manager cap on, and we'll talk about the upsetting news regarding Clarke Schmidt! Let's get at it:

Mounders12004 asks: When is Brenn[e]n Davis getting the call-up? While mostly playing LF in Scranton, he also plays 3b, 2b and SS. If he's slugging over 800 and OPSing over 1.200, why wait? Because of Peraza, who isn't ever going to hit? It's dfa time

I've checked Davis' career professional statistics, and I see no reference to Davis spending any time on the infield dirt at any level of professional baseball. It's entirely possible that Davis played on the dirt a bit in high school, but that's an entirely different world; it's like the difference between trying to hit in a 45 MPH batting cage versus a 100 MPH batting cage. Having watched him move and play, I don't see any possibility that he would be capable of playing the infield in any capacity, so I think we can give up that dream, as convenient as it would be considering the Yankees' other options on that front.

The other side of the coin is that Brennen Davis is a legitimately interesting player! Davis is a player who was on the fringes of top-100 prospect lists due to his loud tools, particularly in the raw power department. Davis' biggest issue has been staying healthy as a minor league player. He has had a wild string of fluke injuries that have derailed his development. The Cubs finally grew tired of waiting and cut Davis loose. The Yankees swooped in and grabbed him, and immediately placed him in AAA (after he recovered from yet another injury), and he's thrived. He's making just enough contact to allow his significant raw power to play in games, and he's converting some of his raw tools into performance. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that 40-man roster concerns notwithstanding, he'd likely be above Everson Pereira and Spencer Jones on the call-up list, which is no small feat considering how he entered the organization.

I do have concerns about Davis, though. The hit tool has always been a question, though that is partly because of the significant missed time in his development, so it may be that he just needs to see a lot more pitching before we make a real evaluation there. The early returns at AAA show some troubling trends, though. We don't have a ton of pitch tracking data from Statcast, but this image shows my biggest concern:

I want you to focus on the light purple dots, showing swinging strikes. First of all, we see a fair number of whiffs in the strike zone, which is not a great sign. It's not as alarming as the in-zone swinging strike rate that Spencer Jones displays, but it's not great. Worse is Davis' propensity to swing at off-speed and breaking stuff below the zone. That will eat him alive at the big league level. Statcast (on pitches it has tracked at AAA) has Davis' whiff rate at 33.6%, which is not good despite a perfectly playable strikeout rate of 22%. That indicates a light hit tool, though it's not the be-all-end-all. Again, I think that Davis has more development left than your typical AAA hitter.

On the plus side, Davis has managed solid strikeout and walk rates, has an excellent hard hit rate, launches the ball well, which allows him to tap into his considerable power consistently. He is likely best-suited to LF, but I think he could certainly cover RF and even CF in a pinch. I also like Davis' swing from the right side; it's short, simple, and doesn't have a lot of moving parts. He's a dead-pull hitter, but he's able to go back up the middle and to right-center when the pitch calls for it. In short, I think the interest in Davis is warranted.

I agree that the Yankees need to move on from Peraza, but Davis isn't a fit in that scenario, nor do I believe that he's a fit for this season. However, it would not shock me if Davis is a real option to play for the Yankees in 2026.

Frank G. asks: I am tired of listening to Aaron Boone talk about the internal conversations they're having about the lineup, then never making a move to change anything. Pretend you're the manager as of today. You don't get to make roster moves, but you can make lineup decisions and bullpen moves. How do you reorganize things right now?

Fun! OK, I'll list off my short list:

1. 1B is officially a platoon. We have multiple years of plate appearances that tell us that Paul Goldschmidt cannot hit right-handed pitching. Ben Rice has never hit left-handed pitching, dating back to his time in the minors. This is as clear a platoon as exists in baseball, and Goldy's veteran status is the only thing keeping the Yankees from making the obvious move. Rice starts against almost all right-handed pitching moving forward. Goldy starts against all left-handed pitching.

2. DJ LeMahieu no longer starts. Jazz Chisholm moves back to 2B, and Oswald Peraza moves to 3B until an upgrade is acquired. It's absolutely mind-numbing to have it confirmed that the Yankees never had Jazz take groundballs at 3B this offseason, but here we are. This immediately makes the infield plus defensively, and it may even help Anthony Volpe at SS now that he knows he has two plus defenders on either side of him. I'll be in the GM's office asking begging to DFA DJLM as soon as an upgrade is acquired.

3. Anthony Volpe will be hitting 9th until further notice. He has taken a huge step back mechanically (article coming) at the plate since May, and he can't possibly be a plus hitter in his current state. He can't be allowed to kill rallies anymore.

4. On the pitching side, we are going to make decisions with greater urgency. If I see a starting pitcher who is nearly out of gas at the end of an inning and the game is tight, I'm yanking him so that my reliever can start with a clean slate. We ask our bullpen to pitch in far too many high leverage spots, and I'm ending these artificial high leverage situations. We need more feel in pitching decisions, and that's on the manager.

5. The last man out of the bullpen will only be used when the game is out of reach or in low leverage situations.

6. Fundamentals...period. They will be stressed, discussed, and practiced.

Brian asks: Quick take re: Clarke Schmidt. I know it just happened, but any thoughts?

Lots, but I saw this coming. The Yankees noted publicly that Schmidt was having trouble recovering between starts, which means that something like this has been coming. I am not optimistic. Schmidt had so much trouble with his control last night and changed his mechanics visibly to account for something going on with his arm. Those are really, really bad signs...this screams UCL.

In the meantime, I think the only option the Yanks have is to call up Schlittler to replace Schmidt in the rotation. I believe in Schlittler, but this is a bit earlier than I was hoping to see him. I hope Gil gets healthy soon, and looks like first half Gil from 2024. We're asking for a lot.