With Andrew Miller sidelined for about a month, Dellin Betances has become the Yankees’ closer while Chasen Shreve and Justin Wilson have graduated to be the main setup men.
So it is fortuitous the lefties were obtained during the offseason. However, they came at a price.
The cost for Shreve was Manny Banuelos, who ranks second in the International League in ERA. Wilson was obtained for Francisco Cervelli, who just might be an All-Star this year.
The Yankees actually acquired Shreve and David Carpenter from the Braves for Banuelos. Carpenter, unsteady in New York, already has been designated for assignment and traded to the Nationals. Shreve has proved more unflappable and has been vital in a Yankees pen lacking in quality setup men, because his split-finger has helped so much in neutralizing righties (.444 OPS).
The question over the long run will be whether Shreve and Double-A second baseman Tony Renda — obtained from Washington for Carpenter — was worth Banuelos.
The Yankees once projected Banuelos and Betances to be future rotation stalwarts. Both struggled staying healthy and with their control. Betances ultimately found the role of a lifetime in the pen.
Will a scenery change have a similar impact on Banuelos? He has stayed healthy, has a 2.29 ERA and Braves officials say they like his stuff. But a scout who has seen him — while indicating improvement from last year — said the lefty still is battling command issues and wrote a report that defined more of a back-end starter.
To date, Atlanta has gone with mostly young starters and dipped to the minors a few times and has yet to summon Banuelos. That included calling up Matt Wisler, who had far worse numbers at Triple-A, to start Friday against the Mets. Banuelos actually had stats quite similar to those of Bryan Mitchell, who was called up Friday by the Yankees, had a 2.79 ERA at Triple-A and also was trying to fix precision issues.
Mitchell’s Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) — which creates an ERA off the three items a pitcher most controls: homers, walks and strikeouts — was 3.11, which actually was better than Banuelos’ 3.44.
Justin Wilson is a lite lefty version of Betances — he walks too many, but has power stuff that mostly allows him to extricate himself from trouble. He has not been scored upon in his last 11 outings (10 ¹/₃ innings).
However, Cervelli is hitting .308 with an .781 OPS and is eighth among catchers in Wins Above Replacement (WAR). Brian McCann is sixth. Russell Martin is third.
The Pirates signed Martin following the 2012 season after the Yankees foolishly let him leave (when he was all but begging to stay). With Martin a free agent (he signed for five years at $82 million with Toronto), Pittsburgh was looking to replicate as much of his two-way athleticism as possible and came upon Cervelli.
Pirates general manager Neal Huntington told me it is coincidence, but the Pirates and Yankees value similar attributes in catchers, since Chris Stewart shared Yankees catching duties with Cervelli in 2013 after Martin left, was Martin’s Pirates backup in 2014 and is Cervelli’s backup now.
Cervelli — like the other two — excels in pitch framing. He just caught 56 straight scoreless innings. McCann has been much better in his second season as a Yankee, but he cost the Yanks a five-year, $85 million pact and a draft pick. Mainly, though, the Yankees decided to go younger and think big picture by giving John Ryan Murphy the backup job and deal Cervelli. Murphy has yet to blossom.
Cervelli had been injury-prone with the Yankees and there were particular concerns over his concussion history. Also, he had been suspended for his ties to Biogenesis. Those factors kept Cervelli from ever proving he could be a full-timer with the Yankees.
But healthy and with his normal enthusiasm, Cervelli has played well enough that both Sports Illustrated and Fangraphs ran recent articles suggesting he might be the Pirates’ MVP. That is worth a lot more than Wilson.
Papelbon on radar of Cubs’ braintrust
The Phillies have been trying to trade Jonathan Papelbon for most of the past two seasons. But he is not an easy trade. The view in the game is that he is a live wire, capable of saying uncomfortable things, and he is not the most popular fellow in the clubhouse among his teammates.
That the Cubs are interested in Papelbon could mitigate some of the concerns about Papelbon’s behavior, since they are run by team president Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer, who were top executives with the Red Sox when they drafted Papelbon and used him as their championship closer. In other words, people who know him well are fine with reacquiring him.
However, Papelbon’s value also has been disparaged because there is a sense (because his velocity with the Phillies has been down from his prime) that he has lost effectiveness and is overpaid, especially because he has a $13 million option that vests if he finishes 23 more games this year (to reach 100 combined between 2014-15) to go along with the $13 million he is being paid this season. So if, as is probable with health, the option triggers, Papelbon is owed roughly $20.5 million from now through 2016.
Many teams do not want to significantly pay closers any longer, feeling that position could be unearthed for far fewer dollars. But in the offseason the White Sox gave David Robertson a four-year, $46 million pact (Robertson was said to want at least the four years at $52 million Philadelphia bestowed Papelbon). And there has been some buzz that if the disappointing White Sox do not improve that Robertson could become trade bait.
And Papelbon’s stats stand with those of Robertson. Since 2012 (when Papelbon joined the Phillies), he has appeared in 224 games, to Robertson’s 226 and had a .582 OPS against to the .592 by Robertson (who has pitched exclusively for AL teams). Robertson had Papelbon on strikeouts 12.0 per nine innings to a still good 9.7.
And here is the thing: If you like Robertson because he has been durable and consistent, the same is true about Papelbon, who has appeared in at least 59 games every year since 2006 and never has had a bad season. And this might be his best one (1.30 ERA).
‘Next A-Rod’ putting up crooked numbers
It is not just Alex Rodriguez having a good season, but also the players most often called “The Next Alex Rodriguez” — Manny Machado and Carlos Correa — because of their size, shortstop roots and skills.
Machado, from Miami like A-Rod, needed surgery on his left knee in 2013 and his right knee last year, and there was wonder whether he would ever fully regain the gifts on both sides of the ball that made him an MVP candidate before the first injury in 2013. Also, he hurt his reputation last June when he first instigated a benches-clearing incident by taking offense to how hard he was tagged by Josh Donaldson (then of the A’s), then purposely flung his bat toward third base in response to two inside pitches.
Machado began slowly this year on offense and defense. However, he has played like a star again with eight homers in his past 21 games. He has 14 already, matching his career high and his batting average rose to .303 on Sunday.
Correa, a No. 1 overall pick like A-Rod, fractured his right fibula last June and missed the rest of his season. Nevertheless, with just 53 games above A-ball this year, he was promoted and in his first 13 games for the Astros had three homers, four steals and a .303 batting average.