The New York Yankees are a young team that is looking to compete. They brought back Aroldis Chapman this winter to close out games. They added Matt Holliday to fill the old man void left by the departures of Carlos Beltran, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira. But it’s a new way of looking at statistics that could provide hope for the offense in 2017.
It should come as a surprise to nobody that Gary Sanchez will be a focal point of the New York Yankees offense for years to come after the 53 game hitting display he put on over the last third of 2016. Batting .299 with a .370 on-base percentage and 20 home runs is one heck of a way to fill out a stat line, and it even entered him into the Rookie of the Year conversation even though he only played a couple of months.
With Sanchez, the stat line is impressive enough, but both Aaron Judge (who we’re also judging by a small sample size) and new addition to pinstripes in Holliday both beat out Sanchez in one of Statcast’s key stats: Average Exit Velocity. Judge actually finished second in baseball in the category, hitting the ball at an average speed of 95.5 mph in 42 events. The sample size here likely has something to do with it, and obviously it doesn’t include his swing and miss rate.
Judge’s swinging strike percentage came in at 18.1% per FanGraphs, who also note that his strikeout rate was an absurdly high 44.2%. Should we get super excited about his exit velocity numbers with these metrics also in the mix? Well, yes and no. Judge didn’t even accrue 100 plate appearances, so there will still be a learning curve with the young Yankee, but that could also bode well. More contact could potentially mean more barrels, which would mean more home runs with how hard he hits the dang ball. Judge will be a work in progress, but if he can make contact more, then he could become a big threat in the Bomber’s lineup.
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Holliday comes in fifth on the same list behind Nelson Cruz, Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Keon Broxton with an AEV of 94.7 mph, two-tenths higher than Miguel Cabrera. The former Cardinal appeared in just 110 games last season and will be 37 when the 2017 season begins, but as the Yankee DH he may be able to save his legs and drive the ball a bit more. He has hit 20 home runs or more in all but one season dating back to 2008, so there will be pop in that bat.
Sanchez ranked 8th on the list after Cabrera and David Ortiz with an average exit velocity of 94.1. However, you could argue that the backstop (unsurprisingly) is the most feared hitter of the trio even without smashing the ball as hard as Holliday or Judge. Why? Because he squared the ball up at a much higher rate.
In Statcast terminology, a “Barrel” is when a batter hits the ball for an estimated batting average/slugging percentage of .500/1.500. In other words, good things tend to happen when you barrel the ball. If we take a look at the B/PA (Barrels per plate appearance), Sanchez nearly doubles up on Judge (10.5 to 5.3) and holds a wide margin over Holliday. Sanchez also finished third in MLB in this category behind Khris Davis (10.7%) and Miggy (10.6).
If we take a look at the average of Barrels per batted ball event, Tyler Austin joins the fray at fourth on the list behind David Wright (20.3), Sanchez (18.8) and Byung-Ho Park (18.7). Of the 43 balls Austin hit, 8 were barreled for a percentage of 18.6.
We’re dealing with small sample sizes here, and they may not turn out to be reliable, but they can at least provide Yankee fans with some hope for the offense in 2017. After finishing 22nd in runs scored a year ago–which was just eight more runs than the Rays–the New York Yankees may have a slew of Wonderbat yielding sluggers that could put up some runs in a hurry.
The Simpsons video below provides both the optimism (3,000 home runs a season) and what could happen when we get more data on these guys.
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