Oh. It’s you again.
The Guardians and Yankees will meet for a three-game series for the first time since the Yankees beat Cleveland to go to the 2024 World Series.
The Guardians are 12-9 with a -4 run differential, 13th in wRC+ at 105, 29th in Baserunning Runs Above Average at -3, 11th in Defense at -2, 26th in starting pitcher SIERA at 4.51 and 7th in bullpen SIERA at 3.09. The Yankees are 14-8 with a +30 run differential, first in wRC+ at 135, 17th in Baserunning Runs Above Average at -0.5, second in Defense at +6, 20th in starting pitcher at 4.11 SIERA and 11th in bullpen SIERA at 3.39.
Matchups:
Monday, April 21st, 6:10PM – Gavin Williams, RHP, 4.50 SIERA vs. Clarke Schmidt, RHP, 5.89 SIERA
Tuesday, April 22nd, 6:10PM – Tanner Bibee, RHP, 5.14 SIERA vs. Will Warren, RHP, 4.39 SIERA
Wednesday, April 23rd, 1:10PM – Luis Ortiz, RHP, 3.80 SIERA vs. Carlos Rodon, LHP, 3.58 SIERA
Analysis:
Full confession- the Yankees live rent-free in my head. I hate when the Guardians play them because I become a reactionary, hot-take artist who believes the sky is falling.
With that said, this doesn’t look like an awesome matchup. Bibee and Williams have yet to find their strides; of course, this would be a great week for them to do that. It will be a good test for Ortiz’s recent improvements against lesser offenses, and that’s something. I’d feel a lot better if the team would DFA Triston McKenzie before this series and promote Andrew Walters to lengthen the bullpen as Vogt seems understandably adverse to using McKenzie at all when the game’s outcome is remotely in doubt. As we just saw, they need the full eight bullpen arms to attack the end of games, especially if one of these pitchers has a good but short outing against a good Yankee lineup.
That Yankee lineup has been led by Aaron Judge at 243 wRC+, Trent Grisham 214 wRC+, Ben Rice 190 wRC+, Paul Goldschmidt 152 wRC+, Austin Wells 109 wRC, Oswaldo Cabrera 119 wRC+, Anthony Volpe 112 wRC+ and Jasson Dominguez 102 wRC+. Meanwhile, the Yankees’ pitching will look to contain Steven Kwan at 160 wRC+, Kyle Manzardo 144 wRC+, Gabriel Arias 143 wRC+, Austin Hedges 138 wRC+, Angel Martinez 131 wRC+, Jose Ramirez 129 wRC+, Daniel Schneemann 118 wRC+ and Bo Naylor 107 wRC+. Here’s hoping that Nolan Jones can continue to build off of a good series against the Pirates against the right-handed pitchers the Yankees will be starting in two of these games.
GLOSSARY
wRC+ – Weighted Runs Created Plus – A measure of determining a player’s run production value while controlling for park effects. 100 is league average.
Baserunning Runs Above Average – A metric including stolen base value, double-play avoidance, and taking extra bases to determine how many runs above average a team is on the basepaths
Defense – This stat gives you how many runs above average a team’s defenders save their team, adjusted for positional value (i.e. a catcher has far more defensive value for a team than a first baseman))
SIERA – A metric to determine a pitcher’s true ERA based on strikeout rate, walk rate, and quality of batted-balls given up. This number is similar to ERA (3 and under is excellent) in determining player performance.
BABIP – Batting Average on Balls in Play. The league average for team BABIP is usually around .290, so if your team is notably above this number, it’s usually fair to expect some positive regression to come.