Sports can be judged both qualitatively or quantitatively. There’s a lot to learn about the quality of a team and player by watching them play and observing them playing the game. In other words, numbers don’t tell you the whole story. The numbers do tell a story, and there are a lot of stats to record in baseball to quantify a player’s skill.
The Yankees have been doing well this season, sitting second in the AL East with a 25-14 record. Things seem to be going good, but do the statistics tell a different story? Can the numbers explain their success? I figured I’d take a look to see what the numbers have to say.
Pitching
As a team, Yankees are second to the Red Sox in pitching with a 2.99 ERA. Individually, the top spot is for Shota Imanaga to hold with a 1.08 ERA and 5 wins. He earned it.
Rodon sits at 43 on MLB’s pitching leaderboard with a 3.56 ERA and Nestor Cortes isn’t far behind at 48 with a 3.72 ERA. Marcus Stroman not too far behind Nestor with 3.80 ERA. Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt round out the starting pitchers in Gerrit Cole’s absence. Although, Gil doesn’t qualify for the ERA race with only 37 innings pitched, he has the lowest ERA of the starters at 2.92.
Cortes leads the team with 46 strikeouts and Gil is second with 45 strikeouts. Second in strikeouts with less innings pitched makes Gil a strikeout machine, showing off 10.9 strikeouts per nine innings. Although the 24 walks on Gil’s stat sheet are not pretty. Schmidt doesn’t qualify either with only 36 innings pitched, but he’s also showing off 10.5 strikeouts per nine innings.
Clay Holmes has shut the opposition down in relief. In the 16 games he’s appeared in, Holmes has 11 saves, 17 hits, zero runs, zero home runs, one walk, and a big ole 0.00 ERA. There are plenty of other relief pitchers on the roster sporting a 0.00 ERA, but with significantly less innings pitched. Holmes has escaped 16 innings with 18 strikeouts without allowing a run.
Luke Weaver and Ian Hamilton are seeing a lot innings of relief. Hamilton has a 2.92 ERA and has given up 16 hits, but not a single home run. Weaver has a 2.70 ERA and has allowed seven earned runs and two home runs so far, but he’s managed to draw blanks in his past eight games.
Hitting
As a team, the Yankees are eighth with a .249/.337/.411 batting split and tied for third in home runs with 51.
Juan Soto is hanging around the top of MLB’s hitting leaderboard overall. He’s batting .333/.438/.578 with nine home runs and he’s second in RBIs to Marcell Ozuna (38 RBIs) with 33. A 1.016 OPS will put you near the top without a doubt. He recorded two walks in the Yankees recent loss to the Astros, but he’s recorded 11 hits in the previous 8 games.
The captain Aaron Judge had a sluggish start, but he’s been pulling his numbers back up. He’s second on the team in OPS with .855, batting .236/.362/.493. He’s scored at least one run in the past six games, and his April to May stats show an obvious improvement. He batted .220/.361/.450 in April, but in May he’s batting .357/.455/.821. He’s already recorded seven runs in 28 at bats, easily surpassing the 11 runs he scored in 100 April at bats.
Alex Verdugo batting .258/.347/.422 solidifies the outfield’s batting dominance. Anthony Volpe sits in the middle of the pack with .257./349/.405, but he leads the team in runs with 27. Giancarlo Stanton sits in the eighth spot amongst designated hitters with a .734 OPS, batting .220/.277/.457.
Many of the starters in the lineup have seen an improvement in their batting numbers, and the Yankees offseason moves may begin to look even stronger this month. The numbers are indicating steady growth.
The Yankees have managed their starting pitchers well in Cole’s absence. He has moved on to working out on the mound, and we’ll soon be closer to seeing how the Yankees stack up with Cole back in the rotation. Gil has taken over his spot well, and will fight for a rotation spot as the season wears on.
Progression
The numbers can’t always paint an accurate picture, but they do show progression. A noticeable progression has taken place with Judge’s batting performance. He’s worked his way back from a struggle, and that was his job as the captain of the team. Hopefully others in the starting lineup see the comeback Judge has made and bolster their own batting statistics. The pitchers have slight drops in their ERAs from April to May, so the numbers are saying positive things.
May the ERAs drop and their batting averages soar.