There have been enough Yankees-A's deals over the past few years that you can kind of see the trends setting in. Every couple years, the Yankees will trade for a powerful A's pitcher, who will end up doing basically nothing in a Yankees uniform while the returns populate the next generation of the team. In 2017 the Yankees got the worst years of Sonny Gray while the A's got James Kaprielian for a spell and, ultimately, Jorge Mateo. In 2022 the Yankees got like 8 starts of Frankie Montas and like a week of Lou Trivino in exchange for Ken Waldichuk, who is still injured, and J.P. Sears, who has been holding up the rotation ever since.
And what's funny is that in this current, Sacramento-based iteration of the A's, there's now even more ex-Yanks populating the team. Miguel Andujar has an everyday role in left, and he's hitting .325, having revived his career. Gio Urshela's currently the starting third baseman, and he seems more than happy to take some small pay just to play everyday. Sears is 4-2 with a 2.94 ERA, and he's been genuinely terrific. And right in the center, thanks to some extra funds John Fisher apparently had lying around, is Luis Severino, formerly one of the biggest Yankee prospects on the planet. Pitching beautifully.
Sevvy's Yankee tenure was not a completely smooth one. There were some excellent seasons, especially his breakthrough 2017, and numerous injury-plagued campaigns that rounded out the rest of his contract. He was very good when healthy, but he was playing hurt quite a bit, and in the years where we really needed him he was not at 100%. Then he goes to the Mets and has his best season in years, and fully healthy as well. I think ultimately, despite his strong start, Sevvy just wasn't meant to be a Yankee. It happens to a lot of pitchers. Sonny Gray, Marcus Stroman, now Devin Williams by the looks of things at the moment. So I'm honestly happy the guy's finding success, and is off to such an excellent start.
The issue with Sevvy, at the end of the day, is gonna be the higher ERA and runs, even in win scenarios. He can certainly strike people out, and has 33 Ks already, but he's not the completely dominant, keep-the-balls-close type of guy anymore. Though, that being said, being a workhorse with velocity perks isn't bad either. The A's rotation, as good as Sears and Severino have been, have lots of guys like Osvaldo Bido and Jeffrey Springs who have decent mechanics but just aren't keeping runs down. The good news is that Mason Miller already has 10 saves. I'd love if he had another great year, he deserves it.
The A's, a month in, are over .500, circling 2nd place and getting great seasons out of young players like Tyler Soderstrom, Jacob Wilson and Lawrence Butler. This is exactly what they wanted, and sooner than expected. I'd love for them to stay in the race and subdue Houston, even if logically Houston may have longer legs this year. Yet tonight the A's just announced they've brought up Gunnar Hoglund, a pitching prospect who's also credited as a two-way player, with previous stats at 1B and RF. Can the Astros say they have a guy like that?
Coming Tomorrow- At the very least the worst team in baseball has a rookie hitting very well.
No comments:
Post a Comment