Yankees’ Pitching: Much Worse Than You Think

I certainly have my flaws as both a human being and a baseball fan, but I’ve always tried to avoid overreacting to one loss in a baseball season (admittedly not always successfully). It’s literally just one game out of 162, and long-term trends are far more important to pay attention to.

One of those trends that hasn’t received enough attention is that the Yankees’ pitching staff is a problem and has been all season. Due to the hitter’s struggles, Gerrit Cole’s dominance, great team defense and some good luck, we’ve all been diverted away from the reality that the pitching staff has been below average in 2023. Frankly, when we consider all factors, it may be worse than the hitters’ performance.

The Yankees’ pitching staff currently ranks 15^th in xFIP, 18^th in FIP, 14^th in xwOBA against and 13^th in K%-BB%. That may appear to be about average overall but as I wrote earlier this season it’s clearly been below average when Gerrit Cole is not pitching – Cole has been so dominant in 2023 with the above, the staff’s numbers overall are skewed and misleading. Yet regardless of whether you characterize the above as average or below average is up to you, because what’s interesting is that the staff ERA is better than league average – the team ERA is almost one third (.31) of a run better than the MLB average to be exact.

The good ERA is not due to good pitching, it’s primarily due to great defense because the Yankees team’s defense has been outstanding in 2023. Their Defensive Runs Above Average is third best in MLB and they turn batted balls into outs (DefEff) at a higher rate than every MLB team except Milwaukee. At the risk of walking over to that dead horse again, I’ll remind you that fielding has FAR more to do with ERA than you’re led to believe, and you should stop using ERA to evaluate pitching performance. The fielders are why, despite pitching that has been between average and below average, the Yankees rank better than average (11^th in MLB) in runs allowed per game.

What about luck and/or randomness? Good question, glad you asked…

Yankees pitchers have the second lowest BABIP against in MLB (again, second to Milwaukee). To me that reinforces what I just wrote – Milwaukee and the Yankees fielders are very good at turning batted balls into outs. But if you want to say that BABIP is indicative of fortune, then the very low BABIP would indicate the Yankees pitchers have been the beneficiary of luck, if anything. Further reinforcing the idea that Yankees pitchers have been the beneficiary of both good defense and good luck, their actual wOBA against is 10^th best in MLB – as noted above their expected wOBA is 14^th.

I’m not sure there’s any finger pointing to do here. The Yankees have received 32 combined starts from their projected numbers two through five starters and those 32 have been by and large awful. But after a weekend in which we as fans are throwing a lot of vitriol around, for the most part the Yankees’ hitters have been almost comically unlucky this season and get dragged through the ringer at every turn. Conversely, the pitching staff has been covered by Cole, great defense, and good luck and somewhere along the line convinced us that it wasn’t a problem.

It has been, and continues to be.

Did I miss something? Let me know. Leave a comment below or yell at me @mybaseballpage1 on Twitter and/or the “My Baseball Page” page on Facebook.