I’m not a gambling man, but if I were I’d bet a large sum of money that at some point on the Prime Video broadcast today, Yankees announcers will try to convince us that Carlos Rodón is coming off a good start and hasn’t been as bad as his ERA indicates.
Don’t buy it. Rodón has been awful, and I mean really awful.
Let’s get a few things out of the way. Yes, the 2023 sample size on Rodón is not a big one but he’s made seven starts this season, which is about a quarter of a season for a starting pitcher. Certainly not a big sample but not insignificant either.
Secondly, in his last start on August 22nd against the Nationals, Rodón’s final line was one run allowed over six innings, which many will lead you to believe he had a good game – he did not. Rodón faced 22 batters and 9 of them hit the ball over 95 mph on him – that’s not quite batting practice but it’s close. Only good fortune and good defense kept his final box score line from being ugly. (Which, for the 100th time, fortune and defense play a larger role in pitcher’s ERA than most folks realize, and you shouldn’t give it too much credence.)
What’s important is that the start against the Nationals was not an aberration for Rodón in 2023. In fact, his 92.9 mph is the highest average exit velocity allowed among Yankees pitchers, as is his 45.4% hard hit rate, .360 xwOBA against, 5.6 K%-BB%, and 6.07 xFIP.
Yes, you read that correctly. Luis Severino has been a better pitcher in 2023 than Carlos Rodón.
By and large, Rodón’s best pitch has been his four-seam fastball in his career, but in 2023 – despite the velocity being the same as the past two seasons – it’s been finding the middle of the plate far too often, and needless to say, that needs to change.
Speaking of change…
As I’ve mentioned, the Yankees’ batters luck has been almost comically bad this season (Among 266 qualified batters, Aaron Judge ranks 1st and Giancarlo Stanton ranks 10th in the biggest gap between expected wOBA and actual wOBA, while no Yankees batter is in the top 100 in the other direction) but things may be turning around…
Over the last month, DJ LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Volpe have all been hitting well and finally seeing positive results. DJ has brought his season wRC+ to 101, while Stanton’s is now at 96 and Volpe 90. (Imagine if I told you in March that we’d be happy to see those three players with those 2023 wRC+…)
Yet if we’re being honest, none of the above really matters. The 2023 season is in the books for all intents and purposes and these discussions are all with an eye on ’24. Will Rodón be the number two in the rotation we all expected, can DJ and Stanton rebound in ’24 and will Volpe continue to progress with the bat are things to weigh for the offseason as the answers don’t carry too much weight now.
With the Yankees’ chances of making the postseason currently standing at 0.1% I wouldn’t judge you if you checked out some of the other games on MLB.tv today as I likely will. Bluntly, Everson Pereira and Oswald Peraza getting regular playing time is the only thing keeping me tuned in right now.
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