You can’t get beaten by bad teams and not have some “bad” things going on, but there are a few good things happening too – let’s start there:
The Yankees have the best record in the American League and using Baseball Reference’s strength of schedule and run differential adjustments, they’re tied with the Dodgers as the best team in MLB. John Sterling said a lot of dumb things into a microphone over the decades, but one thing he was right about was this:
When you watch a team regularly, you see the warts along with the positives – but every team in MLB has warts, and if you have one of the best records in the league, then the warts may not be as bad as you think.
Anthony Volpe had a damn good series in Washington. He hit the ball consistently hard (96.8 average exit velocity and 75% hard hit rate were both the best on the team) and pulled more than half his batted balls. If this is the start of a trend, it could be a difference maker as we all know his baserunning (the team scored two runs on Monday they would not have without his skills) and defense are no joke – a Volpe that hits would be a monster player.
And now to the other side of the coin: The bad…
Carlos Rodon is not a good pitcher, nor has he been one for a long time.
Was he on the wrong end of luck last night? Absolutely. The Yankees defense didn’t help him at all, and the Gods of baseball randomness helped him even less.
That said…
Come on man.
He spent the first two and a half months of the season giving up very hard, very consistent, airborne contact – but he was 9-2 with a 2.93 ERA so folks believed (rather comically) that he was good.
He was not. On June 10th, out of 75 qualified starters, Rodon was 62nd in xFIP, with the 9th highest exit velocity, 18th highest barrel rate, and 2nd highest fly ball rate. Yet with a low HR/FB ratio and a very low BABIP combined with good defense he got away with it; despite the BP he was throwing.
Rodon has essentially been the same pitcher all season – factors beyond his control are the reason Jack Curry gets away with his verisimilitudes about the perpetually petulant pitcher.
Sure, you probably realize DJ is bad, but you might not realize how bad…
Remember back in 2016, when Alex Rodriguez was quite obviously finished, and it was difficult to watch. The organization needed to have a sit down with him and have the “we’re all told at some point we can no longer play” conversation. To be clear, there’s never been anything in history where there’s been universal agreement between the organization, the fans, and A-Rod – but there was this time – everybody knew it was time.
At that point, A-Rod had a 58 OPS+. DJ currently has a 49 OPS+.
Furthermore, since integration, there have only been two Yankee players in a season to have as many PA as DJ has in 2024 (225) with a lower OPS+ – Bill Robinson and Jim Mason. It’s not an understatement to say DJ is having one of the worst batting seasons in team history. (It makes one wonder, when Anthony Rizzo returns, will the return of one fan favorite be the exit door for another?
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