The Analytics Went Against Aaron Boone Last Night

 Aaron Boone’s bullpen usage cost the Yankees last night.

It is a double-edged sword with the way a manager decides to use his bullpen, but in a game that was in the Yankees hands, Aaron Boone gave a nice present to the Baltimore Orioles.

And before you come at me with “if Boone took Cortes out with only 77 pitches last night after six the Stadium would’ve booed relentlessly, and they still would have lost.” The second half of that statement is possibly true, if Aaron Boone didn’t allow Nestor Cortes to go out for the 7th inning Baltimore still could’ve won the game, but the Yankee manager would’ve extended his team’s chances of winning for another inning. The Yankees best option to go into the 8th inning with the lead was sitting the bullpen because Aaron Boone was staying away from him because he pitched the night prior. No, it wasn’t Michael King or Ron Marinaccio who both threw 20-plus pitches the night before, it was Wandy Peralta. Who faced three batters, retired them in order, and only threw 10-pitches. Why wasn’t he available?

Instead, Boone elected to stay with Cortes, who this season has given up 13 hits, 13 runs, and four home runs now to the 33 batters he has faced in the 6th and 7th innings of his starts. 

Cortes the third time through the batting order is allowing the opposition to reach base half the time with a 1.048 OPS. The magic of Nestor Cortes this season is not there at the moment, and the numbers above should be top of mind when Aaron Boone is making his decisions at this point in the season. 

If we are doing a managerial check on Aaron Boone last night, the person who should have been walking to the mound in the 7th up 5-1 was Wandy Peralta and not Nestor Cortes. Even after Cortes gave up the three-run home run off the foul pole to Adam Frazier, Boone could’ve saved face and went to Peralta then! No. Instead went to Jimmy Cordero in a one-run game and the air was sucked right out of the Bronx.    

Jimmy Cordero needs to be on the next bus out of Port Authority to Scranton. And that bus needs to be fueled with rocket fuel—that’s how quickly he needs to get out of the Bronx.

The right-hander did have one bad night and that’s not the reasoning for my suggestion to option him, it’s the fact that Aaron Boone keeps putting him into high leverage situations which he is not built for at this stage of his career. The bullpen is beat up at the current moment with arms not getting healthy until we are well into the summer, but personally, I’ve seen enough of Jimmy Cordero giving up the lead in winnable games.

Aaron Boone needs be better. His team has battled back in a division that once seemed impossible to make competitive.

Not using an “A” leverage guy in a spot when it’s warranted and handing a game to a divisional opponent can’t happen at any point of the year. Aaron Boone let one get away. If the Yankees are going to continue to make the AL East a race, the players are holding up their end of the bargain, the man who puts them in those positions needs to as well.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 2023 Offseason is Brian Cashman's Biggest Test Yet

Image
   Now that the World Series is over five days from now the offseason begins. With that in mind, this is the biggest offseason that Brian Cashman will have in his 25-year tenure as Yankee General Manager. For the first time since 2016 the Bronx Bombers watched the postseason from their couches, and they earned that right. Amazingly, this team finished over .500, although not that far above that mark. This iteration of the Bronx Bombers finish with the same record as that 2016 team—but the feeling with this squad feels different. Following the 2016 season, there was hope of the two power bats that would usher in the “Baby Bombers,” and in that offseason, the farm system was rated in the Top 10 in all of baseball. There was almost certainty that Brian Cashman would put a championship team around Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Greg Bird, and Luis Severino that would be a title contender for years to come. There was hope. And that hope almost turned into reality. Almost. But, that was then
Read more

The Question going into the Trade Deadline for the New York Yankees

  There is a crossroads in the Bronx in between River and 161 st Street right now. As New York Yankee Manager Aaron Boone likes to put it “[the season] is right in front of them.” The second half of the season is for the taking. As we move into the dog days of summer the Bronx Bombers are nine games out of the division and now a game and a half out of the AL Wild Card race following a disappointing first series in Colorado. With that, the historic starting Tampa Bay Rays have cooled off, going 3-7 before the break while showing signs of being mortal. Baltimore, who has been keeping pace with Tampa, didn’t look like a Superpower when they split against the Yankees two series before the break. The AL East is still a Spartan Training Facility with every team above .500, the Orioles holding the first Wild Card spot, and the “struggling” Boston Red Sox tied the Yankees in the Wild Card race. And unlike Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire, help is not on the way. Aaron Judge’s toe is still a m
Read more

The Answer for the Mets

  As Yogi Berra would say “it’s déjà vu all over again.” Buck Showalter is an all too familiar place. The 67-year-old manager has taken a time machine back to 2012. No, he is not managing in Baltimore anymore, however that’s what it feels like the end of Showalter’s Oriole tenure in Queens right now. The Mets simply can’t get out of their own way. With Pete Alonso likely headed to the Injured List, the Mets scored 10 runs last night in Atlanta. 10 runs on the heels of back-to-back gut-wrenching losses at the hands of the team that has foiled the Mets for the better part of almost three decades, the Atlanta Braves. 10 runs with their hired ace, Justin Verlander, who was looking to put together good starts consecutively for the first time all season. The Mets looked like they were about to exercise some demons in Atlanta last night, and then, the other shoe dropped. It wasn’t good enough. Again. Last night, I wrote that the Mets season was on the line with Verlander toeing the slab. Well
Read more