New York Yankees Michael Pineda is the Key to 2017
At first glance, 2016 seems to have been a disappointing season for New York Yankees starter Michael Pineda. However, he pitched much better than his numbers would indicate.
The New York Yankees have a great deal of uncertainty in their starting rotation heading into next season. While Masahiro Tanaka is set as their top starter, the rest of the rotation is relatively unsettled. C.C. Sabathia will slot in somewhere, but he may be more of a back of the rotation starter at this point in his career. Therefore, Michael Pineda will be expected to step up and become that second starter behind Tanaka.
Based on his statistics in 2016, that hope would seem to be more of a pipe dream for the Yankees. He was 6-12 with a 4.82 ERA and a 1.349 WHiP, allowing 27 home runs in 175.2 innings of work. Those numbers certainly would not be the production expected for a second starter. Instead, they were quite the disappointment.
However, Pineda’s 2016 was not as bad as those numbers would indicate. He led the American League with 10.6 strikeouts per nine innings, whiffing 207 batters. Meanwhile, Pineda only walked 53 batters, as he nearly struck out four times as many batters as he walked. Those solid numbers extend to his FIP of 3.79, over a full run lower than his ERA was.
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Pineda also had bad luck with the batted ball in 2016. Opponents had a .266/.322/.462 batting line against the Yankees righty, fueled by a .340 batting average on balls in play. He also saw his ground ball rate decline, as Pineda went from a 0.98 ground ball to fly ball rate to 0.85, a drop of 13% from last year.
Likewise, this decrease in effectiveness matches with his increased strikeout rate. Since 2014, Pineda has seen his strikeout rate move from 20.3% to 27.4%. Meanwhile, He has more than doubled his home run rate, from 1.7% to 3.6% last year.
Where Pineda has been getting in trouble has been with his cutter. In 2014, opponents had a .212 batting average and a .299 slugging percentage against the pitch. Last year, those numbers increased to .347 and .619, respectively. The most used pitch in his arsenal, opponents were ready for the cutter, and teed off against it regularly.
Meanwhile, Pineda has gone entirely away from a fourseam fastball that he used earlier in his career. Primarily a cutter/slider pitcher, with the occasional change mixed in, it could be that Pineda could use a change in approach. In using the cutter less, and mixing in the changeup more frequently, he may be able to keep the opposition off balance with better success.
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Michael Pineda had a better season last year than one would have expected based on his raw numbers. With a tweak to his approach on the mound, Pineda could be the pitcher the New York Yankees need him to be in 2017.