Quick Yankee Notes

CBS Sports | Rotowire Staff: It’s been a while since we’ve seen changeup artist Tommy Kahnle on the bump, as his start to 2024 has been delayed. But yesterday, he started a rehab assignment in Tampa with a scoreless inning for the Low-A club, striking out a pair of batters. Kahnle’s shoulder has ailed him for a long time, but it’s starting to look up. The bullpen has been fantastic in recent weeks, but Kahnle will provide a needed bump in terms of depth.

RHP Tommy Kahnle: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K

Yankeesource: Yankees are 25-13 and they are still expecting the best pitcher in baseball, their starting 3B, one of the better young prospects in baseball, and a few high quality relievers back. Would be nice to see them maintain this pace.

Well, we have some good news. I think we can officially declare that Nestor Cortes is back!

At first glance, the numbers are mixed. Cortes owns a 3.72 ERA. He’s 3rd in the AL in innings pitched, having gone 6+ in four of five starts. That ERA/innings combo is more Marcus Stroman than Nasty Nestor.
www.startspreadingthenews.blog/post/nestor-cortes-is-back

Soto's currently on pace for 205+ hits. His career high thus far is 157. Will be interesting to see if he can keep up that pace. I'm sure part of it is Judge looming behind him as his walk rate is down a bit from his career norm (still on pace for ~110).

I think the answer is no because he has over 5 years of service time.   And my guess is his trade market is pretty grim at the moment.   Cashman did get Beeter for Gallo though, so who knows.

Clarke Schmidt: Improved and important
The right-hander is throwing his fastballs more than ever, and it’s working like a charm.
www.pinstripealley.com/2024/5/9/24152474/yankees-analysis-pitching-clarke-schmidt-fastballs-strikeouts-sinker-cutter-sweeper-starter-reliable

Since the beginning of the 2023 season, the Yankees pitcher who has started the most games has been Clarke Schmidt, who has also thrown the second-most innings. It was a rotation that featured loads of promise and potential, and yet, as we saw in 2023 and now into ‘24, it’s been Schmidt who has helped lead the way for the Yankees’ starting staff. With the absence of their inarguable leader Gerrit Cole, Schmidt has helped pick up the slack even more this season, as the former first-rounder has been a consistently quiet, but vital part of this Yankee team — and he might have a few new tools in the bag as well.

Schmidt, from a bird’s-eye view, has largely remained consistent from his respectable 2023 campaign, but his real-world results have been very solid. His current 3.50 ERA would be a marked improvement over that of last year (4.64), as would his 4.09 FIP. Of course, he’s only pitched 36 innings across seven starts thus far, but improvement is improvement any way you look at it.

Run prevention in any sample size is a great thing, but perhaps most notable for Schmidt this year has been the noticeable uptick in strikeouts. Last season was his first with a fairly normal starter’s workload (32 starts, 159 innings), and he was striking out a slightly below league-average 21.5 percent of batters. Now in 2024, reprising his role as a full-time starter, he finds himself well above the league’s standard, at a cool 27.3 percent. This is a new development for Schmidt, a pitcher who was far from reliant on swings and misses, and it could have something to do with a shift in approach.

For starters, Schmidt has gone up a tick with his fastball velocity, while that of his offspeed pitches have trended down, so perhaps the increased variance has done the right-hander some justice. Earlier in the season, Nick Power wrote about Schmidt’s use of the cutter and sweeper, his two most-used pitches in 2023. These pitches, when managed well, have helped him succeed particularly against fellow righties, but there’s been a slight shift early on this year.

Schmidt is now throwing his sinker slightly more than his sweeper, both of which are behind his cutter in terms of usage, and it has evidently worked quite well. Now, his two fastballs have been used at a combined 59.1 percent clip. This is a number higher than he’s ever posted, and it could be helping to fuel his strikeout surge.

Unsurprisingly, those two fastball types are the two pitches with which he most frequently finds the strike zone. And in 2024, finding the zone has been his not-so-secret weapon. Oddly, when thinking about the bump in K’s, Schmidt is actually maintaining a career-low chase rate, but in the zone? He’s getting more whiffs than ever.

As mentioned, that could have something to do with Schmidt’s success thus far with the sinker, which has more than doubled in the swing-and-miss department to 23.8 percent. To boot, the whiff rate on his cutter has increased to nearly 30 percent as well. He’s throwing more fastballs than ever, and it’s paying dividends thus far.

Clarke Schmidt has been much improved so far in 2024, he’s racking up more punchouts than ever, and his aggressiveness with his various fastballs could be the key to it. And particularly with this potential improvement in the fold, hopefully the importance of Schmidt to this ballclub will continue to shine.

They obviously can come flashier than Schmidt on the mound, but there is a lot to appreciate about someone who does their job every fifth day. Just one weak link in the rotation could give the bullpen even more work than it already has, and Schmidt has played his role in locking down his spot alongside Carlos Rodón, Marcus Stroman, Nestor Cortes, and Luis Gil. Now, with the righty striking out at least five in all but one of his starts, and seven-plus in three of them, there could be a new and welcomed element to his game — one that has been vital to the Yankees for some time.