Yankees starters wanted to go deeper into games. Now, they're MLB's most valuable rotation (2024)

The Yankees’ starting rotation is having a breakout campaign, putting together a string of long, effective outings that have helped them win games, save the bullpen, and demonstrate their growth into the most valuable rotation in MLB.

So far this season, Yankees starters have the highest FanGraphs WAR (6) among MLB rotations and the lowest ERA in the American League (2.82). In May, the group averaged the most innings per start in MLB (5.99 IP/GS).

A confluence of circ*mstances got them to this place. The starters were built up slowly coming out of this year’s shortened spring training, and they had a deep and reliable bullpen that allowed the coaching staff to manage the rotation conservatively while still winning games. A few weeks after the rotation became fully stretched out, the bullpen lost some critical arms to injury, changing the coaching staff’s calculus on how to find the most valuable innings on their roster.

Most notably, though, the starters were petitioning for coaches to give them longer leashes in their outings this season, and agitated for the Yankees to turn them loose a bit as they pitched deeper into games. Clubhouse conversation about starter usage started to swing toward pushback in late April and early May. At one point this year, their loudest advocate was a position player, who took issue with the conservative management of most of their starters.

This veteran player approached pitching coach Matt Blake with a pointed piece of criticism.

“‘We’ve got a pitch design guy,’” Blake recalled the player saying. “‘Where’s our third time through the order coach?’”

The Yankees have three pitching coaches on their major-league staff: Blake, who was a pitching coordinator with Cleveland before being hired by New York in 2019, Desi Druschel, the “pitch design guy” who was promoted from Yankees player development this offseason, and bullpen coach Mike Harkey, who played parts of eight seasons in the majors.

The dilemma for the Yankees has been that they play in the competitive AL East, and each win is crucial. If they have a tight lead in middle-to-late innings with a capable bullpen, they’re likely to go to the fresher arm instead of having a starter face a lineup for the third time that night.

“It’s a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek comment, like, we’ve got to get these guys to get the third time through. We’ve got to extend them and we can’t rely on the bullpen,” Blake said of the player’s argument, which reflects the common sentiment among starters. “Some of that’s true. But I do think we want to win every game, so we’re not going to just run a guy out there for the sake of his development over the team’s success.”

An overall better starting staff with late-game experience should help the Yankees win more games and save the bullpen’s workload throughout a long season. Over the last month, the circ*mstances with the bullpen and game situations have allowed the Yankees to give their starters longer leashes, and so far, they’ve turned their opportunities into successful, impressive outings.

Here’s how Yankees starters have fared in their most recent appearances, entering Wednesday:

*and one batter into the 9th
**1 bequeathed runner who scored with a reliever in the game
***2 bequeathed runners who scored with a reliever in the game

“It’s a good problem to have starters that are capable of going deep into games and want to do that,” Blake said. “It’s just about managing expectations in advance so they’re not caught off guard in the heat of battle. That’s usually when tough conversations happen with emotion involved.”

Jordan Montgomery is an interesting case study in the development versus game situation debate. In 2021, he put together a productive season, earning a 3.83 ERA over 157 1/3 innings pitched. While making 30 starts, he averaged a little less than 5 1/3 innings per outing, averaging 85.6 pitches per appearance. It was a big step forward for Montgomery, who missed most of the 2018 and 2019 seasons due to Tommy John surgery, robbing him of crucial development in his age-25 and age-26 seasons.

Montgomery needed to learn to trust his body again, and he needed to understand his pitches and trust his fastball. Through the 2021 season, he looked like the model of an effective mid-rotation starter who could be very effective when managed with a five-and-dive mentality.

This season, Montgomery aspires to raise the ceiling on his production, but he’s run into some bad luck. He hasn’t given up more than three earned runs in an appearance so far, but until his two most recent outings, he was getting little-to-no run support.

Still, he has not shied away from asking to pitch deeper into games.

“I’m usually pretty vocal with (manager Aaron Boone),” Montgomery said. “I want to be out there and I obviously respect and love Boonie, but also sometimes I’m just seeing red in competitive mode and I just don’t want to be taken out. I definitely advocate for myself. There’s probably five games so far that I would have loved to stay out there. I got pulled really early, but I’m just gonna keep trying to be better going forward.”

Gerrit Cole has also pushed Montgomery to agitate for longer outings and has talked through some of the mechanics of pitching deep into games with him.

“I just want to encourage him really just to be the best version of himself,” Cole said. “We’re understandably worried about managing people and managing workloads. But there’s sometimes not enough voices just encouraging people to go out there and do their best and try to keep going until they can’t do it anymore, instead of coming out before you’ve done too much.”

Montgomery has a few things working against him as he looks to earn more third-time through opportunities, beyond the lack of run support that he can’t control. He’s a soft-contact pitcher, and batted ball variance can sometimes burn him even when he does everything right. He’s also a left-handed pitcher with notable career splits against right-handers (.715 OPS against) versus lefties (.580 OPS against).

“Typically, it’s a game-leverage issue if we’re going to let them go deeper or not,” Blake said. “A lot of times, Monty is pitching in a one-run game. So it’s a little harder to push him deeper, especially if you have a fresh pen. But lately, we’ve had some bullpen injuries and we’ve had a lot of games pile up on us. So when we get the opportunity, we’re giving them a little more leash because we’re gonna need them to do it later in the season.”

Essentially, Montgomery would have more opportunities to get that later inning experience if the Yankees hitters would regularly give him a lopsided score as they did in Tuesday’s 9-1 win over the Angels. It’s a battle of starter ego and ambition against the need for the Yankees to manage to win games, and game circ*mstances beyond his control.

“I think it just can’t be like, you have to be perfect each day,” Montgomery said. “If you go out into the sixth and the first guy reaches on a bloop single, you don’t want to get pulled immediately. You’re not always going to be perfect, and I think we’re all tough enough to get out of our own jams and battle through games.”

Blake described starter management as “walking a tightrope,” and said the Yankees want to balance giving their pitchers opportunities to work late in games while also putting them in positions to succeed.

“We don’t want to put them at risk of putting two, three guys on, and then a reliever comes in with the bases loaded and it’s a one-run game,” Blake said Sunday.

The coach’s words were prescient: Later that day, Severino walked two consecutive batters in the seventh inning of a one-run game. Boone called for reliever Ron Marinaccio, who allowed both of Severino’s runners to score. The Yankees lost to the Rays 4-2.

It was an example of the Yankees letting a starter go long. In retrospect, they could have ended his day after six scoreless innings and given a reliever a clean inning. They could have also let Severino try to work out of his own jam, though he was at 103 pitches at that point. They could have called on a more experienced reliever, though there’s no guarantee that would have led to a successful outcome, either.

A tightrope, indeed.

So, how do starters learn to pitch three or more times through a batting order? Experience, the learning curve of making mistakes, and with the assistance of reliable run support.

Hitters are statistically likely to be more effective when seeing a starter for the third time than they are in the first or second plate appearance. Here are MLB-wide numbers on times through the order against starters so far this season:

As of Tuesday, there have only been 172 plate appearances across MLB in which the batter is facing a starter for the fourth time that day — a remarkably small sample in this context.

Pitchers cannot expect to be a consistent exception to the third-time through penalty against them, but they can learn to manage it.

Over the last decade, as teams began building super-bullpens and becoming risk-averse at the thought of the third-time through penalty, they’ve often managed starters to get through five, maybe six effective innings before turning it over to the relievers.

For Cole, who was allowed to average over six innings per start in his rookie season with Pittsburgh in 2013, there’s an art to managing your approach over the first two plate appearances per batter, and maybe — if you can — holding a pitch back for later innings.

“As guys keep getting looks, you ideally would like to save a third pitch for the third or fourth time through the order,” Cole said. “If you don’t have that luxury, maybe your execution with one or two pitches starts to get better as the game goes on.”

Throughout Cole’s career, he’s been best when facing a hitter for the second time in an outing. The first time through, hitters have an .654 OPS against him. The next plate appearance, that falls to a .608 OPS. The third time through, that jumps back up to a .701 OPS. Though he has now pitched over 1,500 innings in his career, he only has 90 plate appearances in the fourth-time through the order.

For Taillon, the pedigree of the relievers behind him changes the way he attacks hitters late in games.

“You want to go as deep as possible, but you also have the luxury of knowing you have an extremely deep bullpen backing you up,” Taillon said. “I don’t have to be completely obsessed with being efficient and just throwing heaters down the middle. I have the luxury of being able to try to pitch to the edges and make them hit my best pitches, because I know that if a guy gets on, I have Clay Holmes, Mike King, Miguel Castro, all those guys waiting in the wings. It’s a big of a freeing mentality and I can pitch to my strengths that way.”

Pitching deep into games requires more than just strategic pitch usage and efficient plate appearances, though.

“There are a lot of components that go into it. We’ve talked a lot about controlling your heartbeat,” Cortes Jr. said. “Until I faced the Rays, I had never pitched in the ninth inning. Your adrenaline starts kicking in and you’re anxious to try to finish the game. Then everything starts speeding up on you. I think it’s pretty cool that there’s more to it than just your talent or experience earlier in the game.”

For Taillon, part of the calculus is not letting the statistical realities creep into his head while facing a hitter for the third time that day.

“The mental side is a big part of it. I think if you’re going out there for the third time, if I’m aware of my third-time through numbers, it’s going to hurt me,” Taillon said. “I’m already defeated if I’m like, well, sh*t. The guy’s hitting .500 off me the third-time through. You need to flip that mindset and say, I have a chance right here to help the team and go deep.”

The Yankees’ management of their starters gives them a good problem in a good season. Their pitchers are looking to earn more innings coverage, helping protect the bullpen’s workload and keep from exposing them to hitters too many times in the course of a season.

The Yankees’ rotation is intent on breaking out in this regard this season. Over the last couple of years, their ability to prevent runs has improved significantly. Now, they want to prove that effectiveness can be stretched to longer outings that spares the bullpen and, importantly, makes them feel they have the organization’s trust.

They’ve agitated for more responsibility. The results over the course of the full season will determine if they were right.

(Photo of Jordan Montgomery: Cole Burston / Getty Images)