The New York Yankees have developed a myriad of problems lately: the offense outside of Judge and LeMahieu either falling apart or getting injured, the starting pitching painfully regressing, and the bullpen blowing games seemingly every time Aaron Judge gives them a lead. It’s almost hard to believe how far this team has fallen off, they looked invincible for months, we knew it wouldn’t last because baseball is a self-regulating game, but nobody could’ve anticipated this.

drastic shifts

One of the many, many things that have gone wrong for the Yankees is the performance of Clay Holmes, the once-untouchable reliever on the best team in baseball has turned into an erratic mess. For the first three months of the season, Holmes had this line:

0.46 ERA

1.77 FIP

27% K%

4.1% BB%

He was simply the best reliever in the sport. Since then, it’s been a freefall for the Yankee closer. Since July 9th, this is what he’s been putting up:

9.00 ERA

6.48 FIP

20% K%

18.3% BB%

losing the strike zone

The simple way to put this is that Holmes simply lost the strike zone. His best attribute as a reliever in a bullpen full of erratic arms was that he pounded the strike zone with his powerful sinker, got whiffs, and got hitters to hit the ball on the ground. The data over the last month or so shows a steady decline in Holmes’ portion of pitches in the strike zone and a direct correlation between that and run prevention (or lack thereof).

If Holmes wants to get back to what he was not too long ago, he needs to gain command of his elite stuff and put it in the lower half of the strike zone so opposing hitters actually feel pressure to swing. The game plan for hitters against Holmes is simple now, don’t swing the bat and let his weak command put you on base. In that bad stretch since July 9th, he’s still generating ground balls 78.1% of the time batters make contact with his pitches. It’s just that nobody needs to swing at his stuff in order to get on base. When you incorporate those aspects into the data, the picture becomes even clearer.

common occurrences

It’s an annoying thing that every pitcher goes through at some point in their career, Clay Holmes is deathly afraid of the strike zone. Some have attributed it to his usage, although he threw 70 innings last year and still saw great success as a Yankee when he threw strikes. His stuff is still great, hitters aren’t making quality contact off of it, they’re just letting Holmes beat himself at this point. It’s the same problem he ran into in Pittsburgh, which is why his value was so low in the first place.

Let this be a lesson to everyone. Say no to walks, kids!