The New York Yankees announced that they would sign and activate left-handed reliever Tim Mayza ahead of yesterday’s game, where he delivered a scoreless inning. Last season, Mayza was one of the best left-handed baseball relievers, but he’s coming to the Bronx in shambles this season. The last-place Toronto Blue Jays designated the 32-year-old for assignment after a concerning dip in strikeout and groundball rates. With the Yankees needing some left-handed support and any pitching help they can get, Mayza isn’t expected to contribute, but it would certainly help if he could.
In this outing, there were flashes of the pitcher who posted a 1.52 ERA last season for a playoff team, and the Yankees might have found something to get Tim Mayza back to form.
How Tim Mayza Could Click With the Yankees
What immediately stands out about Tim Mayza this season is a sharp decrease in sinker velocity, with the southpaw losing 1.5 MPH and seeing his fastball immediately regress as a result. The pitch went from having a .349 SLG% to a .536 SLG% while rarely getting groundballs, and when the Blue Jays cut him it made a ton of sense on paper. They were struggling, the team needed to try and get fresh bullpen arms up, and Mayza was cheap enough to reasonably get claimed and clear a small chunk of salary from their projected payroll.
The Yankees acquired Tim Mayza on July 12th, assigning him to the FCL where he could work on his repertoire in Tampa and get back into the swing of things. In his first outing with the Yankees, his velocity was up to 93.2 MPH, which is right around the 93.4 MPH average velocity we saw from the left-hander last season. He’s reached higher average velocities in a game this season, but on average it’s down a good chunk, and the question for me is whether he can sustain that moving forward.
It’s a stark difference when his velocity is on, and while the results in terms of wOBA aren’t much different, the underlying data is night and day:
- ? 93 MPH: .286 xwOBA | 23.1% Hard-Hit% | 0.0% Barrel%
- ? 93 MPH: .434 xwOBA | 49.1% Hard-Hit% | 12.3% Barrel%
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When Tim Mayza’s sinker is going right, it’s a bowling ball pitch that keeps the ball on the ground and can get him ahead in counts to set up for his nasty slider. A sharp gyro slider with good vertical drop, it has the highest Stuff+ (143) for any slider thrown by a left-handed reliever over the last two seasons (min. 50 IP). It’s taken a hit in terms of effectiveness as the pitch is not nearly as effective without the sinker to set him up and get him ahead in the count.
The Yankees desperately need left-handed bullpen help, with the team having a combined -0.4 fWAR and 17.6% strikeout rate from their lefty relievers. Tim Hill has been a solid addition but he doesn’t miss a ton of bats and that makes him a question mark with runners on, while Mayza isn’t a strikeout machine, he did finish in the 60th Percentile in strikeout rate last season (24.7%).
A solid bat-misser who can keep the ball on the ground, Mayza isn’t at the age where you’d expect pitchers to completely lose it and break down either. He’s got the upside to be a legitimate high-leverage weapon, and it could save Brian Cashman’s reputation if an addition he made in July off of waivers converts into one of the better southpaws in any American League bullpen.
It’s going to be a dogfight for the Yankees down the stretch as they battle the Orioles for the top spot in the American League East, and while he wasn’t a massive addition at the time, he could provide plenty of value if the velocity holds.