ESPN’s Jeff Passan dropped his offseason preview earlier today, and among the rumors surrounding Yankees’ star outfielder Juan Soto, he also mentioned a laundry list of players who could be traded. Among them was right-handed reliever Justin Lawrence, who the Rockies could look to move after a terrible season where he posted a 6.49 ERA and -0.8 fWAR. While it would seem silly for the Yankees to target a pitcher with a career 5.43 ERA, Lawrence has some of the best stuff in baseball and could be the perfect reclamation project for Sam Briend and Matt Blake.
With a firm sinker and sharp sweeper that he releases from a funky arm slot, the Yankees could be the perfect organization to unlock Justin Lawrence in 2025.
Justin Lawrence Could Be the Perfect Trade Target For the Yankees
After an excellent 2023 campaign where Justin Lawrence had a 3.72 ERA in the run-heavy Coors Field, the right-hander was rendered ineffective in 2024. His stuff improved but his ability to suppress damage contact and miss bats dramatically declined, allowing a career-high nine home runs while running a career-worst 16.1% strikeout rate.
With just two years remaining on his rookie contract, it would behoove the Rockies to cut their losses and trade him while they can still get some value for him in return. The Yankees would be an ideal landing spot for Lawrence because his sinker-sweeper combination plays extremely well into what the team develops, as they’re one of the most sweeper-heavy teams in the sport.
Furthermore, we know that they target pitchers with great sinkers that can limit damage contact with that pitch, and while Justin Lawrence’s sinker had an abysmal -22 Run Value this season, there’s reason to believe it would perform better away from Coors Field.
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The significant decrease in his sinker’s horizontal movement makes it a lot easier to hit as it doesn’t tail away from barrels the way it does on the road. In his career, Lawrence’s sinker has had a .376 xwOBA on the road and a .435 xwOBA at home, which reflects the dramatic difference in movement, but that’s out of the Rockies’ control. Instead, the Yankees can take a trick they’ve imparted onto some of their big-time relievers and make Justin Lawrence even better.
Look no further than Jake Cousins, another right-handed reliever with a sinker-sweeper profile that struggles with command and broke out with the Yankees. While Lawrence releases the ball from a lower angle, both of them have wider release points than the average right-hander, and that makes their sliders and sinkers even harder to pick up for righties and lefties.
These wide angles can create sharp Horizontal Approach Angles (HAA), which measure the angle at which the ball crosses the plate relative to the release point. For a right-handed pitcher, a sharp HAA can create more swings on the first-base side of the plate on sliders to both righties and lefties, which is how Cousins is able to get so many ugly swings on sliders located there.
Sinkers have an inverse trend, with fewer swings on pitches located there, creating plenty of called strikes that can get a pitcher ahead early in the count. Pitchers can artificially create a sharper HAA with their positioning on the rubber, which Jake Cousins does by standing closer to the third-base side of the mound. Justin Lawrence on the other hand stands closer to the first-base side of the rubber, which could be hindering his ability to get chases and whiffs.
The little green dots serve as a way to better see where the rubber begins and ends, and if Lawrence positioned himself a bit closer to the third-base side of it the way Cousins does, he could create some wacky angles that make it easier to get batters out. Another way the Yankees could improve Justin Lawrence’s repertoire is by adding something that can bridge the movement between his sinker and sweeper, which could help him throw more strikes.
It’s not hard to imagine a pitcher who supinates well enough to throw a sweeper would be able to throw an effective cutter, and the Yankees are very aggressive when it comes to developing that pitch. Gerrit Cole, Clarke Schmidt, and Carlos Rodon have all added cutters over the last three seasons with many MiLB arms developing that very same pitch with the organization.
Cutters tend to have little horizontal movement, which makes them a perfect bridge pitch for a sinker-sweeper pitcher because they’re easy to locate in-zone and can set up a pitch with tons of lateral movement in either direction. The Coors Effect has left its mark on Justin Lawrence, who has a 3.86 career ERA on the road and a 6.96 ERA at home, but I believe the Rockies’ lack of modern pitching philosophies has hurt him way more.
The Yankees love sweepers and they love sinkers; Justin Lawrence could be the perfect buy-low for them to convert into a top-tier reliever.