JA Happ tries to pitch his tongue and bite when he is not.
He did well both Sundays. The veteran lefty limited the comatose Red Sox to one run in 5 ² / ₃ innings in a 4-2 triumph and then mostly limited his public outrage over how he is used – or more appropriately – not used by the Yankees.
Happ was skipped over the rotation in the last inning and you can find legitimate reasons why that was the case, like the Yankees who want to use Gerrit Cole as much as possible and that the other starters for Sunday had the other starters see more left as Happ as last season, this season as both.
But there’s an elephant the size of Giancarlo Stanton standing on Aaron Judge’s shoulder in the room. Happ has a $ 21 million forfeiture option for $ 20 million, and the Yankees want nothing to do with him paying that much, especially since they have other free agents like DJ LeMahieu and Masahiro Tanaka who they would probably prefer to keep.
It is against the main rules to deliberately manipulate usage to establish a player an option. And the Yankees always have those legitimate reasons to serve as coverage in case there is ever a grievance.
“That’s a topic I think I’ll stay away from right now,” Happ said.
If there was a season 162 game, Happ would need both 27 starts and 165 innings in 2020 to trigger the option. There has been a dispute over what Happ’s thresholds will be in this short pandemic season, but the lowest is the proration levels for a 60-game season – 10 starts as 61 ¹ / ₃ innings.
By dragging on for the last time, Happ just made his third start on Sunday. If he made every turn the rest of the way, there’s just enough time to get to 10 starts. But there’s a better chance that Andy Pettitte will start one game for the Yankees in 2020 than Happ will start 10. There will be a time when the Yankees just have to use an opener or want to see what Deivi Garcia or Clarke Schmidt can do. .
It will all be couched as a manager decision, which is what Aaron Boone insists this was.
But Happ admitted he had two conversations in the gap when he did not start.
“One of them went very well and the second one I did not think went very well,” he said. He did not want to work out much more.
He knows the Yankees have a good cause this year. They have opened 9-0 at home and generally 15-6, and being a distraction for teammates he likes and even taking the whiff out of being a malcontent with a tough market for free agent is not a great thing idea.
He said, “Already on time on that front.” Which, if I were to translate, means that there is always time to file a grievance later. For now, Happ can continue to do what he did when the Yankees beat the Red Sox for a ninth straight time, making it harder for the Yankees to kick him and – vital – harder to claim to be the one must be skipped.
When asked ahead of Sunday’s game if Happ had to pitch well to stay in the rotation, Boone said he expected the veteran to pitch well. When pressed that there was no answer to the question, Boone replied that Happ is one of his starters.
Happ then went out and did as Boone suggested – well set up. He was more aggressive pelting the strike zone. That could be him efficient, just 75 pitches needed to record 17 outs. He worked north and south effectively. He did not dominate – that is not really in his holster these days. But he was just what the Yankees hope he could be, which is a quality innings eater at the back of the rotation.
Kevin Pillar homered with two outs in the third inning. But Boston never got another runner in scoring position against Happ, who described Boone as “great” after this attempt.
“I always feel better when I attack like that,” Happ explained.
For now, he limits those attacks to opposing hitters and the regional zone. There’s a season of promise ahead for these Yankees and Happ is veteran enough to acknowledge both that and something at stake with him.
That he will first hit his tongue and bite if he does not. At least for now.
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