Yankees will have a decision to make about Luis Severino
Yankees starting pitcher Luis Severino winds up during the first inning of the team's baseball game against the Houston Astros, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023, in Houston. Credit: AP/Kevin M. Cox
HOUSTON — Just over a month ago, Luis Severino offered the self-critique of self-critiques.
“Right now, I feel like the worst pitcher in the game,” a sullen Severino said July 30 in Baltimore after allowing nine earned runs and 10 hits in 3 1/3 innings in a 9-3 loss to the Orioles. “No doubt about it.”
At that point, he had allowed 29 runs, 43 hits and nine walks in 21 2/3 innings in his last five starts.
That was the low point of the season — a season Severino last month called “the worst year of my life in baseball” — for a pitcher who has been mostly a mess almost from the time he was activated from the injured list in late May.
However, there have been encouraging signs recently.
Though likely too late to make a difference when it comes to the Yankees and their standing (nine games out of the American League’s third wild-card spot entering Sunday night’s game against the Astros), those signs are not irrelevant.
Even in allowing four runs and six hits in four arduous innings in Saturday night’s 5-4 victory over the Astros, Severino made it four straight starts in which there has been tangible progress.
The righthander, who even during the worst of his struggles was routinely hitting the high 90s with his fastball, brought a streak of 13 2/3 scoreless innings into Saturday night. He will be a free agent after the season and the Yankees will have a decision to make on a player they signed in December 2011 at the age of 16 out of the Dominican Republic for $225,000.
Re-signing Severino, 4-8 with a 6.75 ERA in 18 games this season, to some kind of multiyear deal currently would be handicapped as unlikely. But extending him a qualifying offer at the very least could be a consideration. The qualifying offer this year should be a touch over $20 million, a significant increase, though not a drastic one, over the roughly $15 million Severino made this season.
If he didn’t take it — and most players do not — attaching a qualifying offer to Severino would assure the Yankees, of receiving a compensatory draft pick if he signs elsewhere.
And while Severino isn’t going to command the kind of free-agent deal once thought possible — not only because of his difficulties this season but the overall trouble he has had in staying on the field since signing a four-year, $40 million extension in February 2019 — he will draw plenty of interest.
Even when things were at his worst with Severino this season, talent evaluators from other teams have said the righthander won’t be in the position of having to beg for work if he hits the market. They see a big upside in a two-time All-Star who shouldn’t be overly expensive and could be, in the words of one AL scout, “a classic change-of-scenery guy.”
“Absolutely he’ll have people after him,” one NL scout said. “He’s still throwing 99, he’s still just 29. You can see the stuff, inconsistent [as it’s been]. There’s more than a few [teams] out there who will look at the age, the 99 [mph] and say, ‘Hey, we can work with that.’ ”
After he threw seven scoreless innings last Monday in Detroit, Severino laughed when he was asked about his “worst pitcher in the game” comment from late July.
“I’m getting better,” he said before turning serious again. “I’m working through everything that happened, getting better, not letting all that stuff get to me and just focusing on the present and the games we have [left].”
On the surface, Saturday night represented a step back as Severino allowed two-run homers by Michael Brantley and Yainer Diaz in his 104-pitch outing. But Severino and Aaron Boone said his stuff was good overall, and talent evaluators in attendance backed that up.
Severino was not as sharp as he had been in his previous two starts in terms of swing-and-miss stuff, but the powerful Astros lineup had plenty to do with that, fouling off a staggering 41 pitches, the most by any team against a pitcher this season.
“It was incredible,” Boone said of the number of foul balls. “I thought Sevy threw the ball well. He was pounding the strike zone as well. Credit to them for making it so difficult on him that they kind of just outlasted him.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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