Should The Yankees Have Kept Their Former Ace?

Luis Severino is thriving across town, but the Yankees could have fixed him if they had the patience.

Sep 8, 2023; Bronx, New York, USA; New York Yankees starting pitcher Luis Severino (40) pitches in the first inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports / Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports

One of the New York Yankees' former arms is thriving across town.

Luis Severino, who was in pinstripes from 2015 to 2023, has been excellent for the New York Mets this year. The 30-year-old currently has a 9-6 record with a 3.84 ERA, 4.27 FIP, and 1.24 WHIP; he additionally pitched his second career shutout on August 17 and has allowed just one run over his last 14 innings.

The Bronx Bombers let Severino leave as a free agent after a miserable 2023 season; he pitched just 89.1 innings and posted a 6.65 ERA and 1.65 WHIP while dealing with the injury bug, which has been a persistent problem for him. This year, he's already at 147.2 frames, which would be his most since 2018.

However, there was another factor to Severino's 2023 struggles that the Yankees could have addressed if they kept him around.

On Tuesday, the righty joined New York Post writers and MLB insiders Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman in an episode of "The Show" podcast. Heyman stated that Severino's pitches themselves looked excellent in 2023 despite his poor performance; Severino then revealed that he was unknowingly tipping his pitches for most of the season.

"I was doing different things," Severino said. "With a man on second sometimes, if I stop and look at third, it was a fastball. If I look at second going straight home, it was offspeed. That's one of those things that I stopped doing. Also, my hand position with the glove, I was a little bit down in one. My glove was more straight and other ones was more to second base. So I stopped doing that too, which is a setup position for all my pitches. That's helped me a lot this year."

According to Severino, the Yankees eventually caught on to his accidental pitch tipping; however, despite their best efforts, it wasn't possible for the coaching staff to break the 30-year-old of those habits in the middle of the season.

"The Yankees had two great guys there, guys who know a lot about tipping," the former Yankee said. "They pulled me out of a couple innings, but it's really hard to do those things when you are in the [middle of the] season. So I was working on it, but when you go out there and the competition kicks in, you forget about everything."

Luis Severino on his pitch tipping issue here. Sevy on everything was wonderful.

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— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 23, 2024

The main problem the Yankees had with Sevy was keeping him on the field; even in injury-shortened seasons, he showed ace-caliber potential. In 2022, he had a 3.18 ERA, 3.70 FIP, and 1.00 WHIP despite pitching just 102 frames due to injuries. Considering the quality of his stuff in 2023, it's clear that the pitch tipping was the primary source of his 2023 cratering, and the Yankees didn't have the patience to address it.

But what makes the loss of Severino sting is that while the Mets' coaching staff (which includes manager Carlos Mendoza, who was the Yankees' bench coach for six seasons) certainly helped get rid of his tipping habits, it was Sevy himself who took the initiative. His efforts to fix the problem and stay healthy have allowed him to achieve the best version of himself in years, and that is an asset the Yankees would absolutely love to have.

New York's pitching staff has been wildly inconsistent this season; although injuries to Gerrit Cole, Clarke Schmidt, and Luis Gil haven't helped, all of their starters have dealt with stretches of ineffectiveness that resulted in early departures from games or allowing too many runs for the offense to match. If the Yankees had Severino on the roster, with his pitch tipping issues resolved, the rotation would be in great shape. Of course, that takes liberties in that the righty would stay healthy like he has this year, but as mentioned before, he's still been effective in injury-shortened seasons outside of 2023.

While losing Severino hurts for now, there's still a chance to rectify this mistake; the nine-season veteran will be a free agent again after the season, and he's made it clear that he loves pitching in New York. Although the Mets are the favorite to keep him around, the Yankees should also keep an eye on Sevy after seeing his impressive resurgence.