Can Roansy Contreras Break Through with the Yankees?
Analyzing Roansy Contreras’ potential impact on the Yankees, what he brings to the roster, and the adjustments he needs to make to secure a spot with the big league squad.
Opening
This past week, the Yankees went out and claimed Roansy Contreras. Contreras, at a point in time in the past, was a former prospect for the Yankees, who they signed out of the Dominican Republic when he was just 16. Before he could make his major league debut, Contreras was traded to the Pirates in the Jameson Taillon trade. Contreras made his debut in 2021 with the Pirates at the age of 21 and is still only 25 at the time of this claim!
Contreras was rather pedestrian for the Pirates and Angels last season, posting a 4.35 ERA, 4.94 xERA, and a 5.16 FIP in 68 and ⅓ innings in 24’. Despite this poor showing, Contreras has shown an ability to be very effective at the major league level, where in 2022, he posted a 3.79 ERA, 4.43 xERA, and a 4.38 FIP for the Pirates. I believe Contreras still has this effectiveness left in him, but will the Yankees be able to get it out of him? I believe that possible adjustments to his tightening up his slider shape and more consistent zone locations on all of his pitches could help elevate his game. What makes me hopeful for Contreras's development is his young age! He has a lot of time to become great and has the experience to build off of.
Delivery Characteristics
Before getting into the adjustments I would like to see from Contreras, let's take a look at his delivery characteristics. Contreras is a righty, high-slot, bicep-dominant supinator due to his 89.7% spin efficiency on his 4-seam and wider arm action at release. To start off his delivery, Contreras has slight counter-rotation at peak leg lift but phases into an effective drift phase and ultimately into a drop phase, which I think could be slightly emphasized more to achieve greater kinetic energy into delivery. From there, he is able to generate significant hip-shoulder separation and a strong lead leg block, which allow him to effectively transfer the kinetic energy he's built up into the throw phase. Despite this delivery, Contreras is only able to get down to a 5.8’ release height in large part due to his 49-degree arm angle and average extension of 6.5’.
What Contreras Offers
This may not seem like a groundbreaking move, but I believe that Contreras has the ability to offer the Yankees major flexibility to their pitching staff. The reason I believe this is Contreras's past experience with starting, possibly allowing him to be played into a bulk relief or possibly start when needed for this Yankees team. Add this on with his ability to produce an expanded arsenal thanks to his supination bias, we could see a totally reutilized version of Contreras compared to his time with the Pirates/Angels.
More Consistent Slider Shape
The first adjustment I would like to see from Contreras is to develop a more consistent slider shape. Over the course of his career, specifically from 22’ to 24 , Contreras has had a very inconsistent shape on his slider, which gets him into trouble, producing a .244 AVG, .378 wOBA, .370 xwOBA, 26.5 Whiff%, and a 32.8% O-Sw% on this pitch in 24’. The reason this gets him into trouble is he simply doesn't know what shape he'll produce with this pitch. Meaning if he's trying to go low and away to a righty, he could sadly miss over the heart of the plate due to this uncertainty.
Heading into spring training, this should be Contreras's primary goal because it's what's holding him back from becoming a reliable arm. No team is willing to put a guy out there who doesn't know where his pitches will turn out, especially if he doesn't have exceptional velocity, which Contreras doesn't. To add onto this, without a consistent shape, it hinders the likelihood of a team adding a cutter to his arsenal due to the possibility of his slider blending with it. This led me to believe that the most important adjustment for Contreras to make is to produce a consistent shape on his slider.
More Consistent Zone Locations
The next adjustment I could see the Yankees focusing on is an adjustment to his locations with his pitches. Currently, as you can see below, Contreras's locations are an eyesore. Most of his pitches are either over the heart or are simply in undesirable locations, leading to increased contact and worse outcomes as a result. This could stem from many things. I think his main problems are misused focal points and the unpredictability of his shapes. This is what I hit on previously with his slider, which led to unwanted locations of this pitch and, as a result, bad results. The same could be said for his sinker, which could be a primary reason as to why he was missing over the plate so much.
What I could see the Yankees adjusting to these locations is to get his 4-seam off the heart of the plate. The location of this pitch, though, could vary between predominantly low and high. What I expect them to do is to predominantly throw high to allow for an effective tunnel that the rest of his arsenal could play off of. On the other hand, possibly targeting the bottom third of the zone would allow him to play into his higher release height and ability to produce a larger VAA. Although this is a possibility, I don't expect that this will be the route they take; I see them playing into the upper thirds of the zone.
For his sinker, he simply needs to pound this pitch in on righties more consistently. Currently, Contreras has a habit of letting this pitch leak over the heart of the plate, and this sadly leads to below-average results of a .370 AVG, .397 wOBA, .371 xwOBA, and 8.0 Whiff%, despite a 36.8 O-SW%. The 36.8% chase rate shows that this pitch has the ability to draw swings outside of the zone, but because he isn't hammering the inner third predominantly, it decreases the effectiveness of this pitch. What could help hit the inner third more consistently could possibly be using a focal point further in on righties, which could stem from the catcher exaggerating his positioning. This adjustment must happen if the Yankees want Contreras to be effective in 25’.
Looking at his changeup location, it just seems like this stems from his inability to turn over this pitch effectively. This shouldn't be a surprise, though; we know he's a high-slot, bicep-dominant supinator, so we shouldn’t expect him to achieve depth with this pitch. This causes me to lean towards the idea of possibly maneuvering a grip change to a kick change or possibly converting to a splitter. Of course, Contreras has other problems to address first, but I do think that this development could be seen at some point throughout his career.
The last three pitches in Contreras's arsenal are his curveball, slider, and sweeper; all have their own uses and constraints. What I mean by this is Contreras primarily uses his curveball as a get-me-over pitch, using it over 79.8% of the time early in the count, so the location generally isn't a problem. His slider, on the other hand, is. I hit on this earlier, but the location of this pitch is so unideal due to the unpredictability of its shape. Leading to him not knowing what variant of the slider he was going to produce, consequently leading to this pitch leaking over the plate at times.
Now for his sweeper, this pitch could be an early candidate to be completely removed from his arsenal. The reason I say this is due to Contreras having such a high arm angle he has a hard time getting around the ball to produce a traditional sweeper shape. Due to this impediment, he often runs into a problem with his pitch blending with his slider. By virtue of this, I could foresee the Yankees either decreasing the usage to sub-5 % or totally removing this pitch altogether.
Conclusion
All in all, Contreras is an interesting name to keep an eye on going into Spring Training. He’ll have to earn a spot in an already strong Yankees pen if he hopes to make the big league squad with the likes of newly acquired Devin Williams and Luke Weaver manning the ship. Although the chips may seem to be stacked against Contreras, I see lots of hope with his possible development with a more consistent slider shape, an alteration of his pitch locations, and maybe a change to a kick change grip or splitter in the future. As I hinted at earlier, Contreras is still only 25 with 3 years of major league experience under his belt. Tack this on with the Yankees’ recent success in developing Luke Weaver; Yankee fans, you should be excited for what could be coming!
Thanks for reading!
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