In the middle of the New York Yankees‘ lineup, you can find two aging hitters who seemed to be past their primes but are now hitting as if they’ve found the fountain of youth.
The one who’s gotten the most press is Alex Rodriguez, and deservedly so. But we’re going to give some overdue credit to the other guy: Mark Teixeira.
Teixeira came into Friday’s contest against the Los Angeles Angels at Yankee Stadium with two home runs in his last three games. And he made it three out of four with a two-run shot off Jered Weaver in the third inning. That doubled the Yankees’ lead to 4-0, and it proved to be pretty important when the Angels mounted a six-run ninth-inning rally that fell just short as the Yankees won by an 8-7 final.
At any rate, Teixeira now has 17 homers. That ranks second in the majors behind only Nelson Cruz, Bryce Harper and Giancarlo Stanton. Also, Teixeira’s 17 dingers put him on pace to shatter the mark of 22 homers he hit in his age-34 season in 2014.
To boot, it’s not all about the home runs.
The 35-year-old switch-hitting first baseman is also getting on base at a .353 clip. Add that to a .581 slugging percentage, and you get a .934 OPS. For all the attention A-Rod has gotten, his own .904 OPS falls 30 points shy of matching Teixeira’s.
To be sure, A-Rod deserves props for the role he’s played in getting the Yankees to their AL East-leading 30-25 record. So do Brett Gardner, Jacoby Ellsbury, Michael Pineda, Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller. But of all the reasons the Yankees are where they are, Teixeira’s resurgence belongs near the top of the list.
By all rights, this shouldn’t be the case. Teixeira is old by baseball standards, and he certainly looked it in playing through three injury-marred, modestly productive seasons from 2012 to 2014. Why should he be back now?
Short version? He’s worked hard for this.
If older hitters could push a button and make themselves younger, all of them would do so. It’s a real shame they can’t. Really, the best they can do is get healthy and live healthy.
To these ends, Teixeira might as well be the new poster boy for getting and living healthy.
Among the changes Teixeira made over the offseason was a new diet that, as he outlined to Daniel Barbarisi of the Wall Street Journal, was meant to curb inflammation in his body. He also hired a new trainer and was able to pursue a full workout regimen rather than rehab the wrist injury that sidelined him for much of 2013 and lingered into the winter.
“We really attacked all of the issues I’ve been having,” he told Erik Boland of Newsday. “I got myself really strong. I was weaker than I’ve probably ever been in my entire career last year because of the [wrist] injury the year before, not being able to work out like I usually do…I feel like a kid again.”
Granted, because all of this came out during spring training, it sounded like standard “Best Shape of His Life” stuff. But two months into the season, it sure looks like Teixeira’s efforts have paid off.
But there’s also more to Teixeira’s revival than his benefiting from changes he’s made outside the lines. He’s also benefiting from some changes he’s made inside the lines.
One is actually a carryover from 2014. Mike Axisa of River Ave Blues broke down how Teixeira had changed things up in the batter’s box by closing his stance and lowering the position of his hands. This allowed his swing to be more compact, and it’s working even better for him this year than it did last season.
One way you can tell is by looking at how Teixeira has been able to catch up to fastballs. Per Brooks Baseball, Teixeira has gone from hitting .218 against the heat to .278 against it.
Aside from that, another apparent benefit of Teixeira’s more compact swing is a lower whiff rate. He’s swinging and missing at only 7.7 percent of the pitches he sees, a full tick below the 8.7 whiff rate he had last year.
Of course, it also helps that Teixeira is being more selective about the pitches he swings at. He’s gone from chasing pitches outside the zone at a 28.1 percent rate in 2014 to just a 22.0 percent rate this year. While his discipline has always been good, this year it’s worthy of Joey Votto.
Last but not least, we have Teixeira’s batted-ball profile. With a 40.5 fly-ball percentage, he’s hitting the ball in the air at a higher rate than he’s done in a full season since 2013. He’s also pulling the ball a career-high 57.4 percent of the time.
This would be the stats-geek way of saying that Teixeira is doing everything he can to maximize his power potential, as strong guys who hit the ball in the air to their pull sides are indeed putting themselves in a position to hit dingers. That’s what Teixeira has been doing, so we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s been so successful hitting the ball over the fence.
Is it all too good to be true? More than likely, yes. Teixeira is on pace to hit 50 home runs and finish with his best OPS since his first season with the Yankees back in 2009. FanGraphs‘ projections see regressions across the board, and those are bound to come true eventually.
No amount of regression, however, is likely to keep the 2015 season from being Teixeira’s best in years.
It’s a stretch to say that Teixeira has completely remade himself. In many aspects, he’s the same hitter he’s always been. Strength, discipline and lots of fly balls to his pull side have been Teixeira’s defining characteristics since he first set foot in the big leagues back in 2003.
But though he may not be doing anything new, Teixeira is simply doing his usual thing better than he was able to in the last three seasons. He’s had to make some changes to pull it off, but it’s all been worth it.
For him, it’s meant a return to status as one of the game’s elite hitters that he enjoyed for many years. And for the Yankees, well, it’s never bad to have a player like that in the middle of your lineup.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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