New York Yankees Rotation in 2012: Tough Decisions Are Coming
September 1, 2011 · Joseph Browne · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
The Yankees pitching staff in 2011 is, in many ways, like a hastily thrown-together patchwork quilt.
A little of everything went into its creation from the beginning of the season through today, and at no point in time could its creators ever feel truly comfortable that the materials and craftsmanship would stand the test of time. It can be said, even, that perhaps the intent was never to create something that would in fact last, but rather something that would ideally keep the team from finishing last.
With the Yankees in second place as of September 1st, it’s easy to forget that without the contributions of pitchers Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, Ivan Nova and several bullpen journeymen, the Yankees could quite possibly be battling to stay out of the Eastern Division cellar. If you doubt that, take a look at the numbers below.
Breaking it down, Colon, Garcia and Nova have started 64 games between them. In those 64 starts, they have collectively been credited with 33 wins and taken the loss 20 times. Additionally, they’ve chewed up just under 400 innings worth of work between them and pitched a combined ERA of 3.56.
Another way of looking at the numbers tells us that these three starters have pitched a combined total of 44 games (total innings divided by nine) across about 400 innings, and with their collective ERA being what it is, this means that the Yankees have been given a chance to win a vast majority of the times they’ve pitched.
In true terms, the Yankees have had no better options than these three pitchers as the season has worn on, or at least none whom they were willing to trade the future for, that is. It should also be noted, of course, that they may not have wanted a better option than Nova based on his youth and performance.
While the Yankees may very well have some nice pitching prospects in the farm system, the reality is that these prospects had no chance of impacting the big team this year. It’s simply a matter of an organizational choice that the Yankees have made to avoid rushing young arms, and whether observers agree or disagree with the approach is immaterial.
The Yankees have a timetable for young pitchers, and they do not stray from it.
So, with no better options available, the Yankees have had to rely on some arms that very few thought would be in the mix. Among the surprises have been bullpen saviors Cory Wade and Luis Ayala, two pitchers who have outperformed their pasts in a year that has seen the Yankees’ master bullpen plan implode almost from day one. Add in youngster Hector Noesi and his performance, and the hits keep coming.
When one considers that Pedro Feliciano, Joba Chamberlain and Rafael Soriano were supposed to be part of the original bullpen core and that all three have been lost to injury for much of the season, it’s astonishing how fortunate the Yankees have been to have gotten the bullpen production that they have.
When combined, Wade, Ayala and Noesi have provided over 120 innings of relief, pitching to an ERA of 2.53 in the process, and these are truly remarkable numbers considering none of them figured into the original team plans. With David Robertson’s breakout season figured in, the Yankees have to be downright giddy about how the bullpen has performed.
So, for the sake of discussion, let’s remove Colon, Garcia and Nova from the mix. Let’s consider that it’s entirely possible that the Yankees could have experienced a year where the entire back end of the rotation could have plausibly been somewhere in the range of 20-25 games under .500 collectively, and that would have been in addition to A.J. Burnett pitching like, well, A.J. Burnett.
This would have meant that instead of the 33 wins and 20 losses attributed to the back three, the results could have been somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 wins and 38 losses.
Some quick math tells us that the Yankees’ record today, which stands at 81 wins against 53 losses, could quite possibly have been something closer to 63 wins and 71 losses, good for just a marginal lead over Baltimore in the division.
Is this all theoretical? Of course it is. Theories, though, are not fantasies. They are suggested outcomes or possibilities based on a framework of facts. With that said, the fact is that the Yankee pitching staff to date could have easily produced a below-.500 record to this point.
This all leads us to the serious questions that will face the Yankees once the season ends.
With Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia on one-year contracts, do the Yankees extend offers to each as insurance against the probability that one or more of their prospects aren’t ready for prime time in 2012?
Do they approach the free-agent market aggressively and try to secure a C.J. Wilson, Hiroki Kuroda, Mark Buerhle or Edwin Jackson? If so, are they willing to stunt the growth of their top-tier prospects, Dellin Betances and Manny Banuelos?
The Yankees can also get creative in terms of the trade market, of course, as a deep farm system allows them to entertain this possibility more so than at any point in the recent past.
Regardless of how the Yankees approach things, though, one thing that is certain is that there is little chance that Yankees general manager Brian Cashman will be permitted to attempt another quilt.
The clock is ticking on the Yankees due to the age of some of their most integral players, and the ticking will become positively deafening if the rotation is still a question mark when the 2012 season begins.
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