Sergio Mitre Will Determine New York Yankees Role for Trading Deadline
July 21, 2009 · Doug Rush · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
Tonight, the Yankees will call up Sergio Mitre as their new fifth starter to face the Baltimore Orioles.
His performance will determine if the Yankees will be active in trading for another starting pitcher.
With Chien-Ming Wang’s latest setback and no time-table for his return, the fifth spot, for now, is Mitre’s.
Most Yankee and even baseball fans probably don’t know a lot about Mitre.
He’s 28 years old and hasn’t pitched in the major leagues since 2007 when he was with the Florida Marlins. 2007 was probably his best statistical performance of his career, going 5-8 with a 4.65 in 149 innings and 27 starts. Not exactly staggering numbers to blow you away.
He first came up in 2003 with the Chicago Cubs as a long reliever with hopes that he might one day develop into a good starting pitcher for them. It just never happened for Chicago, as they traded Mitre along with Ricky Nolasco and Reynal Pinto to the Marlins in exchange for Juan Pierre.
Following 2007, Mitre went through numerous arm problems and forced him out of baseball.
In the winter, the Yankees picked up Mitre and signed him to a minor league deal. Before 2009 started, Mitre was suspended 50 games by MLB for testing positive for a banned substance.
When Mitre came back, he pitched for AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and is 3-1 with a 2.40 ERA in 45 innings and made seven starts before being called up. While his numbers in Triple-A look impressive, you can’t ever trust them, because they don’t mean anything until you post the same numbers at the pro level.
So on Tuesday, Mitre will pitch in his first pro game in nearly two years. He is facing the last place Baltimore Orioles team, but the Orioles have good hitters. However, Mitre is pitching for the first-placed New York Yankees, but Mitre has also always been a strictly-N.L. pitcher.
Mitre’s will need to have a decent game tomorrow if he wants to keep a rotation spot for the Yankees. The Yankees don’t have much else to depend on for the number five spot since Phil Hughes is the newly established set up man for Mariano Rivera and Alfredo Aceves is too important to take out of the bullpen.
If Mitre isn’t the answer, the Yankees do have other options in Scranton, but as a possible playoff team trying to over-take the Red Sox, the Yankees probably will not want to take those options.
Those options I am referring to are Kei Igawa, one of the biggest busts in Yankees history. Sure Igawa is 7-3 with a 3.70 ERA in 17 starts, but Igawa has been dreadful pitching for the Yankees; he was 2-3 with a 6.25 ERA in 67.2 innings in 2007 and 0-1 with a 13.50 ERA in just four innings pitched last season.
How Igawa is still in the Yankees system is beyond me, because they should just send him back to Japan or trade him.
The other option the Yankees would probably not want to look into is Ian Kennedy. Now Kennedy started out great for the Yankees in 2007, as he went 1-0 with a 1.89 ERA in 19 innings and three starts. This gave him the No. 5 spot for the beginning of the 2008 season, but Kennedy pitched terrible in 2008, as he was 0-4 with a 8.19 ERA in 39.2 and nine starts.
Kennedy was pitching well for Scranton; 1-0 with a 1.59 ERA in four starts, but those numbers don’t mean anything and Kennedy has yet to be called back up since his last start in August of 2008, where the Angels tattooed him for nine hits and five runs in just two innings.
I say Kennedy was pitching well for Scranton because on May 12, he was diagnosed with an aneurysm under his right armpit and underwent surgery. Kennedy’s return has yet to be determined.
So with Igawa as an un-trustable pitcher and Kennedy on the shelf, Mitre is the guy, for now. But what he does against Baltimore will determine if the Yankees need to find a fifth starter for the second half of 2009.
The Yankees are just hoping Mitre to be decent, as the rotation for the most part has been effective; CC Sabathia is 9-6 with a 3.66 ERA and 99 strikeouts in 135.1 innings, A.J. Burnett is 8-4 with a 3.81 ERA and 102 strikeouts in 113.1 innings, Andy Pettitte is 8-5 with a 4.62 ERA and 78 strikeouts in 115 innings and Joba Chamberlain is 5-2 with a 4.05 ERA and 86 strikeouts in 95.2 innings.
If the playoffs do happen for the Yankees in 2009, Joba will more than likely move back to the bullpen, maybe even earlier if he reaches the 150 inning mark, so if Mitre doesn’t work out, the Yankees and general manager Brian Cashman will have to start figuring out who is worth trading away and what starting pitcher he wants to bring to the Bronx.
For Mitre’s sake, he and the Yankee organization hope it works out against the Orioles. If not, then it will be deal-making time for Mr. Cashman within the next 10 days.
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