Saturday, May 12, 2012

The return of Andy Pettitte and the Yankees rotation


The Yankee rotation was originally supposed to be Sabathia, Nova, Hughes, Garcia and Burnett and we all were hoping that the rotation would be better than the mediocre rotation that it appeared to be. Then the Yankees shocked everybody and traded Jesus Montero for Michael Pineda and signed Hiroki Kuroda and now that rotation had too much depth as there were seven arms for five rotation spots. Then Burnett was traded to the Pirates and it seemed that the rotation was set. Then Andy Pettitte blew everyone's mind and decided that he would come back to the Yankees. Once we all got over the collective shock we were in, some people started criticizing the move and thought that bringing back Pettitte would be bad for the Yankees young pitchers. Then of course Pineda got hurt in Spring training and the rotation issue solved itself as Garcia proved to be ineffective in his starts in April and May. Andy Pettitte went from being a nice story to a necessity for the Yankees and now the Yankees are bringing him back before he is really ready. I'm not saying that Pettitte will be bad, but I think he needed one or two more starts in the minors and now he will struggle more than he needs to as he shakes rust off that could have come off in the minors. With the addition of Pettitte we will probably see little chnage in the Yankees rotation barring any injuries as it looks like most of the rotation has started to settle in. One of the great things about the Yankees right now is that they have insane pitching depth and even if Pettitte bombs, which is a possibility that fans need to accept, they have three immediate and decent rotation options in Mitchell, Phelps and Garcia. You wanna see how no depth pitching depth can screw you, look at the Red Sox.
On the note of the depth, I do hope that the Yankees send Phelps to the minors because if they wanna keep their payroll down then they will try and fill a spot internally and that's with the hope that Pineda is back at the beginning of the season. I'm excited about Pettitte coming back but I seriously doubt that he is coming back next season and the Yankees have five guys in AAA who could be in the majors and Phelps, Warren and Mitchell need to have something happen for them soon as they are repeating AAA this year.

No comments:

Post a Comment