Thursday, June 7, 2012

Why is Cody Eppley still on the Yankees?

Do you know what I like less than a LOOGY? A ROOGY, a right handed specialist who can only get out right handed batters and hasn't been that great at doing so. The only reason that Eppley is on the roster is because of Robertson's injury and Mike Axisa from River Ave Blues wrote about how this is Eppley's big chance to prove that can contribute as all he had to do was outpitch Freddy Garcia. I do not think that Garcia will be on the team when Robertson comes back, but I do not think that Eppley should be on the team either. Because he is a submarine pitcher he is useless against left handed batters and its pretty evident with them hitting .313 against Eppley and reaching base at .389. However Right handed batters are hitting .250 off Eppley which isn't terrible, but their .357 OBP is terrible. Its nothing personal against Eppley, I like to see all the pitchers like him succeed, but Eppley is not the best option for the final bullpen arm and the plethora of bullpen arms in AAA means that he is easily replaceable. When Robertson comes back Garcia seems like he will be DFA which will free up a roster spot to add one of the two best bullpen arms with the AAA Yankees, Manny Delcarmen or Kevin Whelan. Both Delcarmen and Whelan have been good in AAA and Delcarmen was once very good in the Boston bullpen but fell off in the last few seasons and wasn't in the big leagues last season. Kevin Whelan made his debut last season and has served as the closer for the Scranton Yankees since and has always gotten a lot of strikeouts but he also walks a lot of guys. Neither Whelan or Delcarmen are on the 40 man but Garcia being DFA would solve that problem. If the Yankees want to use that 40 man spot for someone else then they could call up one of the guys already on the 40 man like Ryoto Igarashi or LHP Justin Thomas both of whom were picked up off waivers and have unimpressive big league experience. Other than Justin Thomas I think any of these bullpen options would be better than Eppley and would provide some potential quality innings which they aren't going to get out of Eppley.

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