Michael Pineda is the 5th starter

He is still only 25

Coming into spring training the competition for the Yankees 5th starter spot was between David Phelps, Michael Pineda, Vidal Nuno and Adam Warren, but really nobody expected it to be anyone but either Phelps or Pineda. This was not a rigged competition where Pineda was going to win no matter what, but I think that they wanted Pineda to take this opportunity to show what he could do and that is exactly what he did. Phelps had a good spring, but in his two major league seasons he has not done anything to make people believe he is anything more than a back of the rotation starter and Pineda was an all star in Seattle and is still only 25, actually two years younger than Phelps.

Pineda and Phelps both had good springs, but more importantly for Pineda his stuff looked very good and his velocity crept upward as spring training went along, that slider of his looked very crisp as well. The Yankees have also expressed confidence in him, saying that he will have no innings limit this season, but they may just be trying to avoid any controversy around an innings limit.

Phelps and Warren will be in the bullpen, as might Vidal Nuno but I would not be surprised if all of these guys start for the Yankees at some point this season as teams always need more than five starters and the Yankees have not used fewer than eight in a season since 1975 and a team usually has a 6th starter that they use pretty heavily throughout the season.

The Montero-Pineda trade was two years ago and we still haven't seen the debut of Michael Pineda, but now it will happen on April 5th in Toronto and I for one am very excited about this and if Pineda does find success and Nova is able to be more consistent  then the Yankees could suddenly have a young power rotation with Tanaka, Nova and Pineda all young and under control for the next several seasons.

The 25 man roster approaches

For the most part the Yankees 25 man roster is set, we are really down to the last three or four spots on the roster and it seems likely that the Yankees already know who they will be taking with them. The Yankees do not have any obvious release candidates on their 40 man roster and so their options related to who makes the team a are somewhat limited. The 5th starter competition ended up being a two man race between David Phelps and Michael Pineda and it would seem that while you can make the argument for Phelps the Yankees love what they have seen with Pineda. I guess theoretically they could send Pineda down to the minors to start the year but I do not think that's what they are going to do. Obviously this does not really change the roster as Phelps will be in the bullpen and even if Pineda was sent down to the minors then I expect Nuno would simply go to the bullpen.

The bench and bullpen are a little more interesting as you have to take the 40 man roster crunch into account when looking at who will make the team. Five of the spots are pretty much guaranteed as Adam Warren, David Robertson, Shawn Kelly, Matt Thorton and presumably David Phelps are all going to be in the bullpen. That leaves two spots in the bullpen open and it seems likely that Dellin Betances will make the team but that still leaves a spot open in the bullpen. Chris Leroux and Matt Daley have been great this spring pitching a combined 18 innings with sixteen strikeouts to eight total base runners, however neither of these guys has faced many MLB quality bats this spring and while relievers do have a hard time facing quality opponents in spring training, neither of these pitchers is on the 40 man roster and would it really be worth designating someone to carry one of these guys on the 25 man roster? Neither Preston Claiborne nor Cesar Cabral has had a particularly good spring and haven't faced opponents any better than Daley or Leroux but their being on the 40 man roster likely gives them a leg up on them. If I had to guess I would say that the Yankees will probably go with Betances and Claiborne to fill out their bullpen as it would allow them to maximize their depth, remember Cody Eppley broke camp with the team last year after an awful spring but they did not wait long to designate him for assignment and that could be what happens here with Claiborne.I also expect that they will keep Nuno in AAA as rotation depth in case they quickly need a starter early on in the season. The bullpen will change as the season goes on and its very possible that Leroux and Daley will end up in the Yankees bullpen at some point this season but I expect they will go to Scranton to start the year.

The story of the bench battle is a little different as the only way Ichiro or Cervelli were not going to be on the bench was if they were traded away and it seems unlikely that a trade for either player will happen at this point in the spring, but it still remains a possibility. Their was initially only going to be one spot to battle for and it seemed likely that Eduardo Nunez would keep his job, but with Brendan Ryan going down with a variety of injuries it would seem likely that Eduardo Nunez will make the team based on the fact that he has major league experience, but of all the bench spot competitors he has arguably had the worst spring. With Sizemore still not looking 100% ready it seems likely that he will go to the minors to start the season, which really leaves Yangervis Solarte, Dean Anna and I suppose Zelous Wheeler to compete over the last bench spot, none of whom have any time in the majors. Solarte is a switch hitter who is raking this spring and had a very good last two years in AAA, however this is only 39 PA and Solarte played in the hitter friendly Pacific coast league the last two years. We see this all the time where a player hits the crap out of the ball in spring training and then goes to the majors or the minors and does absolutely nothing, the same is true for Anna or Wheeler but at least Wheeler and Solarte have actually hit this spring and they have all faced around the same quality of pitchers. Again just like with Claiborne, Dean Anna's being on the 40 man roster will likely be the deciding factor as they would not want to risk losing the depth given Ryan's injury, in this case if Anna is terrible then they can remove him from the 40 man and bring up someone from the minors or wait out his terribleness until Ryan comes back but if they lose him on waivers by designating him now then they would need Solarte to play even if he was playing poorly. The other factor in this is simply that Anna is regarded as a glove man and that is what the Yankees need to replace Brendan Ryan with right now and so it would be a surprise to me if Anna did not make the team.

Nunez activated off 60 day DL, Phelps to DL.

The Yankees have activated Eduardo Nunez off the 60-day DL. He is playing short and batting 8th behind Luis Cruz. In a corresponding move it appears that the Yankees have placed  David Phelps on the 15 day DL with a forearm strain and it appears that Ivan Nova will stick around for at least one more start before the all star break. Nova's complete game 3 hitter last night was arguably the best start by a Yankees starter all year and so the Yankees will give him another start at least. Nunez will help the Yankees if he can hit at all as they have gotten no production from Shortstop this year.

The Emergence of David Phelps

Fear the Phelps

The Emergence of David Phelps has been an important piece of the Yankees success this year as he has been able to bounce between the rotation and the bullpen and more importantly have success in both. As a starter he has pitched to a 3.81 ERA in 10 starts with his best start coming in the double header against the Blue Jays in which he pitched 6.2 innings of one run ball and struck out 6, in fact he has struck out 6 or more in four of his ten starts. Even more impressive may be his success coming out of the bullpen where he has a 2.50 Era over 40 innings and a impressive 41-11 strike out to walk rate.
Phelps story is even better because most people had Phelps behind Adam Warren, both as a prospect and on the pitching depth chart, likely due to his injury last season June. If you don't remember Phelps was going to make a spot start for the Yankees, but they instead signed Brian Gordon who made two starts before heading to play to Korea. Phelps was not even expected to make the active roster out of spring training, but he beat out Adam Warren and D.J Mitchell for the long relief spot after Freddy Garcia had to move to the rotation.
I don't know if it is somehow different from his previous approach but Phelps has been getting accolades for consistently pounding the strike zone, especially in relief where he has been needed due to the Yankees failure to acquire a quality middle reliever after Mariano Rivera's injury. However the  upside that Phelps has shown as a starter is one the Yankees will undoubtedly want to take advantage of as they try and rein in their spending. Phelps could be very critical next year as he may very well have a rotation spot, wither for the year or until Michael Pineda recovers from his injury. All in all the future is bright for David Phelps as a New York Yankee.

Nova to the DL

Ivan Nova was sent back to New York on Wednesday after feeling something pull in his shoulder in the 6th inning of his start in Chicago. Nova has been diagnosed with inflammation in his rotator cuff and has been placed on the 15-day DL. The treatment is just rest and medication, and he won’t pick up a baseball for at least five days. I expect the club to be very conservative given the Pineda stuff, so it wouldn’t be a total surprise if Nova has already pitched his last game of 2012. Phelps will take his spot in the rotation and CC Sabathia will take Nova's spot on the roster. CC will start on Friday against Cleveland and Phelps will open the series at home against the Blue Jays.

David Phelps to start Monday

The Yankees signed Derek Lowe and we all spent about 20 minutes bemoaning the idea of Lowe starting on Monday before it was announced that Phelps would start on Monday not Lowe. I also am just going to point out that if the Cleveland Indians do not want a player then your team definitely should not want him. That being said all Lowe is for the Yankees is a veteran mop guy, he will probably back up Phelps because he will not be able to throw more than 60 pitches this start and 75-90 the next start. After that I doubt Lowe will even be on the team unless CC's activation gets pushed back to September. You have to feel a little bad for Adam Warren because he lined up well to make the start on Monday, but the club didn't have the confidence in him if he had to make a few starts. However Warren is also the Yankees only backup for a starting pitching injury if anyone else goes down. Phelps will have to face the Texas Rangers on Monday so lets hope he can make that limited pitch count.....count. Lowe will be activated Monday so Igarashi will be up for tomorrows game.

CC Sabthia dealing with Elbow issue

Update 4:35pm: Yankees have announced that they will place CC Sabathia on the 15 day DL for his elbow stiffness. They were debating putting him on the DL but they were concerned that his inflammation had not gone away. It sounds like he will be on the DL for the minimum amount of time and he will be eligible to come off the DL on August 23rd. The Yankees have not announced what their rotation will do after Phil Hughes start Sunday. Feel better big man 

Via Mark Feinsand, left-hander CC Sabathia has experienced some minor soreness in his left elbow since his last start. He threw his regular bullpen session yesterday, though there is still a chance the team plays it safe and skips his next start. “Right now, it’s a low-level concern … Long-term, it’s not a big concern,” said Feinsand’s source.
"He's okay," Joe Girardi said Saturday morning. "It's just preventive stuff that all our guys do."
Sabathia is slated to make his next start on Monday at Yankee Stadium against the Rangers, though that could change if his elbow isn't feeling better.
Sabathia is 12-3 with a 3.56 ERA this season, throwing 141 2/3 innings in 20 starts. He missed more than three weeks, including the allstar break with a minor groin injury, but his arm has not been an issue.

I expect that the Yankees will just move everybody up a day and then see if CC needs the DL stint becuase he would not pitch until his next start anyway. While we may want to see Phelps get the start, Warren would probably get called up becuase he is already stretched out.

The Yankees make the right decision and demote David Phelps

David Phelps

Today the Yankees activated David Robertson from the 15 day Disabled list and sent down David Phelps to Single A Tampa so that he can stretch himself out before returning to AAA. This leaves Freddy Garcia as the Yankees long man and even though David Phelps outperformed him in every respect the Yankees made the right move in sending down Phelps. As good as Garcia was last year he has been almost unusable this year and his 7.66 ERA shows that, He has been less terrible in relief but unfortunately his lengthy warmup time means that he is not ideal to come out of the bullpen. David Phelps has been better than sweaty Freddy by far, but quite frankly Long relief innings usually come in blowouts or extra innings and while I would definitely trust Phelps more than Freddy he was wasting away in the bullpen. Phelps hadn't been used since June 2nd when he threw nine pitches recorded 1 out and put runners on 1st and 3rd before Boone Logan came in and gave up the walk off sac fly to the Tigers. The point is that Phelps had thrown nine pitches in 18 days and the Yankees decided that rather than have him waste away in the bullpen like Hector Noesi did last year they decided to send him down and stretch him back out as a starter.

The other reason why this is a good idea is that Phelps may be the Yankees best starter in the minors as all of their starting pitching depth has been mediocre. Dellin Betances, DJ Mitchell and Adam Waren have all been mediocre while Manny Banuelos has been hurt. The most effective starter for the AAA Yankees has been 39 year old Ramon Ortiz and once Phelps is stretched out he will be the primary call up candidate for a starter and at some point the Yankees will need one. I'm not sure what Phelps future in the Yankees organization is as he definitely has more value to the Yankees organization stretched out in the minors than wasting away in the bullpen.

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.

The battle for the last bullpen spot

The Yankees resigned Eric Chavez and now have 24 of their 25 roster spots settled barring any injuries, like Cervelli's broken foot last year and Pedro Feliciano's brokenness. The Yankees could decide to go with another fielder and carry only 11 pitchers, but it seems more likely that the Yankees will have a 12 man bullpen which leaves one roster spot open until Joba recovers from his Tommy John Surgery. The frontrunner to that spot was Hideki Okajima, but he failed his physical so the competition is very open for that last spot and the competition will be the only way some of the non roster players will make it on the team.

Manny Delcarmen: Mostly known for being a native Boston kid who spent 6 seasons as a reliever for the Sox. His control disappeared in 2009 and 2010 and his walk rate went up and his strike out rate fell and he was traded to the Rockies but fared badly and spent all of last year in AAA. His numbers in AAA were bad last year, but the Yankees hope that they can capture some of his old stuff and he could be this years Luis Ayala.

Clay Rapada: After Rapada was released by the Orioles and Okajima failed his physical the Yankees signed Rapada to a minor league deal. A report on Rapada gets into a lot of detail about him, but the overall point is that Rapada is great against lefties and absolutely unusable against righties. Rapda would be the second lefty in the pen and a true LOOGY for the team.

Brad Meyers: Myers is a rule 5 pick from the Nationals who really hates walks, only walking 15 batters in 138 innings and still striking out 116. However he has always been a starter and would have fit in well for the long relief role, but now that will go to either Garcia or Hughes. If he looks good in relief though I expect that the Yankees will take him over Manny.

Cesar Cabral: The other rule 5 pick has twice been exposed to the draft by the Sox and has been the most talked about of the two rule 5 picks. Cabrel is actually better against righties than lefties and was fantastic in winter ball with .77 ERA and held lefties to  a .211 BA. If he has a good spring then he has a good shot of making the club, but he has never pitched above AA and really hasn't been consistent against lefties as his changeup is his best pitch.

Adam Miller: Miller has been called this years Mark Prior as hes been kept out of the majors by injury. Millers injury is weird looking and has kept the former first round pick in the minors this long and its very doubtful that he will make the club or even stick around past spring training as the Yankees would have to give him a $100k bonus because of the new CBA.

Matt Daley: The 29-year-old was born in Queens and raised out on Long Island, and he’s currently rehabbing from an August surgery on his rotator cuff. He struck out a good number of batters and gave up a lot of home runs in Colorado. Daley has appeared in 92 games and thrown 80.2 IP for the Rockies over the last three seasons, and he does have a funky little delivery you can see here.

George Kontos: Kontos had a real shot to make the big league club out of spring training and then he suffered an oblique injury and may not even be ready to start the year in AAA. Kontos will likely be the first arm to get called up from AAA, but it doesn't look like he will make the club because of that setback.

Kevin Whelan: Whelan was great in AAA last year and made his debut last year, but was never called up in September which was odd. He was DFA to make room for Hiroki Kuroda, but I expect that he could earn a 40 man spot back if he has another great year in AAA. However if he is great in spring training then I expect he could earn the spot and i would love to see him given a real opportunity.

David Phelps/D.J. Mitchell: I really doubt these guys will make the club because they are much better off starting in AAA than being the last man in the bullpen. These guys will be the first call-ups if a starter gets injured but probably wont move to the bullpen yet.

Overall Rapada is the most likely to make the club, but a good spring from Manny, Whelan, Cabral or anyone else could mean they get the spot. A spot could also open up if the Yankees trade Freddy Garcia, but I do not think that will happen in the spring if at all.