Today is a beautiful day. Sure, maybe you woke up this morning and it was 28 degrees out and you slipped on ice on your way to your car that still hadn't warmed up by the time you got in even though you started it ten minutes ago. But somewhere a thousand miles away pitchers and catchers reported at Yankee camp and that means baseball is back. And by back I mean we're going to be looking at pictures of guys stretching and reading about Tanaka's elbow for the next two weeks.
Unfortunately not every February in Tampa is as exciting as last year's was when A-Rod hijacked the entire city by arriving to camp three days early in a Hurricane's jumpsuit carrying his mysterious package.
The narrative this spring is pretty much the same as it was last year - question marks about health and performance and no player epitomizes that more than Mark Teixeira. His injury history and the absence of Greg Bird are the number one reason to be pessimistic about this season. When Tex is on the field he's their best two-way player and it isn't particularly close. When he's hurt, and he's going to get hurt, it's going to be impossible to replace what he adds to the lineup in terms of power and balance and the drop-off defensively is going to be even more staggering. You can't ask Dustin Ackley to cleanly pick three throws a game from Chase Headley.
In terms of performance, the biggest question mark in my mind is Starlin Castro. If he realizes his full potential he may be their biggest everyday asset. They're going to ask him to play some third this spring and if he can handle that it'll give Girardi the flexibility to put a much more dangerous lineup on the field day-in and day-out than if he has to look to Pete Kozma or Ronald Torreyes for infield depth. Offensively, there's a reason Castro has amassed almost 1,000 hits at the age of 25. The dude has a stick and despite a disappointing season overall he hit .353/.374/.594 in 44 games after moving to second towards the end of last year. A right-handed bat that can hit like that is exactly what the Yankees were missing last season. Best case scenario is Castro hits his way to the top of the lineup and rounds out the infield depth by backing up Headley at third when needed.
I'm more concerned about pitching depth than I am about the questions marks surrounding the rotation - and there are plenty of them. Will Tanaka ever be as dominant as he was when he burst onto the scene and before he tore his UCL? Can Pineda log 200 innings and figure out a way to get outs when he doesn't have a his good slider? Can Eovaldi build off what he found in his splitter last summer? Will Severino be able to progress now that the league has a book on him? Can CC round out the rotation and keep them in games? Only time will tell. But if one of these guys goes down it won't be Adam Warren stepping in to keep them in games - it'll be Ivan Nova. A guy who threw a few games towards the end of last season that left you wondering whether or not he was capable of pitching in the majors anymore. Bryan Mitchell is a poor man's Adam Warren and the rest of the crew down in Scranton is completely untested. That's why the Justin Wilson deal made sense (especially after getting Chapman). The Yankees need starting pitching depth and they got it for a guy who was pretty much their fourth best reliever last year.
The most exciting part of spring training is obviously going to be seeing some of the kids and watching the bullpen. The only clear-cut, special part of this team are the three guys at the back. Stop saying it's "one of" the best bullpens in baseball. It might be the best bullpen of all-time and it hasn't even thrown a pitch yet. Even when/if Chapman's suspension comes down (it could come any day) he's still permitted to participate in spring games and that's going to be awesome to watch. All this rotation has to do is tread water and walk away with leads in the 6th inning in a little more than half of it's games and this team is going to with the AL East. That's a big if though.
In terms of performance, the biggest question mark in my mind is Starlin Castro. If he realizes his full potential he may be their biggest everyday asset. They're going to ask him to play some third this spring and if he can handle that it'll give Girardi the flexibility to put a much more dangerous lineup on the field day-in and day-out than if he has to look to Pete Kozma or Ronald Torreyes for infield depth. Offensively, there's a reason Castro has amassed almost 1,000 hits at the age of 25. The dude has a stick and despite a disappointing season overall he hit .353/.374/.594 in 44 games after moving to second towards the end of last year. A right-handed bat that can hit like that is exactly what the Yankees were missing last season. Best case scenario is Castro hits his way to the top of the lineup and rounds out the infield depth by backing up Headley at third when needed.
I'm more concerned about pitching depth than I am about the questions marks surrounding the rotation - and there are plenty of them. Will Tanaka ever be as dominant as he was when he burst onto the scene and before he tore his UCL? Can Pineda log 200 innings and figure out a way to get outs when he doesn't have a his good slider? Can Eovaldi build off what he found in his splitter last summer? Will Severino be able to progress now that the league has a book on him? Can CC round out the rotation and keep them in games? Only time will tell. But if one of these guys goes down it won't be Adam Warren stepping in to keep them in games - it'll be Ivan Nova. A guy who threw a few games towards the end of last season that left you wondering whether or not he was capable of pitching in the majors anymore. Bryan Mitchell is a poor man's Adam Warren and the rest of the crew down in Scranton is completely untested. That's why the Justin Wilson deal made sense (especially after getting Chapman). The Yankees need starting pitching depth and they got it for a guy who was pretty much their fourth best reliever last year.
The most exciting part of spring training is obviously going to be seeing some of the kids and watching the bullpen. The only clear-cut, special part of this team are the three guys at the back. Stop saying it's "one of" the best bullpens in baseball. It might be the best bullpen of all-time and it hasn't even thrown a pitch yet. Even when/if Chapman's suspension comes down (it could come any day) he's still permitted to participate in spring games and that's going to be awesome to watch. All this rotation has to do is tread water and walk away with leads in the 6th inning in a little more than half of it's games and this team is going to with the AL East. That's a big if though.
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