Talking Prospects: Learning From Mistakes

I think that the Yankees will sign or trade for a starter to fill out the rotation, have Hector Noesi be the sixth starter when someone hits the 15 day DL or if they have a doubleheader, and let the two B’s marinate in AAA all season long.

NYY need at least one of these two to become an ace.

Inning counts are one thing, but I have long felt that the Yankees have not done a very good job of maturing their young arms. Joba, Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy amongst others, those guys are glaring examples of the Yankees maybe tinkering TOO much. I’m actually surprised that Joba hasn’t demanded a trade from the Yankees after the way they have consistently changed his role and toyed with his head. It’s not just the Joba Rules… but the bullpen to starter to bullpen to starter stuff just had to drive the guy nuts. Every start of his felt like a decision-maker. If he was bad, he was doen as a starter. If he pitched well, he got another chance. It felt like that for Phil Hughes and Kennedy too. Every start is like live or die. And low and behold, they didn’t perform up to par, or they injured themselves. and once an injury set in, then it’s back to the drawing board. Does Hughes come back as a starter when he’s healthy or should we just keep him in the bullpen.

Now look, Kennedy has had a stellar year in Arizona… pitching for a team that is just letting him pitch. He knows he is in the rotation so each start he is not pitching for his “life”. Granted, NY plays under a ton more presure and expectations so we don’t allow ourselves time to just “figure it out”. Maybe that is our problem though? Yankee players know all about expectations. Is it really good for their mental health to constantly shuffle them back and forth and blur their pitching roles?
I love the Yankees, but, bringing along pitching prospects… well… we have work to do in my opinion.

Like it’s been said, the “win now at any cost” mentality can really hamper prospect development and I worry that this will be the case with ManBan and Betances. Hell, I worry it’ll be the case with Jesus too.

I agree that Hughes, was given every chance to succeed and honestly he has been underwhelming outside of his Pen stint. Meanwhile Joba i think is more a of a combination of Injuries and a bit of failure by the front office. I do not think juggling him between the Pen and starter was a good idea. At the same time his second half failure in 2009 was not exactly unexpected. He had a nice ERA, but his peripherals did not match the ERA, so a drop in performance was expected. It was just made worse by that ridiculous pitch count innings limit thing they had him on, where he threw like 3 innings a start. off course another problem was also his missing 2 MPH as a starter.

Brackman is in the Yankees clubhouse as well as Golson and Kontos. Noesi is also back as well.

I like how the Yankees handled Nova’s development. He pitched 140 inning seasons 3 times in the minors, and in the third season was called up to bump his workload to about 180, before being called to start the year in the majors. You can’t expect guys to throw 200 innings if the most they’ve ever done was 100ish, that’s like throwing a 300 lb barbell on someone to bench-press when the most they’ve ever done was 150 lbs. That’s ligament damage waiting to happen.

Most highly touted young prospect flamethrowers flame out. Joba is a legit major leaguer, a highly effective relief pitcher. When he recovers from his recent surgery, he will likely be an effective pitcher once again.