Yankees sign Heath Bell to minor league deal, demote Mark Montgomery

To borrow a term used relentlessly over at Amazin Avenue, this is the most LOLYankees move ever. After signing signing his big three-year $24 million contract before the 2012 season, Bell's career turned into utter garbage. He has compiled a 4.91 ERA and 3.99 FIP over the last three seasons and has bounced around from the Marlins to the Diamondbacks to the Rays before finally being released last month and finding his way onto the Orioles' Triple-A team before being released again. At 36 years old, it looked more like his career was over than a team would pick him up, but obviously the Yankees liked what they saw.

Of course, it's just a minor league contract, so we might never see Bell at the major league level. That doesn't really do anything to suppress my fear of seeing Heath Bell on the Yankees because the 40-man roster still stands at 39 and we are talking about the Yankees.

In order to make room for him on the Scranton-Wilkes/Barre RailRiders they have demoted Mark Montgomery, an actual prospect, down to Double-A. Montgomery had a bad year last season as he dealt with injury and control problems. In 2014, he has a 3.03 ERA and a 10.3 K/9, but he's still dealing with control issues with a 5.5 BB/9. Donnie Collins reportsthat "Montgomery's shoulder problems went away, but the fastball didn't come back. It has been in the 87-to-88 mph range, and he has been going to his slider quite a bit more recently."

Maybe he deserves this demotion, maybe he doesn't, but Heath Bell is not really the person I want pushing prospects down. The only way this could be more Yankees is if they signed Carlos Marmol (wait, no, don't do that).