On Wednesday afternoon, the Yankees announced that Andrew Miller was being placed on the 15-day disabled list. He has a strained flexor mass, which is a muscle found in the forearm. After undergoing an MRI, it was revealed that Miller has no structural damage, but he is expected to miss a decent amount of time, and reportedly won't even pick up a baseball for two weeks. Losing Miller to the DL is an obvious blow to the bullpen as he has thrived since taking over the role of closer from David Robertson at the start of the season. He's going on the DL with a 1.03 ERA and 1.93 FIP, 14.70 K/9, and with 17 saves (zero blown saves) and really couldn't have gotten off to a better start. The Yankees have already said that Dellin Betances will take over the role of closer in the meantime, and they have called up Chris Martin to take Miller's open spot on the roster. Should they consider moving Adam Warren to the bullpen too?
With Betances taking over as closer, the Yankees bullpen finds itself with a severe lack of right-handed pitchers available. The list includes Esmil Rogers, who is sporting a 6.39 ERA, 4.88 FIP, and recently showed that he can't even be trusted to hold onto a large lead. Now righty Chris Martin will be in the fold too, since he's coming back from Triple-A to join the team on Friday. He was only with the Yankees for a few weeks before he landed on the disabled list with right elbow tendinitis, and prior to landing on the DL he had a 3.55 ERA, but FIP indicates that he had been a bit unlucky, and his strikeout rate was good at 9.24 per nine. If the team doesn't want to mess with the rotation, then Martin is the best bullpen option of the pitchers on the 40-man roster.
However, the Yankees could choose to move Adam Warren from the rotation back to the bullpen, which would strengthen it even further. Warren has pitched both as a starter and as a reliever for the Yankees, but he has worked solely as a starter this season. Early on, he struggled to give the Yankees length, failing to make it to the sixth inning point in any of his first six starts, but he appears to have hit his stride recently. All five of his last five starts have been quality ones, and he was the only starter who pitched well during that awful stretch of games a couple weeks back. With that being said, Ivan Nova is set to return from the disabled list in the next few weeks, and Warren is the most likely candidate to be pulled from the rotation. He has pitched well as a starter this year, but he spent all of last season in the bullpen and was excellent there, too, finishing the season with a 2.97 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 8.69 K/9, 2.75 BB/9 and 0.46 HR/9. Warren is leaps and bounds better than Rogers, so if they want to keep Martin and add Warren, Warren could take Rogers spot working in long relief.
It seems inevitable that Warren will be moved to the bullpen to make way for Nova, assuming that no one else gets hurt in the next few days. Nova is scheduled to make a start in Triple-A this weekend, and then the Yankees will decide if he is ready to be activated, or if he needs to make one more start. If the Yankees do decide to move Warren to the bullpen, it likely wouldn't happen until Nova is ready since there aren't a lot of backup starter options. In the meantime, Chris Martin is a much needed addition to the bullpen.
Do you think Warren should eventually be moved out of the rotation to make room for Nova?