From Joel Sherman:
You know who I think could end up being pretty darn important for the Yankees the rest of this season? Mark Melancon. His last three outings have been very strong (4 1-3 shutout innings, four strikeouts, no walks). He has good stuff. Can he handle a pennant race and the hitters in the AL? That is to be determined. But I think we are going to see him get a chance to determine that.
The reality is that with Sergio Mitre in the rotation and Joba Chamberlain on an innings limitation the Yanks are going to have to find more quality innings from their pen and/or liberate Alfredo Aceves or Phil Hughes to stretch out as starters. At this point, we can assume that neither Brian Bruney nor Damaso Marte is ever going to be trusted with late-inning relief in a pennant race. So where else do the Yanks turn?
The hunch here is that Melancon begins to be spoon fed some more important innings and if he proves capable he is going to become a big player for the Yankees in September.
Melancon has looked very good in his last few outings, and now has his WHIP at 1.2 and ERA at 3.60. He has had good velocity on his fastball (93.2 average speed), his curveball looks like a plus pitch, and he has mixed in a silder and changeup as well. He also looks more confident on the mound, which has lead to him attacking the zone and falling behind fewer hitters.
It seems that the Yankees’ choices in terms of roster moves supports Sherman’s conclusion. Since recalling Melancon for the second time, the Yankees have DFA’d Brett Tomko and shuttled Jon Albaladejo back and forth to AAA rather than send Melancon down, despite the sparse nature of his workload. This is not like the Yankees, who sent Ramiro Pena and Frankie Cervelli down to get regular at-bats, and were unwilling to disrupt Austin Jackson’s season by calling him up for a few weeks to replace Brett Gardner. It seems that the Yankees believe that Melancon is ready for prime time, and it is up to Joe Girardi to start using him in some difficult situations.
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9 Responses to Sherman: Melancon's Role Expanding?
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TIQ IQ
Agreed.Melancon is proving to Girardi he can get the outs. I also expect him to be put in tough situations more and more as the summer turns to fall.
Yeah I like how Girardi is easing him into though don’t want to heap a bunch of important inning s on him at once and let him lose confidence if he stumbles some, he is important to our long term strength of the pen for years to come.
Completely agreed. I think Melancon is gonna turn out to be vital down the stretch in some key spots and will be a big arm out of the pen along with the lefty Dunn in AAA and hopefully Coke and Robertson.
Melancon might be good and that will be a huge boost but I am still waiting on Bruney to get it back together. He started the year so well. That still has to be in him somewhere.
It looks like he is coming around every time out he looks a little better just not great yet.
Totally agree- that is what you want to see out of young players- constant improvement.
I also give credit to the Yankee organization for finally learning how to develop players to be Yankees and be good Yankees instead of just rushing players along to get trade value out of them and not giving a rats ass about their futures as Yankees, we finally turned the corner from being a prospect factory shipping out our young guys to being a productive farm system.
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We’ve been agreeing to much Mo the World maybe at it’s end haha
From Peter Abe:
On the market: Yadel Marti. Marti, a 29-year-old right-hander, is considered the best of the group. He was 1-0 with two saves in the 2006 World Baseball Classic, not allowing a run over 12 1/3 innings. He is the former ace of Industriales de la Habana.
- Melancon establishing himself in the pen would be great but I would still like to see us pick up another pitcher. Mitre has to go. I’m praying he does not demolish our bullpen before the Boston series.
If you saw them play last night there bull pen has been drained, if the Rays put a whoopin’ on Penny today there bull pen is dead for our series.