Rob over at Bronx Baseball Daily wrote a piece yesterday about the Yankees and their need to develop pitchers and it’s something I’d like to touch on.
I’ve already discussed my disappointment about the recent developments in the Yankee pitching staff, so I’m going to expand on that. Rob is right, as is Joel Sherman, whose article Rob drew upon for his own.
In the last decade or so, the Yankees have not been great at developing pitchers. While some of their pitchers, such as Ross Ohlendorf and Ian Kennedy, are now looking to build their own careers outside of the Bronx, the Bombers have not developed any impact starters aside from Andy Pettitte and Chien-Ming Wang (whose career is a bit uncertain at this point).
The only pitchers close to that have been Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain, and both of them have been quite screwed around with in their short careers. I’ll start with Hughes, who’s been less screwed around with.
The Yankees were sort-of patient with Hughes. He had 274.2 IP in the minors before making his first start in 2007, and he was just insane in the minors. From ’04-’07, Hughes never had a WHIP above 0.876 and struck out no fewer than 9.7 batters per nine. Basically, the dude was too big for the minors. I really had no problem with him being called up in 2007, but he could’ve used a full season in AAA, which he hasn’t gotten yet (and never will at this point).
In 2009, though, the Yankees really screwed up with Hughes. The panic move that brought CMW back to the team and the rotation should have never happened. As brilliant as he was in the bullpen, the Yankees should’ve stuck with Hughes in the rotation over Wang. If they had, Hughes being a starter again in 2010 would not be even the slightest bit concerning
As for Joba, well, there was a lot done wrong with him. He had fewer than 90 innings in the minors and the SP/RP switching obviously hurt him. He never should have been reliving in 2008 and he should be starting in 2010. By not having Joba start for all of 2008, they pushed his first full season back a year and had to make a hasty judgment rather than a patient one.
You’ve read all of this before, whether it’s come from my “pen” or that of another blogger. So where does this all leave us? It leaves us with this: the Yankees need to do a better job of developing their starting pitching talent. It’s one thing to push a number of pitchers through, and just about any team can do that with a decent combination of skilled players and a little luck. The trick, then, is to do so wisely and the Yankees haven’t done that.
The utter lack of patience they’ve shown with Joba Chamberlain worries me and makes me think that the same lack of patience will be applied to guys like Zach McAllister, Ivan Nova (upon whom I’m actually not all that high), Manny Banuelos, Hector Noesi, Andrew Brackman, and Adam Warren. While it is nice to use some of these guys as trade bait, which will surely happen, it is inefficient for the Yankees to keep developing these guys to a certain point, jettisoning them, and signing older and much more expensive free agents.
Perhaps we were all spoiled before 2008 by dreaming of a future rotation headed by Hughes, Chamberlain, and Kennedy. It’s foolish to think that any team, especially one with the resources the Yankees have (that is, they can get anyone they want) will have a long term rotation of all homegrown pitchers. That’s something that isn’t going to happen but the Yankees need to start planning like it will.
2010 and the upcoming offseason will be big tests for the Yankees patience and planning. Will they let Andrew Brackman continue to start? Will they go after Cliff Lee? Will Joba be back in the rotation? Will Javier Vazquez return?
Looking back, this post is a bit rambling but it’s only because I’m unsure of what to think of the Yankees at this point. They’ve shown patience before, opting to hold onto Hughes and Kennedy instead of trading for Johan Santana, but then they go and block Joba’s development this offseason and it makes me question their long term planning. They’ve begun smarter drafting, but will they simply look to trade these players in the future?
If the Yankees don’t change their ways, we could be stuck with a future full of overpriced, underperforming veteran pitchers who hurt the team both on the field and on the bottom line.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
21 Responses to On the Yankees' Development of Pitchers
Leave a Reply
TIQ IQ
I think that it is difficult to deny that the Yankees made mistakes with Hughes and Joba. I think one of the main reasons the Yankee farm system didn’t develop a starting pitcher between Wang and Pettitte (unless Eric Milton counts) is that the Yankee farm system didn’t do much of anything in the early 2000s. After Nick Johnson and Alfonso Soriano, the system was barren until Cano/Wang/Melky showed up, and real pieces weren’t really consistently added until the 2006 draft.
However, I think that the Yankee system has already turned since that draft, and we have little to be worried about. All of the big 3 are in the majors, Ross Ohlendorf is starting, Daniel McCutchen and Jeff Karstens at least earned spots, Alfredo Aceves could probably start, but was converted, McAllister and Nova are almost ready, and the Yankees have cut quite a few borderline MLB starters to go along with it all.
On top of it all, the Yankees have lost Gerrit Cole to signability, Andrew Brackman to delay, George Kontos to Tommy John, Alan Horne to injury, Phil Coke to the bullpen, Garcia to injury, Tyler Clippard to trade/bullpen and Eric Hacker to waivers.
They’ve had a lot of bad luck, and they still have been able to push a lot of guys to the majors or close to it. They’ve got a really nice pipeline of talent lined up, and probably won’t have the same kind of terrible luck. Ramirez/Warren/Phelps/McAllister/Nova/Noesi/Bleich/Heredia/Stoneburner/Banuelos is an awesome group, and guys like Mitchell, Ryan Pope, Sean Black, and others are in the Karstens/Rasner/Coke boats.
As a Yankee fan of the late-Torre era, I am pretty pessimistic about the Yankees’ chances. But really, a little luck and we’re still staring at a real pitching surplus. Now, I said that 3 years ago, but we got ridiculously bad luck.
I wouldn’t give the Yankees to much credit for developing Ollendorf.None really.
Alan Horne & Chrisitan Garcia are 2 guys the Yankees put a lot of time and effort into and they both couldn’t stay healthy.
Both had the chance to be in the Joba/Hughes catergory as pitchers,
Brackman appears to be a longshot at this point also.
Bleich has a legit shot to be a servicable lefty.
You mention Adam Warren but don’t forget, Black, Cotham, Nick Turley DeLuca,Shane Green, Stoneburner and quite a few other good arms were signed just the last 2 seasons. and that doesn’t include the foreign pitchers many of whom throw hard and are only 19-20 years old.,
i think a real question is, is Nardi Contreras is up to the job?
He appears to be but Yankees get a huge amount of injuries to some of their best young arms.At some point the accountability has to rest with the Coach overseeing the enitre system and that’s Nardi.
Everybody seems to like him but results are the bottomline.
I wouldn’t go too nuts. Most teams don’t have anymore than 2 home grown starters. Next year we could very well see Hughes AND McAllister in the back of the rotation.
With Hughes it was freak injuries. They haven’t really stunted his development. Now I did have issues with them putting him in the pen last year. If not for that this could have been his second full year in the majors. But at the end of the day I think he’ll be fine.
Once the Vazquez trade happen then you knew Cashman wanted no part of Hughes AND Chamberlain in the rotation. That experiment failed in 2008.
Plus Joba’s lousy season didn’t help Cashman’s decision either. My feeling (although we’ll never know) is if Joba had a better season last year, the Vazquez trade doesn’t happen.
If McAllister has a good year in AAA, he better get a legit chance in ST. He doesn’t have electric stuff but he should be a pretty good middle-back end ML starter. He’s a ground ball pitcher which good for YS. I don’t see what the problem would be letting him be the fifth starter next year. Plus in his minor league career he’s been durable.
But I think how Hughes season goes will factor in.
I agree, if you look at championship teams it’s very rare that they have more than 2 home grown starters in their rotation. The only teams that do that are teams that can’t afford to pay for starting pitching on the open market … and let’s be honest if you have 4-5 home grown pitchers odds are you aren’t going anywhere.
“growing” your own pitching is important, especially young top of the rotation type talent, but a championship team is a mixture of home grown, FA and players traded for. I think this years team and last years team is a damn fine example.
Although fourth and fifth starters are useful, as are extra fringe arms stashed in AAA, the real test of an organization when it comes to pitching is whether it can develop front-end starters. Most of the Yankee minor league talent seems very unlikely to reach this threshold.
Is this due to bad luck? All organizations lose young pitchers to injury. Garcia and Kontos have their counterparts throughout baseball. I have never seen evidence that the Yankees fare worse than other teams when it comes to the injury bug striking their minor league pitching. Add to that the Yankee policy of taking risks on pitchers with some history of arm injury, a reflection of low draft position. Sometimes it works, but not always, and you get burned when it doesn’t.
The pitchers dealt by the Yankees have yet to show that they would qualify as top-tier starters. Clippard is a good example. Yankee fan minor-league enthusiasts were very high on him after an excellent AA season; experts were skeptical. He’s since shown himself to be a fringe talent. For all the talk about McAllister, his stuff seems ordinary by most accounts and he is far more likely to end up in the Clippard-Ohlendorff-Coke category than to be on a level with, say, Hughes. That doesn’t mean he has no value, of course. But it will come as a trade chip.
I read a great deal on sites like this and others devoted to minor leaguers and follow their stats closely, as do the excellent writers here. From what I have gleaned, the organization today lacks any starting pitcher prospect who has a reasonable probability of beign a successful #3 starter or better. I wish it were otherwise. But the names mentioned in the comments here either have lower ceilings or very little likelihood of reaching a higher one.
“But the names mentioned in the comments here either have lower ceilings or very little likelihood of reaching a higher one”
so is that based on them not signing/drafting the wrong guys or is it that they are still in the stages of properly developing players?
I have to agree with Trevor. Year after Year perenial contenders don’t typically have rotations filled with home grown pitching. Hughes may take a big step forward this year (let’s not forget he’s only 23 when complaining about his development) and I still think Joba will get a future chance at starting. The Yankees though are not going to pay $200 million in salaries and rely on both Hughes and Joba in the rotation when Joba didn’t show more than he did last year. Maybe I’m misinterpreting Matt’s argument but I don’t think it was a mistake to trade for Vasquez just because he blocks Joba and costs the team Vizcaino. Its the depth of this rotation and the strong health record of the staff 1-4 which is the greatest advantage of the Yankees over the Redsox or anyone else.
I get that we don’t want to be reliant on the free agent market for future Carl Pavano’s and Jaret Wright’s or trading for salary dumps like Kevin Brown because we don’t have enough trading chips to make a deal for someone better. Its not the quality of the 3,4,5 starters though that were the main cause of the Yankees’ recent WS drought. It was the lack of a superior 1 & 2. I think the Yankees look to be pretty good shape there for the foreseeable future. And if they need to acquire someone, the minor league system is in much better shape than it was in the past. Its not just about developing your own pitching, its about maintaining a strong overall farm system to either fill spots internally or through trades.
I’m far more worried about the impact of the aging of some of the core players (Jeter, A-Rod, Posada) than I am about who is going to be the 3rd, 4th and 5th starter in future years.
I wouldn’t worry much about Posada aging. He has only 1 year left on the contract. And there are multiple replacements for him.
However I agree about Jeter and Arod. I thought Arod’s contract was quite absurd at the time. Unfortunately Hank was running the show when that contract was given out. Yankees will regret that one imo.
Jeter, I love him but I’ll pray that he gets-or ask for no more than 3 years. And if he still has something left after those years are up then I don’t mind if both sides take it year to year. No matter how great a player is and what he’s done, I just don’t feel comfortable giving a 36 y/o a long term deal.
a-rod can just move to dh when he can’t play third and everyone feels jeter is going to ask for 5yrs with the contact totaling 100 million of course only time will tell but thats what many ppl think will happen.
I included Posada in that not because the Yankees will have to live with diminished output from him but because they will have to replace his production at C. I know they are stacked at the catching position in the minors but Montero might not stick at C, Romine is still unproven and doesn’t project to Posada’s level of offense, and Sanchez/Murphy are far away.
I disagree on your Romine predictions, I been reading a lot of articles saying that he will be an above average bat (not sure if he will reach Posada’s level) and an excellent defensive catcher, most people diminish his offensive habilities because they compare him to Montero.
On Jeter’s contract, IMO he will be awarded with a 5 years contract with a lot of bonuses based in milestones (3000, 3500, 4000 hits, etc.). More than 5 years will be crazy, I think he will be playing good enough in his early 40′s. Anyway, his contract will be more a business desicion because of all the atention he will be getting on his hits record hunting, IMO he will finish close to 4000hits.
I don’t think it’s ‘difficult to deny’ that they made mistakes with Joba and Hughes. I don’t think it’s a matter of ‘denial’, anyway. It’s still a matter of opinion.
I wonder how many “they screwed up Hughes’ threads there’d be if Joba had won the #5 and Hughes was sent to the BP. I’m guessing not half as many, and they’d have stopped by now. Let it go. Your guy lost.
How did he lose when there was not a true battle for the 5th spot. By everyone’s account hughes was the guy they wanted all along. I’ve heard ppl say well joba had his chance but he blew it in spring. lol you wouldn’t judge a piycher on the first two games of the regular season but yet everyone judge joba on 2 starts in spring. I mean thats why his ERA was so high. He pitched well after that.
I think they would have been just as many they screwed up hughes threads but the thing is hughes hasn’t been screwed with yr after yr. Ever since joba has been with the yankees he has spent the yr in the rotation, BP, or both.
Remember also, the first two games he was sick, that was one of the reasons he didn’t pitch well.
But you are right, they had Phil marked down as the #5 starter from the start.
If Joba puts his mind to it, and works hard he’ll be back in the rotation next year.
Yea he was sick and many ppl overlooked that which is weird because when hughes struggled all I heard was the Hrs were wind aided or yea he gave up some runs but he looked sharp. Joba lost weight, still took the ball and as a result his ERA went through the roof. I wouldn’t have had a problem if it was a real battle but it was not.
Hopefully he gets a chance to go back into the rotation. The problem is though him doing well in the pen kinda paints him into a box. Can they even pull him out if he excels in the pen which he more than likely will. The bullpen crowd would go nuts.
Joba looked the same (in fact he still does), while Hughes was improved. Hughes worked to stay in shape and then got his change-up working. Joba came in overweight and is still as inconsistent as ever.
There’s no way there’d be nearly as many threads if Hughes was in the BP.
‘By all accounts’ means zip.
By all accounts means zip yet reporters in this city with good sources made it clear hughes was the guy all along. Hell during ST sterling and waldman said hughes is going to win the 5th spot and joba will be heading to the pen everyone is just waiting for the official announcement but hughes is the guy everyone believes that. Look what happened phil struggled in his start against the phillies and Bob Loren said this shouldn’t hurt him winning the fifth spot he’s still has a comfortable lead. If it was a real battle than wouldn’t mitre have won. He pitched equal or better than hughes.
Didn’t cashman say the best team has hughes and joba in the pen with aceves or mitre or gaudin starting.
And the thing that ppl forget is that joba came into camp 1 or 2 weeks early and busted his a** just to compete for a spot in the rotation. He didn’t come in and say hey this job is mine I have nothing to worry about. Could he lose a few lbs? Yea sure he could but he’s a big guy in terms of weight and probably always will be.
there would be many they screwed up hughes threads if hughes had been screwed with yr after yr.
Reporters with good sources? All of the stuff that was supposed to happen and didn’t? They sure got Texiera right, eh? The NY press exists to sell itself, and for no other reason. Their ability to invent things is pretty apparent, especially in a situation like this when they see an chance to stir things up.
Joba came in early, but it doesn’t look like he’s been ‘busting his ass’ very much to me. He looks like Ruth did in his 30s.
I don’t recall Cashman ever saying anything like that.
I’m sorry but there wasn’t a real battle. That doesn’t take anything away from hughes. Again hughes was the guy they wanted in that spot all along. It would have been easier if they just came out and said it instead of going through the whole “5 guys for one spot” routine.
“but it doesn’t look like he’s been ‘busting his ass’ very much to me. He looks like Ruth did in his 30s.”
So when he came into camp what did he do sit on his butt and just ate food day after day. I’m not trying to paint the kid as a fitness freak but he’s not a slob either. I find it funny how the roles have changed between the two pitchers since 2007/2008
“I don’t recall Cashman ever saying anything like that.”
——Brian Cashman was on with Mike Francesa yesterday in a must listen interview for Yankees fans.He made great points why one of Aceves, Gaudin or Mitre in the five hole, along with Hughes and Chamberlain in the bullpen, would be the best 2010 Yankees pitching staff.—–
http://www.zimbio.com/Joba+Chamberlain/articles/WTU46b1t4hx/Cashman+Talks+Hughes+Joba+Bullpen
A link to the interview can found on the wfan website. It might be on youtube as well
[...] On the Yankees’ Development of Pitchers [...]