In what has been an up-and-down season for precocious lefty Manny Banuelos, a somewhat surprising promotion indicates that he might be making an earlier-than-anticipated major league debut.
Banuelos turned heads in spring training, showing a combination of frontline stuff, impressive command, and a cool, poised presence that belied his 19 years. Even mainstream baseball writers who spend little time following the minor leagues were impressed with Banuelos’ performance, and many wrote that it was only a matter of time before he forced his way into the shallow Yankee rotation.
This has not according to the perceived plan, and for the Yankees, that is a fortunate outcome. The intended stopgaps, Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon, have outperformed even the most optimistic projections for their performances, pitching like legitimate #2 or #3 starters instead of back-end fodder. They haven’t needed to rush Banuelos, Dellin Betances, or other potential rotation options like David Phelps or Adam Warren. I know Brian Cashman insisted that he was not going to rush Banuelos to the majors, but I’m sure it was in the back of his mind should the combination of Colon, Garcia, and Ivan Nova have failed to hold down two rotation spots.
This has allowed the Yankees to be patient with Banuelos (and fellow Killer B Dellin Betances), allowing them to hone their craft in AA and focus on refining their secondary offerings and build up their innings totals. The innings are of particular importance, since Banuelos missed time in 2010 due to an appendectomy, and the Yankees would like to have him able to operate without major innings restrictions when he finally does make his major league debut. In 2010, Banuelos was limited to just 64 2/3 minor league innings, plus about 25 in the Arizona Fall League.
Banuelos is up to 95 innings on the season already, and has not been as dominant as he was in 2010, when he posted a combined ERA of 2.51 across 2 levels, with 85 strikeouts in 64 2/3 innings. Banuelos has maintained his strikeout stuff in 2011 (striking out nearly a batter per inning), but has shown uncharacteristic control problems (walking nearly 5 per 9 innings, perhaps exacerbated by some bouts with blisters). His performance has not exactly trended upward either, so it was somewhat strange to hear the news that Banuelos was being promoted to AAA, and might get an opportunity to work out of the major league bullpen down the stretch.
Despite maybe not totally deserving the big league promotion because of his performance, I understand the move. Given the significant uncertainty about the Yankees’ left-handed relief options, Banuelos may very well be the best choice available for helping the Yankees’ playoff chances. It is unclear whether Manny’s utilization will primarily be as a lefty specialist, or more as a middle reliever. Banuelos has been death to lefties in the minors this season (1.24 ERA, with no homers allowed, over a strikeout/inning, and a k:bb approaching 3), so using him as a LOOGY (left-handed one out guy) would make some sense.
It would also make some sense given the Yankees’ present bullpen construction. They have a dominant setup man in David Robertson, and hopefully will have another one in Rafael Soriano, which combined should take care of the crucial 7th and 8th innings. If Boone Logan continues to be erratic, Banuelos could usurp his role as the go-to guy to get lefties out, though Banuelos will likely be able to have success against righties too with his changeup.
The bullpen move also makes sense because of a potential innings limit. I am not entirely certain where the Yankees foresee Banuelos’ innings ceiling this season, but given that he is about to surpass his career high (including the AFL innings from last year)), it is understandable that the Yankees would consider slowing him down for the season.
Two somewhat analogous situations come to mind, but I argue (with some optimism) that Banuelos is a different case than both Joba Chamberlain and Jesus Montero. In the Joba situation, the Yankees had an unsteady bullpen in need of a dominant setup man (and potential Mariano successor), but the presence of both Robertson and Soriano should prevent people from wanting the Yankees to keep Banuelos in the ‘pen. Hopefully, the Yankees are more committed to Banuelos as a starter, and do not see the potential red flags that kept them from returning Joba to the rotation. As for Montero, I argued against promoting him earlier because he needed development time, and was not a clear upgrade to available options. In the case of Banuelos, the innings limit puts some restriction on his additional development time, and I don’t really see a better alternative available if Logan continues to be unreliable.
Overall, I’m somewhat surprised by the aggressive promotion of Banuelos (and probably Betances soon), but I understand the Yankees needing to balance the often competing priorities of winning always and developing players. I think if handled correctly Banuelos will not be a casualty of this tension, and could be an asset to the Yankees going down the stretch.
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4 Responses to Discussing the Banuelos promotion
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TIQ IQ
I think the reason for Banuelos promotion I think is to get different coaching. There are certain things people can learn from each minor league level, and I think in order to continue to develop this pitcher to help him reach his potential he needs to get to AAA and learn from that coaching staff. If he is in AAA now, he can learn from those coaches and continue to develop and learn how to pitch which is needed to maintain success at the MLB level.
Being promoted to AAA now, allows for a September call up depending on what the standings are after this month. With him being closer to the majors and then eventually being called up, he can work with Larry Rothschild who I believe has been overlooked as to why the Yankees pitching staff has been successful. His coaching ability can contribute to the overall potential that Banuelos has. If he is called up I think the Yankees plan for next season, would be to let him spend half the season in the minors and by that time he would be ready to pitch in the majors full time barring any setback injury or inconsistency.
His walk rate is alarming given the fact that a plus for this pitcher was his control and command. I think he is trying to dial it up to maintain the velocity he had on his fastball last year and because of that has lost some command on it. The best way to evaluate the control issues is to see how he looks for the rest of the season into next season. He is about to go into unknown waters as he is about 15 innings away from his career high which he threw 2 years ago. Last year because of the appendectomy, he didn’t throw enough innings although he had increased velocity, this could explain why his command and velocity aren’t at the same level as last year.
Many prospects have shown alot of promise in the minor leagues and eventually didn’t pan out as major leaguers, while others who were overlooked exceeded expectations and now are fixtures on MLB rosters.
I am sort of torn between this move. On the one side Banuelos could probably usurp Logan fairly easily as best lefty in the pen as he can get both lefties and righties out. However, his AA performance has been much to left to desired especially with the though the K/9 and GB% have been fantastic. I am fine with this move because Banuelos could be beneficial to the team as a 4th reliever/LOOGY and as long as he is slated to be in the rotation in AAA for next year I am okay with. While Banuelos is the top pitching prospect he still has a full year development of his innings limit next year as he will only max out at 170. The last thing the Yankees should do this year or which I fear more for next year is throw him out 200 or 220 innings in the regular and post season and affect his growth for 2013 and beyond.
Since when have the Yankees ever upped a guys innings like that, and had them throw 200+ innings that young? Hughes topped out at 176.1 IP, and his previous career single season high was 146 IP in 2006. He was coming off of 105 innings the year before, but they don’t worry as much about it if you have a higher previous career high. If anything the Yankees baby their prospects a little bit too much, and they also can’t allow them to work through their problems in the majors. They don’t manage innings extremely well, but they aren’t just going to up and pitch him 200 innings next year, or even the year after that I wouldn’t think.
Mixed results for Manny tonight, but overall pretty good numbers for a 20 year old in AAA. He is officially the youngest player in his league.
Banuelos 5 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 8 Ks, 1 HR, 1 WP
Banuelos also had 6 groundouts and 0 flyouts.
He still hasn’t shown the ability to go deep into games because of high pitch count, but his strikeout total really stayed the same punching out 8. He walked 3, which seems to be common place for a 5 innings Banuelos outing, but the fact that it didn’t rise seems like a good sign.
I got this off of Scranton’s website, but Michael Kay just put up the numbers and said the HR was off of Dominic Brown. Michael also adding he threw 100 pitches, 62 of them strikes.