(The following is being syndicated from An A-Blog for A-Rod)
There was a lot to be excited about after the Yankees traded for in January. Sure, it cost them their best hitting prospect since and a useful arm for the bullpen or rotation, but the return that Pineda represented was worth it. He was a big, power pitcher still years before his physical prime with a year of success at the Major League level already under his belt and many years of team control at minimal cost. Pineda was exactly what the Yankees were looking for to solidify their rotation for the present and the future, and the idea of him and CC anchoring the top of that rotation for the next handful of years was certainly worth salivating over. After the latest setback in his Extended ST rehab start on Saturday, however, it’s starting to look more and more like 2012 is going to be a lost season for Pineda.
The dye contrast MRI that was scheduled for yesterday was pushed back to today, so we still don’t know the extent of the damage to Pineda’s right shoulder. But it’s a safe bet that given the amount of time he rested before starting to work his way back from the initial injury and the results of his Ext. ST outing, we won’t be seeing him back in May or any time soon. Naturally, the comparisons to ‘ 2011 season are going to be made, and it wouldn’t be completely unfair to make them. Like Hughes last year, Pineda came into camp this year not in the best shape, experienced a decrease in fastball velocity that he never regained, and ended up on the DL with shoulder problems.
After seeing how long it took Hughes to make his way back to the rotation (and then the bullpen) last year, I’m already resigning myself to the likelihood of Pineda spending more time on the DL this season than on the mound. With all the problems the Yankee rotation has had to start the year- CC’s early fastball command problems, Kuroda’s roller coaster 3 outings, Hughes’ continued struggles, and Freddy’s freefall regression from last year- the negatives of that scenario playing out with Pineda become magnified. The Yankee rotation was supposed to be a strength for the team this season, something that couldn’t be said definitively about previous versions of the rotation going back many years, and Pineda was supposed to be a big (if not the biggest) part of that because of what he brought to the table. Now, not only is he not bringing anything to the table, he’s probably not even going to be sitting at the table for an extended period of time.
Beyond the baseball reasons, the personal bummer from a fan perspective is also tremendously disappointing when it comes to Pineda. I was very excited after the trade, probably more excited than I’ve ever been about a Yankee pitching acquisition. Sure, CC was a huge deal when he signed a few years ago, but he was already an established name by then. I knew what type of pitcher he was from watching him pitch against the Yanks for years in Cleveland and from watching him single-handedly carry the Brewers to the postseason in the summer of ’08 when I first moved out to Wisconsin. Pineda was still a relatively new commodity in the baseball world when the trade happened and definitely new to me. The only time I had seen him was when he threw an inning in the All Star Game last year and I remember being impressed watching him K and . But as I started to read up on him after the trade, looking more closely at his numbers and realizing how rare it was for someone as young as him to have the results and pitching profile he already possessed, I was hooked. I was already coming up with Photoshop ideas for him and was one of his biggest supporters through his ST struggles. To have him out of action and not be able to watch him pitch now sucks. Big time. It’s like getting a Playstation 4 or Xbox 720 years before it’s even supposed to be on the market and then being told you can’t play with it.
As I write this post, the MRI on his shoulder has still not taken place. There’s no way to know exactly what the results are going to be, but whatever they end up revealing the likelihood is that the Yankees are going to be even more cautious and careful with Pineda and his rehab than they already had been, especially with the memory of Hughes’ problems last year still fresh in people’s minds. That probably means no Pineda this summer at least, and possibly more time spent on the DL and rehab trail beyond that. It would be unfair to try to predict how the rest of Pineda’s Yankee career will play out after the disappointing start, and even more unfair to judge the trade based on these events. But with Jesus Montero and both healthy and playing for Seattle and Pineda and his bum shoulder riding the pine in New York for the foreseeable future, it’s fair to say that the Yankees will be the losers of the deal for 2012.
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A lot of people weren’t excited about the trade. A lot of people hated it from the moment it was announced. One of the main reasons for not liking it was that young pitchers get hurt far more often than young hitters and even when healthy they too often lose their top-end stuff. It’s the same reason a lot of people didn’t want to trade for Ubaldo Jimenez.
If Pineda’s second half can be glossed over because he ‘still had good peripherals’, then why don’t Hughes ‘good peripherals’ keep him from being described as having ‘continued struggles’? Either peripherals matter or they don’t (and Hughes sample size is microscopic while Pineda’s is half a season.)
While I can’t argue with oldpep on the fact that young pitchers can tend to get hurt, you can just as easily make the argument that many hitting prospects excel in AAA and then drop off a cliff when entering the pros or start off well and then pitchers find holes in their game and punish them. Take a look at Heyward, he came in 2010 mashing, got hurt last year and his performance suffered severely. Who knows no how he’ll hit for the rest of his career.
Besides, lets not forget that while he was a top prospect here Montero was viewed more of a DH than a reliable catcher. The Yankees are just trying to get deeper in pitching as its become impossible to spend in FA like it was in the old days.
I’m not trying to start an argument, I’m just trying to offer perspective. Either way Pineda is here now and its in everyone’s interest for him to get healthy and pitch well.
Historically, minor league hitters tend to do what their MLE’s predict about the same as major league hitters.
You cite a position player who got hurt and had his performance decline, but injuries occur more often with young pitchers than hitters.
Here and on other Yankee blogs, Cashman was applauded by many for signing Pedro Feliciano and for trading for Pineda, while the signing of Soriano was panned almost universally. Soriano is contributing here and Montero (a typically slow starter) is contributing in Seattle. Pineda may not pitch this year, and there’s a chance he never pitches at a high level again. Feliciano is unlikely to ever throw a pitch for the Yankees.
Cashman has a mixed records with his trades and signings. He no longer has the ‘Tampa faction’ to blame the bad deals on. A lot of people thought this was a really bad trade from the moment it was announced. We’re not using 20-20 hindsight when we say it was bad now.
Be careful throwing Soriano into the “minus” ledger for Cash. He was openly against that deal and recommended that the Yankees didn’t sign Soriano. That was more of a Randy Levine decision than Cash.
And as for the peripherals argument, Pineda’s peripherals were better than Hughes’ and put up at a younger age. If you go back and look at Hughes’ 2010 splits and Pineda’s 2011 splits, Pineda’s are generally a little more consistent and a little better post-ASG than Hughes’ were. And peripherals aside, Hughes has been more up-and-down in his career than Pineda has.
“And peripherals aside, Hughes has been more up-and-down in his career than Pineda has.”
That’s sort of a difficult statement to make when, on the one hand, you have a pitcher that has pitched in the big leagues since 2007 and, on the other, you have a pitcher that has only pitched in the big leagues for one season.
Hughes has clearly suffered from inconsistency throughout his career. But he’s “been more up-and-down” because he’s had greater opportunity to be inconsistent. We don’t yet know what Pineda will be.
That’s a fair statement, and that fact isn’t lost on me. I probably should have mentioned that.
I agree that pitcher’s get hurt more often than hitters and its usually much worse when its a pitcher getting injured (barring tearing an ACL for a position player).
I also agree that in the short term the Yankees are on the losing end of this deal. I guess my point was this type thing can happen to any player and Pineda did pass a physical by Yankee doctors. I was only saying at the time the trade was finished it made sense. While the injury could be serious and even potentially ruin his career, lets hope that isn’t the case and he gets back on the field soon where he can contribute to the rotation.
Again, I didn’t mean to come off as attacking your initial comment. If that’s how you took it I apologize.
It’s more than clear at this point that Michael Pineda was damaged goods. Honestly, unless Brian Cashman is color blind he should have known there was something really wrong with Pineda BEFORE he pulled the trigger on the trade.
Consider:
1) The PitchFX velocity chart on Pineda last year makes it quite clear that his loss of velocity was both sudden and dramatic. Compare his last start to every other start all year long.
2) A guy who had been COMPLETELY untouchable previously is suddenly available in the offseason immediately following his sudden and dramatic loss of velocity.
There were more red flags hanging off Michael Pineda than an over-sized load of fresh-cut timber being trucked down from the Cascades.
This kid has a blown out shoulder, might NEVER be right again, and Jack Z. was able to simultaneously dump him on the Yankees AND get Cashman to give the Mariners our #1 prospect to boot.
How Cashman still has a job is beyond me.
So one start that took place 2 weeks after the Mariners shut him down (He had reached his innings limit) is a red flag? There are a ton of pitchers who’ve seen a velocity drop in significantly in one start, to then see it bounce back to normal, that’s a natural ebb and flow of a season.
Pineda can’t be seen as “untouchable” because the Mariners only approached 3-4 teams about a trade. If the Mariners were trying to ship him because he was “damaged goods”, they would have held open season and gotten far more than just two prospects (only one of whom is an elite talent) without having to include a prospect with the cieling Campos has (Look at the Gonzalez, and Latos deals). Also Pineda underwent an extensive physical that showed up clean, if there was even the slightest red flag, the deal wouldn’t have happened. Given the Feliciano debacle, its pretty obvious the Yankees have been more careful with their deals.
I seriously doubt your 5 minute search on fangraphs, trumps the decades worth of experience of an entire sports organization with unlimited funds, and the medical training of who knows how many doctors and other medical professionals who have examined him in person.
I can add nothing, just wanted to say this is perfect.
well said yankees and more