(The following is being syndicated from An A-Blog for A-Rod)
I’m always the first to pipe up about Joe’s on-field decisions when it comes to managing his bullpen, be they good calls or bad calls (usually bad). But for the Yankees to extend that questionable bullpen decision-making to the pre-game, well that’s something I’m not familiar with and something I was very surprised to see play out yesterday. If you were not aware, the Yankees entered last night’s game quite understaffed in their relief corps after the previous 2 games. Let’s review:
- - Unavailable after pitching 2.1 innings in relief of on Tuesday night
- - Ditto
- D-Rob- Unavailable after pitching 1 inning in consecutive nights on Monday and Tuesday
- Mo- Ditto*
* (Mo shouldn’t have been available, but when your team gets the lead in extra innings on the road, you can’t leave that lead in the hands of )
That left the Yankees with just 2 guaranteed available arms out of the ‘pen last night in and Clay Rapada, both guys who are best utilized as short-relief lefty specialists. was a game-time decision after ripping the nail off the middle finger of his pitching hand while warming up on Tuesday night, and I don’t remember reading anywhere prior to the game that his availability had been confirmed. The Yankees knew all of this after last night’s game ended. None of this was a surprise or something that caught them off guard, and they had plenty of time to make a roster move to add some depth, and yet they chose not to.
was the starting pitcher last night, and Joe’s plan was to ride him until he couldn’t anymore to help save his short ‘pen. Normally this is a very sound strategy. After all, we just got done questioning Joe’s decision to overmanage CC in the 1st inning of the 1st game of the season last week; him staying in the dugout, letting CC do his thing, and only coming out when he had to take the ball (presumably during or after the 7th or 8th inning) would have been just fine on paper. But once again, the big picture was not considered when formulating this plan. The man on the mound to start the game last night was not the CC we’re used to seeing, and as I’ve touched on before, he hasn’t been since arriving at camp in February. This was evident last Friday when he struggled with his fastball command and evident last night when he struggled with it again.
When he struggles with his fastball command, CC, like most pitchers, tends to be inefficient with his pitch couns, and he was just that last night, throwing 74 pitches in his first 3 innings of work. It became clear after the 2nd inning that CC was not going to be throwing 7 or more innings, and it also became clear that the Yankees had left themselves in a bad spot by not having the available arms to cover for him. Even worse, they didn’t even seem to consider the benefit of adding an extra arm to cover for the possibility of CC having to leave the game due to injury (a real risk considering he took a comebacker off the pitching hand in the 2nd) or adverse weather conditions (also a risk considering the game started late after a 20-minute rain delay).
The smart, and right, decision would have been to make a roster move after Tuesday night’s game or yesterday morning to add reinforcements and make sure there were enough available arms out in the bullpen to cover for any worst-case scenario. That would have involved sending Phelps down, something that’s less than ideal given how well he’s performed in his 2 outings so far, but would have given the team what they needed last night. and are both on the 40-man roster and were both available last night. Betances was scheduled to start for Empire State and would have been good for 70-80+ pitches if needed. If the Yankees didn’t like those options, they could have moved Joba or Cesar Cabral to the 60-day DL and called up .
The reality is that Phelps is probably going to be sent back down anyway when Pettite a/o Pineda return, and he’s still got all his options left. Making the move to send him down and add an arm that could have pitched last night would have been a much better decision than doing nothing and leaving your bullpen exposed, and much better than forcing Joe to use Mo for a 3rd straight game in early April. Recent history has shown that early overwork doesn’t translate into success for Mo, nor does messing with shuttling young pitchers from starting to relief roles, which is probably what Joe would have done with last night if he really got into a pinch. And not for nothing, but running up CC’s pitch count into the 110s in his 2nd start of the season doesn’t exactly match up with the goal of managing his regular season workload to keep him healthy.
I’m all for having faith in your ace and wanting to put the team on his shoulders, but I question the logic in doing that so early in the season with CC when he’s still clearly trying to find his game. I also question the logic in not wanting to be prepared to handle something unforeseen happening to CC that would have prevented him from going deep into last night’s game when the bullpen availability situation was known by all the decision makers in plenty of time to make a move. Yes, it was just one game, but every game counts at the Major League level and as Herm Edwards taught us, you play to win the game. Having a bullpen comprised of just Logan, Rapada, and and iffy Soriano is not a winning strategy.
No disrespect to the guys in Triple-A, but it’s really not that big a deal if they win or lose. The MiL guys that are on the 40-man roster are there for exactly these types of situations and Joe, Cash, and whoever else is involved in making the calls willingly decided to do nothing with those guys yesterday, creating unnecessary extra workload for their ace starting pitcher, their 42-year-old closer, and potentially forcing them into having to shuffle their rotation around if one of their starters had to be used last night. Luckily, everything worked out and the Yankees won the game, and credit to CC for getting through 6 and Soriano for sucking it up and pitching, but that still doesn’t excuse the failure of the Yankee shot callers to make the right call and add an arm.
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You’re correct – a roster move should have been made but you know guys have only so many options and if you start burning them in the first week of the season there’s a chance of putting yourself in a bad place later on.
This is what comes out of breeding a corps of pitchers whom you’ve conditioned to pitch only one inning at a time. They can only do that so many days in a row so when you go to extra innings you’re losing 2-3 guys or more for the next day. Better to use fewer guys for more innings. Of course, when you designate two roster spots to lefty specialists you make the problem even worse.
Hingsight makes us all look like geniuses, even if I do agree with you. Betances? I don’t see the Yanks going to him this early in the season. After a good first start, he stunk up the place yesterday in Buffalo. Once again his control slipped backwards with 6 walks, 8 runs in 3.1 innings, including 3 homers. This kid is not ready for NY until he proves he has more consistent command. I hate to say this but he’s starting to look a lot like Brackman Part Deux.
Agreed that he was completely horrible last night, and I’m not the biggest Betances fan in the world either. After seeing how he pitched for ES, I can only imagine how rough his outing would have been against Major League hitters.
I only mentioned his name because he was available to pitch last night and already on the 40-man roster. Would have been an easy move to make.
I agree. I would have brought up Betances.
How he pitched last night really isn’t the issue, and he may have gotten a different result pitching for a couple of innings in relief instead of starting.
I think with the size of the bull-pen, it’s strange to see a major league club needing another RP for the 6th game of the season. It’s really not that long ago that BPs had 2-3 fewer guys than now.
We discussed this a bit last night, but who would you have sent down to make room for Eppley/Betances? Anyone who gets demoted to AAA would have to stay down there for a certain period (10 days?), so sending Phelps down, while helpful for last night’s game, could have been harmful for multiple other games. I’m not saying I necessarily buy this logic, but it is a consideration. They could have also considered using Phil Hughes for an inning or so, since he was on his throw day.
Yeah, it’s 10 days. And I think you’re right on that Hughes would have been the next in line.
With the off-day scheduled, that probably wouldn’t have messed up the rotation order too bad, if at all. I just get uneasy about the idea of Hughes continuing to be flip-flopped between starting and relieving roles.
You guys (and girls) that write this stuff wear me out; time after time criticizing this move and that move. When you become GM of XXX major league team, you can call the shots. Being so hypercritical just to be critical is getting old on this site and others. I am sure Cash knew what he was doing, he’s not a rookie, nor an idiot, and does own quite a bit of hardware.
Just so you know, there’s a writer here who agrees with you 100%. It happens to be me.
If DJ Mitchell or Adam Warren were in line for the AAA start rather than Betances, they probably would have skipped that starter and had them at least in the locker room with a game time decision based on Soriano’s availability. If it were any starter other than CC and/or the Yankees didn’t have today off, there would have been a move. Even if CC isn’t in mid-season form yet, I think it’s important to remember that he’s historically dominated the Orioles with a 16-2 career record, a 2.86 ERA and an OPS against barely above .600. They probably felt pretty confident that he’d give at least 6-7 innings and that they could patch the rest with Logan, Soriano, Rapada and Mo with Hughes as the emergency long man. I’m fine with their decision. There really wasn’t a great option. I hope you’re wrong about Phelps getting sent down when Pettitte or Pineda is ready. I’d prefer to see them cut Rapada/trade Garcia.
The only thing a roster move would have accomplished would be to weaken the bullpen for the next 10 days.
CC wasn’t exactly stretched unreasonably. He had an increase of 8 pitches over his last start. He had a higher pitch count in an April 10 start last season. CC is a horse, and he can get an extra rest day if needed because of the off day. 112 pitches is nothing for CC.
As for Mo, they weren’t “forced” to use him. Rapada could have pitched. They chose to use him.
The reality is likely that a roster move would not have impacted either decision anyways. If Cody Eppley (or whoever else) was available, would the Yankees not have tried to get at least 6 from CC? Most likely they would view CC going 112 pitches as a better option. Would Mo have not been used? Most likely he would have closed the game regardless.
It seems all a roster move would accomplish would be to weaken the pen over the next 10 days, so Cody Eppley (or whoever else) could enjoy watching a game from the Yankees bullpen.
I’m all for having faith in your ace and wanting to put the team on his shoulders, but I question the logic in doing that so early in the season with CC when he’s still clearly trying to find his game.
I found this interesting because those who were critical of Girardi’s IBB in game 1 derided it as ‘showing no faith in your ace’ to get a man out and said it was too early in the season to make a move like that. Now, Girardi should have assumed CC cant give him length off of one bad start, which is a big a lack of faith as I can imagine and something CC doesn’t deserve. When it comes to being a baseball manager, its damned if you do and damned of you don’t.
It’s great to be a fan, we get to have things every which way we want in our mind with little consequences for the positions we take. We argue both sides, based on the result. Then we wonder why front office types don’t take us seriously.
Well said.