With Joe Girardi’s announcement that Andy is heading to the disabled list and Brian Cashman announcing it may be at least 3-4 weeks, the Yankees will need to come up with a starting pitcher for at least the next three turns around the rotation.
The first roster move will probably involve Andy going to the DL, with Sergio Mitre coming off of it.
Mitre will get the first crack on Saturday – but the biggest issue with him (other than the fact that he hasn’t been all that good starting) is that he wasn’t used in his rehab as a pitcher coming back to start. In four rehab games, he threw a total of nine innings…this is not what you do with a pitcher you are planning to start. So, it looks like a 3-4 inning outing at most for him this Saturday; and we shouldn’t play the “Royals card” – they are a free swinging bunch, but thus far in 2010, those free swings have resulted in plenty of hits.
Chad Gaudin and Dustin Moseley are two other pitchers on the current roster who could make the transition. Moseley is a sinker/slider type – which usually translates to “He has no fastball, and prays that hitters drill 500 MPH ground balls right at fielders”. You know, like Sidney Ponson. In three appearances for the Yankees, he has a 7.50 ERA and hasn’t shown very much ability to fool hitters. Gaudin, on the other hand, does show the ability to fool hitters…the problem is, he can’t fool them consistently enough to be reliable. He has 38 strikeouts in 38.2 innings this season and an impressive 7.1 career rate…but he walks too many hitters and allows too many home runs to be reliable. He has allowed 10 home runs and 15 walks in 38.2 innings – you can average two strikeouts per inning and still not get by with those rates.
A list of those who may get a shot from the minors. As long as we don’t hear names like Tim Redding and Kei Igawa come up in conversation, we should be fairly confident in the selection of pitchers they’ll have to choose from: I realize that at the end of the day, the Yankees are more likely to go with veteran pitchers than untested rookies…but I am trying to live in a universe where perhaps that won’t happen.
Ivan Nova pitched three low leverage innings for the Yankees earlier this season, and has pitched well for Scranton this year. The sinker-baller with nastier stuff than Moseley (he can actually touch the mid-90s with his sinking fastball, which is not easy to do; he sits in the 91-93 range though) is 7-2 with a 3.21 ERA in 17 starts for Scranton this season. In 103.2 innings, he has allowed 101 hits while walking 40 and striking out 78. Nova has a 54% ground ball rate and his FIP sits at 3.93 on the season. He also hasn’t quite yet perfected his secondary pitches, which major league hitters would probably catch onto eventually, but this is not a permanent solution. I don’t see star written all over Nova, but he can be a very capable major league pitcher and could be a nice fill in for a few weeks.
David Phelps arrived in the organization out of college in 2008…and has been pretty much untouchable since then. Between two levels this year (Trenton/Scranton), the right-hander is 7-1 with a 2.04 ERA in 17 starts. In 106 innings, he has allowed 84 hits while walking 23 and striking out 103. He has only allowed two home runs all season. In his career, he has put up a 28-7 record in 58 starts with an ERA of 2.35. He has allowed 1.97 walks per nine innings while striking out 7.57. So you would expect his scouting report to read like Roger Clemens’ or someone in that cloth; but it doesn’t. He has a low-90s sinking fastball with a very good slider. He also has no fear using his changeup and curve, both of which are quality offerings. He pretty much mixes and matches hitters to death, trying to generate grounders while maintaining a higher than you would expect strikeout rate. My first impressions when reading about Phelps was that he may be another Aceves type – throws a good variety of pitches, all of which are just above major league average. But Phelps is showing that perhaps he can be a bit more than that. I would be all for the Yankees giving him a shot; but they would be throwing him into the fire, no doubt.
Hector Noesi is still in Double-A, and the Yankees aren’t exactly known for jumping players to the majors from Double-A. But he has to be opening eyes, regardless. Noesi has been brilliant this season, putting up an 11-3 record between Tampa and Trenton with an ERA of 2.14. In 105 innings, he has allowed 83 hits while walking 17 and striking out 108. Those numbers are pretty darn filthy. Noesi is 21-10 with a 2.78 ERA in 68 minor league games (50 starts). Over 297.2 innings, he has allowed 252 hits while walking 51 and striking out 303. (BB/9: 1.5; K/9: 9.2; K-BB; 5.94). Noesi is 23 years old, and does have a black mark on his record: Suspended a few years ago for 60 days due to violating the minor league drug policy. Hopefully, he has learned and cleaned up his act since then.
As a prospect, Noesi is a bit of a late-bloomer. Never really seen as anything big, he suddenly gained some command of his curveball/changeup combination to go along with his low-90s fastball. The Yankees protected him (which was a little bit surprising given the undeveloped nature of his stuff enterting 2010) from the Rule 5 draft, so he is on the 40-man roster. I thought Noesi, with his above average command of a few good pitches, would be a prime bullpen candidate; but I have read scouting reports that Noesi actually gets better as games go on, as opposed to mowing hitters down early in games. That could change if he was given bullpen duty, but he has no experience doing that. He is a longshot to get the call now; but he sure has put himself on the prospect map.
