While the old adage is you can never have too much starting pitching, telling that to New York Yankee skipper Joe Girardi would elicit a puzzled look similar to that of a sculptor being told to make a statue without using all of his best tools.
Girardi tip-toed around the all important question of what he will do with six starting pitchers, after a 7-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox saying, “I don’t have an answer for that yet. We don’t have to rush and make a decision what we’re going to do. Eventually we’ll have to.”
Ivan Nova has been up and down between the Triple A affiliate, in Scranton Wilkes-Barre. After a career best 10 strikeouts in 7.2 innings for Nova and a Phil Hughes 3-hit shutout in 6 innings, two nights prior, one cannot fault Girardi for avoiding a decision.
There are a couple of options that the Yankees have, but none are desirable. The biggest problem facing the staff is that the back-end of the rotation is pitching like studs and A. J. Burnett is pitching like a bum.
The worst part is the team can’t release Burnett because of his ludicrous contract; another example of the Yankees over-paying for pitching. Some people would like to see him go on waivers, but would you want this guy pitching for your team? The answer is no, and no team in their right mind would pick him up.
Here are the options for New York:
Option 1: Go to a six-man rotation
While the Yankees currently employ this option, it is only to gauge where their starters are, and it is an awful option. A six-man rotation would be limiting the amount of starts for CY Young Award candidate, CC Sabathia. This would be detrimental to the Yankees chances of winning the division. While I believe Sabathia will finish in a close 2nd or 3rd in the CY Young voting, behind Justin Verlander and Jered Weaver, he has been a work-horse, pitching eight innings or more in 10 of his 24 starts. He has had stellar post All-Star break performances, giving up two or less runs per game. It would be wrong to not get him on the mound as much as possible.
Option 2: Have Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia alternate starts in the rotation
This was proposed by YES color-commentator and former Yankee, John Flaherty, and it has up and down sides. I had a conversation with Chris Lopresti, Sports Update Anchor for WFAN, via twitter last night who liked the idea. Lopresti thought it would be a great idea to give Colon and Garcia the extra rest considering their age. My problem is that I think it may be too much rest for the starters, especially considering the mental aspect of not pitching against live competition every five days. The greatest benefit is in this system you have CC, Nova and Hughes going every five days and are then forced to manage through the Burnett start. Overall it is not a bad option.
Option 3: Send one of the starters to the bullpen
While this option keeps all the players pitching and at the major league level, it also puts a starting pitcher in a different role and mindset. If there is one thing the Yankees learned from the Joba Chamberlain saga it is don’t mess with a good thing. Joba bouncing back and forth between the 8th inning and starting roles messed with his mind and set him back at least two years. The man you’d like to stick in the pen is Burnett, however, the Yankees won’t do that. This means the decision falls onto Nova and Hughes. In the past Hughes has shown he can handle a middle relief role and was spectacular in his bullpen stint. Nova has proved to be a valuable starter and I would prefer to see his young arm stay fresh in the rotation. This would keep the Yankees away from a potential dangerous path.
Option 4: Demote a pitcher to AAA
This option opens up a roster spot for another fielder to come off the bench in a 25-man roster that currently holds only three extra position players. Down the stretch of the regular season, and come playoff time, I would much rather have an extra bat then extra starter, but there is a problem. As with all of these options A.J. Burnett cannot be the player who gets demoted, as much the Yankees would like to. Once again the blade would come down on the head of either Nova or Hughes. This may be the option the Yankees choose and why Girardi is continuing the six-man rotation. It is a competition between Nova and Hughes and whoever slips up first will get a first class ticket to Scranton.
None of the options are perfect solutions but the one that makes the most sense is sending one of the starters to the bullpen. The starter I would send is Phil Hughes for previously mentioned reasons. The fact that the Yankees get to keep all the pitchers on the team is a huge benefit as they will all continue to face major league batters. Potentially, if Burnett continues to do so poorly early in the game, the Yankees could pull him out and it would be as close to a start as possible for Hughes. The Colon and Garcia alternating cycle is an option that I do not want to play around with. Both pitchers have been fantastic and while fatigue could become an issue, giving them ten days of rest in-between starts isn’t the answer.
When the playoffs come the Yankees will switch to a three-man rotation, moving the rest of the starters to the bullpen; this move just speeds up the process. As I have said in the past the shortened rotation should be Sabathia, Colon and the rest of the starters vying for the third spot. Right now I wouldn’t dignify Burnett with a thought of having a shot in that competition and give the slight edge to Freddy Garcia. Of course this all depends what route the Yankees pursue in the shuffling of their current rotation.
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