New York Yankees: 2017 Will Be A Farewell To Arms

Clearly, the biggest downfall of the New York Yankees this season has been their starting pitching. In the coming months, we can expect to see a complete overhaul of the staff to support what should be a sufficient offense. Who will stay and who will go?

Although he was a avid fan of baseball, it’s not likely that when Ernest Hemingway sat down to write his classic novel A Farewell To Arms he had the Yankees in mind. Nevertheless, the Yankees starting pitching staff is in need of a major overhaul over the winter and Brian Cashman, the General Manager of the Yankees, has his work cut out for him over the winter to make that happen.

Underrated Cy Young candidate Masahiro Tanaka (14-4 3.07 ERA) is likely to be the only man standing after the carpet is swept, and even he could be trade bait if the Yankees sense that he will move closer to home (West Coast) when he reaches free agency following the 2017 season.

One of their problems could be solved for them if the injury news (elbow inflammation) on Nathan Eovaldi continues to get increasingly worse and results in a need for surgery. Eovaldi came to the Yankees in 2014 when the Marlins gave up on him. Over two seasons with the Yankees, he’s been remarkably inconsistent, and at times horribly ineffective. His WHIP of 1.38 is one of the highest in baseball for a starting pitcher and in 21 starts this year he’s barely averaged five innings each time he’s been called on.

He’s not a money issue for the Yankees as he’s still arbitration eligible, so figure him gone unless Cashman completely falters and the Yankees become truly desperate.

In the same category of being inconsistent and therefore unreliable is Michael Pineda. His last three starts have all been no decisions and he has managed to reach the fifth inning only once. Like Eovaldi, he came to the Yankees via a trade with the Mariners who, at the time, were criticized for trading a talent with so much “potential”. As it turns out though, maybe they knew something the Yankees didn’t.

Pineda has also been somewhat of a head case as well as a headache for the Yankees. He doesn’t seem willing to cross that bridge from being a thrower to becoming a pitcher. And don’t think for a minute the Yankees have forgotten that now infamous pine tar incident two seasons ago.

Pineda is also arbitration eligible this offseason, and could be another tough call for the Yankees with his 4.89 ERA across 30 starts, eleven of which have been quality.

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Which brings us to what definitely is a money issue for the Yankees with C C Sabathia and the $25 million owed to him for the final year of his contract next season. He will turn 37 next year and the 300 lbs he continues to carry has not done him any favors in protecting that fragile and oft injured knee.

Despite having a credible comeback season, he has now logged almost 500 starts in his sixteen year career and the question has to be how much he has left in the tank. However, given the contribution he made to the last Yankees championship in 2009, along with being the workhorse of the staff until recently, he has warranted the status of being a member of the Yankees “family”. And as such, the Yankees being the Yankees will not want to tarnish their brand and will handle him with kid gloves.

Given his salary, he is not a candidate for a trade so he remains an internal problem for the Yankees to solve. An educated guess says they will wait until the early days of the season and then do an “A-Rod” choreography with him that eventually ends up with him being released and his salary eaten.

He’ll be given a pre-game ceremonial send off and again much like Rodriguez will accept a position upstairs to earn his keep until his contract expires.

So, who’s left? Luis Cessa has shown some signs of life in the few starts he’s made, but clearly he is not a number two behind Tanaka, and at best projects as a number four or five starter in the rotation. Luis Severino could be the guy, but the Yankees have to first decide whether they want him as a starter or a reliever to back up Dellin Betances. In much the same way as Pineda, Severino is also raising the question of whether or not he is coachable. Add the highly touted but underperforming and oft-injured Brian Mitchell to the list and you have three big question marks and not much else.

Compounding the problem is the fact that this year’s pool of free agent starting pitchers is underwhelming at best and features names like Clay Buchholtz and Brett Anderson in the mix and pretty much closes the door for Cashman to pursue that route to bolster the team.

That leaves open the other door which would be the trade route. In turn though, this creates a different problem for Cashman who would then be left with deciding which pitcher to go after and how much of the recent young talent haul he just inherited does he let go?

There’s an outside chance Cashman could wage a deal involving Brett Gardner($24 Million due ending in 2018) and Jacoby Ellsbury (a whopping $90 million or so) in exchange for pitching help. But that would involve the approval of principle owner Hal Steinbrenner because the Yankees would have to eat a good portion of that money.

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In sum, there’s no way this is going to be easy. But that’s why Cashman gets paid the big bucks. His best bet might be to avoid the big name trade bait like a Chris Sale or a Sonny Gray. Because what the Yankees need more than anything (again assuming the offense scores some runs) are a few innings eaters who have some proven major league experience, and are not prone to injury or giving up the three run bomb.

In any event, it’s a good bet that the Yankees starting staff next year will not look even close to how it’s composed at the moment. And as was the case this year, whatever that composition is will determine in large part how far the Yankees go next season.

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