New York Yankees top pitching prospect James Kaprelian will undergo Tommy John surgery. Where does the club go from here in terms of their rebuild?
To quote New York Yankees skipper Joe Girardi “It’s not what you want.” You never want a pitcher to undergo Tommy John surgery, especially your top pitching prospect. The Yankees rebuilding program began with Greg Bird, Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez. Luis Severino is getting a chance to start and Jordan Montgomery was just called up.
A big part of the next wave of talent was former first round pick James Kaprelian, who is the team’s sixth ranked prospect according to MLBpipeline.com. Kaprelian missed most of last season with arm trouble and he’s going to be out for a very long time as he will undergo Tommy John surgery.
james kaprielian has decided to have tommy john surgery #yanks
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) April 13, 2017
He will be out for the remainder of this season. As the New York Yankees continue to rely on young players, where do they go from here?
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Well, it puts more importance on Severino taking that next step in becoming a starter. CC Sabathia, Michael Pineda and Masahiro Tanaka can all be free agents after the season. Among their other top prospects, Chad Green is close but lost out on the fifth spot to Montgomery. Chance Adams and Justus Sheffield are in AA and may be able to give them something at the major league level towards the end of this year or next year.
The free agent market will have options, but as we have seen, buying starting pitching on the free agent market contains a huge amount of risk. Yu Darvish and Jake Arrieta will be free agents. Johnny Cueto can opt-out of his deal. There are other pitchers like Tyler Chatwood, Jeremy Hellickson and Chris Tillman who will also be free agents. The wild card is if Shohei Otani comes over from Japan.
The Yankees could find themselves in a spot where they may make a deal for a starter as well just to cover themselves moving forward. Jose Quintana is available and as we go through the season, other pitchers will become available too.
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Kaprelian was supposed to be an important piece for the Yankees, maybe even as soon as this year. Instead, the Yankees don’t know when he will be coming back and it may force them into a spot where they have to spend money and prospect collateral in order to upgrade their starting pitching, not only for 2017, but also beyond.