The Yankees have mounted a rotation. Or a puzzle.
They now have the kind of initial pitch they win in the postseason. Or the kind of physical stories that can undermine arrival.
Corey Kluber, Jameson Taillon and Luis Severino could form one of the best starting groups of no. 2-4 to the majors arrive on August 1st. Or the Yanks could start hunting before the trade deadline of July 31 because the Kluber starts in 2020 plus those of Taillon and those of Severino reach one, for a total entry.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, one can see the high ceiling built by the Yankees, or simply all the flaws.
In 2018, Kluber, Taillon and Severino joined by 53-26 with an ERA of 3.15 in 97 starts. Kluber has managed eight outings since then, just one for an entry last year. Taillon has made seven, about last year. Severino has won five (two in the playoffs), towards last year.
The Yankee trend of doubling initial talent instead of safer tickets and health was repeated on Sunday when they completed a four-way exchange for the Pirates for Taillon, who lost last season after Tommy John surgery.
In isolation, the Yankees did the kind of trade that a contender with a deep agricultural system can do with a rebuilding club. It was similar to what the Fathers did earlier this month, also with Pittsburgh, to get another starter, Joe Musgrove, who traded in good quantity but not with overwhelming quality. There is a Yankee risk in the prospectus package, especially that some teams really like Miguel Yajure because he has proven to be fit to be so young (22) and Roasny Castillo is the kind of big lottery ticket he finds the its way into these types of deals.
The Yanks had been trying to get Musgrove and Taillon as a package for a few months. But Pittsburgh believed he could do better apart. So the Yanks just got the headline that cost less ($ 2.25 million this year) and offers more capacity. Taillon, when he was healthy for an entire season, showed promise that made him the second pick in the 2010 draft between Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. He was 14-10 years old with an ERA of 3.20 out of 32 starts in 2018.
But this is not a trade done in isolation. Taillon is reported to be back from Tommy John surgery as well as Severino, and Jordan Montgomery has made 11 major leagues since Tommy John surgery in June 2018. Kluber is once again tearing a shoulder muscle in past. Domingo German made his last appearance in the Major League on September 18, 2019, before being suspended according to MLB domestic abuse protocols. Deivi Garcia and Clarke Schmidt add 40 major league tickets combined.
This is a strong inventory of talent. But in the best of circumstances, figuring out how to reach 1,450 major league entries in a 162-game season is hard to do without sacrificing capacity or burning a bullring. Now, do it a year after a 60-game pandemic season, when no pitcher was approaching their normal workload and there was no minor league season. Now do it with this group of Yankee beginners with Michael King released to delve deeper. The line will be fine between fantastic and terrifying.
The Yankees won’t recover Severino until a few months into the season and don’t have good feelings about the massive entries from anyone other than Gerrit Cole. It will take a massage to find breaks with rotations of six men and skip turns to prevent those who are not Coles from being exaggerated: the puzzle.
In 2019, the Yankees won 103 games with only one starter (Masahiro Tanaka) qualified for the ERA title at 182 innings. JA Happ had 161 ¹ / ₃, James Paxton 150 ² / ₃, German 143 and CC Sabathia 107 ¹ /. So it can be done, especially since the Yanks project has a strong offense and will be bullpen again. In addition, they have not touched the best of their potential base, so if suddenly a Kyle Hendricks, German Márquez or Luis Castillo are made available during the season, they will be in a position to renegotiate. And who even knows with the COVID-19 pandemic if there will be a 162-match season this year. The fewer games probably the better to maximize this Yankee rotation.
Maybe the Yanks continue to join the group. But this is not easy. The $ 2.25 million salary for 2021 made Taillon even more attractive as the Yanks reach the $ 210 million luxury tax threshold, which is their opening budget for the 2021 season.
So the rotating pieces you see now are possibly the ones you have to open the season. With Taillon, the group got both talent and tenuous.