Palladino: As Camp Nears, Yanks Have Major Question Marks In Rotation
By Ernie Palladino
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As the Yankees prepare for pitchers and catchers to report to Tampa two weeks from Friday, this much is clear: With Masahiro Tanaka, CC Sabathia, Michael Pineda and Ivan Nova, they could have one of the best starting rotations in the AL East in 2015.
On the flip side -- with Tanaka, Sabathia, Pineda and Nova -- they could just as easily have one of the worst.
It all depends on how they hold up physically. That's what stinks about pitching injuries. It's not just about finding suitable replacements when they leave the rotation, but it's the worry over how they'll come back the following season. The Mets are going through that right now with Matt Harvey, arguably the most exciting pitcher in the game when healthy, as he comes off a year lost to Tommy John surgery.
Not to cast doom over what could turn into a gloomy situation rather quickly, but the Yanks don't have a lot of rotational depth. Now that Brandon McCarthy has fled to the Dodgers, it appears that hard-throwing right-hander Nathan Eovaldi -- acquired from the Marlins in the Martin Prado trade -- and Chase Whitley will have to serve as stabilizers if the injury bug strikes again. That is, unless someone truly believes that Chris Capuano is going to look like anything more than a journeyman.
The fact is, the four aforementioned starters go in as question marks until they show otherwise. And proving it will be the toughest test.
Tanaka, for instance, decided to rest his partially torn right ulnar ligament instead of writing off the rest of his 2014 season and undergoing surgery. Reconstruction would have fixed the problem permanently, and it may still come down to that.
In the meantime, the Yanks take much encouragement from Tanaka's final two starts of last season, if only because of his recuperative powers. The results were mixed, as he beat the Blue Jays with 5 1/3 strong innings in his comeback performance Sept. 21. before allowing seven runs in 1 2/3 innings in his final start.
The numbers, though, aren't as important as the ligament. It's still torn. Joe Girardi will have to nurse him through spring training. And the question of whether the ligament will hold or whether his rest-and-rehab strategy was simply an exercise in kicking the can down the road will exist throughout.
If the 25-year-old does run into that dead end, the Yanks will have a gigantic hole in the No. 1 spot.
The spots behind Tanaka aren't guaranteed, either. Sabathia recently reported he's experiencing no pain from his knee surgery of three months ago, and expects to go through all of spring training and start every fifth day. We'll see. He only made it through eight starts last year.
No 34-year-old pitcher with a degenerative knee condition is a sure thing. With Sabathia -- gone from the rotation in July despite dramatic weight loss intended to avoid such a situation -- returning to 32-start, 200-inning form seems unrealistic at best. The pain will always be an issue, since he no longer has cartilage in the knee. The amount of tolerance he'll have in landing on it will determine how long the left-handed innings-eater will last.
Pineda had made a successful return from torn labrum (shoulder) surgery until a dab of pine tar and some back and shoulder issues got in the way.
The pine tar situation is easy. Just don't cheat. The back and shoulder? Not so much.
He lasted just four April starts in his comeback before the pain upstairs put him on the disabled list from May until August. He did finish with three strong outings. Still, that's a long time to be without a dominant, 6-foot-7 mound presence. The Yanks will need far more than the 13 starts he gave them to challenge for the division title.
As for Nova, Girardi can't count on him, anyway. Tommy John surgery usually involves a 12-to-18 month recovery period, and Nova is only 10 months off Dr. James Andrews' operating table. He told the New York Daily News on Monday that he's feeling fine, but he has no timetable for a return.
In two weeks, pitchers and catchers will report with a starting five comprised of three legitimate injury risks, one young flamethrower in Eovaldi and an average swingman in Capuano.
Managers don't exactly fantasize about such scenarios. It's not an ideal way to go into spring training. And the waiting for the injury shoe to drop could make for a tense camp for Girardi.
All the while, he'll be asking himself whether he's sitting on a pitching gold mine or a ton of fool's gold.
With one, he can contend for a division title.
With the other, well…
