Palladino: Playoff-Hopeful Yankees Need Severino To Grow Up In A Hurry
By Ernie Palladino
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Joe Girardi can't rely on Luis Severino to take the pitching staff on his young shoulders and carry the Yankees into the postseason this year.
It's hard to lay that on any 22-year-old, especially one who only just dipped his toe in the major league waters last year.
But if Severino achieves his stated goal of pitching 200 innings, he will by definition become the guy Girardi expects to pitch deep into games. And he needs at least one of those. As nice as it is to have a bullpen trio like Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller, and Aroldis Chapman in the arsenal, it's even better to have at least one starter who can shorten that bridge to the closer.
The Yanks haven't had that in two years. But Girardi would no doubt be eternally grateful if his young Dominican could provide such a service and leave the bulk of his bullpen for others who certainly won't make it through six or seven innings consistently.
Last year's numbers were indicative of how critical the situation became. Yankees relievers burned through 530 2/3 innings in 2015, baseball's seventh-highest total. Their cross-town World Series participants had baseball's fourth-lowest total with 460 innings.
While the amount of bullpen work doesn't singularly determine success -- the World Series champion Royals came in fifth with 539 1/3 innings -- no manager needs the added headache of juggling relievers on a daily basis. Luckily for Girardi, his 'pen was solid enough that it kept the team in games and won more than it lost at 25-19.
A big part of that was due to Adam Warren, Justin Wilson, and Chasen Shreve going a combined 12-3 in their various roles. But Warren went to the Cubs in the Starlin Castro trade, and Wilson went to the Tigers for a couple of minor league prospects.
Only Shreve remains. On the heels of a terrible September, he has looked good so far this spring, not allowing a runner in 4 1/3 innings while striking out five. And, if he duplicates his early efficiency of last year, the Yanks will have another valuable piece to go along with the late-innings triumvirate.
But the starters can help that process immensely by eating some innings. That's where Severino comes in. He's got the youngest and, arguably, the healthiest arm in the group. The question is whether the 62 1/3 innings he worked as a rookie translate sufficiently into a sophomore year where 190-plus innings would be a welcome addition.
He's still learning, still getting accustomed to pitching in situations.
He's still in the prove-it stages.
That's why 200 innings looms as important to him as it does to the team in general.
"I have to show the team I can help them win," he told The New York Post recently. "If I can pitch 200 innings, that means you had a good year."
Going by that, none of last year's starters came close to a dominant season. CC Sabathia, aging and in danger of losing his spot in the rotation to Ivan Nova, led the starters with 167 1/3 innings. Michael Pineda came in behind him with 160 2/3. Neither Masahiro Tanaka nor Nathan Eovaldi cracked 155 innings.
All spent time on the disabled list. Given their histories and Tanaka's untended elbow issue, Girardi will dance around that ledger again this year.
In comparison, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Bartolo Colon, and the departed Jon Niese all clocked more innings. deGrom, Harvey, and Colon all finished within two quality starts of 200 innings.
Girardi could use an innings-eater in the image of Sabathia in his prime. At 35, with a degenerative knee, his days of racking up 200 innings ended with his eighth such season in 2013. He may well spend the rest of his career pitching in three- or four-inning chunks.
The job could fall to the young Severino.
That would benefit Girardi greatly.
Even big arms like Shreve, Betances, and Miller need an off day every now and then.
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