Yankees Edition:What I Want for Christmas, The Bullpen

To say that the bullpen was decimated by the recent trades done by Brian Cashman would likely be an extreme exaggeration but one must remember, I am a Yankees fan through and through. I am not paid by the Yankees, hell I'm not paid for my writing whatsoever, and this is a fan blog. Not a blog run by an insider or expert. I get emotional, I get worked up and sometimes I react from my heart and not my head. Sue me. I think many will agree though that regardless of their affiliations, jobs or fandom they will agree that the Yankees bullpen took a hit with the losses of Adam Warren and Justin Wilson. Maybe a bullpen arm or two will be under the Yankees tree this holiday season? One can hope so here are a couple suggestions.

First and foremost, and we've already covered this on the blog once so we won't spend too much time here, the Yankees can easily replace Justin Wilson. Antonio Bastardo is a Wilson clone in almost every sense of the word. He's 30-years old and he strikes out a ton of guys, although he does struggle with command from time to time. The redundancy here though is that New York didn't get anything special for Wilson via the trade and they sold it as a money saving, eventually, move. Why would they go out and sign a more expensive arm off the free agent market? They probably wouldn't truth be told but he would make sense for the team regardless.

Another arm I like, and I believe he is a bit underrated, is the right arm of Tommy Hunter. Hunter, for Chicago Cubs and Baltimore Orioles pitcher, has been delegated to the bullpen the last three seasons but made 20 starts as recently as the 2012 season. He didn't pitch great in Chicago, truth be told, but the sample size was small being in just 19 games. Hunter is AL East tested and proven and is a true power arm at just 30-years old. He could handle the 6th or 7th inning for the Yankees with ease and likely step into the rotation for two weeks to a month at a time if an injury were to occur.

I know these weren't the big names you all expected when you decided to give this a read but there just aren't that many game changing relief pitchers on the market right now. The Yankees will have to either fill the needs from within with another revolving door or the team is going to have to be smart about it, they absolutely cannot simply throw money at the issue this time around.

Santa, your move.