Yankees Send Eight to the All Star Game, Current & Former

The New York Yankees will send three of their own to the 2016 MLB All-Star Game tonight inside Petco Park in San Diego. The trio that the Bronx Bombers will send to the mid-summer classic are Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller and Carlos Beltran but they won’t be the only familiar faces at the game to a Yankees fan tonight. New York is also sending five former members of their team and organization to the game as well. 

The Yankees watched Robinson Cano’s sweet swing wreak havoc on American League pitchers from 2005 through the 2013 season before the second baseman left for Seattle via free agency. The Yankees signed Cano as an international free agent and developed him through their system as a third baseman before switching him to second base due to Alex Rodriguez manning his position in the Bronx. 

Possibly and potentially playing beside Cano in this game is another former Yankees product in Minnesota Twins shortstop Eduardo Nunez. Nunez was maybe best known for all the times he ran to first base, routine ground ball or not, while losing his batting helmet in the process. Nunez spent parts of the 2010 – 2013 seasons in the Bronx before being traded to Minnesota before the 2014 season. 

Jose Quintana was a former Yankees prospect and heads to the game to replace Cleveland Indians ace Danny Salazar who cannot make the game due to a minor elbow issue. Quintana was allowed to walk by the Yankees as a minor league free agent and found his niche and his third pitch in Chicago. The rest, as they say, is history. 

Mark Melancon has become one of the better closers in all of Major League Baseball and all of the National League but that honor and prestige came after a trade to the Houston Astros and eventually the Pittsburgh Pirates and not in the Bronx. If you can remember Melancon would come up only to sit on the bench for two-to-three weeks at a time and then catch flack and criticism because he didn’t look sharp ultimately leading to his trade. Well duh! 

Bartolo Colon is defying the odds right now in Major League Baseball but you have to wonder if he would have been given a shot had it not been for the Yankees. Back in 2011 the Yankees gave Colon a shot after sitting out the 2010 season and after receiving a controversial injection in his elbow that may have rejuvenated his career. Brian Cashman was called a fool then, he wasn’t being called one by the end of the season though. Don’t worry he was back to being called a fool again by 2012. 

The Yankees also drafted Clayton Kershaw… and then I woke up.  

And who says the Yankees can’t draft, sign and develop talent? They can, the problem is just that most of the time that talent found their own and found the opportunity to flourish elsewhere. This is something I hope the Yankees can see as well and this is something I hope the Yankees are at least trying to get away from. Hopes in one hand, dreams in the other. Which fills up first? Stay tuned.