Thursday, March 20, 2014

Quick Hit: The Decision To Make Ivan Nova #3 Starter


The decision to make Ivan Nova the third starter in the Yankees rotation, which is not entirely set in stone this early but still, may turn out to be the best decision New York ever made. Nova was brilliant again yesterday afternoon against the Atlanta Braves, and that was against their real lineup basically and not a bunch of guys you have never heard of. Nova pitched 6.1 shutout innings and is striking out more than 10 batter per nine innings. I realize that this is just spring training but if you can't do it in spring when you are supposed to how do you expect to do it during the regular season when the games actually count, right?

With a successful Ivan Nova you can really ease Masahiro Tanaka into the transition from Japan to the United States and not give him the baptism of fire that so many others have received. If the decision does not work out with an off day or a rain out you could easily make the switch back, no big deal, so this seems like a win win situation for the Yankees and a smart one, for once.

1 comment:

  1. Very good thinking Daniel.
    It make very good sense to split the two Japanese up and make it easy for "Tank"!
    Although, next year if he does well, he will need to be the #1 or #2 starter, he seems to have a huge EGO, after all, he picked the highest profiled team in the history of sports to pitch for. This is no accident, he wanted the best competition he could find, and got it. That sort of player I like; don't talk the game...doing it better than anyone else will prove it!

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)