Joe Girardi Screwed the Yankees, Bryan Mitchell for 2015

The New York Yankees and specifically Joe Girardi had a golden opportunity in 2014 and the team and their manager let it pass them by. Pretty early in September I think the team knew they were not going to make the playoffs and by the time Derek Jeter was ready to say goodbye to Yankee Stadium and their fans it was a mathematical assumption. Instead of the Yankees doing what normal teams do in September when they are not involved in a pennant race, evaluate young and major league ready pitchers and prospects, the team kept running the likes of Chris Capuano out there. Capuano had very little to no chance of being a Yankee in 2015 but Bryan Mitchell and Manny Banuelos do and now the team doesn’t know what they have in either of them heading into the season.

Spring Training stats can be deceiving as pitchers are always ready long before the hitters are. Timing in hitting takes a lot longer to get back then a 90 MPH fastball and seven inning stamina. You learn a lot more about a guy, specifically a pitcher, when they are facing live competition at the major league level from the month of June and on. New York called up Mitchell multiple times last season and let him rot on the bench for the most part rather than evaluating what they had in him. Imagine what the Yankees season had been like if they had done the same with the recently traded Shane Greene in 2014, a disaster.

Girardi’s continued reliance on veterans and ignorance to what the team has in the minor league system has hurt the team and will especially hurt the team in 2015. The Yankees need starting pitching in the worst way heading into the season with a slew of well documented question marks in the rotation and instead of knowing what the team has in Mitchell and Banuelos the team will either head into the spring and the season ill prepared or Brian Cashman will grossly overpay for a mediocre pitcher for far too many years. Either way, and I’ve said this before, I’m not having fun anymore.