Friday, June 5, 2015

The Youth Movement Has Begun


New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi can say the word “no” about six hundred more times if he’d like the next time he is asked if Jacob Lindgren is beginning a youth injection in the Bronx or not but I think we all know the truth, he is. When Girardi was asked if Lindgren was part of a youth injection that led to the DFA of RHP David Carpenter the Yankees manager responded with “no,no,no,no,no,no” and retorted with the fact that they liked what they saw from the young LHP this season. Girardi also touched on the fact that Lindgren can get both left handed batters and right handed batters out and has handled himself well in a limited sample size with the big league club but come on Joe, the youth injection is coming and Lindgren is just the start of it.

The Yankees have an aging roster which will naturally bring inconsistency and injuries to the ball club forcing the hand of New York to rely heavily on their depth signings and farm system. When Jacoby Ellsbury went down the Yankees inserted Slade Heathcott and when Heathcott went down they inserted Ramon Flores into the outfield rotation. When the Yankees needed a starting rotation arm they inserted Adam Warren, not Esmil Rogers, and when Masahiro Tanaka went down the team inserted Chase Whitley. When the team needed a relief pitcher this season we’ve seen Joel De La Cruz, Jose Ramirez, Bryan Mitchell, Branden Pinder and now Lindgren while the team cut ties with Scott Baker, Jared Burton and other veteran relief pitchers signifying that the youth movement is in full swing in the Bronx. 

With Robert Refsnyder biding his time him Triple-A and top prospect Luis Severino’s recent promotion to Scranton Wilkes-Barre the team has a ton of upside and youth on the way to the Bronx. That can be said with confidence without even mentioning the steps being taken by Brady Lail, Aaron Judge, Eric Jagielo, Mason Williams, Gary Sanchez and other top Yankees prospects that figure to put the pressure on the Yankees veterans currently in the lineup.


The youth movement is coming, are you ready for it?

6 comments:

  1. Pat Venditte is getting called up to the A's today. 7 years in the Yankees system and never had an ERA over 3.45. His career minor league numbers are great! 2.37 ERA, and a 1.07 whip. Congratulations to Venditte, but I'm left wondering why our brilliant front office never gave him a shot.

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    1. Great for him, he should have been with the Yankees 3 years ago.

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    2. Just another example of the Yankees not recognizing their own talent until he's played for and established by another team. If anything you thought Hal would have made a few bucks off the whole "first ambidextrous pitcher" thing but whatever. I'm happy for him but it goes to show you how far the talent evaluation has fallen with this team.

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  2. Good, about time they brought some of these guys up! I only worry they will be given one chance and if they don't do better than expected they will be back on the farm...never to be heard from again.
    Just think about it, William and Heathcott were both written off just last year and most fans never even heard of Flores.

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    1. Williams sucked for two seasons in a row and deserved to be written off. Heathcott couldn't stay healthy but the talent was always there. That's why the Yankees brought him back.

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    2. True Daniel, just pointing out sometimes teams get so wrapped up in the numbers they forget the talent. Talent gets taught bad habits and sometimes not the right way to play the game. What worked in high school or college doesn't cut it with the pro's!
      Many times they race through the bottom systems and then get a shot of reality playing with those that have been taught the right way and they go from hitting .300+ etc., to .129.
      It takes a while to relearn bad habits so as to do things the right way without having to think about it. This could have been the problem with Williams.
      I had seen Flores play many times and thought he was one of the better outfielders so far so good.

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