Wednesday, July 15, 2015

My Plan for the Return of Brendan Ryan & Carlos Beltran


The New York Yankees, as we saw this morning in the TGP Daily Poll, face a bit of a roster crunch and a few roster decisions before Friday night’s game with the Seattle Mariners. Before the Yankees travel home to the Bronx to play host to Nelson Cruz and Robinson Cano the team will have to make a pair of roster moves to accommodate the returning Carlos Beltran and Brendan Ryan from injury. I kind of gave away who I would send down in the poll, Gregorio Petit and Bryan Mitchell, but I didn’t get to explain why. Knoda.com has a character limit much like Twitter and I am far too long-winded for that so here is where I lay out my plan for the return of Beltran and more specifically the return of Brendan Ryan.

The Yankees currently have seven infielders on the 25 man roster including Garrett Jones who bounces around from first base to the outfield while the team only has Chris Young, Brett Gardner and Jacoby Ellsbury as their regular outfielders right now meaning that one of the infielders will have to go to accommodate Beltran’s return. The obvious choice would be Gregorio Petit simply because he’s the weakest link and has seen his biggest asset, his ability to play the shortstop position, become less valuable with essentially having Stephen Drew available off the bench. If I were a betting man Petit getting sent back down to Scranton is one of the roster moves the Yankees will employ before Friday.

That move was easy but the other move will not be so simply to navigate. With the Yankees “source” that leaked the information that Robert Refsnyder will remain with the team after the All-Star Break fresh in our minds the team is left with a few viable options to accommodate the return of Ryan. The team could always designate Garrett Jones for assignment and allow Ryan to backup first base with Chase Headley and Brian McCann, the team could designate Drew for assignment although his value, power and defense off the bench at both the shortstop and second base position could make him too valuable to simply cut free, or the team could send down a relief pitcher and go with a short bullpen and a five man bench. That seems like a likely scenario here, the likeliest of them all, meaning that the end could be near for Bryan Mitchell, at least temporarily.

I think the end game here is to designate Ryan for assignment but the problem is he has to have a roster spot to accommodate him before that can happen. To DFA a player you must activate him first meaning the team could option Mitchell, activate and immediately DFA Ryan and then call up Branden Pinder to replace Mitchell for 10 days. If the Yankees decide they want to keep Ryan they could also make this work with an option of Mitchell as the team will come off the break well rested in both the starting rotation and the bullpen. The team plays a weekend series inside Yankee Stadium before an off day on Monday leaving the Yankees with a plethora of options on how they want to play this. The team could always skip one of their starters and allow them to pitch in long relief if needed or the team could simply go to Adam Warren, Chasen Shreve and Chris Capuano for multiple innings each if the need arose knowing they had an off day to rest on Monday.


The Yankees have a ton of options here to keep Refsnyder on the active roster and either keep Ryan or let him hit free agency, I just wish it was a little more clear as to what path the Yankees were leaning towards going down. Either way the end result keeps Refsnyder in the Bronx, assuming you believe the Yankees “source’ who asked to remain anonymous, and that alone makes me happy. 

2 comments:

  1. DANIEL is curious ?...re: Ivan Nova, and why I think they should use him as a trading chip ?
    Sure, I'll explain. I've been working, and its been a few days.

    How's those boys of yours ? Got you hopping I bet.

    Re. Nova.... Not a big fan of his. I think his ship has sailed, and if he sticks around the
    Yanks, it will be for a lot of money............for nothing special.

    Simply said...take away the 2011 year, where Nova goes 16-4. Pretend it did not happen.
    Add the year prior, and to date, and he is 25-21...ERA 4.35, guessing on the ERA part.
    At 1-3 already, and Sabathia circling the drain, who the hell needs this ?
    They both stink. And if some contending team looking for pitching wants Nova...don't
    hesitate to pull the trigger. Make Nova go away. The Yankees can do better. For less.

    There has to be some serious house cleaning as we head into the second half.
    If not, your site and myself, will be cheering a funeral procession as it twists, and turns, on
    its route to the cemetery. I'm tired of doing that.



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  2. Boys are good, thank you for asking. Not enough hours in the day for it all but we make the best out of it, even if we have to play with leftover July 4th sparklers while mom gets ready for work.

    Nova: Nova is still pretty young, I find it hard to give up on him. He isn't an ace and in the right deal I trade him 10 times out of 10 but I don't think I trade him just to trade him, especially this year. Always take a full year to see the finished product after TJS. He has had four starts and pitches well enough to win in three of them. For a guy fresh off TJS and a guy that is essentially a 4th starter that's great and it's a lot more than CC can say.

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