Heading into the 2016 regular season the New York Yankees
had to feel pretty good about what they had done this winter and what they had
heading into the new season. They had their ace healthy in Masahiro Tanaka with
the promise of a much sharper splitter after offseason elbow surgery to remove
bone spurs and they had a promising up-and-coming staff. Luis Severino many
donned as the current and future ace of the staff while many believed Michael
Pineda was ready to break out in a big way in 2016 after a strong spring.
Nathan Eovaldi was healthy, Ivan Nova was in his second year removed from Tommy
John surgery, which as we know is usually always much better than the first,
and CC Sabathia was sober and level-headed with a new knee brace and look on
life. The Yankees felt like, with their bullpen especially, they had a chance
to compete when they headed out of spring training this year and then the
regular season and real life hit the team, especially Severino and Pineda.
Looking at these two right-handers spring training stats you
would think that the Yankees were on their way to having a three-headed monster
in the rotation as well as in the bullpen but to date that has never come to
fruition.
Severino has struggled and has been the loser in every
decision he’s had this season while Pineda has struggled with his command and
his location for much of the season. Pineda all of a sudden has fears and
nightmares of the first inning while Severino struggled with his command and
his control of his best pitch before landing on the disabled list with a
triceps strain. Meanwhile Tanaka came out of the spring gates slow and has been
nothing less than advertised thus far this season for New York.
So what do spring training stats mean in the grand scheme of
things? Very little to nothing and I’m leaning more towards nothing than
anything.
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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)