Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Severino Has Been Bad but Yankees Not Helping his Confidence


I’m not one to equivocate or beat around the bush, Luis Severino has been flat out bad this season. He hasn’t shown me many glimpses of brilliance to build upon and there are no signs of snapping out of this funk he’s in. I don’t know if it’s mechanical, an injury he’s hiding or if it’s all mental at this point and truth be told I don’t think the Yankees know what is going on either. The Yankees organization continues to show up an inability to develop starting pitching and it’s mainly because the way they like to tinker and change things. It messes with you and they are messing with Severino right now not only mechanically but in the confidence department as well. It’s blatantly obvious and it’s blatantly obvious that it needs to stop. Now.

The Yankees have sent down Luis Severino multiple times this season to work on things and the latest set of homework he was given was to work on his changeup. Severino told reporters that the Yankees, and specifically manager Joe Girardi, told him to work on the changeup regardless of the results in the game. In his latest start he lasted 5.2 innings and gave up four runs with 10 K’s while throwing the changeup but after the game Severino was clearly not happy about it.

The Yankees know Severino has to have a third pitch if he’s going to succeed in the Major Leagues and while his fastball and slider are great he has to have the changeup to keep everyone off balance. Severino admitted it was difficult to command the pitch at times and even said that he didn’t necessarily like throwing a lot of changeups. One AL scout who was at the game spoke to reporters and even said he doesn’t look comfortable, nor does he look confident, throwing the pitch. Instead of making him throw the changeup has the team considered scrapping the pitch for another pitch?

The kid is 22-years old. The sky is the limit for the young right-hander and he’s not too old of a dog to not learn new tricks. Teach the kid a new pitch because it doesn’t seem like the changeup is going to work for Severino if Severino doesn’t want to throw it. It’s human nature.



1 comment:

  1. No truer word has been spoken by anyone Daniel, than; Confidents, for anyone playing this game. Pitchers need it more than anyone on the field.
    It funny in a way, the difference between Severino and Pineda is stark. One has no confidents in one pitch and the other thinks he needs to throw his slider (to much) better then it needs to be.

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