By William Coppola
On November 28th, the Yankees released Nathan Eovaldi, putting an end to his attempt, to be a starting pitcher in their five man rotation. Here is a guy, who can throw 98-100 for seven innings. He has a “lights out” split-finger fastball, that at times is a “down in the dirt” nasty pitch.
For a 27 year old power arm guy, lacking command of all his pitches, it was only a matter of time, before the Yankees would turn him loose. My question is, who’s next? T
The Yanks gave up on Ivan Nova at 28 years old. Guess this is the year that they make a decision on Michael Pineda. They don’t need a starter. The Yankees need three starters.
All three of these guys have an arsenal of at least, 7 different pitches. All of them have, at least, two pitches, that are tough to hit. It would be interesting to me, to see if they each could work on just their two best pitches and learn to pitch with command using those two pitches seems easier than having to do so with seven different ones.
If they could do that, the Yankees could of had more options in their bullpen. Years ago, guys like this would of been relegated to the bullpen.
Starting in Little League, every pitcher wants to be a starter. I have only run into one high school kid, who told me he was a closer. “Wow kid, nothing like limiting your options,” I thought.
So it is a bump to the competitiveness and the egos of all these guys, who all aspire to be a starter in the big leagues. Turning yourself into a major league bullpen pitcher, is a big adjustment that many just can not do. And so they become, 27 year old washed up 100 mile an hour hurlers.
Today with teams wedded to pitch counts with their starters, we may soon see more games with starters going four, or even three innings. Then turning it over to a bullpen to complete the game.
Crazy as it seems, the talk of expanded rosters for the regular season, as well as the end of year call ups, make it seem as though baseball, is heading in this direction. So, if you have a kid who can throw, make him think closer, like that high school visionary I met awhile back.
Editor’s Note: William Coppola just completed his 40th year in the game of baseball. He has been a coach, instructor and advanced scout for numerous teams in Major League Baseball
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