With the start of spring training games just a couple days away, the Yankees are once again hit with the injury bug. That fully operational Death Star may be a bit further off than anticipated. This one hurts hard though and I’m starting to get PTSD from last year. Paxton being out until late May, early June, I could live with. I was extremely confident in having Cole, Sevy, and Tanaka as a dominant force until Paxton’s return. All four of those pitchers have the potential, when they are on, to shut down any lineup in the league. The Yankees are heavily favored to win the American League East and pennant but take away two of those starting pitchers to start the season and their path gets a little harder. With a (possible) full rotation of Cole, Tanaka, Happ, Montgomery, and opener/Garcia/Loaisiga/Cessa. That’s three question marks heading into the season.
Happ didn’t have the type of success he would have liked to last year. We can only hope that the presence of a new pitching coach and insight from Cole can try and get him back to the way he was throwing in 2018 going 7-0 with the Yankees. Jordan Montgomery, who we have seen have success starting for the Yankees back in 17’ and 18’, missed the entire 2019 season. His performance in spring training will be a major factor on if he breaks into the rotation, although I do think he will be successful enough to earn that position. That fifth rotation spot is really a toss-up at the moment, out of the three names I listed above, it’s going to be the one who shows the most success in spring training. I would expect Loaisga based on the success he had at the Major League Level already. I would prefer to have an opener and work the bullpen the rest of the game as they did last year, but that doesn’t look so appealing with the way the bullpen lost some steam heading into the postseason last year. This scenario would only happen until Paxton’s return. I’m really excited to see if Garcia has the type of stuff that’s MLB ready, although I think they will likely start him out in Triple-A. In all this speculation it’s important to note that this team won over one hundred games last year after having an insane amount of people end up on the IL, so if anything, they’ve shown to be resilient as hell.
With all that said, take a breath Yankee fans. That is all worst-case scenario, in which this forearm soreness turns into something worse. It just becomes more concerning because this is a reoccurring issue since pitching against the Astros in the postseason. Severino received two MRI’s and a CT scan back then and everything came back negative. Tommy John might be a possibility, which would eliminate Severino from the 2020 season. With that said we would be adding back a fresh Paxton and German around June, all with plenty of time to get into postseason form. Although both will have something to prove coming off the IL, as Paxton would look to stay healthy and German would look to show that last year’s success wasn’t a fluke. With that said if these two pitchers come back and pitch to the full potential, the Yankees would be just fine with missing Severino for the season. Best case scenario this forearm pain is just inflammation, and in a week he’s pain free. Cashman did describe the injury as a “loose body” in his arm. Blake Snell had “loose bodies” removed from his elbow last year in late July and later returned in the middle of September. This would be extremely better than him needing TJ, but if this becomes a reality the Yankees will be very cautious with him when he’d return. We will ultimately find out in a week when he begins throwing again if he’s still feeling pain and further tests are needed. Until then let us all gather our energy and send it to Sevy’s right arm. Don’t even mention Judge…although I heard he’s going to start his swinging program very soon. Now, let us have faith in Matt Blake and Eric Cressey to take care of this staff.
The Washed Up Athlete 