Luis Cessa has been in the New York Yankees bullpen for a few years now, even making occasional starts. However, he hasn’t performed and the Yankees need to move on from him.
They’ve given him a lot of chances, and by a lot I mean that he has no minor league options remaining. He would have to be traded, released, or waived to get off the Yankees roster.
The 27 year old righty from Mexico was on the roster and healthy all season, appearing in 43 games. He had a 4.11 ERA in 81 innings, striking out 75.
On paper, that doesn’t look bad. But, anytime he was put in a high leverage situation of any type, he fell apart. In blowout games that he pitched in, he was really good and that skewed his stats. His ERA in high leverage situations is probably around six.
Cessa also gives up a lot of home runs. He served up 14 this year and 16 in 2016, and that’s a lot for the amount of innings he pitched in both years.
His K/BB ratio is 2.4:1, which is not good at all. You would want it to be around 5:1 or 6:1 to be effective.
His Replacement:
Jordan Montgomery would be a likely replacement if Cessa left the team. With the hunt for starting pitchers, it’s very likely that Montgomery would be in the bullpen. You already have at least four other starters before free agency (Paxton, Severino, Happ, Tanaka, and maybe German if he doesn’t get banned?)
Montgomery would also easily be able go start games if he needed to because of injuries, and would provide much longer relief than Cessa out of the bullpen.
The Yankees have been giving Luis Cessa a shot for four years, but now it’s time to move on from him.