The New York Yankees have been tied to offseason trade talks with pitchers the most this offseason. We landed the biggest pitcher on the market, Gerrit Cole, and for weeks we’ve been speculating on whether or not the Yankees will finally trade for Josh Hader from the Brewers. But if the Yankees are desperate for relief pitcher help, most of the answers would be found in our farm system.
Albert Abreu Has an In
Deivi Garcia seems to have the makings of a future starter in baseball. Starting as a long reliever would help him make the transition from minors to the bigs makes the most sense. But the other pitcher who we hear spoken about with almost the same intensity is Albert Abreu. So why would Abreu make more sense as a permanent reliever than Garcia?
For starters, Garcia has more than double the strikeouts to innings pitched in the minors for his career, with 45 over 40 innings at Scranton this past season. While Abreu almost had as many strikeouts as innings pitched at Trenton, Garcia had a much better WHIP, and a lower ERA, which would lead one to conclude Abreu is losing his effectiveness the more he sees a lineup.
Make no mistake, I’m not saying that Abreu will be ready for the show next season, I think he’ll be more ready as an opening day reliever by 2021. But, if he’s doing well enough, and a pitcher in the pen goes down (which will happen, though let’s pray it’s not nearly as many as last year), Abreu could get the call to fill in. The sooner we see what the kid has, the better.