New York Yankees fans are justifiably distraught after the news about Luis Severino emerged today. This will ultimately result in Severino making his long-awaited return to regular season pitching by possibly June of 2021. But the blessing in disguise of all this is just how much we can see our prospective pitchers grow and blossom.
The Big Break They Need
Cessa, Loaisiga, King, Montgomery, Abreu, Garcia. We’ve been hearing great things about all these pitchers for a long time now. We’ve seen what some of them could do. The benefit that they have is the prolonged audition period of showing they are true MLB starter material.
We still have Tanaka, Cole, and Happ. This leaves us 2 spots to fill. Many suspects that Montgomery (who’s only thrown 31.1 innings since 2018 in the regular season) will win back a spot in the rotation. We know what Cessa, Loaisiga, and (very briefly) King in the regular season can do. Abreu and Garcia have been talked about for so long, that one of them has a legitimate shot at a rotation spot.
Now, Happ will be our surefire number 5 in the rotation. If the New York Yankees don’t want to pick up Happ’s $17 million option for next year, he will be sent to the pen or traded by the deadline. By June, we know that Paxton and German will be back. This leaves clear and obvious room for two of those 5 names to become season-long members of the starting rotation. Fans complain about how the Yankees don’t do enough to “developing pitching” (forgetting of course how they developed Dellin Betances, David Robertson, Luis Severino, and Tyler Clippard to name a few), here’s the chance for Abreu to show WHY he’s the Yankees top prospect. He already has more strikeouts than innings pitched in the minors. His time is now. Who knows? He might beat out Jordan Montgomery.
I’m in no way trying to make light of Severino’s injury. But there is a silver lining to all of this. Tanaka is a free agent next year. If he doesn’t come back, and we don’t have Happ, the brightest prospects from this year will clearly be there next year. This… is… good!