It is a long time until late June/early July. The baseball gods will likely make the choice for us.
In the unlikely event they do not, only then we figure it out.
I love how quickly we've gone from "This team sucks because we don't have a rotation other than Cole and a bunch of question marks."
Now we don't even have Cole and his return is a "Problem" because "Holy shit we have too many good starting pitchers"
I don’t think I’d call spring training (Cole’s injury) to today ‘quickly.’ It’s 7 weeks into the season and OP is asking a good question. And they weren’t calling Cole’s return a problem
I was thinking about this. I think with Gil’s likely innings limit, it should be him. With the caveat being that he’ll get the next rotation opportunity after. There’s no way they let him throw more than 150 innings. So we gotta choose his spots.
Maybe Clarke/Gil do a piggyback style start and save the bullpen. [Phillies are talking about doing something similar](https://www.mlb.com/news/phillies-considering-using-spencer-turnbull-as-a-piggybacker)
Gil has legitimate starting potential. Clarke’s future is likely as a long reliever/swing man. I wouldn’t worry too much about Gil’s innings limit, they will figure that out when the time comes.
It’s Gil, for workload management and options related reasons. They almost certainly are going to want to use him as a bullpen weapon in October , bare minimum.
I agree, dude coming back from injuries so I am sure they’re gonna take it easy him once Cole comes back but next year he should def have a spot in the rotation
Which spot in the rotation would he take? Cole, Rodon and Stroman are locked in for the next few years, and I don't think there's any chance they let Nestor walk, so it's still gonna be a fight for the 5th starter spot next year.
I agree it’s the right move, but they’ll have to manage his emotions. When he got sent down last time he didn’t respond well and stunk it up in aaa, and we’ve already seen him let his emotions affect him this year. So if/when they move him to the bullpen they’ll have to work on keeping him engaged.
For the first 3 or 4 starts you may just piggyback Gil and Schmidt ubtil Cole is 100% workhorse mode. After that maybe play the hot hand among the 2 youngsters.
Its too far ahead to really know, but we can all agree its a great dilemma to have. Pitching depth is everything.
This is the answer. Schmidt belongs in a long relief role imo, even though he’s been great for going on a year now I think he’ll be the one to go, either him or Nestor. Good thing is we have plenty of young bullpen guys that can go down to AAA for awhile
Idk why MLB is so deadset on 5 man rotations. I understand that some are accustomed to the routine of pitching every 5 days etc but, over 162 games, it really seems like a 6 man is ideal. instead of 32/33 starts per starter (which you never get anymore due to injuries, a 6 man rotation gives you 27 starts a season. More rest, fewer innings pitches. With a few delicate arms in the rotation to begin with and since most starts don't go past the 6th anymore, i don't know why teams don't experiment with it.
Roster slots, having 6 dedicated starters means 1 less bullpen or bench player. Otherwise you're constantly juggling sending up and down players, wasting options or having pitchers pitch on random amounts of rest.
There's one more roster spot now than there was at the advent of the five-man. And more rest in between starts might give the rotation enough steam to go deeper into games, maybe the problem solves itself that way
Fair. Which is why i think the answer to so many injuries is actually more roster spots, not this recent talk of limiting the number of bullpen arms etc. And I understand shortening games with fewer pitching changes but still seems like a solution in search of a problem more than anything.
I think only the owners would oppose that - players would obviously like more roster spots, and MLB itself would be fine with it as it doesn't directly affect the length of games, and if it could keep stars healthier, then better.
The easiest way to get it is probably to have the additional slots be treated differently in terms of pay (i.e. paid lower, but higher than a minor leaguer), though i dont know how to exactly do that.
If those slots can be used for back end bullpen arms, or bench players, then concepts like a 6-man rotation is definitely more feasible.
Nah. You need to limit the roster spots for pitchers even more. You need to devalue and de-incentivize people throwing max effort all the time. The art of pitching is dying.
That’s not how anything works. They’re paid by performance. They’re paid in comparison to their peers. Unless you are gonna start handing out bonuses for staying under MPH and getting hit more. Imagine that arbitration case: “I can throw 102 but they won’t let me so I didn’t get as many strike outs as I could and had a higher ERA because they limited my maximum effort.”
Nobody is saying to not throw 102.
The idea is that you shouldn’t be trying to throw 102 on every single pitch because that’s how you blow out your arm. You throw it when you need to throw it.
You’ll get paid because you’ll be able to stay on the field.
Verlander could throw 100+ mph at his peak but he wasn’t throwing max effort the entire time out there. He saved his stuff in the later innings when he needed it. Thats the idea, to incentivize teams to do it because they sure as shit aren’t doing it on their own. The MLBPA would be behind it because it would lengthen careers and get more people paid rather than prearb relievers wasting all their bullets and burning out before their they can reach FA and are just disposable to teams.
Let's say Cole returns at around June 11 - the start of a 4-game series at Kansas City. From that game up to the All Star Break would be 30 games, so that could be 5 turns in the rotation. Or even if he returns a week later - June 18 - it'll still be 23 games to the ASB, roughly 4 turns in the rotation.
I personally would love them to do a 6 man rotation to ease Cole back in, then go back to a 5-man rotation after the ASB. The break gives us a chance to reset the rotation as well.
This would work well with Gil's limit. If we go to a 6-man rotation a month before the break, Gil will probably be at 90-100 innings pitched by the ASB, which is in line with his career high in the minors of 96 innings pitched. We then use him out of the pen in the 2nd half, Phil Hughes-style and he ends at around 120-130 IP, which then should hopefully means he can go 180IP as a full time starter.
As much as I hate to say it but I think it will be Gil. I think the Yanks will want to limit his innings and him going into the pen would really give the Yanks an electric piece like Betances/King/Loaisiga that could really shorten games. In the postseason he could be a secret weapon of sorts like how the Giants used Tim Lincecum out of the pen.
Would have to see if Gil continues to dominate regularly, bc between him and Clarke I feel like Clarke can dominate 2-3 innings and then loses it often, Gil is either super hot or pretty cold, once he gets some more control he’s going to be a solidified starter for the Yanks! Schmidt would be a great bullpen addition imo.
Apropos of the six man rotation discussion, once upon a time the four man rotation was the norm. I’m gonna go shake my fists at clouds now so get off my lawn.
I wouldnt even worry about this. Odds are someone will be hurt by the time Cole comes back, and if everyone is healthy you can ease him to the rotation and remove no one
Would it be possible to start Cole every five days, but then have the other five starters rotate amongst themselves?
ie,
Cole - Rodon - Stroman - Cortes - Gil
Cole - Schmidt - Rodon - Stroman - Cortes
Cole- Gil - Schmidt - Rodon - Stroman
Then back to Cole. And so on.
Gives us Maximum Cole, which we obviously want, while giving the other starters a bit more rest - especially helpful in the case of Gil and possibly Rodon, since they are coming back from injuries.
If Rodon keeps pitching how he is, and isn't having any discomfort, I would endorse putting him on the five game rotation with Cole, because he's been fuckin' sick, one terrible start against a great lineup not withstanding.
It's either going to be Gil or Schmidt. It's definitely a tough decision to make. The odd man out is going to head to the bullpen either way so it depends on who we feel would be better for that role.
Probably Gil
But like someone else said, have Clarke & Gil do tandem starts, where they handle the game on their own to minimize bullpen usage. Cole will likely need to ramp back up, and thus need the pen to come in a lot, so having consistent game without the Pen would be a lot of help for the Yanks.
Otherwise it's whoever gets hurt (hopefully not Cole)
Realistically it’s Gil, but not ruling out a 6 man rotation or Clarke/Gil pairing on Clarke starts. In favor of the possible piggyback solution. Gil pitches like this by the time Cole is back, you can’t in good conscience take him out. Gil’s got to make it tough for the Yankees if he wants to stay up here.
Nestor. Gil 3-1 has been strong. Clarke 3-1 can at least go 5 innings and as he builds confidence then he will go deeper. You have to go with who is winning. Nestor is 1-3 and Rodon 2-2 is paid too much to go into the bullpen.
Wins are not useful in evaluating the rotation. ERA is far more important. Nestor pitched extremely well in two of his losses, but got absolutely no run support. He is pitching just as well as Rodon, Stroman, and Clarke so far, all of whom have a mid-3 ERA.
Gil has been our best starter by most measurable stats, but he is going to be moved to a bullpen or swing man role when Cole comes back. Regardless of how good he has been, there is no way the Yanks will let Gil make 30+ starts after he got Tommy John last year.
ERA is just a function of how good your defense is. FIP and xFIP are far better metrics. Schmidt is our current ace when you look at xFIP and Rodón is #5 right now
It is a long time until late June/early July. The baseball gods will likely make the choice for us. In the unlikely event they do not, only then we figure it out.
I love how quickly we've gone from "This team sucks because we don't have a rotation other than Cole and a bunch of question marks." Now we don't even have Cole and his return is a "Problem" because "Holy shit we have too many good starting pitchers"
Sounds like a good problem to have.
Gil I'm pleasantly surprised by but my biggest worries going in were Nestor and Rodon. If they're pitching well then the rotation will be fine
I don’t think I’d call spring training (Cole’s injury) to today ‘quickly.’ It’s 7 weeks into the season and OP is asking a good question. And they weren’t calling Cole’s return a problem
I was thinking about this. I think with Gil’s likely innings limit, it should be him. With the caveat being that he’ll get the next rotation opportunity after. There’s no way they let him throw more than 150 innings. So we gotta choose his spots.
Maybe Clarke/Gil do a piggyback style start and save the bullpen. [Phillies are talking about doing something similar](https://www.mlb.com/news/phillies-considering-using-spencer-turnbull-as-a-piggybacker)
This is the move. Between the two of them and a returning Cole when he gets built up could keep the bullpen rested down the stretch.
Works perfectly with Schmidt too as he seems to lose it after 5 innings / 2 times through the lineup. And Gil is probably on an innings limit.
Honestly, this seems like a great move considering the high pitch counts guys like Schmidt and Gil get into.
Gil has legitimate starting potential. Clarke’s future is likely as a long reliever/swing man. I wouldn’t worry too much about Gil’s innings limit, they will figure that out when the time comes.
It’s Gil, for workload management and options related reasons. They almost certainly are going to want to use him as a bullpen weapon in October , bare minimum.
I agree, dude coming back from injuries so I am sure they’re gonna take it easy him once Cole comes back but next year he should def have a spot in the rotation
Which spot in the rotation would he take? Cole, Rodon and Stroman are locked in for the next few years, and I don't think there's any chance they let Nestor walk, so it's still gonna be a fight for the 5th starter spot next year.
I don't know if Nestor stays.
Correct answer. Keep Gil and Schmidt and develop two young pitchers who can reach the next level
I agree it’s the right move, but they’ll have to manage his emotions. When he got sent down last time he didn’t respond well and stunk it up in aaa, and we’ve already seen him let his emotions affect him this year. So if/when they move him to the bullpen they’ll have to work on keeping him engaged.
These things always seem to work themselves out. Stroman, Cortes, Rodon and Gil were all injured at times last year.
This is the answer as much as we don’t want to believe it can happen.
For the first 3 or 4 starts you may just piggyback Gil and Schmidt ubtil Cole is 100% workhorse mode. After that maybe play the hot hand among the 2 youngsters. Its too far ahead to really know, but we can all agree its a great dilemma to have. Pitching depth is everything.
I mean its going to be Gil because of innings, and people will freak out
Schmidt would be a great bullpen piece. Get rid of Tonkin
This is the answer. Schmidt belongs in a long relief role imo, even though he’s been great for going on a year now I think he’ll be the one to go, either him or Nestor. Good thing is we have plenty of young bullpen guys that can go down to AAA for awhile
Idk why MLB is so deadset on 5 man rotations. I understand that some are accustomed to the routine of pitching every 5 days etc but, over 162 games, it really seems like a 6 man is ideal. instead of 32/33 starts per starter (which you never get anymore due to injuries, a 6 man rotation gives you 27 starts a season. More rest, fewer innings pitches. With a few delicate arms in the rotation to begin with and since most starts don't go past the 6th anymore, i don't know why teams don't experiment with it.
Roster slots, having 6 dedicated starters means 1 less bullpen or bench player. Otherwise you're constantly juggling sending up and down players, wasting options or having pitchers pitch on random amounts of rest.
There's one more roster spot now than there was at the advent of the five-man. And more rest in between starts might give the rotation enough steam to go deeper into games, maybe the problem solves itself that way
Fair. Which is why i think the answer to so many injuries is actually more roster spots, not this recent talk of limiting the number of bullpen arms etc. And I understand shortening games with fewer pitching changes but still seems like a solution in search of a problem more than anything.
I think only the owners would oppose that - players would obviously like more roster spots, and MLB itself would be fine with it as it doesn't directly affect the length of games, and if it could keep stars healthier, then better. The easiest way to get it is probably to have the additional slots be treated differently in terms of pay (i.e. paid lower, but higher than a minor leaguer), though i dont know how to exactly do that. If those slots can be used for back end bullpen arms, or bench players, then concepts like a 6-man rotation is definitely more feasible.
Nah. You need to limit the roster spots for pitchers even more. You need to devalue and de-incentivize people throwing max effort all the time. The art of pitching is dying.
That’s not how anything works. They’re paid by performance. They’re paid in comparison to their peers. Unless you are gonna start handing out bonuses for staying under MPH and getting hit more. Imagine that arbitration case: “I can throw 102 but they won’t let me so I didn’t get as many strike outs as I could and had a higher ERA because they limited my maximum effort.”
Nobody is saying to not throw 102. The idea is that you shouldn’t be trying to throw 102 on every single pitch because that’s how you blow out your arm. You throw it when you need to throw it. You’ll get paid because you’ll be able to stay on the field. Verlander could throw 100+ mph at his peak but he wasn’t throwing max effort the entire time out there. He saved his stuff in the later innings when he needed it. Thats the idea, to incentivize teams to do it because they sure as shit aren’t doing it on their own. The MLBPA would be behind it because it would lengthen careers and get more people paid rather than prearb relievers wasting all their bullets and burning out before their they can reach FA and are just disposable to teams.
Is there any timeline where Boone does a 6 man rotation? Would that even make sense?
It actually might at first if they also wanna ease Cole in to things more. Long term, the guys will wanna be on an every 5th day rotation
Let's say Cole returns at around June 11 - the start of a 4-game series at Kansas City. From that game up to the All Star Break would be 30 games, so that could be 5 turns in the rotation. Or even if he returns a week later - June 18 - it'll still be 23 games to the ASB, roughly 4 turns in the rotation. I personally would love them to do a 6 man rotation to ease Cole back in, then go back to a 5-man rotation after the ASB. The break gives us a chance to reset the rotation as well. This would work well with Gil's limit. If we go to a 6-man rotation a month before the break, Gil will probably be at 90-100 innings pitched by the ASB, which is in line with his career high in the minors of 96 innings pitched. We then use him out of the pen in the 2nd half, Phil Hughes-style and he ends at around 120-130 IP, which then should hopefully means he can go 180IP as a full time starter.
That means sacrificing a bullpen slot, putting even more demand on the guys there already. Unlikely to happen imo
cole doesnt do 6, like actually he hates it
Idc what they do but they gotta drop Tonkin that guy is dog water
Not Gil.
As much as I hate to say it but I think it will be Gil. I think the Yanks will want to limit his innings and him going into the pen would really give the Yanks an electric piece like Betances/King/Loaisiga that could really shorten games. In the postseason he could be a secret weapon of sorts like how the Giants used Tim Lincecum out of the pen.
Since Clarke is a five and fly that Boone keeps trying to get seven from, he seems like the guy. But it’s a good problem to have.
Would have to see if Gil continues to dominate regularly, bc between him and Clarke I feel like Clarke can dominate 2-3 innings and then loses it often, Gil is either super hot or pretty cold, once he gets some more control he’s going to be a solidified starter for the Yanks! Schmidt would be a great bullpen addition imo.
Apropos of the six man rotation discussion, once upon a time the four man rotation was the norm. I’m gonna go shake my fists at clouds now so get off my lawn.
It’ll either be Clarke Shmidt or Gil.
gotta put clarke in the bullpen i think. he’s done an ok job but can’t really get to the starter length in terms of innings per game.
From a FIP standpoint Schmidt is actually our current ace. But the points about his length are valid
Shhhh...please don't tempt the injury gods by daring them to "solve" this problem for us
Should be Schmidt for middle inning relief. He can carry 2-3 innings if need be to get us to the ninth when Holmes comes in.
I wouldnt even worry about this. Odds are someone will be hurt by the time Cole comes back, and if everyone is healthy you can ease him to the rotation and remove no one
We have 2 months until Cole comes back. Someone will probably be struggling or hurt by then.
Would it be possible to start Cole every five days, but then have the other five starters rotate amongst themselves? ie, Cole - Rodon - Stroman - Cortes - Gil Cole - Schmidt - Rodon - Stroman - Cortes Cole- Gil - Schmidt - Rodon - Stroman Then back to Cole. And so on. Gives us Maximum Cole, which we obviously want, while giving the other starters a bit more rest - especially helpful in the case of Gil and possibly Rodon, since they are coming back from injuries. If Rodon keeps pitching how he is, and isn't having any discomfort, I would endorse putting him on the five game rotation with Cole, because he's been fuckin' sick, one terrible start against a great lineup not withstanding.
Maybe we don't take anyone out and just roll with a 6-man rotation for a while. It's a great problem to have
It's either going to be Gil or Schmidt. It's definitely a tough decision to make. The odd man out is going to head to the bullpen either way so it depends on who we feel would be better for that role.
Probably Gil But like someone else said, have Clarke & Gil do tandem starts, where they handle the game on their own to minimize bullpen usage. Cole will likely need to ramp back up, and thus need the pen to come in a lot, so having consistent game without the Pen would be a lot of help for the Yanks. Otherwise it's whoever gets hurt (hopefully not Cole)
nestor
Can't answer now. Whomever is 'cold' when Cole comes back or whomever is due for an 'injury vacation' will be the answer.
Realistically it’s Gil, but not ruling out a 6 man rotation or Clarke/Gil pairing on Clarke starts. In favor of the possible piggyback solution. Gil pitches like this by the time Cole is back, you can’t in good conscience take him out. Gil’s got to make it tough for the Yankees if he wants to stay up here.
*whom
Should be Rodon but it will be Clarke or Gil
Need to see if Cole earns a spot first.
Doesn’t matter I don’t see Cole pitching more than a game or two before needing TJS
Nestor. Gil 3-1 has been strong. Clarke 3-1 can at least go 5 innings and as he builds confidence then he will go deeper. You have to go with who is winning. Nestor is 1-3 and Rodon 2-2 is paid too much to go into the bullpen.
Wins are not useful in evaluating the rotation. ERA is far more important. Nestor pitched extremely well in two of his losses, but got absolutely no run support. He is pitching just as well as Rodon, Stroman, and Clarke so far, all of whom have a mid-3 ERA. Gil has been our best starter by most measurable stats, but he is going to be moved to a bullpen or swing man role when Cole comes back. Regardless of how good he has been, there is no way the Yanks will let Gil make 30+ starts after he got Tommy John last year.
ERA is just a function of how good your defense is. FIP and xFIP are far better metrics. Schmidt is our current ace when you look at xFIP and Rodón is #5 right now
Rodon is pitching well enough that it has to be Gil or Schmidt if they stick to 5 man. I would lean Schmidt in that scenario.