tonytalkssports My Take on Sports, particularly the Yankees, Maple Leafs and Browns

Yankees Make Moves!!! & NFL Picks

Since July I have been complaining that the New York Yankees needed to upgrade their starting pitching. I have blasted General Manager Brian Cashman continuously. But last night, the Yankee General Manager pulled off a trade and then signed a veteran free agent pitcher that dramatically upgraded the rotation by acquiring Michael Pineda for Jesus Montero and signing Hiroki Kuroda. The Yankees also got a hard-throwing 19 year old pitcher, Jose Campos for Hector Noesi adding to their bevy of young pitching prospects.

The trade sets the first four spots in the rotation as follows: CC Sabathia, Ivan Nova, Michael Pineda and Hiroki Kuroda. The fifth spot in the rotation would be filled by either AJ Burnett, Phil Hughes or Freddy Garcia. The speculation will begin as to who would fill that spot. What could figure into this decision is who will be the Yankee DH. So there are two questions: who is the 5th starter and who is the DH?

Before we get to what I think the answer is let's look at this trade closely. Acquiring Campos for Noesi is obviously not the major issue. Noesi was being a possible rotation candidate but with the acquisition of Kuroda it would appear that if Noesi stayed with the Yankees he would be in the bullpen as an insurance policy if one of the starters faltered or got hurt. Pineda for Montero. Now here is where the meat is. We must realize that this part of the trade involved two kids who have tremendous potential and have showed us some of that potential. However, both are not flawless.

Montero has been touted by the Yankees for years. The question has never been about his offensive ability, it has been about whether or not he could be a decent defensive catcher. It is obvious now that the Yankees felt that he would not be. Moreover, the Yankees are deep with catching prospects with Austin Romine and Gary Sanchez. Based on that assessment, the Yankees felt that Montero would have to be a fairly often DH. With AROD having four years remaining on his contract and having injury problems the last two years, the Yankees could not tie up the DH role with Montero and they believed that he could not be a big league catcher.

The Mariners have a number of pitching prospects so they could part with Pineda. Their problem has been scoring runs and Montero can help in the DH role. Pineda had a great 1st half of the season last year which earned him a place on the AL All-Star team. However, the second half of the season was not as good, in fact the youngster struggled big time. But the thing to remember is that Pineda is a hard throwing right hander who has a very good fast ball and slider. If Larry Rothschild can get this kid to upgrade his change-up this kid who could be a number 1A for the Yankee rotation.

In my mind, Cashman did what he needed to do to upgrade the starting rotation. Good pitching beats good hitting. With Albert Pujols strengthening the Angel lineup, the Rangers looking to add Prince Fielder to an already dangerous lineup and the Red Sox being the Red Sox, the Yankees rotation now does not only have to rely on Sabathia to stop losing streaks and more importantly be very formidable in a short post season series.

Now getting back to those two questions, let's address who will be the 5th starter. The Yanks could very well have an open competiton in camp. Phil Hughes is at a disadvantage because it would be easy for the Yankees to move him to the bullpen. It was Hughes who solidified a leaky bullpen in 2009 which propelled the Yanks to their last world championship. That would leave Garcia and Burnett. Burnett has the big contract and I would think that the Yanks would not put him in the bullpen leaving Garcia as the odd man out. However, the Yankees could also decide to move one of these guys to add another bat.

That leads to the second question concerning the DH. I'm sure if the Yankees could dump Burnett's salary they would however I don't know many teams that would want to take that on. Hughes would probably bring the most back in a trade and that could be a possibility. The other option would be to bring in a free agent bat like Vladimir Guerrero. But what could very well happen is that you will see the DH spot filled by ARod, Derek Jeter and Eduardo Nunez. The Yankees have indicated that they want Nunez to get more at bats. This actually may make some sense in that the Yankees will get to see Nunez perform for a full season, basically being in the lineup every day. If he does as well as the Yankees think he will it should be a no brainer. If he doesn't, then the Yankees know that they have to go to Plan B for the eventual replacement for Derek Jeter.

While I hated to see Montero go, this was a good move by the Yankees. Pineda has the potential be a staff ace. He will be 23 years old and is under contract for 5 years. Their rotation is solid for this year and they have a great base for the next several years in Pineda, Sabathia and Nova. In addition, you have Hughes and the young kids on the farm. Give credit where credit is due: Cashman in one night has propelled the Yankees back into a legitimate shot to win another world championship.
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I had a great wild card weekend going 3-0 and bringing my season record up to 33-20 and for the last 13 weeks a record of 29-12. Two picks for this weekend and both games are on Sunday:

Baltimore (-7 1/2) over Houston
NY Giants (+7 1/2) over Green Bay