TwitterSmart Move
15 Apr 2011
Just heard on WFAN that Hughes is headed to the DL and Lance Pendleton, a guy who couldn’t make the Astros this spring is coming up to the Yankees.
The Hughes part makes a whole lot of sense. Something isn’t right, anyone watching the games can see that. It could certainly be the jump from 105 innings in 2009 to 176 in 2010. (That’s regular season, add in the playoffs and the gap is even bigger) The Yankees say they are going to have him do a lot of long toss and strengthening exercises, but I hope they have him visit a MRI tube just to check structural things too. Either way, losing Hughes now is not a big hit considering how he has been pitching.
I will assume that this means Big Bad Bartolo is in the rotation. The thing that has really impressed me about Bartolo this year is 13 K’s in 11 IP. I still think Bartolo breaks down somewhere this season so it is best to get as many innings as you can out of him right now.
As for the callup of Pendleton, this one has me a bit confused. It’s not that Pendleton hasn’t pitched well in 2011, he has in a very small sample size. But this was a guy the Yankees lost in the Rule 5 draft last December and then he didn’t do enough to stick with a miserable Astros club. Adding Pendleton to the major league roster required a change to the 40-man. In this case, putting Feliciano on the 60-day DL. So, the Yankees could have added any pitcher in the organization and they chose a guy they didn’t think enough of to protect in the Rule 5 four months ago? What about Mark Prior? It seems odd to me and it is a big vote of non confidence in guys like Phelps, Garrison and Ortegano, who were already on the 40-man.
Apr 15, 2011 @ 17:09:31
Peter,
Not sure how the Yankees are justified in putting him on the DL if they keep saying publicly that they don’t think he’s hurt. Doesn’t there have to be at least a “reasonable” suspicion that there is a genuine injury before putting a player on the DL? Back in 2009 there were some gripes that the Yankees were abusing the DL when they put Wang on the DL without knowing what was the matter. This situation seems similar to me.
Apr 15, 2011 @ 17:46:10
Peter – my guess is that they see something in Pendleton that says
1) he’s not going to get any more benefit by staying in Scranton (unlike some of the other, younger guys already there)
2) he’s recovered all of his arm strength from TJ surgery and
3) he’s letting the ball go well enough to soak up some innings for us.
Or maybe this is a show us what you’ve got now – or we say “thanks and good luck” with a DFA tag.
The Astros *did* try to find a way to keep him so he’s obviously got some talent. Let’s hope they were right about him.
Apr 16, 2011 @ 11:05:25
Very nice debut from Mr. Pendleton – decent mechanics and control. Not exactly filthy stuff but enough variety to keep batters guessing.