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Yankees Place Justin Wilson On 10-Day Injured List, Recall Deivi Garcia

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The Yankees placed Justin Wilson back onto the 10-day injured list with a right hamstring strain, per the team. Deivi Garcia was recalled to make a spot start for the Yankees.

There could be some long-term opportunity for Garcia to stick in the rotation, given the injury to Corey Kluber. The 21-year-old hasn’t been all that sharp through four starts in Triple-A, however, walking more than 17% of enemy combatants. He has one big league start so far this season, a four-inning outing against the Orioles late in April.

Wilson, meanwhile, was attempting to work through a hamstring issue. Through 15 appearances, however, he was clearly being affected. His 6.08 ERA/6.79 FIP through 13 1/3 innings are far higher than we’ve come to expect from the veteran southpaw. His 19.7 percent strikeout rate would be his lowest such mark for his career.

Another Yankee southpaw is on the comeback trail. Zack Britton is beginning a rehab assignment in Double-A, the team notes. Britton has yet to appear this season. Britton has been a huge piece of the Yankees’ late-game calculus for the past two and a half seasons.

Pitcher Notes: Dodgers, Gray, E-Rod, Yankees, Fiers

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The Dodgers are still deciding among fifth starter options, manager Dave Roberts informed Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times and other reporters Friday. Southpaw David Price is competing against righties Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin, who impressed as rookies during the Dodgers’ 2020 World Series-winning campaign. As a five-time All-Star and a former AL Cy Young winner, Price certainly carries the best track record of the three – not to mention the highest salary – but he didn’t pitch at all last season after opting out over COVID-19 concerns. Any of those three would join Trevor Bauer, Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw and Julio Urías in what will be a loaded season-opening starting five.

The latest on a few more pitchers around the game:

  • Reds righty Sonny Gray, who has been dealing with a back problem for a couple of weeks, came out of a sim game unscathed Friday, per Mark Sheldon of MLB.com. After throwing two innings and 30 pitches, Gray said, “I felt good. It was definitely a step in the right direction.” Gray will start the season on the injured list, but he doesn’t expect to miss much time. That’s uplifting news for a Reds starting staff that lost the aforementioned Bauer during the offseason.
  • Eduardo Rodríguez was recently set back by a dead arm but seemed to make some progress this morning. The Red Sox left-hander came out of a bullpen session feeling good about his chances of soon returning to game action, although a season-opening injured list stint remains a possibility (via Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com and Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe). Manager Alex Cora says the club will evaluate how Rodríguez feels tomorrow before making any decisions about his recovery timeline.
  • The Yankees have optioned right-hander Deivi García to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, according to a team announcement. The move suggests Domingo Germán will enter the season as the No. 5 in the Yankees’ rotation behind Gerrit Cole, Corey Kluber, Jameson Taillon and Jordan Montgomery, though odds are that García will make his share of starts this season. The 21-year-old, a former top 100 prospect, made his debut last season with a 4.98 ERA/4.21 SIERA with a 22.6 percent strikeout rate against a stingy 4.1 percent walk rate in 34 1/3 innings.
  • Athletics righty Mike Fiers will begin the season on the injured list, manager Bob Melvin announced to Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle and other reporters. Fiers has been dealing with left hip inflammation since midway through the month and hasn’t faced live hitters during his recovery. His injury could open the door for any of Daulton Jefferies, Cole Irvin or A.J. Puk to at least temporarily join the A’s rotation. Fiers tied for the A’s lead in starts (11) and finished second in innings (59) last season, but he struggled to a 4.58 ERA/5.41 SIERA and managed a personal-worst 14.4 percent K rate.

MLBTR Poll: Forecasting The Yankees Rotation

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Jameson Taillon is aiming for 120 to 150 innings in his comeback from Tommy John surgery, writes Ken Davidoff of the New York Post. Taillon has just 37 1/3 innings to his name over the past two seasons, and since this will be his second time coming back from TJ, there’s reason to temper expectations regarding his workload. Davidoff looks at PECOTA, Steamer, and ZiPS to get an idea for what the projection systems think Taillon can handle in 2021 – though the creators of the systems admit this is an area that requires guesswork. Still, it’s instructive to know that the three systems project 103 innings, 133 innings, and 106 1/3 innings – in line with Taillon’s thinking.

How those innings manifest might be the question for the Yankees. The mean of the three projections is 114-ish innings, which would be just under four innings per start over a full 30-game workload. That’s not likely to be the shape of Taillon’s 2021 production. We know that depth will be key in 2021 across the league, but thinking in this way about Taillon all but erases the possibility of a five-man rotation surviving the season.

While that’s an absolute best-case, rarely-achieved feat in the first place, it’s worth keeping in mind before getting frustrated when Deivi García, for example, doesn’t make an opening day roster, speculatively speaking. And while Clarke Schmidt’s injury doesn’t appear to be serious, it serves as a generous reminder that the injury bug can bite at any time.

As if Taillon didn’t cloud the Yankees’ projections enough on his own, the rest of the group doesn’t bring much certainty either – beyond Gerrit Cole, of course. The projection systems collectively tag presumptive No. 2 starter Corey Kluber with an expectation for about 137 innings in 2021, a forecast largely born from the fact that the soon-to-be 35-year-old managed just one inning in 2020 and 35 2/3 innings the year before. Still, Kluber was a workhorse before 2019, with five straight 200+ inning seasons with the Indians.

Jordan Montgomery slots into the No. 4 spot, and he logged just 51 2/3 innings over the past two seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery himself. Somewhat remarkably, the starter with the most innings after Cole the past two seasons is the guy who missed all of 2020 under the league’s domestic violence policy: Domingo Germán. Germán made 24 starts and amassed 143 innings with a 4.03 ERA/4.72 FIP, 38.1 percent groundball rate, 25.8 percent strikeout rate, and 6.6 percent walk rate in 2019. Those are above-average walk and strikeout numbers. Germán faces his own uphill climb, of course. Given comments made by his Yankee teammates this offseason, there’s more than a little doubt about how well he’ll be able to re-acclimate to the spotlight that comes with donning Yankee pinstripes.

García will obviously be a candidate to join the rotation, as could other 40-man roster arms like Schmidt, Michael King, Nick Nelson, Alexander Vizcaino, Luis Medina, and Luis Gil. Veterans Jhoulys Chacin and Asher Wojciechowski are also in camp as non-roster invitees. Jonathan Loaisiga, Albert Abreu and Luis Cessa are expected to pitch out the bullpen, but they’ve spent time starting games in the past. The Yankees also hope to receive a mid-season boost when Luis Severino returns from Tommy John. Severino threw just 12 innings the past two seasons, but he was an ace in the two years before that, averaging a 3.18 ERA/3.01 FIP, 5.5 fWAR in 192 innings per season in 2017 and 2018.

Of course, no matter the starting five, most teams are going to call upon more than just their opening day rotation to toe the rubber. The Yankees themselves used nine different starting pitchers in 2020 over just 60 games. They used 12 in 2019, 12 in 2018, and 11 in 2017. Those units finished eighth, fifth and fourth in the American League by measure of FIP, ninth, third and third by fWAR. Yankee starters ranked third in the AL by both FIP (4.19 FIP) and fWAR (5.3 fWAR) last season.

Volume isn’t everything, but for pitchers, inning totals do often point to success, or at the very least, health. Given the uncertainty of the Yankees new rotation, what are your expectations? Who of the starters after Cole stands the best chance of surviving the season?

(Poll link for app users)

(Poll link for app users)

Yankees Name Deivi Garcia Game Two Starter

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21-year-old Deivi Garcia will get the nod in game two of the ALCS on Tuesday night, per MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch and others (via Twitter). Amazingly, Garcia will be the youngest pitcher to start a playoff game in Yankees’ postseason history and the 5th-youngest in AL postseason history, per ESPN’s Marly Rivera and ESPN Stats Info (via Twitter).

It’s a bold stroke for manager Aaron Boone. Garcia made just 6 starts during the regular season in his first taste of big league action. Garcia held his own, going 3-2 with a 4.98 ERA/4.15 FIP and 8.7 K/9 to 1.6 BB/9. His command was particularly impressive, never having limited free passes at such a stringent rate at any point in his minor league career when it’s typical for young players to struggle more with their command upon promotion to the bigs. Garcia’s 5’9″ stature and electric stuff has drawn comparisons to Pedro Martinez early in his career, and while that’s quite a lofty comparison at this stage, he certainly looks more and more like a player with cult potential in New York.

Over the small sample of major league innings we’ve seen thus far, Garcia averages a 91.9 mph four-seamer that serves as the bedrock offering in his arsenal, throwing it about 60% of the time, often up. The Dominican righty utilizes a 80.6 mph change-up away against lefties while mixing in a breaking ball about 12.5% of the time. Against right-handed batters, he goes to a slider/curveball combo more frequently, giving equal love to the slider and curve for a total usage rate of about 33%. He was the Yankees #1 prospect coming into the season.

It will be interesting to see how Boone chooses to manage Garcia. He could easily plan to pull the rookie after one or (likely at-most) two turns through the Rays lineup, though he’ll be helped by the fact that Rays hitters have not seen him in-game before. Boone has a number of long relievers he can call on to piggyback with Garcia if he so chooses. Luis Cessa, Jonathan Loaisiga, Jordan Montgomery, Nick Nelson, and Michael King all have experience starting in the minor leagues. Montgomery might be the most-likely go-to, both because of his relatively strong season (3.87 FIP across 10 starts, 44 innings), but also because the southpaw might see platoon advantages, depending on how long Garcia goes and how aggressive the Rays are with their substitutions. The Rays tend to be fairly aggressive with pinch-hitters, even early in games, so platoon advantage alone likely won’t dictate much of the Yankees’ thinking early in the contest.

Masahiro Tanaka, then, will get the start in game three. The veteran weathered a tough outing in game two against Cleveland in the Wild Card round. Tanaka survived just four innings, walking three, yielding 5 hits, and 6 earned runs. The Yankees, of course, ultimately rallied to win the game and seal the series. Tanaka threw 77 pitches, and given the 6 full days he’ll have off between starts, he should be more than ready for Wednesday’s game three.

AL Notes: Yankees, Pillar, Choo

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Yankees left-hander J.A. Happ needs 10 starts and 62 innings this season in order for his $17MM option for 2021 to vest. Happ isn’t on pace to reach either milestone – he has three starts and 12 2/3 frames thus far – and he suggested the Yankees are trying to prevent him from reaching those marks. “It actually doesn’t take too much to figure out sort of what could be going on,” Happ said of his usage (via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). “I think I can help our team. I’d like to be out there every five days.” Even if Happ’s right, it’s hard to blame the Yankees for not wanting him around at such a lofty salary in 2021. After struggling in 2019, the first guaranteed campaign of a two-year, $34MM guarantee, the 36-year-old Happ has yielded nine earned runs on 10 hits (including four homers) with six strikeouts against 10 walks this season.

  • Outfielder Kevin Pillar hopes to remain with the Red Sox, but the soon-to-be free agent understands he’s a trade candidate as the Aug. 31 deadline approaches (via Alex Speier of the Boston Globe). Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom informed Pillar that he’ll listen to offers for the 31-year-old in the coming days. It would be a surprise if Pillar’s still a member of the Red Sox on Sept. 1, considering their status as non-contenders, Pillar’s waning team control, and the fact that he’d be more useful to a playoff-caliber club. Since signing a one-year, $4.25MM contract with the Red Sox last winter, Pillar has lined up at all three outfield positions and batted a playable .257/.316/.419 in 114 plate appearances.
  • As a pending free agent, Rangers designated hitter/outfielder Shin-Soo Choo realizes he could pop up in trade talks with Monday looming, as Jeff Wilson of the Forth Worth Star-Telegram writes. “Every year, it’s been, ‘Trade Choo, trade Choo,’ but this year I have a very strong feeling,” Choo said. From the Rangers’ standpoint, though, finding a taker for Choo would likely be difficult. The 38-year-old, normally a quality offensive player, has slumped to a .216/.306/.365 line with three home runs in 85 plate appearances this season. That’s unappealing production at any price, let alone the prorated $21MM Choo is earning. Regardless, as someone who has procured 10-and-5 rights, Choo has the ability to veto any trade.
  • More on the pitching-needy Yankees, who seem likely to promote right-handed prospects Clarke Schmidt and Deivi Garcia over the weekend for their major league debuts, Ken Davidoff of the New York Post suggests. Either Schmidt or Garcia could be trade bait for the club before Aug. 31, observes Davidoff; if not, they may be able to help the Yankees’ staff. The 24-year-old Schmidt and Garcia, 21, are regarded as a pair of the Yankees’ top farmhands, with MLB.com ranking the former second in their system and placing the latter at No. 3.

Mike King Makes Yankees’ Opening Day Roster; Deivi Garcia, Clarke Schmidt Assigned To Scranton

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Right-hander Mike King has made the Yankees’ Opening Day roster, manager Aaron Boone told reporters this afternoon (Twitter link via the New York Times’ James Wagner). Top pitching prospects Deivi Garcia and Clarke Schmidt, meanwhile, will open the season on the alternate roster in Scranton.

A stress reaction in King’s elbow limited him to just 48 innings in 2019, but he impressed the organization enough to make a brief MLB debut in September and to crack the Opening Day roster in ’20. The 25-year-old King, acquired in the trade that sent Caleb Smith and Garrett Cooper to the Marlins, posted a sub-2.00 ERA in 161 1/3 innings in his last full season back in 2018. He logged a 4.18 ERA with a 28-to-6 K/BB ratio in 23 2/3 frames in a very hitter-friendly Triple-A setting last year.

King isn’t as highly regarded a prospect as either Garcia or Schmidt, but he’s further along in his development and considered to be much more polished. Garcia did pitch 40 innings in Triple-A last year, but he’s also four years younger than King. He could very well still make his MLB debut at some point in 2020. Schmidt, too, has a chance at cracking the roster at some point, although the 24-year-old has only pitched 19 innings above the Class-A Advanced level. Both Schmidt and Garcia were ranked among the game’s 100 best prospects according to each of Baseball America, MLB.com and The Athletic prior to the season.

With Masahiro Tanaka working his way back from a concussion and Luis Severino out for the year due to Tommy John surgery, King could get a chance to start a game or two early in the season. However, Tanaka also tossed a 20-pitch bullpen session this afternoon (Twitter link via MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch), and he could be back in the fold for the Yankees at month’s end.

Yankees Option 4 Players To Minors

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The Yankees pared down their roster Thursday, optioning three pitchers – Deivi Garcia, Mike King and Ben Heller – as well as infielder Thairo Estrada to the minors. The club sent Garcia to Double-A Trenton and the rest to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Garcia and King may be the most intriguing names in this quartet. It wasn’t long ago that both pitchers were competing for season-opening roles in the Yankees’ banged up rotation. But if the coronavirus does delay Opening Day until June or later, injured left-hander James Paxton figures to begin the year in the Yankees’ starting staff. That would give them a complete five-man rotation with Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka, J.A. Happ and Jordan Montgomery complementing Gerrit Cole.

While Garcia and King aren’t ticketed for season-opening roles in New York, the pair could find themselves in the majors soon enough. The two undoubtedly count among the Yankees’ best farmhands, with Baseball America ranking the 20-year-old Garcia as their No. 3 prospect and placing King, 24, at No. 13.

Estrada, also 24, made his MLB debut in 2019 and batted .250/.294/.438 with three home runs in 69 plate appearances. He played both middle infield positions and both corner outfield spots during that brief stint.

Heller, whom the Yankees acquired from the Indians in the teams’ 2016 trade centering on Andrew Miller, has totaled just 25 1/3 major league innings thus far. He underwent Tommy John surgery in April 2018, thereby sidelining the 28-year-old for all of that season and for the majority of last year.

AL East Notes: Red Sox, Devers, Blue Jays, Biggio, Yankees, Garcia

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The Red Sox have not broached the subject of a contract extension with Rafael Devers, though the player says he’s open to it, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. Of course, that’s a boilerplate response from Devers, and one of the reasons agents are so important for players. Devers, represented by Nelson Montes de Oca of Rep 1 Baseball, can let a shoulder shrug do his talking while rightfully laying contract responsibilities at the feet of his agent. He will be arbitration-eligible for the first time after this upcoming season, so he can expect to field extension questions on a regular basis, though neither party has cause to be in any particular rush.After playing a starring role in the Red Sox 2018 World Series win, Devers didn’t disappoint with a .311/.361/.555 line last season with 32 home runs and 115 RBIs. He also notched a league-leading 54 doubles. Devers isn’t set to hit free agency until after the 2023 season. Let’s see what else is going on in the AL East…

  • Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoya  says Cavan Biggio is the Blue Jays second baseman. Still, given how spring training takes shape, Biggio will be keeping his outfielder glove within reach. The particularly contingency to track, per The Athletic’s Jayson Stark (via Twitter), is Joe Panik. Outside of those two, it’s not a deep field of second base contenders. Santiago Espinal, 25, hit .317/.360/.433 in his first taste of Triple-A in 2019, certainly showing enough to get a look this spring. Brandon Drury and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. also have experience at the keystone. Gurriel is ticketed as the everyday starter in left field, which is a position of equal or greater need for the Blue Jays unless something clicks for a youngster like Billy McKinney or Forrest Wall. Travis Shaw, theoretically, could also see time at second base, but he’s more likely to get his at-bats at first, third, or the designated hitter spot. Ruben Tejada, 30, and Kevin Smith, 23, are also both in camp as non-roster invitees. 
  • Yankees top pitching prospect Deivi Garcia is pushing to fill the injury void in manager Aaron Boone’s rotation, and good as he’s looked thus far, Garcia is unlikely to win a rotation job out of spring camp, per Newday’s David Lennon. The undersized right-hander has done nothing but impress over the last calendar year, and he continues to do so in spring training, keeping hitters off-balance with a power heater. Garcia, 20, won’t be rushed to the majors, despite the injuries. Still, given his progress last year, it wouldn’t be entirely shocking to see him in the majors sometime around his 21st birthday in May. That’s still too aggressive to be an expectant timetable – but given the uncertainty in the Yanks’ rotation and the level of competition in the division, an early debut for Garcia certainly can’t be ruled out. 

Latest On Yankees’ Rotation

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The Yankees’ rotation looked set when the month of February started, but the back surgery left-hander James Paxton recently underwent threw a wrench in their plans. They’re now lacking an obvious answer after Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ. The team will give plenty of hurlers chances to emerge as its No. 5 during spring training, though, as Bryan Hoch of MLB.com relays.

General manager Brian Cashman on Wednesday named five pitchers – Luis Cessa, Deivi Garcia, Jonathan Loaisiga, Michael King and Jordan Montgomery – as candidates to take the last spot in New York’s rotation. The leader may be the 27-year-old Montgomery, who had an impressive rookie campaign in 2017 but hasn’t been much of a factor since then because of injury troubles. Montgomery underwent Tommy John surgery in June 2018 after throwing a mere 27 1/3 innings that year, though he did make a late-season return to a major league mound in 2019. Manager Aaron Boone said Wednesday that Montgomery’s now “in a good place” with respect to his health.

As for Montgomery’s competition, Cessa and Loaisiga have each garnered a decent amount of experience at the game’s highest level. Cessa’s heater checks in around 95 mph, but it hasn’t led to great results in the majors. He’s the owner of a 4.50 ERA/4.98 FIP with 7.37 K/9 and 2.91 BB/9 in 232 career innings. Most of his work (67 of 86 appearances) has come as a reliever. Cessa is out of minor league options, so he could end up in another organization if he doesn’t make the Yankees this spring.

Loaisiga can throw even harder than Cessa (96-97 mph), and he’s a former top-100 prospect, but his MLB production hasn’t been special, either. While Loaisiga recorded a tremendous strikeout rate of 11.18 per nine in his first 56 1/3 innings as a Yankee from 2018-19, he walked almost five per nine and only registered a 4.79 ERA/4.33 FIP. Moreover, the right-hander dealt with shoulder problems last season.

Neither Garcia nor King has appeared in the majors yet, but there’s plenty of promise in the two cases. FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen ranked the 20-year-old Garcia as the game’s 42nd-best prospect Wednesday, calling the 5-foot-10, 163-pounder  “a diminutive firecracker righty with a beautiful curveball.” However, because of his size, there are questions about Garcia’s durability. He also didn’t put up great numbers last year as an extremely young Triple-A pitcher, as he managed a subpar 5.40 ERA/5.77 FIP with 10.13 K/9 and 4.5 BB/9 over 40 innings at the level.

King, 24, racked up a combined 62 2/3 innings in Triple-A from 2018-19, pitching to a sterling 2.30 ERA with 8.5 K/9 and 1.7 BB/9 in that span. He even made a one-appearance MLB debut last season, and currently ranks as the Yankees’ 19th-best prospect at MLB.com.

Considering how volatile the back end of most teams’ rotations are, it’s entirely possible (maybe even likely) that more than one of the above hurlers will start games for the Yankees as they await Paxton’s return. The World Series hopefuls figure to get Paxton back early in the summer, so those who wind up filling his spot could be on borrowed time in that role.

Yankees Release Jacoby Ellsbury, Designate Greg Bird

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The Yankees have released outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury and designated first baseman Greg Bird for assignment as part of a series of roster moves. The club has also designated left-hander Nestor Cortes Jr. and added seven players – outfielder Estevan Florial and right-handers Deivi Garcia, Luis Gil, Brooks Kriske, Luis Medina, Nick Nelson and Miguel Yajure – to its 40-man roster. Ken Davidoff and George A. King III of the New York Post first reported the Yankees were considering releasing Ellsbury.

This brings to an end a hugely disappointing New York tenure for Ellsbury, a former star with archrival Boston who parlayed his success with the Red Sox into a seven-year, $153MM deal with the Yankees after 2013. Ellsbury was merely a decent to good contributor for the Yankees from 2014-17, and a series of injuries prevented him from taking the field at all over the previous two seasons.

The Yankees currently have a need in center field with Aaron Hicks on the mend from Tommy John surgery and Brett Gardner a free agent, so the fact that they’ve moved on from Ellsbury and eaten the remaining $26MM-plus on his contract speaks to how far his stock has fallen. Now, if the 36-year-old is going to continue his career, he’ll likely have to settle for a minor league pact with another organization.

Injuries have also been ruinous for the 27-year-old Bird, whom the Yankees once regarded as their first baseman of the future. Bird was tremendous during a 178-plate appearance debut in 2015, when the left-hander’s swing looked tailor-made for Yankee Stadium, but that’s the only regular-season excellence he has shown to this point. Bird missed all of 2016 after undergoing shoulder surgery and then hit a meager .194/.287/.388 in 522 trips to the plate from 2017-19. Thanks in part to foot problems, he totaled just 41 PA at the MLB level this season. At this point, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see another team trade for or claim Bird, who still has three minor league options left.

Cortes, 24, is also in the DFA pile with Bird. The southpaw, a two-time member of the Yankees organization and also a former Oriole, saw extensive MLB action with New York in 2019. While Cortes limped to a 5.67 ERA/5.57 FIP in that 66 2/3-inning span, he did amass 9.32 strikeouts per nine against 3.78 walks. Cortes also had a solid year at the Triple-A level, where he posted a 3.86 ERA/3.40 FIP with 9.53 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 over 39 2/3 frames. He has a pair of minor league options remaining.

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