Andy Pettitte hasn't decided whether to pitch again for the New York Yankees or go back home to Texas for good, but if he does come back it will only be for one more year. We'll take it.
The Yankees really need Pettitte to decide that he still has one season left in him. Even if they sign Cliff Lee, they need Pettitte in the rotation to provide another dependable arm if he can remain healthy. That would ease the pain of being forced to keep AJ Burnett and his unmovable contract in the rotation. It would also give the Yankees one more year to look deep into their farm system and see if they have a young pitcher that looks nearly big-league ready, to scour the trade market for a starter without having the pressure of a must-make deal or to wait until next offseason and hope for a better crop of starters entering free agency.
But if the veteran lefty calls it quits, the Yankees will be stuck handing a starting job to a kid such as Ivan Nova, who showed glimpses of promise, but is untested. They could try to sign someone on the free-agent market, but starting pitching, unlike reliever help, looks pretty thin this year and any starter who signs after Lee might be command a king's ransom from baseball teams looking for starting pitching. Not that the Yankees can't pay a fortune, but we have seen that they sometimes make bad choices on pitchers when they feel they desperately need to go get someone.
Give us one more year, Andy. We'll be grateful for that. So will the Yankees.
The Yankees really need Pettitte to decide that he still has one season left in him. Even if they sign Cliff Lee, they need Pettitte in the rotation to provide another dependable arm if he can remain healthy. That would ease the pain of being forced to keep AJ Burnett and his unmovable contract in the rotation. It would also give the Yankees one more year to look deep into their farm system and see if they have a young pitcher that looks nearly big-league ready, to scour the trade market for a starter without having the pressure of a must-make deal or to wait until next offseason and hope for a better crop of starters entering free agency.
But if the veteran lefty calls it quits, the Yankees will be stuck handing a starting job to a kid such as Ivan Nova, who showed glimpses of promise, but is untested. They could try to sign someone on the free-agent market, but starting pitching, unlike reliever help, looks pretty thin this year and any starter who signs after Lee might be command a king's ransom from baseball teams looking for starting pitching. Not that the Yankees can't pay a fortune, but we have seen that they sometimes make bad choices on pitchers when they feel they desperately need to go get someone.
Give us one more year, Andy. We'll be grateful for that. So will the Yankees.
No comments:
Post a Comment