And the fact Hughes fell apart since his great start only underlines my point. One of his very first, if not the first start of his career, he was no hitting Texas and pulled a hammy in the 6th so he was taken out. I was watching that game live, you probably read about it later that week in the Post.That same year several pitchers had the same injury and the team fired their trainer.

They messed with joba too. Is he a starter? No, he’s a reliever. Wait, maybe he’s a starter.

And now Girardi is messing with pinedas head by telling him he may not make the rotation.

Their history for the last ten years gas been dismal when it comes to developing STARTERS so you can’t talk about the killer B’s in the minors yet. I overlooked nova, sure, but I’ve proven that you are the one who doesn’t know much about recent Yankee history with their starters – again not relievers.

My entire original post was very measured. I said that yes, its only a few innings in march from pinedas, but it concerned scouts enough to bring it up publicly and combined with the recent history I have highlighted — specifically Martin and burnett saying there is a problem – I simply pointed out this trend as something to watch.

You should be thanking me for enhancing your Yankee viewing knowledge by bringing up a subject you obviously never applied enough critical thought to try and understand instead of claiming I don’t know anything about the Yankee staff.

I don’t give a shit if they lost 100 games a year for the past three, or even this year. But I do see it getting better. Or at least as good as it possibly could get given the deals he’s made and the team he inherited. In two consecutive years Jack has traded for the top hitting prospect in the game. He has also acquired and drafted a lot of elite pitching talent, so much so that he can deal young possible ace’s like Pineda for extra hitting without damaging his franchise in the slightest. Thats impressive considering what he inherited.

If the team is not on the upswing by the time Felix is in his contract year, I will be suprised. I do not know if it will be enough to win thier division, but given the fact that the Rangers and Angels will be three years older by then, that the A’s just started over and the Astros are years away from being competitive, I could see a second place finish by then, possibly higher depending on how harsh age is on the competition.

I know this: The M’s could have bought the top free agent on the market the past three years and they *still* would not have been a competitive team by now. If they had acquired Fielder this season it would have been a waste. The team was that crappy, and aside from a blip of competitiveness in 2009, they needed to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.

Its a good thing. I am enjoying seeing it, even if the local fans don’t understand. I like to see a master at his work and I look forward to the outcome, just like I enjoyed seeing the Rays rise from garbage to quality in just a couple seasons as the pieces came together a few years ago. This is a similiar situation, Jack is combining saavy trades with great draft picks and systemic improvements(focus on health and conditioning in the minors, raising the food budget, etc) that are not commonly focused on by other clubs.

Sure it could all fail to produce a winner. But that does not mean it was not worth trying or that it did not have merit. Or that any of these deals are ‘bad’.

I asked: “how are the Mariners doing building a competitive/future winner around King Felix before his current contract expires, 3 years and counting…”

I don’t know about you but wins would seem to be an important piece of building a “competitive/future winner around King Felix before his current contract expires, 3 years and counting…”.

If you will allow me and please don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say. But I’ve read where you’ve posted on more than 1 occasion that wins and ERA’s aren’t a good judge of a pitchers performance, and I’ll admit many agree with you. Now your saying or advocating that wins aren’t an important factor for a team in building a competitive/winning team in a given period of time to impress their star player. I’m really having a hard time discerning what someone should consider important as a way of judging a teams performance or likely success in the NEAR future.

BTW, here is their attendance records for those same years:
In 2009 attendance was: 2,196,461
In 2010 attendance was: 2,085,488
In 2011 attendance was: 1,896,321

Now you may consider that “doing good”, I on the other hand do NOT.

And the Yankees sure do have a history of messing up young arms (Hughes, Chamberlain, Proctor)

Trayvon Robinson was another great pickup I’m following, he was the Dodgers best hitting prospect and they got him for virtually nothing. Seems its easy to scam the McCourts…

The Yankees already have 5 other starters so it would not be the end of the world, but let’s hope for the best.

Perhaps the Yankees prospects are overvalued, or at least over-hyped, so they seem to fall farther when they follow the rather common and predictable path to non-superstardom. They may lack some experience in developing top-flight prospects, since they went so long without any. My point is only that they have succeeded in some cases and failed in others, just like most organizations.

(P.S., if Colon does not count, neither does AJ. Sure the Yankees tinkered with his delivery, but they did that because he wasn’t pitching well to begin with. The problem for AJ is that he has never had any idea where his curve is going and now his fastball is losing zip. What’s left?)

Let’s not forget Pineda is a very young man with an enormous talent which neither he or the Yankees have scratched the surface of yet.

My argument is that there us a trend of failed potential with Yankee starters

and they even.messed with joba as well. Is he a reliever, is he a starter? They changed their mind ten times with the guy. And that only adds to my point that there is a trend of young pitchers with extreme talent levels not living up to that potential when they come up through the Yankee system and I’m starting to wonder what that’s about because it looks like more of a trend/pattern now than a bunch if aberrations.

While his ERA jumped in the second half, most of his peripherals actually improved (whiff rate, ground ball %, etc). I don’t know if he has arm trouble or not, but I would not look at the second half of last year to say he definitely DOES have arm trouble.

Good hitters don’t want to sign with the Mariners, so it does make some sense to trade from a position of strength to get a elite hitting prospect who is MLB ready.

What Aaron (and the worried scouts) didn’t realize that, as this FanGraphs blog entry notes, he decided late during the second half of season start games with lower velocity and build up as the innings passed: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/michael-pinedas-reduced-velocity/

Should the Yankees be worried about Michael Pineda’s missing velocity?

No, and letting a smarter man than I tell you why:
Essentially, this development just isn’t new. Pineda spent a good part of the second half of 2011 experimenting with pitching at reduced velocities early in games, and then he cranked up the volume when he needed to as the game wore on. Now, I think an argument could be made that it’s a little disconcerting that Pineda feels it’s necessary to start games with diminished velocity, suggesting that perhaps he doesn’t feel he can throw in the mid-90s for 100 pitches per start over a full season. However, his performances from 2011 suggest that he’s choosing to throw at lower velocities early in starts, and you’d certainly rather have velocity loss be due to something that the pitcher can change when he wants to, rather than simply being unable to throw as hard as he used to.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/michael-pinedas-reduced-velocity/