TAMPA — Let’s go back exactly a year so we can appreciate just what an inexact science it is to predict baseball, in general, and what a rotation will do, in particular.
We just knew in the aftermath of Cliff Lee’s spurning and Andy Pettitte’s retirement that the Yankees were in real trouble. We wondered if Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia were closer to the Yankees’ rotation or their AARP cards. We viewed the battle among Colon, Garcia, Sergio Mitre and Ivan Nova for the final two spots in the rotation as, at best, a time filler until gifts arrived before the July 31 deadline.
Over in Red Sox camp, the big question was what to do with too much starting pitching. Boston was working to turn six — Josh Beckett, Clay Buchholz, John Lackey, Jon Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Tim Wakefield — into five.
In Cardinals camp, ace Adam Wainwright already was lost for the season and so St. Louis’ chance of being champions had fallen from slim to “are we really still talking about the Cardinals winning it all?”
We know how this turned out. Colon, Garcia and Nova became assets in a 97-win Yankees season. The Red Sox did not even make the playoffs, collapsing in September largely because their rotation turned thin and rancid. And the Wainwright-free Cardinals won the World Series.
So wise people would learn to avoid making definitive statements based on spring-training information. But, of course, wisdom is a casualty each spring, a victim of baseball amnesia. We all should know better, but come February there we are deciphering the meaning of bullpen sessions, which is akin to gauging the worth of an NBA player based on what he looks like in a lay-up line.
Unfortunately we are detectives with meager clues. But they are the only clues we have. This is how there ends up being stories about Roy Halladay’s unimpressive fastball velocity, followed by Halladay’s irritated dismissals.
And that is Roy Halladay, who is on a Hall-of-Fame trajectory. So you know there will be even more red flags raised with Michael Pineda when the high-octane fastball from last year remained as present with the Yankees this spring as Johnny Damon. Against the Nationals yesterday, in his third spring start, Pineda again pitched in the low 90s and did not show anywhere near the upper-90s force that made him worth trading Jesus Montero in the Yankees’ opinion.
The Yankees have offered all matter of explanation or excuse depending on your viewpoint, such as he is concentrating on his changeup and — as opposed to last year in Seattle — Pineda did not have to blow anyone away to make a team. Nevertheless, the Yankees have at least hinted at the margins that optioning Pineda to the minors could be in play to solve their own six-starters-for-five-spots conundrum, assuming Freddy Garcia’s bruised hand heals quickly.
There is no doubt Pineda showed up out of shape and has appeared overwhelmed at times by the attention now that he is employed by the Yankees, not the Mariners.
But he has lost 10 pounds, and Yankees officials insist he is a hard worker. His new teammates say he is mixing well. As for power and how it may equate to Pineda’s fastball, the Yankees have a rowing apparatus that tests strength, and Pineda’s pulls not only are more powerful than the other starters, they are the best on the team.
These are also clues. And we will keep digging for more and trying to understand them, because Pineda’s value in determining what kind of rotation the Yankees will have is so overt. The theory was that Pineda and Hiroki Kuroda would bolster the group. But the theory last year was that Garcia and Colon were a desperate grasp to turn back the clock.
“Would I rather have Pineda for the next five years than Garcia and Colon, yeah,” one AL executive said. “But remember that when it comes to 2012, how much better will Pineda and Kuroda be than Garcia and Colon were in 2011, if at all?”
It is a mystery we try to solve with March clues for the best and worst reasons — they are only new clues available.