The Killer B’s are dead.
Not long ago, the Yankees were hoping Manuel Banuelos, Dellin Betances and Andrew Brackman would help uplift their rotation with low-cost, high-ceiling arms. Brackman washed out. Banuelos needed Tommy John surgery and is out for this season. And now the Yankees have decided to move Betances to the bullpen at Triple-A, The Post has learned.
The decision was to some degree about baseball technicalities, according to general manager Brian Cashman. Betances, 25, runs out of options after this year, meaning he either makes the 25-man roster in 2014 or he would have to be subjected to waivers.
“This is the problem with the development clock,” Cashman said. “If he had two or three more options, we would keep working with him as a starter. But with him being out of options after this year, it is becoming more obvious that if he is going to help us, it is going to be out of the pen.”
Betances is 2-2 with a 6.00 ERA in six starts for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre this season. In his last start Sunday, Betances threw five no-hit innings. But he walked four and has 16 walks in 24 innings. Betances is 6-foot-8, and the New York-born right-hander has had difficulty maintaining a stable delivery.
So the Yankees’ hope now, expressed by Cashman, is Betances can take what the organization still considers high-end stuff and harness it in short relief.
“As a starter, he pitches at 92-96 [mph]” Cashman said. “Maybe in the pen, he can pitch at 96 and top out at 100. Who knows? He is healthy. He still has a high ceiling.”
But the Yankees wanted more. They gave him $1 million as an eighth-round draft pick in 2006 to keep him from going to Vanderbilt. But he only would show consistency in splotches. Now the Yankees will try to get something out of the investment, maybe even this season if Betances thrives out of the bullpen.
“Every reliever is a failed starter,” Cashman said. “Mariano Rivera is a failed starter. He is going to the Hall of Fame, but he is a failed starter. We will see what we have here.”