Two For the Price of One

Wonderful Yankee news coming from Peter Abraham at the LoHud Yankees Blog, both Carl Pavano and Mike Mussina were placed on the disabled list before today’s game. The Yanks brought up Chris Britton from AAA, and Abraham speculates that AA lefty Chase Wright may get a start for the Yanks in the near future.

Abraham sums up the Pavano situation, or at least my feelings toward it, perfectly:

“As for Pavano, anything is possible. We could see him in two weeks or next season. Given his history, it won’t be two weeks.”

With three-fifths of their starting lineup currently on the DL, how long can the Yanks hold off Phil Hughes? If Abraham is right, they’re reaching into AA for a spot start, apparently from a guy whose future they don’t care about. At least, that’s the assumption I’m making, because the only reason not to bring Hughes up and see what he can do is his development, or confidence.

I say bring him up. Get him a couple of starts on the big stage. The Yanks are depleted right now, so one of two things would happen. Either he comes up and we find out he’s ready, right now. He slides into the front of the rotation and stabilizes it. Or, he comes up, gets knocked around, and they send him back down. Not ready yet. Either way, this rotation is in trouble right now, bringing up a kid from AA who really has no hope of sticking isn’t going to help. He’s basically a warm body, and that’s not what the Yanks need right now.

The bullpen has been overworked to the extreme by a rotation with Pavano and Mussina in it, now we’re talking about putting a kid from AA in there. This is going to cost the Yanks come September and October. Bring Hughes up, he’s got a much better chance of actually contributing in the rotation than anyone at AA does.