It was a tale of two pitchers at the Stadium yesterday.
Javier Vazquez continued his poor start, delivering a mediocre performance in which he barely reached 90 mph with his fastball.
Meanwhile Joel Pineiro looked dominating throwing no harder (and probably less), throwing no higher a percentage of his pitches for strikes, but by keeping his ball down (Vazquez’s pitches were up) throwing the “heavy ball” and getting mondo ground outs.
Pineiro, like Lackey last week, made the Mets in particular look bad–as the Mets continue in their early season death spiral the pitchers they passed on look good against tough lineups in the AL. But according to Joel Sherman in the New York Post the Yanks were also looking at Pineiro in the off season:
Yes, the Mets are most often associated with Pineiro since they actually bid on the righty, but the Yanks were intrigued by the new, sinkerball version of Pineiro. They did fret, though, if he was a creation of Cardinals pitching guru Dave Duncan and whether he had enough stuff to navigate the AL East.
Now I’m not saying I would rather the Yanks have signed Pineiro (though the Mets darn well should have), but I am a little concerned that Vazquez–who was consistently ahead of Angels hitters yesterday–couldn’t put Angels batters away and that the speed differential between his fastball and change up/breaking pitches is not what is was last year.
It’s early. Many pitchers don’t throw with peak velocity early in the season. I’m not worried about Vazquez’s stuff yet. But I am concerned about Vazquez’s head. After one bad start and one mediocre start at home Vazquez is already hearing it from the crowd. According to Sherman some in the Yankee front office were concerned about Vazquez’s head from the start:
Influential executives felt you should never reunite with a player who already had failed in The Bronx. Slowly, though, the Yankees convinced themselves that the price in both dollars and trade return were right. They satisfied themselves that Vazquez’s nightmare second half/postseason in 2004 was about the righty silently enduring a bad shoulder. He was older and wiser now, coming off of a phenomenal 2009 for the Braves.
A lot of fans felt that way too. Not me. I always thought Vazquez had terrific stuff going back to his rookie year in Montreal. He’s obviously pitched well in the NL and even in the AL (his 2007 season with the White Sox was excellent). He had a great year last year. And, less face it, he cost the Yankees nothing. (I know Melky was a spark-plug of a player, but c’mon.)
At Bronx Baseball Daily, Rob Abruzzese says we need to temper our expectations:
I think the problem here is that everyone expects a CC Sabathia-type performance every night from every starter. Well that’s not going to happen. Javier Vazquez is this team’s no. 4 starter, he’s not going to give you front end numbers all the time and you shouldn’t expect it either.
I think Abruzzese has a point. Vazquez came up in 1998 with great expectations–a highly touted prospect with a live arm, good breaking ball, good change up. The expectation was that Vazquez would be the next Pedro Martinez (who had come up six years earlier with Montreal). But Vazquez’s career has never lived up to that potential. Five teams now have taken a flyer on Vazquez and his potential but at 33 Vazquez is what his is–a mercurial talent who will eat innings, strike out 200 batters, give up homers, win about as many games as he loses, and pitch to an ERA in the mid
4.00s. Every couple of years he’ll give you an excellent season, winning 15 or 16 games and pitching to a low WHIP. But it’s time for all of baseball to temper its expectations for Vazquez. And for all you prospect-obsessed fans take Vazquez’s career as an object lesson–every highly touted rookie isn’t the next Pedro Martinez now matter how good his stuff.
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