Fix the Yankee Bullpen Please
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by Ibearg
The Yankees finally came to their senses today and released Mike Myers. Myers numbers overall were not bad however, hired to be a lefty specialist, he had essentially become a righty specialist only able to get out right handed hitters. For some reason though, they decided their best option to replace him was Jim Brower. Brower who is 34 and pitching in the minors. Now Brower has had very good numbers in the minors, His ERA was 1.64 at triple A. However there's a reason you're 34 and in the minors. He had a couple decent years in the majors; between 2002 and 2004 he wasn't bad. In 2005 he was ok but then in 2006 he was awwwwful. The Orioles let him go; that's not a good sign. Maybe he's had injury issues i don't know, but I'm not elated to know he's going to be on the team.
To make matters worse the Yankees have potentially better options. Edwar Ramirez who pitched a grand total of 3 games with the Yankees in the 20 days he was with the team. He came up and contributed right away, then he had a bad outing in a tough situation versus Anaheim and doesn't pitch again for another 2 weeks. Shockingly that outing he pitched with 2 weeks rest he struggled, Rivera also struggles when he doesn't pitch for a long time. Obviously Ramirez is no Mo, but my point is Ramirez' last stint with the team was not representative of his talent. What is i would like to believe more representative are his stats at triple A. He has a minuscule 0.79 ERA in 21 games pitched with 59 strikeouts in 34 innings pitched. I'll repeat that 59 strikeouts in 34 innings, that is ridiculous. They need to Give him an actual chance, sooner rather than later.
The other option is Joba Chamberlain. They clearly plan on bringing him up eventually but apparently they don't think he's quite ready. He's a starter who they're trying out in the bullpen for the rest of the year and turns 22 in September. The early returns on that experiment have been nothing short of great. As a reliever he's pitched 4 innings of 1 hit 10 k ball. It's understandable if they don't want to rush him as he is young, and hasn't even pitched back to back games yet, but his time has to be coming soon. Farnsworthless continues to be awful and the Yankees cannot trust him with anything less than a 6 run lead.
If the Yankees want to continue winning games and don't want to burn out Vizcaino the way they burned out Proctor and Tanyon Sturtze, they're going to have to bring these guys up and give them a real chance.
