Pineda signs with Twins
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The most famously overhyped, yet most underwhelming trade in recent Yankees history came to an official close Wednesday when Michael Pineda accepted a two-year, $10 million contract with the Twins.
Pineda, whose Yankees career ended (for now) with Tommy John surgery on his right elbow last July 18, will get paid $2 million in 2018, with the idea being that he’ll primary rehabilitate, and $8 million in 2019. Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey told the MLB Network that Pineda could help Minnesota, which dropped the 2017 American League wild-card game to the Yankees, in the 2018 stretch drive if his recovery goes smoothly.
Little went smoothly for Pineda during his six-year journey with the Yankees, after he and Vicente Campos came over from the Mariners in return for highly touted slugger Jesus Montero and Hector Noesi in January 2012. Pineda, who was outstanding in his rookie season for Seattle, went down with a right shoulder injury in spring training of 2012 and wound up undergoing surgery for a torn labrum. He didn’t make his Yankees debut until 2014.
He enjoyed pockets of success, yet proved more erratic than the last two seasons of “Entourage.” In all, Pineda posted a 4.05 ERA in 117 starts as a Yankee, putting up a tremendous ratio of 687 strikeouts to 157 walks in 680 innings.
He ultimately gave the Yankees the win in this deal, however, as Montero completely fizzled out with the Mariners and earned more notoriety for being part of the Biogenesis scandal than for anything he accomplished on the field.