Hal: I’m happy with Yankees’ starting arms

Despite a frustrating postseason elimination against the Astros — the second in three years — Hal Steinbrenner reiterated his confidence in the Yankees, especially their oft-scrutinized starting pitching.

“If it was Opening Day 2020 tomorrow, I'd be a lot more comfortable than I was a year ago at this time,” the Yankees owner said to Meredith Marakovits in the first part of an exclusive interview with YES Network.

Steinbrenner cited the success of

James Paxton and Masahiro

Tanaka, Luis Severino and Jordan Montgomery's return from injury and the hopeful emergence of Jonathan Loaisiga and Deivi Garcia. Hal also mentioned JA Happ, who allowed 34 home runs and pitched to an ERA seven percent worse than the league average, as a part of their 2020 rotation plans. “It's a good rotation,” said Steinbrenner in defense of the starters, though he admitted starting pitching would remain a priority in free agency. “You can't have enough.”

However, echoing Brian Cashman at the team's end-ofseason postmortem, the Yankees owner doesn't believe the rotation was the culprit for their six-game loss to the Astros, instead laying blame on the Bronx Bombers' anemic offense.

“Timely hitting, getting key hits, I think three or four more key hits, two or three maybe, might have made the difference.” The Yankees hit .214 with a .673 OPS against Houston, after OPS-ing .829 against the league during the regular season.

On the whole, Hal told Marakovits that while he's disappointed in the end result, he doesn't believe the Yankees 103-win team was a failure.

“In the end, in October, we failed. That does not mean the season of course, was a failure,” said Steinbrenner, citing the success despite the regular and uncanny IL stints across the roster. “To win the division — first time in seven years, win 103 games. There was a lot of bright spots on the season as a whole.”

Hal declined to speak about free-agent targets, including Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg specifically, but told YES that “all options are open.”

KEEP ’EM ALL

The Yankees will keep their remaining arbitration-eligible players, an unsurprising decision given the key roles most of them contributed to the 2019 team.

Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Paxton and Gio Urshela highlight the Yankees who will receive pay bumps through the arbitration process over the upcoming year. Relievers Chad Green and Luis Cessa will also stay with the team.

Two players that were not major factors in the 2019 team, Jordan Montgomery and Jonathan Holder, will remain in the Bronx for now.

As a rookie, Montgomery was an important piece of the 2017 team. He won nine games and pitched to a 3.88 ERA his rookie season. He is coming back from Tommy John surgery, and is currently slotted into the 2020 rotation.

Holder struggled to keep in the ball in the park, allowing eight home runs in 41.1 innings, after giving up just four dingers in 66 frames the previous year, and was demoted to Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre to work through his struggles. He is projected to make a modest $800,000 his first time through arbitration.

AFTERMAN HONOR

Baseball America will award Yankees assistant general manager Jean Afterman the Trailblazer of the Year Award, a first for the organization.

Afterman has served the Yankees as assistant GM since 2001. No woman has ever worked as general manager or president of baseball operations.