YANKS BRING PIRATE ABOARD

Bombers add righty Taillon to rotation

Just after it became official, Gerrit Cole started spreading the news on Instagram. The Yankees’ ace was being reunited with his former spring-training roommate. The Bombers had completed a trade for right-hander Jameson Taillon for four prospects. It’s a chance for Cole and Taillon to reach to heights they had hoped as the cornerstones of Pirates back in their younger days. It’s also a way for the Yankees to add a supporting cast of starters behind Cole without spending too much to put them over the luxury-tax threshold. It is seen within baseball as a low-risk, high-reward deal for the Yankees and a very-good deal for the Pirates. The Yankees are sending Miguel Yajure, a 22-year old right-hander who made his big-league debut, along with right-hander Roansy Contreras, shortstop Maikol Escotto and outfielder Canaan Smith to Pittsburgh for Taillon, who is working his way back from his second Tommy John surgery. “Yajure is a good pitcher, great upside,” one National League scout said. “I like Smith, too. He hits for power, I think he’s going to be a good corner outfielder. The Pirates did really well on this deal.” And the Yankees potentially got some much-needed depth for the rotation. At the beginning of the offseason, Cole was to be backed up by a whole bunch of uncertainty. Luis Severino is rehabbing from Tommy John and not expected back until June or July. Domingo German has not pitched in a major-league game since Sept. 2019, serving a suspension under the MLB/ MLBPA joint domestic violence policy, and is coming off a winter league stretch in which he posted a 7.19 ERA. Jordan Montgomery, in his first year back from Tommy John surgery, had an up-and-down 2020. Deivi Garcia, Clarke Schmidt and Mike King showed talent and their professional inexperience in 2020. Last week, the Yankees added twotime Cy Young winner Corey Kluber, who has pitched one inning since May 2019 because of injuries. That cost the Yankees $11 million for the chance the 35-year old rediscovers his form. Taillon is making a very manageable $2.5 million in 2021 and still has two years of team control. In four bigleague seasons, Taillon has made just 82 starts, because his promising talent has always been interrupted by injuries. In 2014, while in the minors, he had his first Tommy John surgery. He battled testicular cancer in 2017 and had his second Tommy John surgery in August of 2019. While there are many examples of pitchers successfully returning after one Tommy John surgery, few that have come back strong from a second. The most recent would Nate Eovaldi. A groundball pitcher (46.2%) with a low hard-hit rate of 31.9%, Taillon keeps the ball in the ballpark. He has posted a 3.67 career ERA with a 3.55 FIP. He has a career 21.8 strikeout and 6.0 walk rate per nine innings pitched. In his last healthy season, 2018, Taillon posted a 3.20 ERA with a career-high 179 strikeouts in 191 innings. Yajure was a pitcher many teams were interested in after he made his major-league debut in the 2020 pandemic-shorted MLB season. He allowed one earned run over seven inning pitched in three relief appearances. The Yankees, with little wiggle room to stay under the $210 million luxury tax, had to deal from their 40-man pitching depth to bulk up their starting depth. After a stop-and-start spring training, shut down for nearly four months by the COVID-19 outbreaks across the country, and the very limited workloads for pitchers in the abbreviated season, teams are concerned about pitchers arms heading into 2021. “There are some guys talking about six-man rotations,” one NL pitching coach said. “I think you are going to need a lot of pitching depth to get through this year. You have to be worried about injuries. You need at least seven pitchers to get through a season these days anyway, I think teams are going to be stocking up.” The trade creates roster room the Yankees need to make official their deals for DJ LeMahieu and Kulber. They still need to create one more spot.