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Yankees News: Who Are The Teams First Three Starters of Spring Training?

By Michael Cambria

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The New York Yankees will open their long anticipated spring training season with a game against the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday afternoon in Clearwater Florida. Manager Joe Girardi will hand the ball off to right-hander Adam Warren to start the teams first game of the spring. The newly acquired Nathan Eovaldi and Esmil Rogers will start the ensuing games against the Phillies and Pirates in that order.

Why aren’t the Yankees handing the ball off to Masahiro Tanaka or C.C. Sabathia? Well, neither of the two are really competing for spots in the rotation, and the Yankees are probably more worried about their recovery routines rather than pitching in games this early in Spring Training. Warren, Eovaldi and Rogers on the other hand, are hoping to pitch well enough to land in the back end of the Yankees six-man rotation to start the 2015 season come April.

“It’s pretty normal that sometimes the guys who’ve been the bullpen guys vying for a spot are a little bit ahead,” Girardi told reporters on Sunday.

Warren, 27, has spent all of his first three seasons with the Yankees, tossing 158 career innings with a 3.47 ERA and a 1.310 WHIP. In 2014 Warren finished 3-6 in 69 appearances with a pretty impressive 8.7 SO/9 ratio.

Eovaldi, 25,  was acquired in the five player deal that sent Martin Prado and David Phelps to Miami. In my opinion Eovaldi will be tabbed as the fourth starter in the Yankees rotation to open up the season barring any injuries. His 95.7 mph fastball according to fangraphs was the fourth best amongst NL pitchers, but his 223 surrendered hits was the most in entire league in 2014.

Esmil Rogers, who was claimed off the waiver wire by the Yankees last July, finished up his season in the Bronx pitching to a 2-0 record despite recording a rather high 4.68 ERA. Interestingly enough, only half of Rogers contract is guaranteed, which makes it easy for the Yankees to let him go if he doesn’t perform well enough in spring training.

Each guy is expected to only throw an inning or two, but boy am I excited. I can’t wait to see how these three perform in their first appearance of the spring, and more importantly, this puts us one step closer to the start of the regular season!

First pitch of Tuesday’s game, in Clearwater at the Phillies’ complex is set for 1:05 p.m.

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