Five Ways the Yankees Can Shore Up the 2017 Pitching Staff

The New York Yankees have made it clear they plan to improve their thin pitching staff over the winter. Here are different five ways they could approach that goal.

Many would argue that the New York Yankees biggest problem in 2016 was their anemic offense. Carlos Beltran and Gary Sanchez were their only productive power hitters this season, and neither one played a full season in the Bronx. Still, there are reasons to expect the offense to be better next year.

With Sanchez, Aaron Judge, Clint Frazier, Greg Bird, and Tyler Austin, the Yankees have a number of exciting young talents who are likely to take big steps forward. For better or worse, the team seems like to bet on their internal options on the position player side. The pitching staff, however, is a different story.

During his annual end-of-season press conference, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman admitted that something will need to be done to address the team’s staff for next year if they want to compete, telling reporters:

"“The pitching is an area of need: the starting pitching, middle relief, setup. Those are certainly going to be almost half of your roster and you have to fortify, fortify, fortify. We’ll try to do that again. … We’ll see where some of that depth comes from, but yeah, we are going to certainly have to look for opportunities that present themselves on the pitching market."

Obviously he wouldn’t reveal any specifics about the team’s plans going into the offseason, but here are five approaches the front office could take to shore up next year’s pitching staff.