Yankees: Chance Adams promotion isn’t what it looks like

The Yankees announced on Friday that one of their top pitching prospects was promoted to Triple-A. That doesn’t mean, though, that he’s on his way to the Bronx.

The Yankees promotion of Chance Adams from Double-A Trenton to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre should not come as a surprise to anyone. Brian Cashman has said all along that promotions will come to those who earn it, and Adams has certainly done that.

But, don’t hold your breath waiting for the young right-hander’s next promotion to the Bronx. Because that’s not part of Cashman’s Master Plan for the Yankees in 2017.

Chance Adams clearly outlived the competition at the Double-A level, and for that reason alone, he moved up. In six games for the Trenton Thunder, he went 4-0 with a 1.03 ERA, over 35 innings allowing 23 hits, fanned 32 and walked 15.

Adams may or may not be ready to pitch at the major league level, and in any other year, he might already be wearing the Pinstripes and the plan be damned. But this isn’t any other year and to understand that you have to block out the fact that the Yankees are challenging for a Division title in a year they aren’t supposed to be doing that.

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And you have to go all the back to February and March when Cashman took pains to explain over and over again that even the Yankees prized prospect, Gleyber Torres would begin the season and probably complete the season in the minor leagues.

In another column recently, I explained Cashman’s reasoning while coming to the conclusion that he’s right in being conservative rather than jumping the gun with his Baby Bombers, Adams included.

Having said that, baseball doesn’t always cooperate with anyone’s plans. Just ask the Mets who have lost Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz, and now Jeurys Familia to injuries for a major portion of the season, at the same time that Matt Harvey has suffered a mental meltdown. The Yankees, like all teams, are not immune from the same thing happening to them.

And if it’s not injuries, then it could be another couple of starts from CC Sabathia that proves what many are saying and his excellent career is over, forcing the Yankees to move his $25 million into the bullpen or oblivion.

Unlike the Mets and Sandy Alderson, though, Cashman is not operating with anyone holding a gun to his head. He has options, and those options even include trading a couple of prospects for a starting pitcher with proven major league production and experience.

A Gerrit Cole is reachable if the Yankees choose to go that route, without completely upsetting the plan for Adams, Justus Sheffield, Miguel Andujar, Jorge Mateo, Clint Frazier, Gleyber Torres, and the whole bunch of them.

And that’s the plan that says let ’em play a full year in the minors, and then we’ll see what we’ve got, and everything goes on from there.

Yankees: If CC’s really burned out, then what does the team do?

The Yankees have watched as CC Sabathia has had two consecutive starts in which he has labored without his best stuff. If this continues, what's next?

All we can safely say on this date is that if Cashman needs pitching help and he chooses the internal route to solve the problem, Chance Adams is the first in-line to make the jump to the Bronx. Otherwise, let’s wait and see how he conquers the challenge at the Triple-A level.