Yankees’ Editorial: Nathan Eovaldi Is Growing

The New York Yankees made a move this off-season to bring in a player with serious potential to be in the top of their rotation. Nathan Eovaldi logged 199.2 innings with the Miami Marlins in 2014 and at 25-years old his upside is huge. A pitcher this young with the ability to pitch 200 innings and be some what successful is something to get behind, and the Yankees were willing to gamble on it.

Eovaldi pitched in Monday’s game and showed what he has been working on. His problem last season which resulted in him leading the National League in hits given up was that he relied too much on his heavy 95+MPH fastball. He would overuse it and fail to use it properly. He would rely on it and try to throw it by the batters without locating it- a problem I have said I am afraid Luis Severino might experience- and in doing so he wouldn’t use it to set up his off-speed pitches.

The misuse resulted in a 4.37 ERA and a shaken faith in his off-speed. Eovaldi considered abandoning certain off-speed pitches because he could not get it going last season. However, in this Spring he has worked on a splitter while continuing to develop his slider and change-up. In Monday’s game he racked up five strikeouts in three innings, three of which came on off-speed pitches. This is a strong start for someone who only had a 6.4 K/9 in 2014. If he continues to head in the right direction with his pitches then the Yankees gamble will pay off.

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Chad Jennings wrote in his article about the reactions from Yankees members. He quoted Girardi,

“(Getting strikeouts) always helps. Weak contact is not the worst thing either. It’s just hard contact You want to stay away from. Sometimes when you try to pitch to swing and miss, you throw 100 pitches in five innings, and we don’t want that. You want a pitch that has the ability for hitters to swing and miss, but I don’t want our pitchers to think that we’re not trying to pitch to contact. We want quick outs.”

Jennings also wrote about McCann also chiming in:

“When you can pitch at the top of the zone effectively, it’s going to keep the hitter in attack mode. He’s going to have to attack, and once you get him on attack, then you can drop the slider in the dirt and they’re committing to swing. Changing eye levels is huge, and execution (is important). It’s how many times can you do it over and over?”

Hopefully, Eovaldi will turn into what everyone is expecting. He has the intangibles to be successful and with the right guidance he can put it all together.

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