Yankees Made the Wrong Call Demoting Luis Severino

For the second time this season, the New York Yankees have demoted starting pitcher Luis Severino, this time to work on his change-up in the minors.

The return of Luis Severino to the Yankees rotation lasted exactly one start, as the team announced they had optioned the pitcher back to Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre on Wednesday.

Severino gave up five runs in just 4.1 innings of work in Tuesday’s 5-3 loss to the Red Sox. He was once again far too hittable the second time through the lineup, possibly because he is working primarily with just two pitches. He struck out three and didn’t allow a walk.

Before Wednesday night’s game against the Boston, Yankees manager Joe Girardi told reporters that the team wanted him to work on improving his change-up in a lower pressure environment.

"“The feeling is, with the increased velocity, he kind of lost the feel for his changeup,” Girardi said. “I talked to him about it, ‘You need to force yourself to throw it.’ The hard part about all of this is when, you’re competing to get back up here and you’re in situations, you’re not going to say, ‘I’m going with my third-best pitch, because if I don’t pitch well down there, they’re not calling me up.’ It becomes a tough situation. I told him today, you need to force yourself to say, ‘I’m throwing 20 changeups today; I’m throwing 10 to right handers and 10 to left handers. I don’t care about the results. I told him, I don’t. I just want to see it get better, because if he can put it all together, we really have something."

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When the news broke, Luis Severino told Chad Jennings of the Journal News that he had simply lost confidence in the pitch, which is why he wasn’t throwing it. He threw only one change during his entire start Tuesday, after throwing the pitch 14.1% of the time last season.

While Girardi’s rationale makes sense, Luis Severino has proven everything he needs to in the minor leagues. The Yankees need to face the fact that they are no longer in the playoff race and give their young players the opportunity to fail without worrying about losing their job.

If the Yankees are trying to improve Luis Severino’s confidence, demoting him after one bad start is not the way to do it. This is a rebuilding club that will be playing a lot of young players. Young players very often struggle at first. Severino needs to be allowed to make adjustments and learn as he goes if he is ever going to find big league success.

Chad Green seems likely to swap places with Luis Severino once again. Green started on Tuesday for Triple-A Scranton, so he would be lined up perfectly to take Severino’s spot in the Yankees rotation. Green was demoted on August 4th after a rough start of his own. 

Honestly, both guys should be on the big league roster at this point. They are two of the most promising young pitchers the Yankees have. New York needs to see what they can do with consistent playing time rather than keep shuttling them back and forth to the minors.

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For the moment, 31-year-old righthanded reliever Blake Parker, whom the Yankees claimed off waivers from the Seattle Mariners Tuesday, will take Severino’s place on the team’s pitching staff.