Yankees Fans: Are These Pitchers Best Suited for the Rotation or the Pen?

Chad Green

The 25-year-old righty was the lesser-known of the two arms the Yankees got from the Detroit Tigers in the Justin Wilson trade, but he was the first of the pair to get a crack at the big league rotation after a completely dominant performance with Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre in which he pitched to a 1.52 ERA in 95.2 IP (16 GS) while striking out 27.4% of the batters he faced (9.5 K/9) and walking just 5.8% (2.0 BB/9).

Green made a few spot starts for New York throughout the summer, bouncing between the rotation and long relief with mixed results. He settled in as a starter following the departure of Ivan Nova following the August 1st trade deadline and pitched pretty well before a UCL sprain ended his season at the beginning of September.

An elbow injury for a young pitcher is always a bad sign, but Green will apparently avoid TJ surgery and be ready to go in spring training. These things do tend to flare up again though, so it’s worth keeping an eye on how Green looks next March.

All told, Green had an ugly 5.94 ERA over eight big league starts while also pitching 9.1 scoreless innings of relief. His big fastball is his only plus offering and he has a pretty significant platoon split (lefty batters hit .287/.351/.663 off of him), so he probably profiles better as a reliever than a starter despite his strong numbers in the upper-minors.

That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing Green begin next year as rotation depth in Triple-A. They are certainly going to need an extra starting pitcher at some point and Green seems like the worst starting of this group of five. The Yanks probably have better relief options as well, so Green may be most valuable as a backup plan in the minors.