Yankees: Adam Ottavino’s impact will be huge in 2019

The Yankees bullpen dominated in Thursday’s 7-2 win pitching 3.1 scoreless innings to close out the game. The most notable performance came from Adam Ottavino who made his debut in the pinstripes and pitched 1.1 scoreless innings without allowing a baserunner, striking out three.

If Ottavino’s debut was any indication he is going to be a huge force out of the Yankees bullpen this season. He was as good as advertised in Thursday’s opener showcasing his nasty stuff to completely overpower the Oriole hitters.

Ottavino was the first man called upon by Aaron Boone to relieve Masahiro Tanaka and clearly is going to be used in high leverage roles throughout the season. With Dellin Betances on the injured list to begin the season, Ottavino will play an even more important role early on as one of the main setup men in front of Aroldis Chapman.

On Thursday he was followed by Zack Britton and Chapman out of the pen and that figures to be the winning formula Boone will employ to finish off games to start the season. I think he’s also going to be used in a similar fashion as David Robertson was as the first guy from the pen to get out of big jams. He might not always come in during the seventh or eighth inning because he will be brought in at the most crucial part of the game when the Yankees need to stop the bleeding.

When the Yankees signed Ottavino to a three year-$27M deal the first thing I’m sure a lot Yankee fans did was watch his highlights from his time with the Rockies. I know I did. He has one of the better highlight packages you’ll see of any pitcher in baseball because of the incredible movement he gets on all of his pitches. That movement was on full display in his debut and throughout spring training.

The crazy thing about Ottavino is he was able to maintain all that movement pitching in Colorado where the air is thinner. Because of that pitchers struggle to maximize the break on their pitches, especially sliders and curveballs because they flatten out.

He didn’t have a problem with that in Colorado and definitely shouldn’t have one pitching in New York. In fact, there’s a good chance that moving to the east coast will help him get even more of that frisbee like tilt on his slider and more tail on his two-seam fastball.

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Ottavino is coming off a career-year with the Rockies and even at 33 years old it seems like he’s still entering his prime. That bodes well for the Yankees because they have him under contract for another two years after this one.

Since there’s a chance Betances could leave the team this offseason in free agency and Chapman could as well (if he invokes his opt-out clause) the Yankee pen will still be in good shape and one of the best in the game with Ottavino, Britton and Chad Green in the fold.

As for the rest of this season, we can expect big things out of Ottavino. As long as he stays healthy he’ll eclipse 100 strikeouts again and will be used as often as anyone in the Yankee bullpen and probably lead their relievers in innings pitched. He’s going to put up monster numbers and come playoff time he’ll play an even larger role to help the Yankees win #28.