Yankees: Predicting the postseason starting rotation and bullpen for the ALDS

The Yankees still have another day to announce their 25-man roster for the ALDS against the Twins but before they do it’s time to make some predictions.

One of the biggest questions surrounding the Yankees postseason roster is how many pitchers they will decide to carry. The team hasn’t tipped their hand either way because they’re still waiting to see if certain players will be ready and healthy to go for Friday.

Edwin Encarnacion and CC Sabathia are two of those players according to manager Aaron Boone. The only reason Encarnacion’s status is still somewhat up in the air is due to his oblique injury but the good news is he’s been hitting in sim games at Yankee Stadium over the past two days and he says he’s feeling great and swinging at 100%. That’s a great sign for the Yanks because if he’s healthy we can pencil him in as the starting DH throughout the postseason.

As for CC, the Yankees are apparently still deciding if he’ll be on the ALDS roster because there are concerns with him and his chronic right knee issue potentially impacting his ability to handle a bullpen role. CC looked great in his first relief appearance since the 2011 ALDS last week in Tampa when he threw a scoreless 1-2-3 inning but he hasn’t pitched since. When you pitch out of the pen you obviously don’t get as many days to rest your body as you do as a starter so the Yankees need to make sure CC can hold up if they’re going to include him on the roster.

Given the fact that this will be CC’s last postseason ever, I have a hard time imagining him being kept off the roster because he’s going to do everything he can to make sure he’s available to pitch whenever they need him. With that being said I’m going to include him on the postseason pitching staff.