Yankees: 3 free agent busts fans should be glad NYY didn’t sign

2. Mike Minor

We thought this was a good signing by the Kansas City Royals. In fact, we were jealous! There were so few attractive starters on the market this offseason that Mike Minor seemed like he could be a prime candidate to lengthen the Yankees rotation and give Gerrit Cole enough protection and support in the back end.

Again, perhaps things would be different if the left-hander wasn’t pitching for the lowly Royals, but he’s got a 5.25 ERA in 27 starts this season. That’s miles worse than anything the Yankees have dealt with this year.

And it’s quite frankly a bit of a shock because he was an All-Star in 2019 with the Texas Rangers after holding onto a 3.59 ERA across 32 starts. He owned an ERA in the high 3’s over his last 60 starts before the shortened 2020 season adversely affected everyone’s momentum/overall body of work with disastrous small sample sizes.

Though Minor’s FIP is almost a full run lower than his ERA, all of his advanced stats are bad. He’s in the bottom percentile among the league’s starters in maximum exit velocity, barrel percentage, expected slugging percentage, and fastball velocity.

Not what the Yankees needed. At all. Especially at $9 million per season.