While Wandy Peralta was a bundle of energy during his time with the Yankees, the man who's replacing him seems to be cool as a cucumber.
Caleb Ferguson, dealt by the Dodgers to the Yanks last week to -- for all intents and purposes -- complete the bullpen before pitchers and catchers report to spring training, sent an Instagram farewell post to Los Angeles, the only franchise he has ever known, this week.
Ferguson passed up a chance to pitch at West Virginia to join the Dodgers in 2014 as a 38th-round selection. He'll go down as one of the best of all time from that deep in the MLB Draft, especially considering the proceedings have since been capped at 20 rounds.
The Dodgers nurtured him. They saw a special something in Ferguson's left arm and navigated him from Ogden to Great Lakes to Rancho Cucamonga. They eventually granted him a cornerstone spot in their bullpen, where he peaked last season by whiffing 70 men in 60.1 innings, spending valuable time as an opener too. Now, he'll spend his walk year with the Yankees, where he'll have a chance to win a ring, just as he would've in Los Angeles, before cashing in.
And what did the Dodgers get out of their hard work? "Thank you @dodgers organization for an unforgettable 5 years, stoked to be in NY and put on the Pinstripes" in an Instagram caption. Feels a little light, doesn't it? Either that, or Ferguson really is more "stoked" to be in New York than he is wistful for LA.
New Yankees left-hander Caleb Ferguson is a man of few words in Dodgers farewell
It seems like the Yankees got themselves a silent assassin here.
Ferguson, as well as his former Dodgers bullpen mate Victor González, both have a significant chance to help revamp the middle innings in the Bronx this season. As one National League scout told Dan Martin of the New York Post, “ had a lot of success with these kinds of pitchers before, so I’d expect González and Ferguson to keep doing what they did in Los Angeles and maybe be a little better."
That's enough to get us stoked, too.