WHY THE YANKEES SIGNED SILVA

Jon Heyman tweeted that the Yankees signed former Cub Carlos Silva. I quickly looked at the date and made sure it wasn't April 1st. Weird. Kind of came out of nowhere, that's what I was thinking. Yes, there was rumor about Silva and the Yankees about 1 month ago, but that went away. So if pitching depth is what the Yankees are looking for, I guess they're getting it.

My only guess of why the Yankees signed Silva was that they are worried about Phil Hughes and /or they aren't settled on Freddy Garcia. Plus, reports out of Scranton is that Millwood's minor league debut didn't look too promising. Millwood was limited to 48 pitches, went two-plus innings, but allowed 3 runs on 2 hits while walking 2 and striking out 2. Read it HERE.

Look, in my opinion, we clearly have Freddy Garcia in the 5th slot and Kevin Millwood is just getting ready in the minors for if the Yankees need him, whether for Hughes, Nova, Garcia, whatever. We even have Colon, who's our long man, but can easily start if needed. Do we really need another starter?

The other side of the coin is, stockpiling experienced starting pitching and just being safe than sorry. It just all seems like a bit of a motley crew at this point between Garcia, Colon, Millwood and now Silva. I can honestly say I never expected to see all of those guys in the same room, but the Yankees are managing to help that thought along.

The Silva signing is a minor league deal. Bronx Baseball Daily says of the deal:

"Silva... is still owed his full $11.5 million, but that will be paid by the Cubs with the Yankees picking up just the pro-rated major league minimum which is slightly over $400,000. Silva also has a mutual option included in his deal for next season that obviously will not be exercised. It does include a buyout which the Cubs are responsible for."

So, I guess Silva and Millwood can just hang out together in the minors, compete, and even feed off each other until a call up is necessary. So while Garcia is the 5th starter, I think it will depend on what the Yanks want to do that day. They'll be studying matchups, and cracking open the Girardi binder just to try and figure out for example, if someone like Silva is a smarter matchup against the Rangers, than Garcia. Or, maybe they want to use Millwood one day instead of Garcia because they like the numbers. Who knows. It's all just very interesting.

Stockpiling starters. The new strategy of the New York Yankees... and Girardi and Rothschild just can't get away from the Cub connection, can they? Hmm.

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