WHY BRANDON MCCARTHY MATTERS: BYB FANS SPEAK OUT

I love sharing all types of opinions on players and their ability and how the fans really feel!  After all, Bleeding Yankee Blue was build by fans, for fans and we take all sides here.  Mike O'Hara and I don't always agree on stuff, but we're tight and we share different opinion on BYB all the time.  Look at Mike and Jeana Bellezza and the Mark Teixeira saga. Suzie Pinstripe loves and believes in David Phelps as a Yankee starter, and for a while there, I loved Nuno. At the end of the day though BYB has a variety of opinions and it don't get better than what you read here.

Anyway, there have been some interesting thoughts on the new acquisition of Brandon McCarthy.  Some love him, some don't.  Me? I think he's got talent, I think we shouldn't have traded Vidal Nuno away for him and I think his wife is pretty cute, but I was shocked to see such wide spread opinions about McCarthy's abilities and the Yankees signing of him.

(In Photo: Amanda McCarthy)
When Steve Skinner wrote  HEY BRIAN, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU'RE FOOLING? the other day, McCarthy was a hot topic.  I wanted to share some really good comments for all of you to check out. Enjoy this:

Dan wrote:

"I really don't understand how people are upset about this deal. Yes, McCarthy will not save the season, but Cashman gave up literally nothing for him and he is a marginal upgrade - every win counts. Sure, Nuno is 4 years younger than McCarthy (he'll turn 27 in a few weeks and McCarthy just turned 31 yesterday), but he has significantly worse stuff, has absolutely no track record in the majors, and hasn't really pitched better recently - if you've actually watched his last few starts, it's pretty obvious that he's been very lucky - a lot of hard hit balls right at defenders. Meanwhile, McCarthy it seems (if you look at all of the advanced metrics) has been pretty unlucky, and will hopefully get hot. 

Being younger doesn't necessarily mean being better - I'm younger than Brian Roberts (who, by the way, has an OPS over .700 which isn't bad for a 2nd baseman and has been crushing the ball recently), but I would probably strike out 500+  times a season in the majors. 

Also, perhaps most importantly, McCarthy pitches more innings per start that Nuno, which makes the trade worthwhile even if he pitches the same as he has all year, unless you want Adam Warren and Dellin Betances to miss the 2015 season because their arms fall off from being extremely overworked. 

(In Photo: Addison Russell)
I'm sure Cashman is still looking for other trades; yesterday he said that they were going really hard for both of the Cubs' pitchers, but simply could not compete with the A's headliner of Russell, which is totally true. Unfortunately, the Yankees can't trade prospects/players they don't have. And even if all Cashman does is make a bunch of smaller trades to make the Yankees be more competitive in the terrible AL East and hope that the team gets hot if they reach the playoffs, that's fine too - it means he's not sacrificing the future by trading away the few useful prospects the team actually does have."

Travis wrote:

"Have to disagree with this article. "Intelligent" Yankee fans know the team has nothing in their system they could package for Price.  Even Samardzija was sort of a long-shot. Hammel was more likely, and Cliff Lee if we wanted to eat the salary.

McCarthy's Sabremetric stats indicate he's been throwing better than his ERA says (3.79 FIP), plus there's always the age-old "change of scenery" benefit. He's moving to a contending team. Cashman isn't trying to fool anyone - he just has no one to deal.

(And let's be honest; Even if he made a deal for Price, Samardzija, or anyone else, fans would just overreact about Cashman "trading the future" for another "aging star" like always.)"

To Dan and to Travis... thank you for your comments!

God, I love my Bleeding Yankee Blue family!

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