The Rodon we saw pitch against the Pirates and the Red Sox in September is the guy we need to show up consistently next season. The question is, can he do it? We have a long time to wait before we can find out. I know a lot of people who already think he can't handle pitching in New York. That's something we've heard many times as Yankee fans.
The Yankees are always plagued with injuries, and unless Hal Steinbrenner makes a serious change, they will always be plagued with them. The track record speaks for itself. Sure, part of Rodon's issue was that he was injured....just like every other Yankee this season and several seasons prior. But don't worry.... Matt Blake has all the answers, folks.
By all the answers, I mean no answers of course. He gave his two cents HERE about Rodon and the approach the Yankees need to take with him this winter. There's nothing that instills confidence when you read "So I think it is something we say, ‘All right, that’s gotta be a focus for us of making sure we’re physically prepared to go this spring training to hit the ground running so we don’t have any hiccups. That would be the main priority this offseason. Then obviously we’ll have some conversations along the way — where he’s at, where he’s training and just be following up with him, just like any other guy.' "
Blake also went on to say that it was "hard to say for sure" if Rodon showed up to Spring Training in good enough shape. I think we can all say that no one should have any confidence that the Yankees would be able to identify what an in-shape baseball player is at this point. Our strength and conditioning team, as well as our medical staff are a joke. They can't help the Yankees get to peak performance mode and stay there.... why would they be able to identify this?
Beside the physical concerns Blake also rambled about having upper and lower body balance when he pitches. "I think the consistency of the delivery is a piece of it," Blake said. "Being able to command the fastball up and to the arm side, where he’s had a lot of success, up and into righties. Being able to land some of the breaking balls in certain areas. But there’s certain things in the lower half that we want to see on a consistent basis that we’ll kind of dive into." More blah blah blah and excuses.
I really want to see Rodon come in lean and mean and ready to pitch in the Spring. He's got a lot of work to do for sure, but at this point I don't think this Yankees staff staying engaged over the winter is what moves the needle. So Matt Blake's vague and boring opinion is meaningless.
No more pointless soundbites or excuses. Rodon and everyone on this team needs to come to Spring ready to play. Everyone has a long road back to redemption.
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