Phil Hughes

We've been asked where we see Phil Hughes in the Yankees future rotation plans. Hughes has had an interesting career so far with the Yankees. Touted as the next Cy Young, he turned out to be mostly young, inexperienced, and injured. He's lost significant velocity on his fastball and has only really had one successful half-season (last year). Hughes has seemingly regressed, but it may be too early to count him out. He had a large increase in workload in 2010 and that may have contributed to his performance this past season. If he can get his arm strength back, he should be a legitimate rotation presence. If not, he should still be a strong bullpen candidate as his performance in the ALDS showed. Perhaps the biggest thing for Hughes is developing more of his secondary pitches, assuming he can redevelop his primary pitches. He should probably start there first as we do not need another Edwar Ramirez. Also, he should fire his personal pitching coach, Edwar Ramirez.