Pitching, Pitching Everywhere!

One exciting aspect of spring training is that the numbers are super misleading.  Every other prospect looks like an impact player, and the pitchers look like 20 game winners.  This year there are a number of pitchers on the team who may actually be real contributors.  Assuming that Sabathia, Kuroda and Tanaka are locks for the rotation, there are two open spots that are up for grabs.  The players competing are David Phelps, Michael Pineda, Ivan Nova, Adam Warren, and Vidal Nuno with Nova and Pineda projecting as the favorites.  That being said, Phelps, Nuno and Warren have all pitched really well this spring.  Nova has been erratic at best, though no one would question his stuff, and it would be wrong to ignore the year he had last year because of a shoddy spring.  It will be interesting to see how this rotation pans out.  The biggest thing the Yankees need out of the 5-spot is an inning eater.  Let's just be honest, Sabathia may be able to learn how to pitch with reduced velocity, but while he's figuring that out, we may be seeing some 4-inning starts out of him.  We really can't afford to have a pitcher in the 5-spot also giving us 4-inning starts, and taxing the bullpen on back-to-back nights.  It is exciting to think of a rotation where Sabathia, Kuroda, Tanaka, Nova, and Pineda are firing on all cylinders, but it's good to know that there are some talented players behind them ready to take a spot if one of them go down.