Pitching and Catching

Freddy Garcia made his debut in spring training yesterday pitching a pair of scoreless innings, including a strikeout of thirdbase phenom Evan Longoria. Its certainly a good sign, and though the nay sayers, like myself, will say its only 2 innings, its still far better than having our 4th starter candidate come in, give up 4 homeruns and leave injured. So the question now is, can the Yankees realistically compete with a Sabathia, Burnett, Hughes, Garcia, and Nova/Colon rotation? Though its still way too early to tell and anything from injuries to the acquirement of that ever elusive gyroball could strongly alter the outcome of this argument, its still a fun conversation to have. If Garcia remains healthy and Burnett regains some of his 2008 form, we could be seeing a drastically different rotation than we thought we had.

Then there's the ever present question of who will become our backup catcher. In previous years, we've had players competing for this role, but we've never cared because none of them were a top prospect who could change the world with his bat alone. I'm starting to wonder if its a good idea bringing Montero back north with such limited experience in triple A. Some say that learning on the job in the big leagues could be huge for his growth, but I question how playing every few days even against higher competition, is better than playing every day. He may be close to the big leagues, but what's the rush? Why not let him play every day in Scranton to start the season and call him up in June or July? We know we have a servicable guy in Cervelli, so there's no real demand to have Montero up now. It just feels like we could potentially stunt Montero's growth all for the purpose of having a backup. Let's be clear, next season, Posada will not be our catcher, neither will Russell Martin. The best thing the Yankees can do is prepare Montero to be an everyday player. Even if he plays out a couple months on our bench to finish the season, I think having that extra refinement at the triple A level will go far. Thoughts?