Another South Sider Packs for the Bronx

Freddy Garcia, pitching for the Chicago White Sox in 2010. 
Courtesy of Rankopedia.com 

Earlier this week, the Yankees and veteran right-hander Freddy Garcia agreed to a minor league contract worth an undisclosed amount. This deal came roughly a week after they agreed to a minor league contract with veteran starter Bartolo Colon, who, like Garcia, had played for the Chicago White Sox before.

 http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/news/article.jspymd=20110131&content_id=16543892&vkey=news_nyy&c_id=nyy

Now, what doesn’t make too much sense about this deal is the fact that not only did Garcia pitch on a major league level with the White Sox last year, he pitched fairly decently (12-6, 4.64 ERA, 28 starts). Somehow or another, this only warrants him a minor league deal with a team whose major league rotation features the likes of A.J. Burnett (10-15, 5.26 ERA) and possibly Ivan Nova, who gave up an average of four and a half runs per nine innings pitching in relief.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/2010.shtml

Obviously, at this point, the Yankees are getting desperate for rotation depth after losing out on the Cliff Lee sweepstakes to the Philadelphia Phillies, and failing to land Zack Grienke from the Kansas City Royals in a trade. In all honesty, however, they should be glad that Grienke didn’t end up coming to the media circus that is the Big Apple with his social anxiety disorder. Regardless, picking up Garcia is a good move for the Yankees. He’s had years with ERA’s under four, (2000, 2001, 2004, and 2005) and he serves as a much better starter than Burnett at a much lower cost by at least $15 million.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/garcifr03.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/burnea.01.shtml

Now, although Garcia has had some injury problems in the past, (only 23 starts total from 2007-2009 for three different teams) he’s coming at a low price for a team in dire need of starting pitching. If the Yankees really want to compete with the Boston Red Sox following their monster of an offseason that brought in four time all-star outfielder Carl Crawford and 2005 World Series Champion closer Bobby Jenks, they need to do something.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/crawfca02.shtml

Ace pitcher C.C. Sabathia is coming off right knee surgery, Phil Hughes faded in the rotation at the end of last season, and Burnett is a never-has-been with incessant injury problems who often forgets where the plate is. If New York really wants to keep their status as one of the big dogs in the American League East, they’ve got to do something with their pitching. Garcia isn’t a Lee or a Grienke, but he’s better than nothing. More importantly, he’s better than Burnett.