Wednesday, April 29, 2009

FLASHES OF THE FUTURE



You can look up and down the Yankee's $201.449.189 roster and not get too exited of what the future holds for this group of aging vets.
The Yankee's have only 3 good position players under the age of 30.

Mark Teixeira (29), Robbie Cano (27), and Nick Swisher (29).

The only players under the age of 30 on the starting staff are CC (28) but turns 29 this coming July, Joba (24) and Wang (29) who by the way is sporting a 34.50 ERA .

So basically, next year the Yankee's will only have ONE position player under 30(Cano) and ONE starter (Joba).

The pen on the other hand is young but extremely tough to gage. Unless you have yourself a dominant reliever, the year to year performance on those guys can change drastically. So when Mariano is gone, who knows what will be with the Yankees pen.
So the future of this club is none too encouraging .




Which is why lasts nights game was oh-so important. Not for the 2009 Yanx(although it was nice to halt a 4 game skid) but for the Yankee's of 2010 and beyond.

When Phil Hughes took the mound last night I wasn't sure what to expect. Were we going to see the dominant AAA pitcher or the ineffective major league'r we've grown accustomed to see.

Obviously , We saw the potential of greatness for many years to come. His fastball was sitting at 94 MPH and he was locating it . The movement was a thing of beauty. Phil's uncle Charley was just as effective. But what got me real excited was the development of his cutter.

Maybe that injured rib last season really hampered his ability's to dial it up and locate? Either way , He looked filthy last night . How old is Phil Hughes may you ask? 27? 28? No, he turns 23 in June.



After Hughes was given the pat on the back and given the rest of the night off.Due to a much needed 10 run outburst from the run starved Yankee's offense. The ball was handed to none other than the future star of the Yankees pen Mark Melancon (24) who is my bet to be the heir of the great Mo.


Last nights game left a huge grin on my face. I couldn't help but think of the future....

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