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What can the Yankees do about Wang? The first and most obvious move is to scratch him from his next start. Thanks to Thursday’s day off the Yankees can move A.J. Burnett to Friday and skip Wang’s turn in the rotation, allowing him to avoid Fenway, a park where he has a 5.11 ERA in seven starts. But, that is really only the first step.
Unfortunately, the Yankees cannot send Wang to the minors without exposing him to waivers. Despite his eye-popping 34.50 ERA, it is almost a certainty that some team would claim Wang. After all, he is still only 29 and has a career record of 54-23. So, the Yankees will have to try and fix him a different way and that is where they need to get creative—they need to find a reason to DL him.
If Wang was hurt the Yankees could then send him to a minor league team for up to 30 days of “rehabilitation,” basically allowing him to make five starts in the minors. The Yankees seem to be reluctant to try this approach and insist that Wang is healthy, but is he really? Last season he was 8-2 before being injured running the bases in Houston, now he has come back to majors and can’t seem to get an out. It seems possible that his ineffectiveness is due to injury.
Whatever the reason, the Yankees cannot afford to keep sending him to the mound everyday. He can’t pitch competitively at this level right now and the Yankees can’t afford to keep getting killed on the days he pitches.
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It has nothing to do with being hurt. He was a decent pitcher who struck out like 9 guys a year. It's started to catch up with him because he's playing with an older defense. Sinkerball pitchers who put a lot of balls in to play is fine when they have a good defensive shortstop.
Oh, and any shallow fly ball leaves your new park.
I think I'd disagree, TKaisen... Definitely think it has to do with injury. You miss that much time, and it's a leg injury - which are just as vital to pitchers (in some cases more, maybe) as their throwing arms - you might come back "different." Maybe his pushoff-landing is different now, maybe he's tentative. It could be a million things. I think the "older defense" argument is void in that he was just fine last year before his injury, and his defense isn't *that* much older. Unless all the hits Wang was giving up were passing Jeter in the hole, I'm not sure that it holds water.
I think he's just a different pitcher now.
The "aging defense" is clearly not the problem to anyone who has watched the games. Wang's getting crushed, giving up line drives and home runs. He's not getting ground ball outs, or even ground balls that could have been outs if he had the best defense in baseball behind him.
Over 50% ground balls in his career, but under 33% this season. The sinker is up and the slider is missing. Mechanically, this is the result of his release point being different from what it was in the past, and being very inconsistent. He's releasing differently on different attempts to throw what should be the same pitch.
That could be the result of compensating for an injury, but it could be, as you said, a million things. But it's clearly Wang's problem, not something caused by the defense.
tombiro: I definitely agree with you that injury might have changed his mechanics, but I don't think he's injured now. I think he's either tentative -- like you said -- or he's just completely lost his sinker. However, the Yankees are saying he isn't injured and is mechanically fine, so I don't know.
TKaisen:
There are strikeout pitchers and groundout pitchers in the Hall Of Fame. With an effective 94 mph sinking fastball, Wang got batters hitting groundballs to the infielders (and the outfielders could take naps). He also didn't have to throw that many pitches to pitch entire games.
Is it possible that the new stadium is not conducive to the type of pitcher Wang is?
He also got shelled in Baltimore and Tampa Bay, so I don't think it's the stadium.
By the way, a team can't just put a player on the DL saying "he's injured" without being able to document a specific injury. If they find one, they can do it... but he still couldn't start his minor league rehab until after a minimum 15-day disabled stint. There's no way to immediately put him in the minors without exposing him to waivers.
Without there being evidence of a specific injury, you're basically suggesting that the Yankees cheat in order to get around the roster rules and requirements of their labor agreement.
It's time to bring Tonya Harding's metal pipe out of retirement (with a lot of padding).
The Tigers put Dontrelle Willis on the DL for an anxiety disorder...get Wang to a shrink.
Perhaps he has the yips. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yips)
I call it the Knoblauch Syndrome.