Jun 162009
This breaking news from Pete Abe: struggling reliever Jose Veras was just DFA’ed to make room for Brian Bruney. I’m a little surprised by this, despite Veras’ difficulties because he does own that one tool that you can’t teach: he throws really hard. As Pete said, the Yanks were pretty proud for finding and elevating Veras’ abilities to the point where he handled the eighth inning setup role last year for much of the time. There are two possible interpretations of this move, and the two may overlap to a great extent as well.
- This could be a simple reflection on Veras and his well chronicled inability to throw strikes. He’s at an age where he should have figured things out by now so, despite his velocity, the Yankees front office may feel that he’ll simply never have enough consistent command to be successful, especially in the part-time match-up role he has this year. He’s actually had more success in multi-inning outings and been awful in the match-ups that Girardi likes to throw at opponents. If Joe doesn’t feel like he can use Veras in short righty v righty stints, Jose is virtually useless in this pen, especially with Bruney back.
- On the positive side of the ledger, this could be a reflection upon David Robertson, who the Yankees could have sent down with no repercussions. Instead, they risk losing the rights entirely to Veras. This is quite a vote of confidence for young D-Rob, who has sported a stellar 2.25 ERA, 1.17 WHIP and 1.83 FIP this year, all while averaging a stunning 13.5 k/9. We could see Robertson playing a major role in the pen by the end of the year.
What do you guys think? Is this more a knock on Veras or a vote of confidence for D-Rob, or a combination of both?
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This is all about the SUCKINESS of Veras and thank god he is finally gone!
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I’m going with mostly a vote of confidence for Robertson and a small amount of “we’re fed up with Veras.” They’ve had multiple opportunities to DFA Veras before, but have gone with the easy route of using an option on guys who still had them. It is reassuring that they did not take the seemingly easy way out and just option Robertson down. Robertson has performed well and deserves to be in the pen. Veras has performed abysmally and deserved to be sent packing.
Note – Tomko is no gem, but I’m assuming that he’ll be gone if Marte ever makes it back.
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Something ironic. I’m relatively certain that the Yankees picked up Bruney from the DBacks when he was DFA’d. Bruney is roughly 1 1/2 years younger than Veras. At the time he was only 24 and I wondered how it was possible that a team DFA’d a guy with such a live arm. Now, at that time he was only 24, so seemed awfully early to give up on someone, but same issue, he struggled with his control and has continued to do so with the Yankees, walking 52 in his first two seasons in only 70 seasons. By the end of that 2nd season, I was starting to see why the DBacks had given up on him. But, he seemed to break out last year, with 16 walks in 34 innings, which is not very good, but much better than previous, especially when you only give up 18 hits, until injury cut short his season. Same thing again this year with the injuries, so really remains to be seen yet if Bruney has truly improved his past control problems. When you look more closely at the numbers, Veras has walked 43 in 83 innings the past two seasons. Lame, but pretty close to Bruney’s walk rate from last year. But, the hits given up, ERAs and HRs are vastly in Bruney’s favor. Just need to see him stay healthy and demonstrate a continued improvement in his control. If he does, it won’t be long before Veras is nothing but a distant memory of a great arm that didn’t fulfill its potential.
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Excellent decision finally I have been waiting for this move and look forward to Robertson and Melancon playing huge roles this year.
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Count me in the group that would have preferred to DFA Tomko. I feel like Veras could at least be salvaged to being a useful reliever with his stuff, but Tomko doesn’t provide anything other than the ability to throw multiple innings (something a number of guys in this pen can do).
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Veras’s current delivery will never repeat.He does have a big arm though behind that violent delivery.
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Uhm, yes?
When the choice is between a young man who is sucking and a young man doing well, the decision is made for you.
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Damn, I’d like to sit on the fence with this one…pro/con. As I don’t like doing that, I won’t!
I like the idea of keeping Rob with the big boys but, I agree with Eric…Tomko should have been the one to go.
The only reason I can think of as to why they DFA’d Veras is a very simple one…they know something we don’t, which I take for granted because they have information we don’t have access too.
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All things considered, I like the move. I have zero confidence in Veras – he reminds me of the way I felt about Farnsworth, where you’re just waiting for him to give it up. I actually feel like Tomko provides more flexibility in the pen than Veras.
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