00:00the Yankees have been one of the best teams in Major League Baseball and it seems like they are
00:04fortifying their pitching situation right now I don't know how long he's going to be in the fold
00:08but Elmer Rodriguez Cruz is going to be up and make his Major League debut on Wednesday happy
00:16for Elmer Rodriguez this guy has been a darling it seems really since I guess last year but he
00:25was great during the World Baseball Classic as well it seems like Elmer Rodriguez is riding a
00:30pitching high that we haven't seen in a little bit of time 22 year old from Puerto Rico in the
00:35World Baseball Classic fired three scoreless innings and so far this year through four starts
00:4021 and a third three earned runs it's a 1.27 ERA what you got on Elmer Rodriguez yeah you
00:47know as a
00:47guy I'll be honest I've been a little bit lower on just because when you look at the pitch plot
00:51and
00:52you look at some of the characteristics it doesn't seem like he should be having the success that
00:58he's having but there's some deception to him he's very slender like long limbs hides the ball well
01:05and has a little bit of this crossfire that I think just creates a weird look but I mean we're
01:12talking about a fastball that averages less than 1900 rpms this year and it's like 10 vert 12 horizontal
01:19on the four seamer and it's like seven vert 17 horizontal on the two seamer which is a little
01:23bit you know more of an interesting pitch but for whatever reason he works well horizontally and I
01:29think it is because of the deception I think it's because of the the long levers and I think the
01:33ball
01:34just not quite doing what hitters would expect it to do but when you look at the characteristics you
01:38kind of wonder if if that doesn't quite translate as well at the big league level I hope it does
01:43always
01:44rooting for success he clearly can pitch and I think that's the biggest part that has progressed
01:48for for Rodriguez is that you know you saw him just kind of overwhelm lower level hitters because
01:54he's funky and has a lot of horizontal separation and is just able to to generate a fair amount of
01:59lift by being in the mid 90s too but I think you've seen it double a and triple a and
02:03specifically this
02:04year he's executing now a lot better and working east west and cutting down on the free passes and
02:09getting the ground balls and I think that's going to be a big part of why he could be successful
02:12I don't think he's going to get the strikeouts the way that we've seen at the lower levels but if
02:16he's a
02:16guy that can work east west get the ground balls weak contact and get the strikeouts when you need
02:21it I think he could be a solid back-end guy but right now he has really looked as refined
02:27as ever
02:27and has earned an opportunity to go make a spot start you know again at just 22 years old here
02:33for the Yankees sneaky good acquisition for them at first it looked like maybe a bad trade when you're
02:38giving up you know Carlos Narvaez and all the success that he had with the Red Sox and a rare
02:42Red Sox
02:43Yankees deal but now looks like even with Narvaez backing up could be a beneficial trade for both
02:48sides and Rodriguez looks like he could be a solid you know back into the rotation type of arm
02:52and not many of those Yankee Red Sox deals because obviously you're always concerned that it's going to
02:57burn you on one side like I think back to the Alex Verdugo Richard Fitz swap that was that had
03:03a whole
03:03bunch of sex appeal but here we go with the Elmer Rodriguez and and Carlos Narvaez swap that seems like
03:08it's a bit more juicy than uh the Alex Verdugo and Richard Fitz deal but looking at this Yankee
03:14rotation man I it's amazing what they have been able to do stomaching a month of a four-man rotation
03:21you know they did it with heel they're doing it with Elmer Rodriguez they're buying time for
03:26Colin Rodon to be back and they've done it to the tune of one of the better pitching staffs in
03:31Major League Baseball and one of the better starter ERAs in Major League Baseball Max Fried has been
03:36unbelievable Schlittler is the breakout star on the mound in Major League Baseball Will Warren has
03:41been incredibly reliable and Ryan Weathers is making his push to stay in the rotation even when
03:47Colin Rodon are back weather's like it seemed like there was a good chance that when Colin Rodon got
03:53healthy Weathers was going to head to the bullpen that's going to be a really hard thing for Aaron
03:57Boone to do at this point do you envision them going from a four-man rotation to a six-man
04:02rotation
04:02I think they should strongly consider it for a lot of reasons and I'm always a big six-man rotation
04:07pitcher out here like I'm clearly that I've pitched this out way too many times on the show but I
04:13think
04:13there's some obvious reasons for that you have Cam Schlittler who you still probably aren't going to
04:18run up to 200 innings this year you have Ryan Weathers who has been often injured and you really
04:24want to preserve this year and then you have Rodon off of injury and Cole off of TJ that you're
04:29going to
04:29want to mitigate their endings and keep them paced up to be able to have success you know at late
04:34in
04:34the year and make a playoff run you're going to want to skip those guys in the rotation you're going
04:37to want to potentially give them an extra day so I think given the circumstance and the success I
04:43think it's an absolute no-brainer for the Yankees to roll with a six-man because they have six really
04:47good arms and because they I think need to preserve these guys because this is a team that's not only
04:52going to make the playoffs is I think a threat to make it to the World Series and you got
04:57to be thinking
04:58that way of course the Yankees always are but with this pitching staff we could be talking about
05:02how good it is all year long and it wouldn't shock you maybe if Ryan Weathers runs out of gas
05:07late in
05:07the year because he isn't throwing that many innings Cam Schlittler runs out of gas a little bit at the
05:10end of the year and then Cole and Rodon maybe feel a little bit of the hey we came back
05:15from injury and
05:16we've got 150 innings under our belt all of a sudden
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