Forgot Andy Pettitte for a minute, since we don’t know how long or where he will be pitching in the minors. The Yankees Triple-A rotation will probably consist of:

Manny Banuelos (2-2, 4.19) - Age 21

Dellin Betances (0-3, 5.14) - Age 23

Adam Warren (6-8, 3.60) - Age 24

David Phelps (6-6, 3.19) - Age 25

D.J. Mitchell (13-9, 3.18) - Age 24

The numbers provided are their Triple-A results from last season. How many teams would take that as their big league rotation? When you factor in age, controllability and upside, I would think Mets fans would trade their current five for the Empire State Yankees.

I bet there are a few others teams that would do it, as well.

Again, that is why I don’t think the Andy Pettitte move was all that necessary. With 6 starters (Sabathia, Kuroda, Nova, Pineda, Hughes, Garcia) and the kids above the Yankees are 11 deep in the rotation.

Pettitte makes it 12.

Right now, this gives them a huge advantage over their AL East opponents, and has to make them the favorite in the entire American League.

We talked about Andy Pettitte and the Yankees pitching throughout the first 40+ minutes of last night’s show. You can listen to the replay by downloading it here.

***

The guys at NoMaas superbly down the Yankees decision to sign Andy Pettitte. For all the funny photoshops, NoMaas continues to be one of the most objective Yankees sites in the blogosphere. No pom poms, no lazy ideology, no fan boy nonsense.

They bulleted out 7 thoughts, here are the two that stand out:

5. We hope the Yankees make their decisions based on baseball, and not placating the fanbase who still thinks it’s 1998.

If it’s one thing the Yankees stink at, it’s dealing with the legacy/Core 4/headline-name players. What happens if the rotation is performing well, and Andy decides he’s ready to pitch in the bigs? Do the Yankees arbitrarily bump someone just to satisfy the large-nosed lefty?

Conversely, what if coaches realize that Andy can’t pitch at a high-quality level? There’s no certainty that Pettitte will be better than anyone currently slotted to take the mound. Will the front office tell him he’s not needed? Or will we see a Levine-like move to maximize ticket sales?

Leave it to NoMaas to give us something to chuck about. This was number 7:

7. Let this be a lesson to all men.

Andy spent a year at home seeing his wife on a daily basis. If only we all had a major league team to go back to…

That might be the most brilliant statement of all!

Want to know where to find Mike Silva now? He Host's the "Weekend Watchdog” on Long Island’s ESPN affiliate Champions Radio (96.9/107.1FM Suffolk) go to http://weekendwatchdog.com to listen and interact with Mike at mikesilvamedia.com

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Tags: Adam Warren, Andy Pettitte, D.J Mitchell, David Phelps, Dellin Betances, Empire State Yankees, Manny Banuelos, New York Yankees