Michael Pineda And Luis Severino Are Killing The New York Yankees' Season

The New York Yankees entered 2016 with high hopes for Michael Pineda and Luis Severino. Both have a ton of talent that could make them top of the rotation starters, but both have struggled mightily this year.

The problem for the Yankees, and Severino and Pineda, is that it hasn’t just been bad — it has been dreadfully bad. The Yankees have won just two of the 15 starts that Severino and Pineda have made this year. That isn’t going to fly no matter how much promise they both have in their right arms.

Pineda ranks 101st in ERA of the 129 pitchers who have thrown 30 or more innings, while Severino ranks 127th. Severino also ranks 116th in FIP at 5.48. Now Severino finds himself on the disabled list, and there is no reason to rush him back into the MLB rotation right now. The Yankees would be wise to keep him in Triple-A where he can work on locating his fastball, slider and changeup. He should still be a major part of their future, but the Yankees can’t just leave him in the rotation to get clubbed every fifth day.

That has been the issue with Severino this year. He is missing the target by a large margin. It isn’t rare to see Brian McCann set up on the outside and then have to reach back inside because Severino missed. What’s worse is he’s missing in the strike zone which is leading to getting pounded.

The issue with Pineda is similar to Severino. He is missing in the strike zone and getting hit hard. Most of Pineda’s struggles come with two strikes which makes no sense. He does lead the Yankees with 50 strikeouts, but there is something going on with Pineda where he is getting lit up with two outs and two strikes on the hitter. Most often, Pineda seems to get ahead of the hitter with his fastball and then tries to put them away with his slider. But the pitch is lacking bite and it ends up right over the plate, waiting to get launched into souvenir territory.

The Yankees have a winning record when Severino and Pineda aren’t pitching. In fact, they are 14-9 when neither Pineda or Severino are on the mound but just 2-13 when they start. If they even played one game under .500 ball when those two started, they would be 21-17 instead of 16-22 and 7.5 games behind the AL East-leading Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox.

There might be a silver lining. Ivan Nova has pitched well since taking CC Sabathia’s place in the rotation and Sabathia was pitching well before suffering a minor injury to his groin. The Yankees could go with a rotation of Masahiro Tanaka, Nathan Eovaldi, Sabathia, Nova and hope that one of Severino, Pineda, Luis Cessa and Chad Green pitches well enough to keep them in ball games. If Pineda doesn’t turn it around soon, they might have to think about moving him to the bullpen.

The season might only be 38 games old, but it is getting late early here for the Yankees. Not only are they 7.5 games out of first in the AL East, they are also five games out in the Wild Card with eight teams between them and the top two spots. If things don’t turn around soon, it might be time to think about trading some players to kick this rebuild into overdrive.