Yanks: Chase Whitley and a New Yankee Pitching Ecology?

Chase Whitley is becoming an important figure for the Yankees.  Not just because they always win when he pitches, but because his conversion from a reliever to a starter in the system is indicative of a willingness to do something other than convert starters into relievers down there.   Many don't remember this, but Ron Guidry was a minor league reliever for the Yanks until Sparky Lyle showed him his slider, which he was immediately able to throw better than Sparky could.  So the Whitley conversion has precedent.   Interestingly he was a fastball/change guy and grew his repertoire by adding a very good slider of his own.

(Note: Gator added a change late in his career, and if he'd had it from the start, he'd have a lot better case for the Hall of Fame)

So what's great about Chase is, it's new for the group who've been developing pitching for the Yanks, and since they have found value in drafting college relievers, like Chase,  they are willing to explore starting with them.   This is a long way from the catastrophic decisions that were made with Joba Chamberlain.

And I wonder if this Gil Patterson's idea?  He was around when Guidry was.  

Another interesting thing they are doing down on the farm is having Zach Nuding start.  He was drafted to relieve and will probably be a high octane reliever for the Yanks in a year or so, but they are starting him right now, so he can work on his breaking pitches.   That's a good use of his time in the minors and indeed a good use of minor league games for Zach.   One of the big problems in Yankee system has been jackasses managing as if winning in the minors meant anything.   So, it shows some advanced perspective to use minor league games to train up Nuding's secondary stuff for his role in the majors.

They should be doing stuff like that all the time, for example, they should have Mason Williams bunt every time for a month.  Or take O'Brien out of games after bad AB's.  Or oder up some walks.    Something useful.

In general, I really like where Yankee Pitching is going, and I hope that Cash or whoever is the GM in coming years, let's the system do it's job, ecologically sound about the talent, and provide the lion's share of major league pitching.