Management may not have realized it at the time, but the minute that the Yankees balked at signing Dallas Keuchel, they doubled down on James Paxton and Masahiro Tanaka as the club’s top two pitchers. While they have solid on the whole this year, they haven’t been the aces that the Yankees desperately need.
Right now, the rotation is teetering: there’s almost a whole five-man rotation of starters on the injured list, leaving only four healthy starters on the roster and the team regularly turning to “bullpen games” every fifth day. This places a greater onus than ever on the starters with the highest ceiling – Paxton and Tanaka.