If you thought the Yankees could go two straight weeks without an injury, you’re a fool. Zack Britton will undergo an MRI on his elbow soreness and all Yankees fans now await word on the health of the team’s best reliever. The Yankees still have to three-plus weeks until Opening Day and that’s a lot of games and innings and batting practices and bullpen sessions for things to go wrong.

Brian Cashman recently spoke about the state of the Yankees and the health of his new-look rotation at the halfway point of spring training, and when Cashman speaks I listen since he’s the most important voice in the organization.

On the health of Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon.
“Still kicking. It’s early. Everybody is getting their work in, and so far so good is all I can say.”

Cashman’s joke was a good joke, but it was also the truth. Still kicking in early March is a good sign for them. Still kicking after pitching in spring training games and simulated games is a good sign for them. Cashman is also right when he says “It’s early” because it is. The Yankees still have a little more than three weeks to leave Florida in one piece and not suffer any injuries to the expected Opening Day roster. As Cashman said, “So far, so good.”

On the rehab of Luis Severino.
“I’m sorry I don’t want to give the wrong information. I know it’s going really well. I don’t want to give you the wrong information.

You could hear in Cashman’s voice that he knows how many times he and his manager and the organization have looked foolish over the last three seasons by giving incorrect injury timetables that he wasn’t about to venture down that road when it comes to Luis Severino. Especially since it was Severino who Cashman admitted wasn’t thoroughly checked out before being allowed to throw following a spring training injury back in 2019. Everything does seem to be going well with Severino and he seems to be on track for the mid-summer return, which was anticipated when Cashman said he would undergo Tommy John surgery a little more than a year ago.

On trading Adam Ottavino.
“I remember when I had to talk to Otto on the phone and give him the surprise news that not only were you traded, or being traded, but you’re going to our arch-rival. As you all know, were completely right-handed lineup for the most part and we play, obviously, Boston within our division more times than you want so it’s going to create great lanes for him.”

Cashman didn’t want to trade Ottavino. I know he didn’t. He was forced to by the mandate from ownership to get below the imaginary salary cap and not spend a single penny over the luxury-tax threshold. Ottavino ending up in Boston means the Red Sox were the Yankees’ only option.

Cashman laid out my biggest fear: Ottavino dominating the Yankees’ right-handed in the late innings of close games. The Yankees and Red Sox play 19 times, which means there will be plenty of opportunities for Ottavino to come in to face DJ LeMahieu or Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton or Luke Voit or Gary Sanchez or Gleyber Torres or Clint Frazier or Gio Urshela. Thankfully, the Yankees have Aaron Hicks and Brett Gardner to combat left-handed pitching!

On the depth of the bullpen.
“I think we have a very strong bullpen on paper, but we have to wait and see how it plays out. And if it’s not, we’ll have to make adjustments along the way like any team fighting for something has to do.”

Well, so much for that “very strong bullpen on paper” after the news that Britton was sent for an MRI due to elbow soreness. Britton is 33 and knows when something doesn’t feel right, and for him to need an MRI, something is clearly not right. Even if the result of the MRI is to rest, a shutdown will be implemented and Britton will eventually have to redo spring training. Very rarely does a pitcher undergo and MRI and nothing is found and they pick up where they left off. When it comes to the Yankees and the handling of injuries, you can forget about that option.

The bullpen might be strong, but just think about how strong the 2019 bullpen was supposed to be with Britton, Aroldis Chapman, Dellin Betances, Chad Green and Ottavino. Betances appeared in one game, Green had to be sent down in April and Chapman was as wild as ever before throwing the season on a hanging slider. The Yankees were fortunate Tommy Kahnle bounced back after a down 2018 and that Ottavino lived up to his $9 million salary. The 2021 bullpen isn’t as good as that bullpen was supposed to be, and it will be a lot worse if Britton’s soreness is something serious.

On re-signing Brett Gardner.
“We didn’t bring him back as a reward for what he’s done in the past. We brought him back because we think he can impact us in the present. We know he can and we know he will as long as he stays healthy he’s going to help us a lot.

I’m still very scared about Gardner continuing to wrongfully stunt Frazier’s growth. Boone claims Frazier is the team’s starting left fielder, but I don’t buy it. Boone didn’t start Frazier over Gardner in the playoffs, and what has changed since then? Nothing.

I would say maybe Boone was talked to by the front office during the offseason and instructed to play Frazier over Gardner, but then that would go against what Cashman said at his end-of-the-season press conference when he said:

“In terms of the lineup and in-game strategies, those are the manager’s. It always has been and as long as I’m the general manager, it never will be different.”

Or when he said:

“I know there’s that narrative about the manager being a puppet and none of that’s true. I’ve never ordered a manager to do anything specifically and Aaron would be able to testify to that as well as Joe Girardi and Joe Torre. They’ve never been directed at any time by me or our front office to do something they didn’t want to do.”

It’s going to be Boone’s call as to who plays left field and when. Frazier being in the starting lineup only against left-handed starting pitching isn’t enough. Gardner needs to be what he was re-signed to be: the fourth outfielder who plays infrequently.

On Derek Dietrich or Jay Bruce being on the Opening Day roster.
“They were brought in to get a legitimate shot to try and find a way to make this roster, and it’s a strong roster. But so far the early returns are strong. They look like they are going to make us have decisions. That’s what we want. We want to be in a position to make tough calls.”

There seems to be a general consensus that Mike Tauchman is going to make the Opening Day roster. I’m not sure why. The Yankees have outfielders in Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Clint Frazier and Brett Gardner. (We’ll leave Giancarlo Stanton out since Cashman said at his end-of-the-season press conference that Stanton is only a DH now.) Tyler Wade has also played all three outfield positions in his career. Keeping Tauchman would mean keeping yet another outfielder, and even though he’s left-handed, he isn’t very good. His entire career is being kept up by a six-week stretch in 2019. That shouldn’t be enough to have him on the team over Derek Dietrich, who is also left-handed hitter, but can play the infield in addition to the outfield, or Jay Bruce, who is also left-handed and has had the best career of three. I expect Tauchman to be on the Opening Day roster with the other two either no longer in the organization or at the alternate site.

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I already know when the first time Aaron Boone will affect my life during the 2021 season. I have it narrowed down to two possibilities.

One possibility is in Game 3 of the season, on Easter Sunday (April 4). The Yankees will have played the day before, so it will be their first time playing on consecutive days in the season, and with three games in three days following, Boone will inexplicably give guys a scheduled day off in the third game of the season after having played 67 games in the previous 17-plus months.

The other possibility is even before the third game of the season. It’s on Opening Day. With Gerrit Cole scheduled to start the first game of the season, there’s a good chance Boone will pair him with Kyle Higashioka and bench Gary Sanchez on Opening Day, a decision that will have severe consequences in Game 1 of 162.

On Monday, Sanchez caught Cole’s first spring training start, and Cole said he thought the two “worked well today” and that they did “a nice job together” and called it “a good day.”

Last season, Sanchez was pulled from catching Cole starts, and Higashioka was inserted as a personal catcher for the right-hander. It wasn’t promising for the Yankees’ ace to need a personal catcher a month into what will be nearly a decade with the team. The Yankees cited the smallest of sample sizes for their decision and as a backup, they used a high school relationship with the two being teammates more than a decade ago as a reason for the pairing. Higashioka had very little to do with Cole’s success, if he anything to do with it all. There’s a reason Cole is arguably the best pitcher in the world, and it’s not because of a career backup catcher with 72 career games to his name.

Either Cole went to Boone and asked to have Higashioka catch him, or the Yankees made the decision and he didn’t argue it. Either way, Cole allowed Higashioka to become his personal catcher, and he allowed an inferior player to start two playoff games, and Boone, on his own, had Higashioka start another three.

Boone has said Sanchez would have caught Cole’s next start in the ALCS if the Yankees had won Game of the 5 ALDS, but I believe that as much as I believed Boone when he said he didn’t pull Judge from a game last season due to injury and then the right fielder missed half the season.

Boone has very little idea what he’s doing as Yankees manager. His in-game managing is detrimental to the team’s success that he is at times more of an opponent for the Yankees than their actual opponent. His communication skills, which were praised upon his hiring, haven’t been what they were hyped up to be. Under his watch, his 2018 ALDS Game 3 starting pitcher didn’t know what time the game started in what resulted in the Yankees’ worst home postseason loss in history; he has been as wrong as you can be about injury updates and return timetables; he blatantly lied about the health of Aaron Judge in the 2020 regular season; he benched the team’s best catcher in the 2020 postseason without an explanation; most recently, he admittedly didn’t “gauge the temperature” of his team when bringing a scumbag, who committed domestic abuse in front of his teammates, back into the clubhouse. Boone’s best quality as a manager is that he appears to be a nice guy, and that’s not nearly enough for someone whose job it is to manage a Major League Baseball team. I know a lot of nice guys. I don’t want them in charge of the Yankees, allowed to pull Deivi Garcia after the first inning of a playoff game for J.A. Happ as part of a preconceived strategy.

Brian Cashman, in his end-of-the-season press conference, said Boone makes all lineup decisions (clearly not wanting his name attached to the disastrous ALDS Game 2 pitching strategy).

“In terms of the lineup and in-game strategies, those are the manager’s,” Cashman said in October. “It always has been and as long as I’m the general manager, it never will be different.”

The decision to play Higashioka over Sanchez was Boone’s. Just like it was his decision to pull Garcia for Happ, play Brett Gardner over Clint Frazier and use mike Ford as a pinch hitter instead of Sanchez or Frazier with the season on the line.

“I know there’s that narrative about the manager being a puppet and none of that’s true,” Cashman also said. “I’ve never ordered a manager to do anything specifically and Aaron would be able to testify to that as well as Joe Girardi and Joe Torre. They’ve never been directed at any time by me or our front office to do something they didn’t want to do.

It will take very little for Boone to pair Higashioka with Cole again this season and to start the season. I mean very little. If he was willing to play Higashioka over Sanchez in October, whether or not Cole was pitching, he will gladly play Higashioka over Sanchez in April. Or it might not take anything at all. Boone already knows if he’s going to have Higashioka be Cole’s personal catcher, andif he’s going to bench Sanchez on Opening Day. It won’t be a surprise, it will just be the latest idiotic decision on the long list of idiotic decisions Boone has made. A decision that will have severe consequences in the first game of 162.

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There are very few spring training competitions for the Yankees, as there are every year. There’s a bench spot and a bullpen spot. That’s it. There’s supposedly a battle for the fifth spot in the rotation, but we all know it’s a competition that’s already been decided. More than likely, all three “competitions” have already been decided.

Deivi Garcia is the right choice to be the Yankees’ fifth starter. Even if he performs brilliantly this spring, I don’t see how he’s anywhere other than in Triple-A to start the season, and if he pitches poorly, the Yankees will have an easy out to get what they want. Whether good or bad, spring training performance is used at the team’s convenience. If Aaron Judge bats .150, well, it’s spring training and it doesn’t matter. If Gary Sanchez bats .350, well, it’s spring training and let’s see him do it in the regular season. If Gerrit Cole pitches to a 5.20 ERA, well, it’s spring training and he was working on stuff. If Garcia pitches to a 1.20 ERA, well, it’s spring training and he wasn’t facing real lineups. Spring training numbers only mean something to some, and for Garcia, they don’t mean anything.

The Yankees didn’t keep scumbag Domingo German through his suspension and through all the negative attention, publicity and backlash to not have him pitch. They didn’t purposely insert a cancer into their clubhouse and then try to tip toe around his presence by not having him address his teammates until the team’s veteran bullpen leader spoke out against him to send him to the minors. German is still a Yankee because the Yankees think he can help them win and think his disgusting act will be forgotten if he helps them do so.

Because of this, Garcia will end up in Triple-A and be the first starter recalled when the Yankees inevitably need another starter. In the event Garcia is phenomenal this spring and German isn’t, the Yankees already have a variety of built-in excuses at their disposal for their decision ranging from Garcia needing some more work in the minors after a minors-less 2020 season, the Yankees wanting to bring him along slowly or the Yankees wanting to control his workload. The Yankees will easily use any or all of these reasons as to why the 21-year-old won’t open the season in the majors.

There’s nothing more the Yankees love than the idea they are going to unearth how to successfully keep pitchers healthy. Whether it’s innings limits like they have unsuccessfully placed on so many pitchers over the years, skipped starts like they did most recently with Michael Pineda or absurd innings-to-days off rules like they implemented for Joba Chamberlain, the Yankees will stop at nothing to find the answer. I know the answer to the age-old question they are searching for: don’t pitch. That’s it. It’s that simple. If you don’t want a pitcher to get injured, don’t let him pitch. That’s the only way a pitcher will avoid an injury. No pitch count, or innings limit, or skipped starts or Joba Rules is going to prevent injury. Not pitching is the only thing that can.

The idea the Yankees should stash Garcia in Triple-A as insurance and to protect his workload would be counterproductive. Pitchers get injured. That’s what they do. And if the Yankees think Garcia is a big part of their future, he should be a big part of their present. Why waste pitches in Triple-A? They won’t be fake pitches. They will be real, all-out, high-intensity pitches because Garcia will be competing and trying to prove a spot needs to be made for him in the Yankees’ rotation.

I’m fully prepared for German to begin the season as the Yankees’ fifth starter and for Garcia to go to Triple-A and be on-call for a call that will eventually come. The Yankees aren’t going to get through an entire season without using Garcia at some point. That point should be the first time they need a fifth starter.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes every Monday and Thursday during the offseason.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!