CARLSBAD, Calif. — A case could be made that a year ago the Yankees violated one of the core tenets of the organization:
They helped the Red Sox get better. Way better. Perhaps the difference in making the playoffs or not, which in 2021 meant ending the Yankees season in the wild-card game.
The Yankees did not put Garrett Whitlock on the 40-man roster last November. That left him vulnerable in the Rule 5 draft and Boston selected him. Whitlock emerged as one of the majors’ best relievers; his ability to thrive in multi-inning spots was particularly helpful in the Red Sox covering for other pitching deficiencies to win 92 games and be the top-seeded wild card.
That meant a single elimination at Fenway Park in which they not only beat the Yankees, but had Whitlock pitch the final inning of a 6-2 triumph.
And here is the thing: it could get subsequently worse for the Yankees.
Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom explained the plan is for Whitlock to vie for the rotation in 2022.
“When we took him [in the Rule 5] we took him as a starting pitcher,” Bloom said. Whitlock was used in relief in 2021 because he missed most of the 2019 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery and did not pitch in 2020 because there was no minor league season (the combination that led the Yanks to believe they could leave him unprotected).
“I remember being on a radio interview last year and I said some teams are going to have some big-time mistakes because of the lockout, guys are off-line,” Brian Cashman said. “Obviously it turned out to come back to bite us. The player that wound up arriving in spring training wasn’t the player that left us. It was just a completely different animal with a lot more juice on his velo…. Taking my Yankee cap off, you’re proud for the player, happy for the player. He’s someone we drafted and developed for a period of time and then he got hurt and he wasn’t protected and Boston obviously took advantage of it and wound up with a gem. Kudos to them and disappointment for us.”
Bloom said the plan is still to be innings cautious with Whitlock in 2022 because of his background and because he worked 73 ¹/₃ innings last year (1.96 ERA, 10 strikeouts per nine innings). But Bloom cited “tremendous, tremendous poise” and the repertoire of a starter — an already outstanding fastball with “a plus changeup and a breaking ball that improved dramatically as the season went along” — to cite why Whitlock’s near future is as a starter.