Yankees Sign Ottavino as Bombers Keep Making Smart Moves

While many Yankees fans are complaining about the team not going hard after Manny Machado, the Bronx Bombers beefed up their bullpen with former Colorado Rockies reliever Adam Ottavino. 

Ottavino signed an three-year deal that will pay him $27 million, as he joins Zach Britton as the other free agent addition to the bullpen this offseason. Now the Yankees are looking at the prospect of having Ottavino and Britton join Dellin Betances and Aroldis Chapman in what could be one of baseball's best bullpen's. 

Really Ottavino is a no-brainer for the Yankees. 

For starters he is a New York native, so pitching close to home is a huge boon for the 33-year old from Brooklyn. 

More importantly, he is coming off the best season of his career. In 2018, Ottavino gave up only 21 earned runs in 77.2 innings of work, walking 36 and striking out 112. His efforts were good enough for a microscopic WHIP of 0.99 and an ERA of 2.43. And this coming from a guy who pitched at least half of those games in Coors Field. 

In fact over the last three seasons, Ottavino's numbers at home in Coors Field were quiet impressive. From 2016 to 2018, he had a 3.60 ERA in 83 games at Coors Field with a .195 opponents batting average. 

Now picture this veteran right-hander in the Yankee bullpen, and it is hard not to imagine the Yankees having a formidable foursome at the backend. 

Are the Yankees done? Well in this incredibly slow free agent market, they are not. The Yankees need and should add a starting pitcher. There are rumors the Yankees could be close to dealing Sonny Gray before Spring Training. 

Forget about Machado or Bryce Harper at this point. Both players are asking for $250 million-plus, an area the Yankees don't want to go in for a few simple reasons. 1) They are already paying Giancarlo Stanton $225 million over the next nine seasons. 2) Aaron Judge, Luis Severino and Gary Sanchez are all going to be looking to get paid within the next two to three seasons and 3) the Yankees really don't need Machado. The Yankees won 100 games with Miguel Andujar at third, and with the addition of another former Rockie, in second baseman DJ LeMahieu who has been a solid infield bat his entire career. 4) At some point this season Didi Gregorius is coming back. 

There is an argument to bring in Harper. The Yankees need a left-handed bat, they are too right-handed in the lineup. Harper would check off that box. In addition he could play either the outfield or first base, and the Yankees have questions at both positions.