After a rough spring for Luis Cessa, the New York Yankees have cut him from the competition for a starting rotation spot.
The New York Yankees have made another round of roster cuts and Luis Cessa, one of the candidates for a starting rotation spot, has been optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Friday.
Cessa posted a 6.52 ERA in 9.2 innings (five games, two starts) of work this spring while yielding a .325 batting average against thanks to command issues. Last season, the righty made nine starts and pitched to a 4.01 ERA and struck out 35 batters in 51.2 innings.
He also gave up 11 home runs, but with a slider that usually induces a terrific number of groundballs (rate of 64.15 groundballs per BIP), there is room for Cessa to grow into a starting role in the future.
Cessa has the ability to touch 95 mph with his fastball on a regular basis and compliment it with a changeup, curveball and slider. One part of his game that he needs to improve on, however, is to get his secondary pitches on the same level as his fastball.
We saw last year and this spring that when he misses, he misses big and he misses over the plate. Rather than get lit up in the Bronx and hurt precious development time, it makes sense that he fine-tunes his arsenal in Triple-A.
It’s now evident that Bryan Mitchell, Chad Green, Jordan Montgomery and Luis Severino are the remaining arms in the competition for the fourth and fifth spots.
In addition to the Cessa assignment, Clint Frazier, Ji-Man Choi, Dustin Fowler, Billy McKinney and Jason Gurka have all been reassigned to minor league camp.
Luis Cessa optioned to the RailRiders. Ji-Man Choi, Dustin Fowler, Billy McKinney and Jason Gurka all reassigned to minor league camp.
— Shane Hennigan (@ShaneHennigan15) March 24, 2017
