The Yankees bullpen troika means the starters need to only go six

Yankees manager Joe Girardi on the YES Network last night stated that newly acquired Aroldis Chapman will be his closer as the team enters spring training. This means that the AL reliever of the year, Andrew Miller, will move back to the 8th inning, a slot that he previously occupied and thrived in, and Dellin Betances drops to the 7th inning.

“I think we’ll go into spring training with Chapman as our closer and kind of use those other guys to do the 7th and the 8th,” Girardi said. “If Chapman needs a day off, we have no fear in putting Dellin or Miller in that situation, obviously. Miller’s done a tremendous job. It gives me a lot of options.”

“Your thought is, ‘Just get me to the 6th inning with a lead’ and your team understands that, too,” Girardi said. “I love it. You win the games you’re supposed to and that’s important for the psyche of your club.”

Getting the Yankees starters out of the game in the 6th is of critical importance

If you have rotations with two aces or an ace and a number one or at least two solid number one starters, perhaps a strong one-two, you can have expectations of your pitchers getting through seven innings, maybe eight, but the Yanks don’t have that luxury.

When you look at the Yankee starters and you see how poorly they did when facing a batter the third time in game you see why this move was necessary and using the Royals model, it may put the Yanks, in postseason contention.

Yankees starters facing a batter for the third time in a game in 2015

Player	G	BF	ERA	IP	ER	WHIP	AB	R	H	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
CC Sabathia	27	199	5.11	44.0	25	1.545	182	28	57	13	11	29	.313	.357	.577	.934
Michael Pineda	26	180	4.78	43.1	23	1.269	171	25	50	8	5	45	.292	.307	.538	.845
Nathan Eovaldi	26	176	4.93	34.2	19	2.135	151	19	52	0	22	23	.344	.425	.397	.823
Masahiro Tanaka	24	160	3.46	41.2	16	0.936	151	17	32	11	7	38	.212	.244	.470	.714
Ivan Nova	16	107	5.84	24.2	16	1.257	95	13	21	6	10	16	.221	.295	.474	.769
Adam Warren*	15	87	3.74	21.2	9	1.200	82	9	22	2	4	14	.268	.310	.366	.676

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 1/12/2016.

* Traded to the Chicago Cubs for Starlin Castro