Yankees look in the mirror of Lucas Luetge’s success in Jimmy Cordero

Just because teams can’t move with 40-man squad players doesn’t mean they still can’t make significant additions.

Last season, the Yankees signed Lucas Luetge to a minor league deal, and the left-hander landed a job in spring training on his way to becoming a worthy arm. trust in the land of bulls.

And in this slow MLB lockout season, the Yankees have once again capitalized on some opportunities of potential bullpen depth.

Perhaps the most intriguing signing to date is Jimmy Cordero, the 30-year-old right-hand man who most recently joined the White Sox.

Cordero underwent Tommy John surgery last March and is expected to return midway through this year’s season. He’s shown promising signs in the past, mostly in 2019, when he had 0.972 WHIP in 36 innings in more than 30 appearances against Chicago.

But he faltered badly in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, with 1,575 WHIP and 6.08 ERA in 26²/₃ inning against the White Sox. After struggling last spring, Cordero underwent elbow surgery that sidelined him for the whole season, but he should be healthy around June or so.

If that proves to be the case, he’s introduced an effective submersible, and the Yankees have had success with painkillers that make good use of that throw.

In addition to signing little-announced Luetge last season, the Yankees also made small deals that ended up paying dividends in their stables last year, sending Mike Tauchman to the Giants in exchange for Wandy Peralta was unruly and also brought two minor recreational athletes to the Pirates in a deal to bring right-hand man Clay Holmes to The Bronx.

And Joely Rodriguez, part of Joey Gallo’s deal with Texas, also freed the Yankees.

Luetge hasn’t pitch in the pro leagues since 2015 but spent the entire season in the pro leagues last year, throwing 72 ¹/₃ innings in 57 games with a solid 1,134 WHIP. Peralta pitches better with the Yankees than he did with the Giants, as did Rodriguez after his arrival in Texas, thanks to improved command.

No one has had a more drastic change than Holmes, who has a WHIP of 1,429 in 44 appearances with the Pirates before the trade and 0.786 in 25 with the Yankees – also due to his ability to dramatically reduce his walk count .

They will be looking for a similar improvement from Cordero – who has played for five organizations over the past nine seasons – at some point in 2022 and also bring in an invite of right-hand man Ryan Weber.

Weber, 31, hasn’t played well for most of his seven major league seasons.

Of course, the Yankees aren’t just planning to dig into the cowshed.

They will need Aroldis Chapman to bounce back from the worst season of his career, and Zack Britton could be gone a full year after elbow surgery.

Jonathan Loaisiga emerged as the dominant right-hand man, and they remained Chad Green. Michael King throws the ball well as a pain reliever, and if they add a warm-up, Nestor Cortes Jr can switch to a swing role, start on the spot and throw the ball out of the pen.