Twelve months later, Melancon is back in big league camp, and as the Yankees’ first official workout gets under way is this morning, he no longer needs any favors.
Twenty-three years old, with a season and a half of professional experience, Melancon believes he has a chance to break camp in the major league bullpen.
And he just might be right.
“I hope that’s not false hope, but I think I do,” Melancon said in a telephone interview from Florida. “I think I’ll have to have a good spring training, but rightfully so. I think you should, if you’re going to make a team, you should have to have a good spring training."“He may be ready, but there are a lot of big league relievers there,” Yankees minor league pitching coordinator Nardi Contreras said. “He’s got a lot of things going for him and we’ll see what he does in spring training and who’s ahead of him and who’s not. But he’s going to be seen.”
“He came along, but that’s because he put in the work,” Contreras said. “He’s very knowledgeable and has a special young arm. He knows what he wants out of his career and his life, and he puts everything into it.”
“I don’t think you make a team off of three weeks,” Melancon said. “I think that’s over time and building trust. Hopefully last year I proved that my arm can hold up and handle that many innings.”
“Obviously I’m not going to back down and plan on being in Scranton,” Melancon said. “But if that happens, I understand that. Hopefully what happens in spring training will dictate where I go. That’s all I can ask for.”I don't know if he's going to be able to make the team out of spring, but I do think we will be see Melancon in a Yankee uniform at some point this season. He's looked at as the team's future closer and he doesn't have much more to prove in the minors, so there's no reason to keep him there.
For more info on Melancon, check out his Baseball Cube page here.
8 Comments:
From everything I've read, this guy has tremendous stuff. I can't wait to watch him play next week.
He should of been pitching in the majors a long time ago.
Hopefully he can come up and eventually have success as the bridge to Mo. That will build up his confidence, and give him some experience to take over the closer role when Mo retires.
Looking forward to seeing him in the majors though, that's for sure.
I think he is going to really help this season if given the chance.
I think he certainly could make the roster out of spring, but the fact that he's not on the 40-man roster hurts him. Only a little bit though, he'll probably be up by June.
I bet he's Girardi's go-to guy out of the pen by September (obviously after Mo)
Just for correctness, it is a soft "c" isn't it? Took me the longest time to get Cano's pronunciation right. Fortunately you can't mess up names like Cabrera, Gardner, Hughes, Kennedy, and Chamberlain.
yes it's Meh-lan-son
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