Yankees Sign Matt Thornton

After Boone Logan left to go to Colorado on a ridiculous 3-year deal, it left the Yankees with a void in the bullpen for a left-handed reliever.

Enter Matt Thornton, who signed a 2-year, $7M contract this afternoon.

We will get this out of the way first:  If you are expecting the Matt Thornton from years ago in Chicago, you are going to be greatly disappointed.     This should be obvious, as that version of Matt Thornton gets a contract that is much bigger than the one the Yankees gave out here.

Thornton doesn't throw as hard as he used to, but he still does throw hard.  In 2013, his average fastball was still averaging an impressive 94.3 MPH, down from his peak performance of 96.1 in 2010.  With the reduction in velocity has come a reduction in usage.  Thornton used his fastball 51.7% of the time in 2013.  As recently as 2011, he used it 85.1% of the time.

Thornton is more of a LOOGY nowadays than a shutdown reliever.  He is not competition for David Robertson.  He is not someone you are going to use as "the 8th inning guy".    Last year, he held left-handed batters to a .224/.267/.370 line with 20 K in 22.1 innings.   Right-handed hitters had much more success, hitting .329/.423/.405, walking 12 times while only striking out 10 times in 21 innings.  It is possible that some of those walks can be attributed to pitching around a right-handed batter to get to a left-handed one.  It is also possible that right-handed batters saw the ball so well that they weren't even thinking about swinging at anything that wasn't in the zone.

This is the type of contract you should hand out to a veteran LOOGY.  He is a piece to the bullpen, but should not be viewed as a significant part.  They simply filled a void and will now move on to more pressing needs.

Overall, I like the signing for what it is.  It doesn't really take pitchers like Cesar Cabral out of the competition for a 2014 slot, though it will obviously make his journey more difficult.      Other left-handers in the organization (Nik Turley, for example) likely aren't ready for big league action, and Turley should start in the minors right now, not be a reliever in the majors.