MYTH BUSTED: Wang and the Minors

Since Chien-Ming Wang’s most recent implosion on April 18^th, where he gave up 8ER over 1.1IP and his ERA ballooned to 34.50, I have been hearing much talk about how the Yankees should option Wang to AAA in order to work on his mechanics and get back to form. Unfortunately for the Yankees and their fans, this is impossible.

The rule for options can be very tricky, in general there are two ways that a player can run out of options. The first is that a player can be optioned as many times as the club wants top option him, per season, over a coarse of three different seasons. Unless the player has 20 or less days in the minor leagues for that season, then the option does not count for that year, unless he is sent back down. Once a player has been on the 40 Man Roster for 5 seasons, any options to AAA are lost. Wang is currently in his 5^th season with the major league club and spent 2003 on the 40 man roster, for Rule 5 protection, so there are currently no options left for Wang.

I have to do more research on this (because I have not been able to find the rule on this), but there is no way that Wang can be sent to the minors on assignment without exposing him to wavers, even if he were to consent to the assignment, he would still have to pass through waivers. If this were to happen it would pretty much guarantee his Bronx departure.

The good news is that a temporary solution can be had. The Yankees have an off day this Thursday, which gives them a perfect window to skip Wang to prevent him from further destruction against Boston on 4/24/2009 (the probable opponent is Jon Lester). This is very beneficial because we would not have to call up Phil Hughes to spot start in Wang’s place. However the one problem would be that the Yankees are going to be wasting a roster spot on Wang (unless they move him to long relief). Which I cannot see being a great option ether.

Yankee pitching coach Dave Eiland has stated that there is nothing wrong with Wang outside of being plain rusty from not pitching in such a long time. I would like to add that when a pitcher keeps getting hit this hard, his confidence will eventually run down the toilet and will travel further to self destruction within the game.  A mix of being rusty, and not being confidant is the cause for this, the answer, wait for him to come back to his right self. It will eventually happen.