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ARLINGTON, Texas -- The names come quickly to anyone who has followed the New York Yankees in recent years: Phil Hughes.
Joba Chamberlain.
Ian Kennedy.
Manny Banuelos.
Andrew Brackman. Where will Luis Severino rank on the recent list of major Yankees starting pitching prospects? So far, the results have not been very good. The Texas Rangers shellacked Severino for six runs in three innings with seven hits in a 10-1 Yankees' loss. He is now 0-3 with a 6.86 ERA. He has given up 32 hits over 19 2/3 innings. Severino is only 22. He might just be having a couple of bumps to start his second season. Hitters definitely are taking advantage of the fact they know, despite his excellent stuff, they can feast on the knowledge that he is always around the strike zone. Severino needs to make his pitches dart out of the zone more to be less hittable. What could derail him, at least in terms of how he is judged, are the expectations. It happened to the guys before him. If you look at the first three names on the list above -- Hughes, Chamberlain and Kennedy -- the immediate reaction is that they somewhat failed as Yankee prospects. While money is not how you totally measure a player, those three have done enough to be rewarded nearly $200 million in total contracts. That doesn't really sound like failure. Granted, they were never aces, but they were solid major league pitchers. Banuelos has made the majors with the Braves but hasn't amounted to much, and Brackman pitched in three big league games -- all of 2 1/3 innings -- for the Yankees in 2011. It is too early to judge Severino. The signs this year are warning against the high expectations that accompanied this season. There was a thought that by the end of the year that Severino could possibly replace Masahiro Tanaka as the team's No. 1 starter. Maybe it will still happen, but the hits per innings are very alarming. It is not yet time to lower expectations, even as the growing pains become more and more apparent.
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