Two Big Storylines For New York Baseball

Ah yes, its that wonderful time of the year for baseball fans. Spring training has arrived for Major League Baseball and we're about a month and a half away from the start of the regular season. Everybody trying to get back into game shape after a long and cold winter. It means that warmer weather is on the way. As far as the New York baseball scene is concerned, there's quite a few storylines to pay attention to heading into camp. There's two in particular we are going to look at here and now. One from the Bronx and the other from Queens.

Starting in the Bronx, one of the biggest concerns has to be the pitching staff. They were struck with injuries and inconsistent play for most of last year. Still they managed to come within a game of a World Series appearance. So how do you take a good team and make it better? Go out and get one of the best pitchers on the market. Gerrit Cole got paid to play here. Nine years at $324 million is one hell of a payday. Now the question is, was it a wise investment?

When you spend that kind of money on a pitcher, there's going to be question marks. Was he worth it? Can he deliver? Your going to get those kind of questions not only in camp, but once the season gets going as well. This deal now looms even larger for Cole to deliver, since James Paxton is going to be out for some time with the back injury. He's coming off a year when he finished second in Cy Young Voting in the American league, won 20 games, leading the AL with a 2.50 ERA and 326 strikeouts. Anybody watching baseball knew he was going to get a big payday when he hit the market, and the Yankees were the team to give it to him.

There's no doubt he got the stuff, he displayed that the last couple of seasons in Houston. He should be fine during not only camp, but as the regular season rolls along. Its not a reason to worry, at least not about his stuff, because he;'s got plenty of it and can deliver. Question is can he handle the pressure of New York and keep this up over the length of the contract.

Now we go to the National League team. there's a few storylines about who's going to get playing time and where. The name that's right at the top of the list is Yoenis Cespedes. Sure, there are guys around other camps we want to keep an eye on who are coming off injury seasons last year that are looking to bounce back, but Cespedes is the highest profile one. He hasn't played a game since 2018, and that year played only 32 games. He's missed all of last season as he recovered from surgery on both heels and a broken ankle.

There was a lot of talk around him after he signed that huge four year deal after the hot end to the year he had in 2015. He had his salary reduced because of lack of playing time, but can earn as much as $20 million this year through his salary and bonuses. The thing to look at with Yoenis is, he's 34 years old and coming off major injuries. He isn't going to run anywhere close to what he did before injuries took hold. The big wonder is, can he still throw and can he still hit with the power?

Should the power and the arm be there, which will find out during camp, then the Mets would be dumb not to find a way to get that into the lineup everyday. Of course they are going to be monitoring him the whole way. The outfield depth chart has Michael Confort in right, Brandon Nimmo in center and JD Davis in left. If Cespedes can play even remotely close to the level he was at before he got injured, then they pretty much have to play him