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Um...without Chacon and Small, two scrap-heap-ish players, the Yanks probably wouldn't have made the playoffs in 2005. Those two gave the Yanks nothing much to complain about in the every-squirrel-finds-a-nut category for at least a couple years.

Good point, Festus.

Plus, Carpenter isn't a good example. He was a first-round pick with a lot of talent. He just battled injury. He got healthy and got a nice dose of Dave Duncan -- who really IS a pitching coach that turns around pitchers (many get credit, but he actually does it) -- and it also didn't hurt going to a weaker league.

Chacon and Small.......
........the king and queen of small sample size, no?

Steve, you're disagreeing that Small and Chacon didn't come off the scrap heap, or didn't help the Yankees? Bruney's looked decent so far, too.

baileywalk - that's my point.

Schilling was a bust and then became a star for someone else. Ditto, a guy, to an extent, like Jason Schmidt. Jamie Moyer too.

I can't think of one time the Yankees took a hurler and turned his career around - in the last 30 years.

Rich - I'm thinking for a period of 3 years or more - like C.C. in St, Louie.

For one, I think it's because the Yankee philosophy has been "We'll just buy our number one starter." They'll scour the scrap heap to fill in the margins, but not to plug in a hole at the top of the rotation; you can't do that and expect to win every year.

Plus, how often do scrap heap pitchers turn into a Chris Carpenter type? Aren't scrap heapers usually on that pile for a reason?

I don't know about the last 30 years, Steve, but since the modus operandus of the team has been to acquire big-name/free agent starters for more than a decade (something which started with Jimmy Key and David Cone and was successful up until the off-season of 2003), we haven't had much practice scouring the dark alleys of baseball for that "reclamation" project other organizations have had to resort to. Frankly, I'd prefer the team committed itself to developing pitching from within and nurturing the Hughes, Clippards, and Betances in their system. Let the Braves continue their ulimately fruitless search for nuggets in the dross.

I can't think of one time the Yankees took a hurler and turned his career around - in the last 30 years.
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Does Melido Perez count? Or are we talking sustained excellence? There were the aforementioned "lightning in a bottle" acquisitions Small & Chacon." A few of the names I'm thinking of are/were flotsam & jetsam bullpen guys (John Habyan, Steve Howe)

At any rate, it's tough to come up with a "Chris Carpenter" type. Pitchers do well, and or flame out for a number of reasons. If it were that easy, to acquire a pitcher of that caliber, off the heap, every one would do it :)

I don't know about the last 30 years, Steve, but since the modus operandus of the team has been to acquire big-name/free agent starters for more than a decade (something which started with Jimmy Key and David Cone and was successful up until the off-season of 2003)
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Wouldn't that have started with Catfish Hunter?

I have come to the conclusion that except for an elite few, quality pitching is the ultimate baseball crapshoot. Do you think the Mets were planning on John Maine to be the starter to save their season? How about Jeff Weaver of all people as savior for the Cards?

Whether its free agency, trades or the farm system you need as many quality arms as you can get your hands on, because this year's "quality" is next year's "struggling to find his arm slot" or some such thing.

I can hear it in my mind right now. Joe Buck on October 15, 2007:

Joe: "Tim, Wayne Franklin has been huge for Bobby Cox in the bullpen this season."

Tim: "Oh, absolutely!"

LOL, Joel.
As long as it isn't Felix Heredia.

I have come to the conclusion that except for an elite few, quality pitching is the ultimate baseball crapshoot. Do you think the Mets were planning on John Maine to be the starter to save their season? How about Jeff Weaver of all people as savior for the Cards?
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How 'bout Tampa Bay taking a flyer on a high school physics teacher?

I don't know, I think other teams think Cashman is very good at getting servicable players off of the scrap heap (read SOSH sometime).

The thing is though, that when you are using the scrap heap, there are going to be far more misses than there are going to be hits.

Some hits that the Yankees have had recently with the scrap heap--Chacon, Small, Rasner, Bruney.

Small sample sizes be damned, 3 of the 4 were extremely important to the Yankees in their respective years, and the 4th is still young enough to have the potential to be a 5th starter for the Yankees should they need one.