Thought the main thrust of this article is that the Yankees aren’t particularly interested in any of the currently available starting pitchers out there, the most interesting nugget is the quote John Harper gets from Brian Cashman about Hector Noesi:

“Nova arrived sooner than expected,” Cashman said Tuesday. “When you’ve got the tools, that can happen. He knows now that he can dissect a major league lineup and go deep into games. He’s a legitimate weapon every five days.

“And Noesi is the next Nova. He’s throwing the (heck) out of the ball in the Dominican Winter League right now, hitting 98 on the gun with his fastball, and commanding his stuff. He’ll be ready to step in next season if we need him.”

That’s some high praise for a guy with just 43 Triple-A innings under his belt, but Noesi did perform admirably in his big league role next year, and he does compare favorably to Nova both from a scouting and statistical stand point. On the latter point he’s actually better, as his career 8.2 K/9 and strikeout to walk ratio of 5.14 blows away Nova’s minor league numbers. Though the strikeouts have tapered off considerably at Triple-A, so that’s something to be mindful of.

Noesi isn’t a finished product, by any means. As much as anything, he would be well served to develop a true go-to out pitch, which he currently lacks, but I seem to have been more bullish on Noesi than most people for a while, so I think he can do it and become a legitimate middle-of-the-order pitcher in the big leagues relatively soon.

One thing is certain though; if Noesi can be the 2012 version of Ivan Nova, it will be a huge boost to the Yankees, and will make the decision to not aggressively pursue an outside answer to the starting pitching question look like a stroke of genius.

With C.C. Sabathia and Fredd Garcia safely back in the pinstriped fold and the front office not in love with any of the starting pitchers on the market this year (or at least their price), the team is beginning to make noise that their 2012 rotation may already be set, bringing back the 2011 corps sans Bartolo Colon, with a rotation of C.C. Sabathia, Ivan Nova, Freddy Garcia, A.J. Burnett, and Phil Hughes. So where does that leave us?

First of all, let’s establish what we (think we) know. Leaving possible injuries aside, C.C. Sabathia should be great, and A.J. Burnett will probably be solidly not good. Ivan Nova likely won’t be as good as he was at the end of 2011, but given the kind of stuff and poise he displayed, he should be good in his own right. That leaves us with true question marks in Garcia and Hughes. The latter is the enigma of all enigmas, to the extent that I’m not sure I’m even going to try to figure him out this winter. Given the nature of Hughes’ injury last season, reports that he came to camp out of shape, and the ever-changing nature of his stuff, I don’t think we’ll have any idea what we’re going to get out of Hughes until April rolls around. He may have a strong bounce back campaign, he may crater completely, or he might settle in as a below average big league starter without a solid off-speed pitch or a go-to out pitch. Your guess is as good as mine.

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Jim Callis has more information on some details of the new draft rules at Baseball America, and they are not good. It’s not all bad by any means, but the bad definitely outweighs the good. This is the most important, and most distressing, bit of news in the post:

The most significant new detail: If a team fails to sign a player in the first 10 rounds, its draft cap is reduced by the assigned value of his pick. It can’t reallocate that value to sign other players. However, it can reallocate the difference between a player’s bonus and the value of his choice.

So, in other words, the idea that teams will get a “pool” of money to spend on their draft picks is only kinda-sorta true. If you sign a pick for under slot value, you can take the balance and reallocate it elsewhere. But if the player refuses to sign within the range you can offer, you lose the slot value of that pick and can’t use it to spend more on your remaining picks.

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