The future of the Yankees: Pat Venditte

Pat Venditte isn't the greatest prospect in the world (he will turn 25 on June 30th), but he sure is unique. He is the first full-time switch pitcher since Tony Mullane in the late 1800's. He will probably make the majors as a middle reliever at some point.

Venditte, an ambidextrous pitcher from Nebraska, has sure had an interesting baseball career. After walking on to the baseball team at Creighton, Venditte played well enough to warrant being drafted twice by the Yankees: in the 45th round in '07, and in the 20th round in '08. He signed with the Yankees in '08, and immediately started putting on a show. In '08, in addition to becoming a YouTube star with this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDyCRTlKllk&feature=player_embedded), Venditte put up incredible stats with the Short Season-A Staten Island Yankees, going 1-0 with a 0.83 ERA, 42 K's, and 23 saves in 30 relief appearances and 32.2 IP. In '09, the legend continued, as he went 4-2 with a 1.87 ERA, 87 K's, and 22 saves in 49 games and 67.1 IP between the Low-A Charleston Riverdogs and the High-A Tampa Yankees. He has gotten off to a good start in '10, also for the Tampa Yankees, going 0-0 with a 2.19 ERA, 18 K's, and 2 saves, and 6 games and 12.1 IP. Venditte has really done well in the minors so far. I would not be surprised if he gets as high as Double-A this year.

He's a little bit old for a player who's never played above A-ball, but he has the potential to be the most versatile reliever ever. This is probably in Joe Girardi's dreams: the batters coming up are a righty, a lefty, and another righty, and he brings in Venditte and Venditte gets out the first righty as a rightly pitcher, the lefty as a lefty pitcher, and the second righty as a righty pitcher again. Also, wouldn't that be some awesome to watch! He throws overhand as a righty, and sidearm as a lefty, so that would also be interesting. Venditte is so unique that he gets his own rule- the Pat Venditte rule for switch pitchers that deals with the chaos in the YouTube video above. The rule is that when a switch pitcher pitches to a switch hitter, the switch pitcher chooses which arm he will pitch with, and then the switch hitter chooses. Also, both the hitter and the pitcher each have one switch during the at-bat. In addition, if the switch pitcher were to get injured, he could switch arms, but he would have to use only that arm for the remainder of the game. At least for the next few years, the Pat Venditte rule will only apply to Pat Venditte. I'm sure that Pat Venditte will be getting major league hitters out in 2011 or 2012 as a middle reliever for the Yankees.

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