Nestor Curtis gives the Yankees a great injury update

The New York Yankees are getting healthier as spring training progresses, despite losing a number of catchers up to this point. Most of the team’s injuries were to reserve players, which, while impactful, certainly didn’t hurt the team as much as a standout player.

The most notable injury was Frankie Montas, who is expected to miss the majority of the 2023 season. However, one of the team’s best and most influential players is Nestor Cortes, and he appears to have evaded a hamstring injury.

All is well. I threw away a few lives where I looked pretty good. I’m anxious to throw a game.

Via Randy Miller from NJ.com.

The Yankees need Nestor Curtis to be 100% healthy for Opening Day:

Curtis is working his way back hard and should be ready for the start of the regular season at the end of March. After signing a one-year, $3.2 million deal to avoid arbitration, Curtis hopes to return for the 2022 season.

He enjoyed a career-best 2.44 ERA, 3.63 xFIP, 9.27 strikeouts per nine, 82.8% on-base and an 8.2% HR/FB ratio across 158.1 innings. If he can pass that innings threshold in 2023, the Yankees could get exponential value out of it.

The problem is, Nestor had never pitched that many roles in a single season before, and fatigue began to settle as the post-season went on. He struggled in qualifying because of it, seeing his speed drop and his accuracy fail to remain consistent.

However, when Curtis is at the top of his form, he is extremely difficult to hit. I imagine he’ll do some creative things with his pitch clock this year, making use of his fun swings and speed to get the ball out quickly and get hitters out of their game.

It’s great to see that Curtis has already thrown a couple of live hitting practice sessions, so I think manager Aaron Boone wants to get him involved in spring training sometime in the near future.