MLB 2017: One X-factor for each team

New York Yankees: SP Michael Pineda

The 2016 season was a mixed bag or Pineda, with a career-best 10.6 K/9 rate and a career-high 32 starts but a 4.82 ERA and 27 home runs allowed too. But a 3.79 FIP reflects some bad overall fortune in his peripheral numbers, and a 3.21 ERA over his final six starts points to things possibly coming together for Pineda once and for all.

Masahiro Tanaka has already been given the Opening Day nod by Yankees’ manager Joe Girardi, but the rest of the starting rotation carries big question marks. C.C. Sabathia, Luis Severino and Adam Warren are in line to be the No. 3-5 starters, barring injuries or an especially dreadful spring, and Pineda is still firmly on the list of rotation question marks until he proves otherwise over a larger sample of innings.

The Yankees’ 2017 outcome will rest virtually equally on how some notable young players perform in extended exposure to the big leagues and how the starting pitching comes together. Pineda is past the point of being called a post-hype prospect now, but if he can finally find some consistency at 28 years old he will be a difference-maker in the Bronx this year.