A quick look at Alfredo Aceves

Aveces, a rookie, will start for the Yankees tonight against the Sox.

My, how the Yankees have fallen.

It just feels odd to see the New York Yankees—who have made the playoffs every year since 1995—trotting out the pitchers they will be in this four-game series with the White Sox. Those four pitchers will be Alfredo Aceves, Andy Pettitte, Phil Hughes, and Carl Pavano.

Pettitte is the only established starter of the four, but he's just 13-13 with a 4.52 ERA this year. Hughes hasn't pitched since April 29, and Pavano has barely pitched in the majors in the last four years.

So that leaves Aceves. It's rare to say "who?" to a player on the Yankees, but that's the case with Aceves.

Aceves, 25, began 2008—his first year of playing professional baseball—with Single-A Tampa and rocketed through the Yankees' system, although not entire thanks to good pitching. He posted a 2.11 ERA in 47 innings at Tampa before being promoted to Double-A Trenton, where he had a 1.80 ERA in 50 innings.

The right-hander was then promoted to Triple-A Scranton-Wilkes Barre, where he was less than impressive, putting up a 4.12 ERA in 43.2 innings. He was called up to the Yankees in late August, and he's had success in limited innings so far in the majors.

Aveces is an excellent control pitcher, walking just 29 batters in 154.2 innings between A, AA, AAA, and the majors this year. He features a low-90's fastball and a high-80's cut fastball to go along with a low-80's changeup and high-70's curveball.

He uses the fastball and cutter the most, throwing those pitches 51.7% and 20.5% of the time in his limited major-league innings. Aveces uses his offspeed pitches much less, featuring his changeup 16.1% of the time and his curveball 11.7% of the time.

The White Sox are an excellent fastball-hitting team, so if Aveces expects to shut down this lineup, he's going to have to either locate his fastball and cutter with perfection or utilize his offspeed pitches more.

However, Aveces is coming off a very good start in Los Angeles Sept. 9, in which he went seven innings while allowing one earned run on five hits, no walks, and two strikeouts against a good Angels lineup.

It's tough to get a good read on Aveces because he doesn't have an extensive minor league track record to go along with his limited major-league service time, but it appears that he had good command of his pitches, although none of them are above-average. His start against the Angels may have been a fluke, it may not have been. We'll find out tonight.