The 2020 season was a lost one for a lot of prospects, who got no chance to ply their trade after the cancellation of the minor-league season.
Not so for Yankees righty Nick Nelson, who was one of many Yankees to make their major-league debut during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. Nelson, though, did have to change roles; a starter by trade, he pitched 20 2/3 innings over 11 relief appearances, which meant that he had to adopt a new mindset along with a new location.
“The biggest thing was not throwing as many pitches in the bullpen, and limiting myself. It was kind of challenging at times, but at the same time, it was cool,” Nelson said Tuesday, one day after his first spring outing of 2021. “There’s a lot of anticipation in building up as a starter and going through your routine, but as a reliever, you do your stuff pre-game and wait until your name gets called. It calmed the nerves a little bit.”
The one thing he did learn from that experience?
“That I can trust my pitches, I don’t have to be too fine. That was a big thing I took away,” Nelson said. “Going into the offseason, I had an idea of what I needed to work on, from both a pitching and a weight room standpoint.”
Nelson did also spend some time at the Yankees’ alternate site in Scranton, and while there’s not much known about exactly what went on at those sites league-wide, the righty gave a glimpse into how it helped him.
“Being there gave me a chance to work on my slider, which I’ve been trying to develop,” he said. “In those intra-squad games, there weren’t any real consequences if you didn’t execute, so you could try things out. That gave me some opportunities to work on different things.”
The slider is a big one, as Nelson said he couldn’t really trust his curve last year, so he turned to the slider as his main breaking pitch. He’s been working on both breaking balls since the off-season and considers himself a four-pitch pitcher, knowing that Yankees manager Aaron Boone has mentioned that development of breaking balls could determine Nelson’s ultimate fate as a starter or reliever.
That said, the former is his preference, but if the latter brings him a ring in 2021, so be it.
“I would still love to be a starter, but whatever the team needs, however I can help the team, I’m game for it.”
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
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