As hard as it is to picture, before life with the New York Yankees, starting pitcher Michael Pineda was an encouraging All-Star in 2011, his first year in the majors.
The then-Seattle Mariner registered 173 strikeouts that season, good enough for the sixth-most among American League rookie starters since 2000. Although New York had their No. 1 prospect in Jesus Montero, they traded him and Hector Noesi to the Mariners for the bright future of Pineda and Vicente Campos.
Montero has only played in 73 games since 2012, yet Pineda’s baffling Yankee career has turned a trade — that New York could easily have won — into a decision we’re still laboring to figure out more than five years later.