Pineda Could Be Back Soon; Tanaka Different Story [AUDIO]

Podcast: Buster Olney with Armen and Levack on 104.5 The Team

Buster Olney joined Armen and Levack last Tuesday for his weekly conversations and gave updates on both Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Pineda.

"Tanaka isn’t even on their radar yet," said Olney, on 104.5 The Team. "He’s so far away from being an option, it’s not worth talking about. He’s playing catch right now but he needs to develop far enough where he can try to pitch and we don’t know if he’s going to have a setback along the way.

"Once he actually gets closer, how is he going to react when he’s going with full adrenaline? Will he have an injury? He’s weeks away from that.

"Michael Pineda is a different story. He’s going to make a minor league rehab start on Saturday. He’s going to throw 75 pitches and at that point if he doesn’t have a setback and the Yankees feel like he threw OK, his next start will be in the Big Leagues.

"His next start will be in the big leagues next Thursday or Friday because A) they need the help and B) they really feel like ‘Look, we saw earlier in the year that this is a guy that can get major league hitters out, he’s got tremendous stuff and we think he can help us. And if he has 90 pitches to throw for our staff? Why do that in the minor leagues? Why not just do it in the big leagues?

"On Sunday when he made that minor league rehab start, he was throwing 94 mph and they were really encouraged by that."

On Pineda's previous pine tar incident:

"It’s funny, since that happened, everyone criticized him for that and that’s fine. But my goodness, you watch now and so many pitchers have huge spots on their hats and I’m like, ‘Is that any less obvious than a pitcher putting it on his neck?’ I don’t quite get it. It’s one of the stupid unwritten rules."

Buster Olney joins Armen and Levack every Thursday at 5:15 on 104.5 The Team, powered by Mohawk Army Navy.