Mike Ashmore’s got the word. After missing most of the last 2 years due to Tommy John surgery and various other ailments, Sanchez will become the first player the Yanks received in the Gary Sheffield deal to reach the bigs. The 6′6″, 270 lb monster will work out of the pen, as you’d expect. I can’t wait.

Via Chad Jennings, organizational pitching guru Nardi Contreras confirmed that both Phil Hughes & Humberto Sanchez will be heading to the Arizona Fall League this year. This is all about innings for these two, especially Phil. The AzFL season doesn’t start until October 9th, so I supposed there’s a chance that Hughes could make an appearance or two with the Yanks in September. We already know he’s starting tomorrow for Triple-A Scranton.

Austin Jackson & Kevin Russo are the only other players confirmed to be going to AzFL this year, so the Yanks still have three spots to fill (two pitchers and an infielder).

This is usually Mike’s department, but I don’t see him online at the moment, so I’m going to wrap up this piece by the indispensable Chad Jennings. While his job is to cover the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees, he does a stupendous job of talking to guys like Nardi Contreras and Mark Newman, providing updates from the entire Yankees farm system. While you can find the full list of updates at his site, here’s the abridged version.

Humberto Sanchez is on the road back, but he’s not at 45 pitches yet. Jennings explains that this is the number of pitches they want a starter to toss from a mound before getting him into a game. This suggests that at least for the time being, the Yankees will use him as a starter. We’ll see, though.

For those Chris Garcia nuts out there (I’m looking right at you, Jamal), he’s pitching today. I’m not sure where he’s pitching today, but it will be four innings or 55 pitches, whichever comes first. We’ll see if we can get the results if this start happens to be in extended spring training.

Nardi seems to be very happy about Zach McAllister, J.B. Cox, and Mark Melancon. And really, how couldn’t he be? These guys are pitching very, very well.

Finally, no one knows what’s up with Sean Henn. Could it be possible that no team claims him off waivers? It seems to me a team like the Giants could afford the roster spot. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Over the last 18 months or so, some of the Yanks very best pitching prospects went down with major arm injuries. It was frustrating and almost laughable at how many quality arms went down with Tommy John surgery, but at the same time it’s a testament to the kind of pitching depth the organization has when they can lose that many guys still have arms like Hughes, Joba, IPK, Tyler Clippard and Ross Ohlendorf make contributions at the Major League level.

A popular comment amongst…uh, commentors is that “Player X [who went down with a major injury in 2007] will be ready to help the bullpen by midseason,” and you know what? That statement is completely wrong. Pitchers have to relearn their mechanics and find their control after such a long layoff, and that process can be painstaking at times. Guys who rely on command and control need even more time to get things back to once they were.

Just like Brian Cashman, I can’t predict the future, so the info presented here is basically just my best educated guess, if that makes sense. We’re all hoping these guys get healthy and dominate in 2008, but in reality we should hope that they just finish the year strong. Fun starts after the jump.

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The official site has Humberto Sanchez out two to four days with an inflammed elbow. Pete Abraham reports that he’s out “10 days or so.”

Any pipe dream of Sanchez making the Opening Day roster seem to be out the window, not because he’ll be injured, but because he might not get enough work in. Not that it was going to happen, anyway.

Taking 10 days off sounds like the best idea at this point. Better to resign him to Scranton and let him heal fully, rather than rush him back and risk further injury. He does have a history of elbow troubles…