By Paul Semendinger
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Six players have worn #70 as a Yankee.
These are:
George Kontos (2011) – 7 games, 6 innings pitched, 3.00 ERA and
(2018) – 1 game, 1.2 innings pitched, 0.00 ERA
Brett Marshall (2013) – 3 games, 12 innings pitched, 4.50 ERA
Rico Noel (2015) – 15 games, but only 2 At Bats. He had one hit (.500 batting average). He scored 5 runs.
Breyvic Valera (2019) – 12 games, 32 At Bats, .219
Tyler Lyons (2019) – 11 games, 8.2 innings pitched, 4.15. (He pitched in uniform #58 in 2020.)
Luis Avilan (2020) – 10 games, 8.1 innings pitched, 4.32
And that’s what makes this task so difficult. Six players who had little more than a cup of coffee with the Yankees, at least at that uniform number.
Six players who did not really leave a mark…
As such, I will determine Breyvic Valera as the greatest at #70 because of the fact that 32 At Bats signifies that he played a bit more in the games in which he appeared. In nine of the games he played in as a Yankee, he played the entire game. That’s significantly more than any other player on this list.
The greatest Yankee, then, to ever wear #70 is Breyvic Valera.
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Most of the research for this project comes from Baseball-Reference.com.
