Let me throw a hypothetical out there for the purposes of generating a debate.
OK, here’s the scenario. Its July 1st and the Yanks are 41-40, 7 games out of first place. Mariano Rivera has been horrendous, he has 9 blown saves and is pitching to a 5.83 ERA. He has even dusted off the change up and still can’t get anyone out. Its apparent to everyone that he’s done. Wang has come off the DL and thrown back to back 1 run complete games. Due to scheduling and a few doubleheaders, Hughes is still in the rotation as well, and is pitching well with a 2.93 ERA. CC, Joba and AJ Burnett have all worked out their early season kinks and are all pitching great. Bruney and Marte have come off the DL, and are performing to the back of their baseball cards.
The Yanks have a new stadium with 1.5 billion in bonds to pay back and very expensive seats to fill next year during a recession. Throw in a TV Network that will suffer with low ratings if the Yanks fall out of the pennant race for a second straight year. Throwing in the towel for this year has huge implications to the Yankee bottom line and could mean Cashman AND Girardi get fired to appease the fan base.
So you’re Brian Cashman. Mo is done, and you have 6 starters all pitching well. What do you do? Do you move Joba to the pen? You’re not talking about the 8th inning guy anymore, you’re talking about the Closer. If not, who is your closer and which one of the starters do you send to AAA?
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I would send Hughes down. He clearly needs to work a bit on maintaining a more consistent level of command and stuff from start to start. I know you want me to say Joba, but that would be a silly sacrifice made for the media. That being said, I think the team would unfortunately put Joba in the pen to save their jobs.
I don’t want any one answer, I want to walk through this and see what makes the most sense. You might be surprised to know what I would do, but I wont say just yet. Also, if part of your decision making is worrying about ‘sacrifices to the media’ then your process is all screwy. That can not be a factor, what is best for this team both now and in the future is the decision to be made.
I see Joba as a starter, but I’m not so locked in where I would never consider him as a closer. There are problems with making Joba your closer as well. If you do, he’s probably done as a starting pitcher for the foreseeable future. He’ll never build up enough innings and will wind up like Paps. Which BTW is not so bad, he’s only one of the best closers in the sport on a perennial winning team.
If Joba’s an ace, you would never move him to the pen. CC might be a great closer as well, but it would be silly to suggest him.
That’s why this is a good debate. There isn’t any one easy answer.
If they put him in the bullpen this season prior to him hitting some sort of innings limit, he will never leave. And if the Yankees put him in the pen even for a bit and then Cash gets fired, all bets are off on what new leadership might do with him.
OK, so who’s your closer?
Bruney, Marte, etc…. Whatever you would have done in the 8th, do in the 9th. And before you say closer by committee never works, that is because it is almost never tried. It worked fine for the Rays once Percival went down last year.
Bruney!
Melancon.
When a guy who throws nothing but strikes in the minors can’t find the plate in the bigs, then something is up. I thought he was a sure thing, but he looked spooked by the bigs. That’s OK, he’ll get over it. But it shows he’s not ready yet.
Maybe later this year, but not yet.
Stupid posting. It’s more of a hypothetical rant! Joba has to stay in rotation right now to see if that is where he fits in the future. Once you move him prior to getting close to the 150 innings, he is forever a bullpen arm. Wang comes up, King Philip must go down. Any injuries and the King comes up. Pettite in last year, Hughes is only 22. He still has a good arm and bright future. We need to ignore the idiot Yankee fans with 0 patience and no knowledge of what it takes to grow a team from within. We need to ignore that same idiot fan and the idiot journalists and blog writers who say if we don’t win the GM and coach must go. Name me another coach that you would want to replace Girardi with that is not coaching right now? Buck? Well isn’t he a Girardi or Girardi is a Buck more or less? As fas as the GM, he needs to stop taking the blame for all the awful free agent signings. He was against A-Roid and a list of others coming here. He also has made some mistakes but he made the mistakes to fix holes until the farm was build up. He has always protected the farm and the Yankees always pick towards end of first round, so there never gonna get a Longoria type player. The farm is two position players and one pitcher who has a great season away from being mentioned in top 5 farms like 2 years ago! The Cash is a good GM that takes abuse by ignorant Yankee fans who are spoiled and know nothing about the 80′s Yankees when the House that Ruth built was empty!
Damn good rant, with some good points.
You’re absolutely right. This discussion is stupid. The instigator even says there is no answer. Talk for talk’s sake. Joba has been a starter his entire career. A couple of wonderful months two years ago doesn’t change that. Go find a closer.
Bruney, Marte, etc…. Whatever you would have done in the 8th, do in the 9th.
Quote from Moshe earlier.
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I concur with his quote; and add, we in NYY land are spoiled with Mo, he will not be around forever.
1st, Closer by committee is not a dumb idea and had been used in the ’50s by the Yankees (and a few others). How many times is the 6th/7th inning guys used in the 10th/11th inning to close out a game? I think throwing a guy in the fire (closer) works fine. One goes by the situation and pitchers available at the time…not enough time to get nervous.
2nd, sometimes you find a diamond in “them thar arms”. We have some other guys down there with talent; Kontos, LaRosa, Kroenke and (a guy I have never seen pitch) Jose Valdez. The numbers show good but, I have not seen any of them pitch this year…yet.
3rd, as for Melancon, he’ll be back very soon. I mean, who would have thought Melancon would break down…did he get overwhelmed or is this his real persona? Either way he needs another shot at the job of 8th/9th inning guy.
no offense, but that’s the dumbest thing i’ve read.
the yankees have an infinitely better chance that mo picks himself up and plays at a respectable level than have hughes with a sub3 era, wang throwing back to back CG’s and have Marte and Bruney pitching well with Mo reaching his demise.
Anyway, I’d trade for a closer. I don’t know who’s available, but I’m sure Hughes could fetch us a flameballer.
BTW, Jeff Johnson has an AWESOME fastball.
I don’t think their are many GMs around that would trade a #1/2 pitcher for a closer. Besides, if all it took to be a closer was a bad ass fastball, we would have 3 or 4 of them already.
That is why they want Joba as a starter…good starters are harder to find then closers.
Also, don’t make a headstone for Mo yet, he is the closer until someone can do it better.