From Joel Sherman (NY Post):
Chien-Ming Wang was lost for the year. Ian Kennedy is only now returning from aneurysm surgery. In the last year, Alfredo Aceves, Phil Coke and Phil Hughes all have been moved from the rotation to the bullpen.This is essentially the equivalent of having a whole rotation taken out of play and is a major reason why the Yankees did not send Joba Chamberlain to the minors in August when his struggles and the Yanks’ desire to shorten his outings converged. Yankee officials tell me there was really no option but to have Joba continue to do his work in the majors because the club already was dealing with a fifth starter spot combo of Sergio Mitre and Chad Gaudin.
But it is worthwhile to remember heading into next year that Chamberlain does not have the divine right to a major league job. The Marlins sent down Ricky Nolasco this year and the Brewers sent down Manny Parra. Chamberlain still has options, which means he is going to get the first opportunity to start and some rope to keep a job. And it is important to remember that the Yanks believe Chamberlain is on the way to the top of a rotation. However, he will not have endless rope in 2010 when theoretically both Hughes and Kennedy will both be rotation options again.
I would not be surprised to see the Yankees begin 2010 with Joba Chamberlain in the Scranton rotation, rather than pitching at the big league level, in any capacity (bullpen or rotation). His future will ultimately depend on a number of elements, including whether or not they can bring Andy Pettitte back and whether or not Hughes will be a starter, as well. In addition, the Yankees could choose to strengthen their rotation through a free agent signing (e.g., John Lackey), adding a stabilizing force which would also influence Joba’s role next season.
Clearly, Joba Chamberlain’s future in 2010 will be contingent upon a variety of factors and nothing is guaranteed (or, at least, nothing should be guaranteed). His status, like the rotation, is in flux and that’s the way it should be, especially when you consider his turbulent 2009 season.
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35 Responses to Bullpen, rotation, or Scranton…
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Lackey would be nice to have on this team but, I don’t see it happening at all. We will have CC, AJ, Joba, CMW, Andy, Phil and IPK to deal with in 2010. We know that CC and AJ will be set but, what about the other three spots?
Andy resigns, he’ll be in the rotation.
Do they resign CMW? If so, he’ll be in the rotation.
That leaves room for one more…one of Joba, IPK or Phil both IPK and Phil will be under the Joba rules in 2010. Thus, it leaves us with Joba…can he handle it, hope so!
CMW won’t be ready until at least midseason, which complicates matters a bit. So, I’m assuming Andy will resign. If he does, then we will have 3 spots locked up. I’m wondering if the Yankees are ready to go with Joba and Hughes if that’s the case, though. Maybe they’ll sign a lesser free agent—not necessarily John Lackey—such as Jarrod Washburn, who I’ll discuss tomorrow in the FA mini-series.
Why would you go through all these rules not to make Joba a starter? It doesn’t make sense… You have to at least give him a chance to pitch with no “rules” slowing him up.
If the Yankees want to sign a starter in the off season they should go after Harden, he wouldn’t command a long term deal, he wouldn’t get a lot of guaranteed money so you give him an incentive laden deal to be the number 5 starter.
What? Why would you not be surprised if Joba started in AAA? Rumblings are that Pettite wants back so I would expect the same 4 as this year with Hughes taking Wang’s spot to start. There is a learning curve for all young pitchers and considering that it seems Joba has done pretty well and certainly deserves to be in the rotation for next year.
I guess it depends on how you perceive Joba’s season. I don’t think Joba has done well at all in terms of learning how to pitch and doing what he needs to do in order to be successful. Also, his mechanics are, for the most part, a mess, as Dave Eiland attributes his latest string of bad starts to mechanical flaws.
He has been an above average starter, though, which is a testatment to his stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if they started him in AAA to help him figure it out a bit, especially if they sign someone like Jarrod Washburn and resign Andy Pettitte. The fifth spot can be up in the air and he would have the best chance at taking it, so it is unlikely that he will start the year in AAA, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility for that to occur.
I think it is outside the realm of possibilities! Joba is in the Majors for good whether you like it or not, he has to big a fan base and they have done to much to screw him up while keeping him with the Yankees instead of going to Scranton, he won’t go their now ever again unless it’s a rehab start.
You wouldn’t be surprised to see Joba start the season in AAA? Might one of the stupidest comments I’ve heard from a Yankee fan in some time.
And that’s saying a lot.
Your blog loses credibility everytime you make a stupid comment like that. Joel Sherman should not be your role model.
Your comment loses credibility when you call someone an idiot without stating any reasons why the author is incorrect.
And Chris is correct in this situation. If Joba has a terrible spring coming off a so-so season, or even if he is injured in any way, I could see the Yankees giving him a handful of starts in AAA to boost his confidence. In most cases teams don’t need a 5th starter for the first few weeks of the season as it is.
Is it likely he starts in AAA, no. But it is a possibility, especially since he has the available options.
Exactly! Thanks for that.
If Joba can’t figure it out this season, has a poor postseason and is ineffective in spring training, then he can most definitely end up starting 2010 in AAA (and, as StandingO’Neill stated, in many cases teams don’t need a 5th starter to start the season). He, like any pitcher not named CC Sabathia or A.J. Burnett, is not guaranteed anything. I also said, “I would not be surprised to see Joba start the 2010 season in the Scranton rotation,” meaning that it’s very unlikely but it would not surprise me if it were to occur.
I see very little possibility of that happening they have done way to mucyh adverse to his growing as a pitcher by not sending him to Scranton to up and send him there to start next year besides I think he will be the 4th starter going into next season, and there is no way he is the 5th starter to Hughes because Hughes has less innings going into next year than Joba did going into this year.
Kevin M:
Please refrain from the nastiness, “Might one of the stupidest comments I’ve heard from a Yankee fan in some time.” I would like to remind you that blogs such as this one should be a place people enjoy reading and expressing themselves, free from personal vituperation. Talking down to people simply undermines the purpose of this enterprise and detracts from the pleasure. If you disagre with someone, just give your reasons. We would be happy to hear why you think Jon and Joel Sherman are wrong. To some of us, it is not so self-evident as it may appear to you.
Unfortunately, people tend to say things behind the wall of anonymity that they would never say face-to-face to someone they have just met, much less to a friend. When we do that, we really are not at our best.
As you and others have repeatedly demonstrated, we have great readers here at TYU. Sometimes, people have differing opinions and, in the heat of the moment, they don’t provide the most articulate arguments for their positions. It happens. Thanks for calling it out, though.
What is this? You have to have 3 or 4 people who aren’t in the conversation read KEvin M the riot act? Why is everyone so holier than thou….. He wasn’t talking to you so let Chris deal with it himself and stop being a nosy Nancy… You aren’t god so it isn’t your problem.
Is it just me or did Joba seem like he was doing fine until they started screwing with his rotation? If not for the new rules this year he might have continued his hotness after the All-Star break and be sitting on 14 wins right now and we would all be talking about how he would be battling CC for number one next year.
Recently, Dave Eiland noted that it was a mechanical flaw and they fixed it prior to the Angels game. Hopefully, that’s all it was, but I do think that the Joba Rules were affecting him. At one point, the rules included more off-days in between starts, however, the Yankees eliminated those after Joba began to pitch poorly. So the rules do, indeed, have an impact on his performance.
We all know he started struggling worse after they started fuxing with his innings and days in between but Chris is also right Joba has never fully gotten his mechanics down to a point he can repeat them inning from inning let alone game from game. However I don’t think that will keep him out of the rotation next year at all.
I think Joba would have been sent down this year if we had other options. If he has a bad finish and follows that up with a bad spring, he most certainly could find himself back in AAA. This has happened to many good pitchers.
Agreed. If the Yankees had a healthy Chien-Ming Wang around, Joba would have definitely found his way to Scranton at some point this year.
HE shouldn’t have started the year with the Yankees he should have been sent down to Scranton at the beginning to establish the innings he would pitch and then call him up the first time we needed him.
I definitely agree with you there.
That is the problem they didn’t do it this year so they almost can’t do it next year because of the expectations and pressure they have put on him with the “Joba Rules” at the major league level, it would be a huge let down to fans to do all this non sense this year with no real plan and then start him in Scranton next year when you should have done it from the beginning. It would be admitting failure in the way they handled Chamberlain.
I don’t want Lackey at all! He is going to want a big contract with at least 4 years, he is already in his 30s and is already starting his decline both performance wise and injury wise the Angels are dumping him just in time like they did with Bartolo Colon.
Sabathia
Burnett
Pettitte
Chamberlain
Hughes/Harden
With Wang in the free agent pool waiting to sign if we need him to…
The Yankees could make a play for Harden or even Jarrod Washburn. I’ll address those two in tomorrow’s piece.
Washburn is last resort way after Harden IMO… Washburn is 36+ at this point while Harden would be 29 next year with much more electric stuff and a lot more value as a starting pitcher in the AL East because he strikes out a lot of batters, he walks a lot too but with strike outs and his pitches he can survive better than Washburn.
In terms of whether or not Harden would be better than Washburn in the AL (if he does, indeed, return), I think that’s debatable. Harden has stuff but Washburn knows how to pitch. Despite having identical records, I would argue that Washburn has had a better year than Harden has given his ability to go deeper into ballgames (his knee problems have hurt his season, however). Harden can give you 5 innings where he strikes out 10 hitters, but he’ll still only give you 5 innings, which is a problem.
I do want the Yankees to strongly consider bringing him in, though. His talent is too good to ignore.
I think the main thing to consider when you are talking bringing in Harden to the Yankees is he will only be a 5th starter so you won’t be counting on him to be an ace or a number two pitcher all he has to do it go out and give 5 or 6 innings of work as long as those innings are productive you can’t go wrong with him being number 5. When you consider that and the fact that he will get less money than Washburn and he is younger there for can be a factor for a couple years into the future is a huge plus on the side of Harden over Washburn but maybe that’s just me.
IPK won’t be a staring pitcher for us next year… or at least I hope to god he won’t because if he does we have had a bunch of injuries and aren’t making the playoffs anyway. I don’t think Kennedy will ever be a good starter in the majors, he just doesn’t have the stuff to dominate, I think he would thrive in an Alfredo Aceves like bull pen role.
“Me thinks” you are to hard on the guy. Why is it that unless a pitcher has a blazing fastball or is a vet, fans will not think twice of dumping him. IPK is a better pitcher then he has shown, as of yet. He has good stuff (not overpowering) but, he needs very good Command and Control to be effective.
Remember last year? We had Moose, same thing…granted, Moose had a better selection of pitches and years of experience. Give the guy a chance to turn it around, hopefully he will…if not, trade bait or BP.
Comparing Moose to IPK really isn’t a good comparison, you are talking about an old pitcher who slowly lost his stuff and re invented himself for one year after struggling with lesser stuff for two years before doing so. Ian kennedy has always been an overrated part of our system he just reminds me of Aceves in a lot of ways, and by that I mean once or twice through a line up when they have good control and they can dominate but when you start seeing them 3 or 4 times in one game you can really take advantage of the fact they don’t have the stuff to miss a lot of bats. Paul Byrd proves you can pitch with almost any kind of fastball if you want to but it doesn’t mean you can be great, I think Kennedy is much much much better than he showed last year, and he has always been a pretty dominate pitcher in Scranton with free swingers but I think he would have a lot more success and a lot more value to our team as a bull pen guy.
You may be right about the BP but, I still like to give him a chance as a starter.
Why not; “None of the above”?
With the staff we have right now i.e., CC, AJ, Joba, Andy, Phil, Gaudin and IPK…yes, I said Gaudin (better slider next year)…we have a good rotation.
I know, Phil will have the Joba rules imposed upon him. The kid has put it together, this year…let’s see if he can do it as a starter. By the time he has run his limit of innings, CMW should be ready to come back…if they resign him.
I think the days of going after a free agent every year, is over…unless it’s a deal like Swishers.
Swisher wasn’t a free agent he was a trade…
I think they will probably be in on free agent starter this off season but the problem is the free agent classes of the next two years aren’t really any good at all! A guy like Lackey is to old and to expensive for what we are trying to do and Washburn is to inconsistent to trust especially at his age and on a multiple year contract. I agree with Ranger none of the above unless they want to bring in a guy like Harden or maybe Sheets if he is healthy because neither one would want a lot of years and neither one would command a lot of money unless it’s incentive laden in which case they would have to perform to get the money.
Good idea, incentives work for me!
If you gotta pay em make sure they work hard for it and really we don’t need to get a top of the line rotation guy anyway so someone who can pitch in the 4th or 5th slot would work perfectly.
But, but don’t we already have two guys that can hold down the 5th spot…Gaudin/Mitre? Next year Mitres arm will be stronger (from TJ?), which should help him pitch better and Gaudin could get stretched out in spring training…if needed.