This year, 9 different pitchers started for the Yankees. Whoa, that sounds like a lot, right? Well, last year 12 different pitchers got turns starting. Yes there were odd circumstances and all (such as Chien-Ming Wang dying and going to baseball heaven) but last year the team only had two pitchers approach 150 innings and they were both old men who just about hit the 200 mark.
In 2009 the Yankees saw their top 3 pitchers reach the around 200IP mark all by itself and when you include Joba the top four all hit 150+. These pies leave off the last go-rounds CC, AJ and Andy got since those were just tune-up starts and unless there was a no-hitter happening they would have been yanked after five or so anyway to insure that the bullpen guys also got their work in.
So with all that out of the way, let’s get started.
After a rocky first month and the occasional bump in the road CC Sabathia was pretty much everything the Yankees hoped he would be. We’re looking purely at innings here, and he gave the team great length. CC also pitched one complete game but adding that as a separate slice broke Excel in a way I couldn’t figure out how to fix.
Andy didn’t give the team the length that CC did, but let’s be honest here: Who could? He still averaged over six innings a start, which is about what you expect from him and more importantly, what the team expected from him.
AJ Burnett’s season was full of ups and downs but that is pretty much AJ Burnett in a nutshell. Amazingly, even in games where he had some totally awful innings he managed to stick through it and give the team innings, saving the bullpen. He was able to go deep into games almost 40% of the time he went out, which is a great thing for the team. An overworked bullpen is a sad and usually bad/tired bullpen by the time September and October roll around.
Honestly more amazing than that was that AJ stayed healthy for the whole season and made all his starts.
One important notes about this particular graph: It includes Joba’s pseudo-starts of a few innings which slants things. Joba actually pretty consistently pitched six innings, which is all you look for out of your fourth starter (remember that he was initially supposed to be the fifth guy). I didn’t break him out into his own chart because it would be so skewed by the last month and a half.
Even accounting for the Joba Rules can see what a crazy dark hole the fifth starter role was in terms of eating up innings this year. It’s not unusual, but given that the Yankees had what seemed like it was going to be a very good innings-eating rotation from top to bottom in the Spring it was unexpected. Luckily, the top 3 made sure that the bullpen got plenty of rest during their turns in the rotation and before the August implosion/innings limits Joba did his part too.
