Things started off a little scary as the first out was a deep fly to right field. I could not at first tell if it was going over the wall, and honestly I don’t think Nick Swisher could either. It landed in his glove in the end and there was much rejoicing.

Now, if you hang around the internet during games you see a lot of “BABIP nooooooo!!” type comments. It’s sort of a catch all and overused by everyone, including me. I cannot, however, describe the results of the next two at bats as anything but the God of BABIP punching Joba in the gut.

First, Scott Podsednik bunted for a hit. Argh. Next, Jason Kendall hit a ball so slowly that it died halfway up the line to A-Rod for a “base hit”. It was not a bunt, Kendall had made such bad contact with the pitch that it barely moved the baseball, which happened to end up in no man’s land.

At this point the people around me started booing, and calling for Mariano to come into the game. It was pretty ridiculous.

I am not a Joba defender and I think there is more going on with him than just bad luck on balls in play, but last night was clearly a bizarre freak inning. I know that frustration boils over and all that but if there was ever a game where the drama wasn’t his fault, it was yesterday.  Let’s not forget about the blown call at third base where everyone who was watching the game except Chad Fairchild (the 3B umpire) saw Alex Rodriguez tag Podsednik before he slid into the base.

He danced around Billy Butler a bit (or it looked like that from my seat), which was okay by me as he has an OPS of nearly .900 against RHP and took his chances with Jose Guillen. Guillen is a decent, but not great hitter and not at all patient. He quickly grounded out to short, inning over, crisis averted.

Anyway, my basic point here is that Joba didn’t suck. The first out was hit much, much harder than either of the two singles. The inning should have been over before he even faced Butler but the third bungled call of the game happened to go against the Yankees. It was an actual “bad luck” night, and those suck and are awful to watch and the timing was bad but they happen to everyone. It’s happened to Mariano at least once this year.

I know that a lot of people have lost all confidence with Joba, and I admit I don’t really have much because you never know which version is going to show up until the inning is in progress. But if you go crazy and overreact every time there’s a little blip it’s probably not very good for your health.

1. CC Sabathia
2. AJ Burnett
3. Andy Pettitte
4. Javier Vazquez
5. Phil Hughes
6. Sergio Mitre o_O
7. Your guess is as good as mine but mostly people you really don’t want to think about.

If Mitre is in the pen as the long-man, that puts him at #6. Chad Gaudin was unconditionally released for what seem to be financial reasons. Joba Chamberlain and Alfredo Aceves will then be in mostly one-inning roles that means they can’t just jump out and start when AJ Burnett finally has that injury we were waiting for all last year.

In perfect world land, I’d have the depth chart look something like this:

1. CC Sabathia
2. AJ Burnett
3. Andy Pettitte
4. Javier Vazquez
5. Phil Hughes
6. Joba Chamberlain
7. Sergio Mitre
8. Alfredo Aceves

Aceves is sort of a dream here, and he’d be limited in his first time out but when you reach 8th on the depth chart that is extreme emergency territory.

The important difference is Joba Chamberlain at #6. He really should be sixth on the depth chart because there’s no way you can get me drunk enough to believe that Mitre is a better option. Plus, in the future we want Joba to live up to as much of his potential in the starting rotation as possible. To be blunt: He should spend as much of his last option year in AAA as needed to continue working on the two pitches he often neglects (change and curveball) and be available to the team in the event of an injury to one of the old overworked guys in the rotation.

I don’t think that Joba should be slotted into the 8th inning role for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because I think it’s important for them to not take a step backwards in his plan after last year and secondly because I’m not sure if he’s actually a better choice than the David Robertson/Damaso Marte tandem at this point in time.

I also believe that it’s time for the team to bring Mark Melancon up to the Bronx and let him pitch his way into or out of a Major League job for real. Like Robertson he has the stuff you need to be an above average relief pitcher in MLB and just needs to be given an opportunity to go out and do it already.

I’m sure this is all a dream though, and when I wake up Joba Chamberlain will be in the MLB bullpen. After all, Joe Giardi has already announced that Joba’s next appearance will be Saturday for one inning which offers some insight that makes me a lot sad.

Ultimately this is all about the Yankees and their need to win, now and always to uphold their brand and sell tickets at outrageous prices. Hopefully they have some better alternatives planned out to try and develop all of their young arms for MLB that we, the general public, do not know about.

Here’s the basic stats:

CC Sabathia is giving the Yankees a lot of innings, and though he’s had some bad starts he has overall been very good. He had a rough April and has rebounded nicely from it, though there have been some bumps along the way since then.

Andy Pettitte is obviously underachieving quite a bit, or maybe that’s just his current level of skill. He was supposed to be the 5th starter this year, and he’s pitching like one. Unfortunately circumstances have changed and that’s not really true right now. What he is managing to do is give the Yankees about 6 innings a start, which is pretty useful. It will be more useful if he gets better, and if he doesn’t get better don’t be surprised if the Yankees look for someone to replace him.

A.J. Burnett’s basic line shows us what we all knew already: he throws a lot of wild pitches, walks a lot of guys, and strikes out a lot of them as well.

Joba Chamberlain’s 2009 season has been a hair-pulling experience so far: his ERA is very deceptive because of those 10 unearned runs, and he doesn’t give the Yankees very many innings.

And overall, the Yankees’ pitchers have been giving up a lot of homeruns. The short porch in right doesn’t help but it also doesn’t explain why lefty Andy Pettitte has suddenly seen his HR/9 spike at home.

Now that we have the basics of what’s going on, let’s take a look at some more of what is going on.

CC’s K/9 rate sitting at 6.66 is kind of scary. It’s a huge drop from his last three years when he posted K/9s of 8.93 (2008), 8.03 (2006) and 7.8 (2007). In addition to that, his walk rate is up a tick (it was just about 2BB/9 last year and 1.3BB/9 in his Cy Young year). Why is this happening? I have no idea, and both of these can improve in the second half but it is concerning. These changes turn CC into a very good pitcher when the Yankees need him to be an excellent pitcher.

Andy Pettitte has always been a guy who pitches to contact and seen a lot of hits get through, but has put up sustainable numbers in a few different ways. 1) His pickoff move; 2) Doesn’t walk dudes; 3) Lots of groundballs. The not walking batters probably being the most important part in the equation, especially as he doesn’t have a lot of pure stuff and needs to be more of a “Crafty Lefty”. Unfortunately, he’s not been so crafty and his BB/9 has ballooned. It’s not the worst it’s ever been, but whenever his BB/9 reaches 3.0+ the quality of his pitching drops dramatically. Maybe he’ll have one of those Andy Pettitte second-halves but it could just be age catching up. Step #1, though, is getting that walkrate down.

Speaking of walks, A.J. Burnett gives out a lot of free passes. Always has, always will. They seem to come in bundles and his ability to strike out guys at a high rate gives him a bit more wiggle room. His groundball rate is still very off from his career norm (about 1.5GB:FB), and it would be nice to see it get back where it is but other than being really frustrating to watch when he loses the ability to throw strikes there’s not much to complain about out of his pitching. The less flyballs he gives up, the less we’ll see drop over the short porch in right, though.

Lastly, the by far most frustrating of all Yankees starters: Joba Chamberlain. Here are some more advanced stats from Joba this year:

Joba’s fastball is not as explosive. You expect to see a drop here to a certain degree because he isn’t pitching in relief at all, but it should still be closer to his 2008 number than where it sits currently. In relief in 2007, he averaged 97MPH on the fastball so that 94 is probably just about where it should go (think: A.J. Burnett). But it’s not, though in his last start it was a lot closer to what it’s been. But why does he have so many starts where we don’t see that? It’s a mystery to me, and I think most people. It could have to do with the mechanical tweaks the Yankees say they had him do in Spring Training but I’m no expert and can’t comment there. All I know is that Joba should be able to break out a high 90s fastball when he reaches back like Justin Verlander but we haven’t really seen a lot of that.

F-Strike% and Zone% tell us another thing that we know: Joba simply is not throwing a ton of strikes. He starts behind in the count almost half the time and then continues to…not throw strikes. And on top of that, batters aren’t swinging at his stuff at much. But that happens when you stop throwing pitches in the zone.

And no, none of this will be miraculously fixed by putting him in the bullpen. Going into the bullpen doesn’t magically give you the ability to throw strikes.

It’s so rare for a young pitcher to come on the scene and destroy it like a Tim Lincecum that I think we all expected Joba to hit some bumps. The problem is that nothing is getting better and people are starting to get really irritated (this is helped alng by his “I think I pitched great!” post game blurbs recently).

I am trying to be patient but when you’ve got another member of the staff under-performing in Pettitte and one who has not been able to pitch well at all this year in Wang it’s very frustrating. If the bottom half of the rotation does not fix itself at least a little bit and the Yankees do not do something to add at least one pitcher better than Chamberlain and Pettitte, they are going to be overtaken by the Rays and miss the playoffs.

And then we all did this:

PS — Joba Chamberlain should not be in the bullpen.

Joba is only going one inning today, Spring Training is long this year because of the World Baseball Classic so the starting five are probably going to get a break for a while. Minor League camp doesn’t start until 3/15 or so, so there is nobody to send anyone for a while until then.

The YES gun seems to be up to its normal tricks so far, or Joba is really holding back for no good reason. The first two fastballs he threw were 88mph according to it, which can’t be right.

Joba is leaving some fastballs up where they’re very hittable, I’m not really concerned here but it’s not much fun to watch. Two doubles in a row (to Delmon Young, then Jason Kubel) both smacked fastballs that were just left up there asking to be smacked out (but they were somehow not).

He threw one slider to Luke Hughes, which was an oddity since this is normally when you just throw fastball and changeups. It was a beauty and totally fooled the batter.

Joba’s final line: 1.0 IP, 3H, 2R, 0BB, 0K. 21 pitches/11 strikes.

Dan Giese…is who he is. The Yankees found him with by scouting International Leagues. He’s really limited and can’t go through a lineup enough times really to be a starting pitcher for the team, but he can be useful as a swingman/long reliever. Unfortunately for him, there are other better options for that now like Alfredo Aceves and Phil Coke so I don’t think he’ll make the Major League team.

Just gave up a homerun to Carlos Gomez. He should probably lose the swingman job in the bullpen just for that.

Pitches staying up in the zone all over the place in this game. It’s making things take a long time!

Giese finishes on a very not exciting strike-em-out/throw-em-out doubleplay.

Giese’s final line: 2.0IP, 4H, 4R, 1HR, 1BB, 1K

And now it’s time for my favorite relief pitcher, Jose Veras. His last time out it was no control Veras, so this time will probably be “can actually hit his spots” Veras.

Veras finishes up with a clean line. Had some very nice spots with his fastball, including a killer pitch that just hit the corner. He also threw a fastball that darted down and in out of nowhere, I don’t think I’ve seen him throw something with that kind of movement before. 2-seamer?

Veras’ final line: 1.0IP, 0H, 0R, 0BB, 2K

Michael Dunn in now after Veras. If you’re not familiar with Dunn, he’s a marginal pitching prospect who was in Tampa last year. Notable since he is one of the few left-handed pitchers the Yankees have lying around and not much else. He’s a recent conversion to pitching, so he’s very much a work in progress. Still has a while to go before his fate is determined, but being a lefty always helps out.

Dunn’s final line: 1IP, 1H, 0R, 1BB, 1K

Igawa in, he has no chance of making the team so this is just him getting a tune-up in before he heads back to anchor the AAA rotation. The starting lineups have been pretty much entirely switched out, so we’ve officially reached Spring Training garbage time.

Igawa’s final line: 1H, 0R, 0BB, 1K

Notable non-pitching things:

Cano walked on 5 pitches, didn’t hack at one bad pitch.

Jose Molina picked up where he left off, not hitting baseballs and throwing out runners.

Now that Andy Pettitte is signed, sealed and finally delivered, it’s time the Yankees throw a high, hard one at the opposition. Forget about Joba Chamberlain being in the rotation – he needs to go back to the bullpen. From Day 1 of spring training. No ifs, ands or bugs.

What? Why? Joba is a much better pitcher than Andy ever was (except for maybe 2005 but that year didn’t really happen as far as I’m concerned) so why would they push Joba out of the rotation because some insurance to eat innings has been signed?

This is a complete reversal for me. Last season, I was adamant that Chamberlain should be in the starting rotation, because that was where he was needed most. That was before CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett signed with the Yankees, and that was when Chien-Ming Wang was injured.

That’s still only four starters counting Pettitte’s signing so where is this going…?

With a top three of Sabathia, Burnett and Wang, and with Pettitte on the back end, Joba is most needed in the bullpen now, especially since Mariano Rivera is coming off shoulder surgery.

The thing that irks me the absolute most about an argument like this is that the Yankees have a really good bullpen and lots of other arms that can be slotted in if necessary. It’s a complete blindness to something that really was the Yankees strength next year. If Mariano Rivera can’t pitch the first two weeks of the season, the team will survive with some combination of Damaso Marte and company filling in. It’s not the end of the world. Maybe they bring up Mark Melancon earlier than they expected to. Who knows, there’s a lot that can be done, it’s not a crisis!

This way the Yankees can keep Joba’s innings under control, and if Rivera needs a little extra time to be ready for the season, Chamberlain can be the emergency closer. If Rivera is right for the start of the season, then Chamberlain has the eighth inning and the Yankees are that much more of a force.

First off, this completely misunderstands the thinking behind keeping Joba’s innings under control. He has an innings ceiling because of his age and the impact that suddenly having him pitch a ton more than he has in the past would probably be very bad. To raise the ceiling of a pitcher going forward the pitcher in question has to hit his limit for the year. Putting Joba in the bullpen doesn’t help out with this matter, it sets him back considerably since he didn’t hit his limit last year.

Additionally, my hatred for Damaso Marte is strictly personal and not grounded in any baseball matters. He is a very good pitcher with very good stuff, although I really do hate his walk rate. He will be fine, he is far superior to Farnsworth, Joba doesn’t need to take his job.

An eighth-inning dynamo is much more important to the Yankees now than a back-end starter, and besides, the Yankees have candidates for that fifth spot, including Phil Hughes and Alfredo Aceves.

1) No, it’s not, given the depth of the Yankees current bullpen and potential bullpen (Melancon, Humberto Sanchez, etc).
2) Phil Hughes needs some time in AAA to prove that he can stay healthy and to get his changeup, cutter and two-seamer down in a way he hasn’t yet. He’s so young there’s no need to toss him into the fire again.
3) Alfredo Aceves is the new Ian Kennedy, except older and with a slightly different pitch repretroire. He’s not going to come in, be the fifth starter and save the world. I like him and I think Kennedy is not awful either, but why would you use either when you’ve got a clearly superior option?

Joba as the fifth starter is pretty ideal as it means they can skip his starts from time to time to maximize his spot in the rotation.

There are some people in the Yankee front office who are convinced Chamberlain is best-suited for the bullpen anyway because of his emotional makeup and arm. Many scouts I’ve talked to say the same thing. In some ways, Chamberlain is like Jonathan Papelbon in makeup and talent. He lives for the competition every night.

Chamberlain is so much more talented than Papelbon it’s ridiculous, this argument is so stupid it makes my brain hurt. If he can’t hack it as a starter because of injuries c’est la vie but the reason Papelbon is in the bullpen is because of the dramatic decline in fastball speed as he went on through a game. Additionally Chamberlain has two–two!!!–excellent secondary pitches and a developing changeup that should be good as well. This is not talent you just throw into the bullpen because oh my god he pumps his fist and goes “YEAAAHH!!!” when striking someone out.

When you are a starter, you have four days to kill between starts. When you are in the bullpen, you have to be ready to go every game.

This is dumb, not even an argument that makes sense.

This way Chamberlain can basically be a two-pitch pitcher, slider and fastball. He can mix in the curve, but he does not have to depend upon it as much as a starter, who needs three pitches to work the lineup, and this would mean less stress on his shoulder.

The shoulder stress thing is stupid and not grounded in reality. Secondary pitches are secondary pitches, sliders can be bad for your arm too. Ask Francisco Liriano. I’m not even sure what the argument here is–Joba shouldn’t throw his really good pitch because we are not 100% sure that he can stay healthy. Well then they’d better yank AJ Burnett out of the rotation now and only let him throw his fastball if this is the path we’re going down.

Chamberlain can just roll out of the bullpen and be that Raging Bull that Yankee fans have come to love. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow, and when you step back and look at the situation now, Chamberlain looks great in the bullpen.

The Joba Chamberlain that I love is the one who went into Fenway, and mowed down the Red Sox for 8 innings. When I step back and look at the situation now, Chamberlain looks great in the rotation.

When I asked Brian Cashman about the situation yesterday, he said, “It’s not something on our radar. Our plan is that Joba’s still a member of this rotation, and that’s how he’s prepared this winter and that’s how he was told to prepare and that what he’s excited to do.”

And that’s why Cashman is the GM and Kernan is the guy writing columns for the Post.

Before Saturday night’s ceremony, he said he’s looking forward to having Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera there to close out games for him, and he’s already talked to Chamberlain about it.

Wait, what? Where did this come from? It goes against everything that we’ve been told about the plans, and everything that makes sense. How can you drop a random thing like that into an article and not do any follow-up.

Jesus Christ when will the Joba reliever versus starter argument end. Al Leiter needs to find a way to smack all this “controversy” down because he did an excellent job on MLB Network’s Hot Stove explaining why it’s stupid and Joba should 100% not be a relief pitcher.

2) A salary cap. If you used the same calculation as the NFL does for a salary cap in MLB it would be somewhere between 100-120 million. This doesn’t help out owners who only want to spend 60-80 million. So Drayton McLane can cry all he wants, he is the boob he gave Carlos Lee a huge contract.

3) Alex Rodriguez and Madonna. The Post must employ like 50 people just to stalk ARod, this has been going on for months at this point.

4) Wah wah the Yankees spend a lot of money. Hello and welcome to 1978, I guess. It’s only an issue when they’re spending it well, if they had signed Ryan Dempster and Raul Ibanez for boatloads people would just laugh it off. Anyway, please remember that they did just sign AJ Burnett for five years so at least one thing will go wrong.

Mike Mussina’s Golden Year – The cranky old man started out as he had pitched pretty much the whole year in 2007 and lots of people wanted him out. I admit, I was one of these people. He was trying to pitch the way he did when he threw his fastball considerably faster. Then, apparently at the urging of Kevin Eiland, he went and reinvented himself and what happened was incredibly fabulous. His four-seamer still borders 90 but Moose all but abandoned it to throw a two seamer that had great movement and his wide variety of secondary pitches. He pitched 200 innings, won 20 games, stayed healthy the whole year and walked virtually no one all year (1.39BB/9, 4.84K/BB). While it’s unlikely he’d post an ERA+ of 128 in 2009, it’s clear that if Mussina comes back he’ll likely be above-average and average at worst. It was a surprising and awesome resurgence from a great pitcher and really the best thing about the season. In early August, the Hardball Times published an article about “The Mussina Renassance” that is worth reading if you want a more in-depth look at his year.

Where Did This Bullpen Come From? – Brian Bruney showed up to Spring Training half the man he used to be with (at least) twice the control over his pitches, Edwar Ramirez made himself useful with the addition a cutter, Jose Veras was good most of the time (sort of) and Kyle Farnsworth put in a mostly good 3/4 of a season with the team. The Yankees bullpen ERA went from 22nd in MLB in 2007 (4.35) to 7th in 2008 (3.78). That is what you call a huge improvement, and even Damaso Marte could not completely screw things up. The weak point was that they ranked in the bottom third of the league in homeruns surrendered (and a lot of that is Edwar, who while useful gets hit very hard when he is hit at all), however they came in fourth in SLG overall. It was really great to see Bruney, who has always had killer stuff, find command hopefully it wasn’t a fluke. David Robertson hit some bumps but he is very young and will hopefully find his stride next year, some guy named Mark Melancon will in all likelihood be joining the team as well.

Saint Mariano Rivera – The season Mariano had was really amazing, and if some bespectacled blowhard hadn’t set a superfluous record, it would be getting a lot more attention. Here’s the total line for the season:

6-5, 70.7IP, 41H, 11R, 11ER, 4HR, 6BB, 77K, 1.40ERA, .665WHIP

Just look at that. Six walks all season. Six. That is ridiculous and gives him a K/BB of 12.83. The only season from a relief pitcher that outshines that in recent history in terms of K/BB and WHIP is Dennis Eckersley’s 1990 (which was better than Mariano’s 2008). Funnily enough, the season Eckersley posted was overshadowed by Bobby Thighpen’s record setting saves year.

Rasner being simply awful (I feel bad for the kid, but he is just not a good pitcher) cemented Ponson getting another start as Alfredo Aceves had to come in and pitch 5 innings. Aceves got a little lucky, and allowed a homerun to Willy Aybar but looked pretty okay again. There were a few too many lineouts, which you don’t like to see but it wasn’t like one of those Ponson BABIPimania starts.

With Aceves, Rasner, and Dan Giese all on the roster again there’s no reason why Joba should be in the bullpen instead of bumping Ponson out of the rotation. He can’t get sent down to the minors to stretch it out, but they could easily take the same route they did before and just stretch him out up in the Majors. He’s not going to the Arizona Fall League to get up to that innings ceiling and coming out of the bullpen is not going to do it either. That means his ceiling next year isn’t going to go up and is why they’re talking about once again having him start the season in the bullpen (which again, they shouldn’t do–just put cobble together a six man rotation with both him and Hughes in it or something for real this time).

I was really hoping the team would go with the unorthodox six man rotation this year because it would have put all the best pitchers where they belonged and not caused such a collapse when Hughes got hurt and Kennedy came up short. The bullpen hasn’t really fallen to pieces since Joba was taken out (except for some bumpy “Oh God we’re tired” appearances), and I think with inning ceilings, potential free agent signings and what have you for 2009 this could be the best option again. It won’t happen but I can dream.

Anyway, Yankees face Brandon Morrow tonight. I am looking forward to their flailing uselessly against a young pitcher with Joba like talent. It will cause me to reminisce about the good parts of the season.