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.

And threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Am I overreactting? Of course I am. It’s what I do! Well, one of the things I do. But in any case, the reason this specifically bothers me is that Phil Hughes really needs to get back to starting very soon if he is going to hit the innings cap he’s got for this year. And hitting that innings cap is a part of being a “starter long term”.

I mean, not even long term. They’re going to need him next year able to plug in 180-200 innings because there is no way the team brings back Andy Pettitte. In fact, part of bringing back Pettitte was about letting the kid get a full year of professional baseball hopefully unhurt in so that he could jump in to the 2010 rotation.

You may say, “Well has nothing to prove at AAA!” That may be true but it’s short sighted and ignores some important stuff. Such as his splits against LHB and RHB. If you haven’t seen them before, remember that I am here to help:

Split    G   PA   AB   R    H   HR  BB  SO   SO/BB  BA     OBP    SLG    OPS 
vs RHB   14  105  94   11   20  4   8   26   3.25   0.213  0.286  0.415  0.701
vs LHB   13  97   81   10   22  3   10  20   2      0.272  0.361  0.481  0.842

These are for this year only, but they are similar for his brief MLB career. Lefties see him much better than righties, who don’t see him that well at all. This is part of why he did so well against the RHB heavy Texas Rangers lineup.

The team was–allgedly–having him work on a changeup so that LHB wouldn’t just sit on his curveball and fastball. Plus, a decent changeup is always handy to have. Since he came up, it’s been almost non-existent. Afterall, it’s pretty dangerous to test out a not finished product in Major League games. So, not only could he be getting his innings in at SWB instead of pitching out of the bullpen here or there but he could be working on making himself a better pitcher.

I’m sure that Hughes will find himself starting again at some point. The other kid starter on the team (who is older than Hughes, actually) does have an innings cap as well. But as the season passes on, I begin to worry.

And so I’m not a total negative nancy:

Keeping Hughes in the bullpen for the time being does (hopefully) stop the team from doing something rash like acquiring Huston Street for too much right now. A lot of the potential trade chips the Yankees have are hurt, dead or underperforming and I don’t think a relief pitcher is worth Zach MacAllister’s 2009 performance to date.

And depending on what Hughes’ innings total is at the end of the MLB season, they can ship him off to pitch in the Winter Leagues and make up some of that as well. The options they have here are not as large as last year since he cannot go somewhere like Hawaii, but he can spend a few months in Puerto Rico and log some innings there.

In any case, this just leaves a bad taste in my mouth because for the next fifteen years we’ll have to not only hear JOBA SHOULD BE IN THE BULLPEN but also PHIL HUGHES SHOULD BE IN THE BULLPEN and I have enough headaches as is.

Andy Pettitte needs a rest – This one is pretty obvious. In his last few starts, it’s pretty clear that something is wrong with Andy. Probably that he’s old (wild guess). He has an incentives based contract, so no he isn’t going to volunteer to have some starts skipped so he can rest his back. It’s the job of the team, however, to tell him he needs to skip a couple of starts. Who better than to slip in for a few weeks than Hughes? After that, though, he can go back to the land of his favorite TV show and bump Casey Fossum or Josh Towers out of the rotation (or not, but I don’t care where they go as long as it’s not the New York Yankees).

The Yankees want to give me an aneurysm – Because having to listen to the B-Jobbers talk about Joba needing to be in the bullpen wasn’t, it’s already started since Phil Hughes looked good last night in that one inning. Guess what? Any potentially above average starting pitcher should look that good–they’re supposed to have the stuff to get through the opposing lineup three times so once shouldn’t be a problem (of course, sometimes it is but that is not my point). I must have whined too much during the relocation process and this is their revenge.

The mainstream media needs something to talk about - I am okay with people whining that Hughes should stay in the bullpen this year and not hit his innings cap, thereby delaying his progress as a starter if it keeps Wallace Matthews from pounding out insane columns about how Alex Rodriguez makes the Yankees lose simply by breathing.

He is very close to his innings cap – Luckily for us as Yankees fans, he isn’t going to hit that in June! This is the only actual circumstance I am okay with Hughes lingering around in the MLB bullpen for an extended period. If he is near his cap towards the end of the year, I will also be ridiculously ecstatic and you will probably hear me crying tears of joy over Hughes’ first healthy year in professional baseball.

The crowd on Tuesday (at least in my section) was hands down one of the most annoying I have dealt with, ever, at a Yankee game. Now I admit that I am a fairly grouchy person, but as long as I can see what is going on in the game I am excellent at just bitching about it and continuing to watch the game. This was made very hard at times on Tuesday as there was a very large block of very drunk people (they didn’t appear to all be together, which made it even more frightening) who just stood up constantly no matter what was going on.

Yankees have a runner on base? STAND UP
Orioles have a runner on base? STAND UP
Pitcher is about to throw a pitch? STAND UP

In Old Yankee Stadium, this wasn’t really that annoying as you could see anyway because of the steep incline. In New Yankee Stadium, it can sometimes be hard to see if there is a big guy four rows in front of you sitting down.

This got too long but if I think too hard about it, I get annoyed all over again. In short: If you are at a game, please be considerate of the people around you. Don’t stand up and block the view during the action, and if you do, don’t be surprised when people yell at you to sit down because you are…blocking the view.

These annoyances were all washed away by the performance of the Yankees pitchers and hitters. CC Sabathia is really looking like the guy we thought he was, and Phil Hughes put together a very solid 5 innings (could have pitched 6, but I don’t disagree with the decision to pull him out on a high note). Many baseballs left the park, including Nick Swisher’s first at home. Good times all around.

The back-to-back-to-back homeruns from Swisher-Robinson Cano-Melky Cabrera was just ridiculous. The first two of that trio, not a big deal. But Melky joining in on the action? It will never happen again. Ever. Especially bizarre because Melky’s was a monster that ended up in the Main level of the stadium.

And as usual, some pictures.

May 19th

May 20th

The Good

• CC Sabathia has been looking a ton better lately and hopefully that trend will continue.
• The line up is better than the first Orioles series even with Jorge Posada out because A-Rod pretty much is just that good and they are getting good performances lately out of almost everyone.
• The Yankees lineup hit some okay pitching in the Minnesota series and hopefully that is something that will translate into hitting bad pitching in the Baltimore series.
• No more Kevin Millar!

The Bad

• Adam Jones is back in the lineup for Baltimore tonight.
• Nick Swisher is back to about where he should be batting line-wise, but now anything he ropes well is finding gloves. The Orioles have excellent outfield defense between Nick Markakis, Jones and whoever they decide to play in left so there could be a lot of hit robbing going on.
• The top of the Orioles lineup is really really good. Really good. Probably better than the Yankees when you compare Brian Roberts vs Jeter and what they can do.
• Aubrey Huff has not forgotten how to hit breaking balls since last season.

The Frightening

• Phil Hughes is starting Wednesday, and with the nibbliness and typical young starter bumps he’s been hitting this could get ugly. Hopefully he’ll fight through it and put together another decent outing.
• Most of the Yankees bullpen is still terrified of throwing strikes.
• The Orioles have a lot of power, and who knows if The Wind Tunnel will have any effect on the game.

Anyway, for the third straight game Chien-Ming Wang was awful. He looked pretty good in the first, not great, but okay. Then in the second, as soon as there was a runner on base he completely fell apart. Now Wang has never been great out of the stretch but he just looked terrible.

(To pick Claggett to try and keep the game under control was a bit mind-boggling, but that’s a personal gripe.)

It is clear right now that Wang’s problems are not something that can be worked out in the Major Leagues. I don’t believe you go from good to awful this quick and that he can still come back from it, but not if they keep putting him out here and hoping he’s made the proper adjustments to his mechanics. Since he can’t easily be optioned to AAA (he would have to pass through waivers and for sure there would be a team to pick him up), the best way for the team to accomplish this is to come up with a phantom injury like a blister, put him on the DL and send him to the Tampa facility. After today, I don’t really see how they don’t do this and call up either Ian Kennedy or Alfredo Aceves to take his place.

While you might clamor for Phil Hughes, I think that would be a bad choice since he’s been having some trouble throwing his curveball for strikes. AAA batters were sitting on it the other night, which means he needs to get that down before he comes back. Aceves is who I would pick as he is as complete as he will ever be, and the team has much less invested in him. I believe he can easily be an average MLB starter and fill in pretty well.

In closing, I vote for Girardi to put Veras in to pitch the rest of the game. I mean, why not? He’s useless anyway.

Phil Hughes – 2.2IP, 3H, 2R, 0BB, 2K, 0HR, 3AO, 3GO

A good outing, throwing mostly fastballs with a few curves and flashing his developing change-up quite a bit. The change was thrown mostly out of the zone. Not many well-hit balls, the first of those three hits was a bloop to leadoff the game and the last was a very Jeterian dribbler up the middle.

There was one hit batsmen–Curtis Granderson. Like the first outing, it grazed his uniform on the way in, so it’s just Hughes adjusting to pitching inside more.

Hughes’ strikeouts were: Adam Dunn looking on a nice curve, and David Wright frozen on a fastball that hit the outside corner.

No walks and 50/50 groundballs makes me happy. He threw about 45 pitches at the time he was taken out.

Phil Coke – 2.1IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 2K, 0HR, 2GO, 3AO

Coke came in with one runner on base (Jeter), gave up a groundball single to Chipper Jones (I’ve heard he is a pretty good baseball player!) and then pitched in shutdown mode.

He had a lot of success with his fastball, throwing it by Dunn and Ryan Braun to get those strikeouts (both swinging).

The flyballs he got towards the end were hit pretty well, but his time was up so it was safe.

Eric Hacker - 0.0IP, 2H, 4R, 3ER, 2BB, 0K, 2WP

Eric Hacker’s control was off and he had a very poor outing. He faced six batters, all of whom got on base. However, it’s important to remember that the highest level of pro-ball he’s pitched is AA.

He at one point induced a groundball that should have turned a doubleplay, except Angel Berroa fell on it and instead no outs were recorded. That would have made his outing merely bad instead of really bad.

He flashed a pickoff move a few times that seemed pretty good.

Michael Dunn – 1.2IP, 0H, 0R, 1BB, 3K, 0GO, 2AO

Dunn came in with two inherited runners, and allowed neither to score as he induced a shallow fly ball and then struck out both Granderson and Pedroia.

In his clean inning he walked Jeter, got DeRosa to fly out (it was a very long fly) and struck out David Wright. And then he hit his pitch ceiling and was lifted.

David Robertson – 1.1IP, 0H, 0R, 1BB, 2K, 1GO, 1AO

Robertson inherited a runner, who he stranded by striking out Adam Dunn throwing only fastballs. Robertson’s task today was to start throwing his curve, but he was still mostly relying on the fastball. His curve didn’t have the bite or placement that you usually expect but it’s early.

Jose Veras – 1IP, 0H, 0R, 1BB, 2K

Veras pitched a Veras inning, except he only walked one and didn’t hit anybody. Pedroia got caught stealing, so he didn’t get a chance to walk or hit anyone before recording the third out.

• Not using his curve to get batters out. Relying solely on the fastball and cutter meant that the batters could foul off tons of pitches, even if they couldn’t make good contact. He only threw 10 curveballs out of 90 pitches, and only a few changeups (not for strikes because it’s not really a ready pitch yet).
• Why did his velocity drop a few MPH in the 3rd inning? He went from ~92-94 to ~90-92, and I’m not sure why and I don’t have enough information about his minor league starts to know if this happened there. Was he pulling a Papelbon? Was he just throwing softer on purpose? I don’t know!
• Good control but doesn’t hit the glove. Lots of glove moving on Pudge’s part, not sure if this is something he can improve on or if it’s just one of those things you wind up dealing with. Not everyone is Mariano or Greg Maddux I guess.

But anyway, I told my companions at the game that I was hoping for four not bad innings and that is what I got so hopefully this is a step he can build on. It was far better than what he was showing in the beginning of the year. So, a tentative yay. I guess those glasses do help him see at night!

He’s going to the Arizona Fall League to get his innings up since he missed so much of the year. Hopefully the injury magic does not repeat itself in 2008.

Pavano might actually make an appearance with the Yankees this year if things keep going the way they are. It depends on how badly they need a starter and whether his arm is ready or not, of course.

Phil Hughes – Scranton-Wilkes Barre Yankees – 3.2IP, 8H, 5R, 5ER, 0BB, 5K

Smacked around a little bit, allegedly velocity took a minor hit and he had some problems with his secondary pitches. Everyone has a bump along the road, and if the Yankees decide they need a starter for Saturday it may be him. I hope not, as I want him to really work everything out but some things are unavoidable.

Hideki Matsui – Tampa Yankees – 1 for 3, with a BB

Might be coming back tomorrow! Has been looking okay in Tampa, apparently. He’ll only be available as a DH because of his knee issues (which were exacerbated when they brought him back at the start of the season before his right knee was completely healed, argh).