Friday, February 8, 2008
MSNBC: Celizic - Joba off to pen; Yanks should leave him there
The plan announced by Yankees general manager Brian Cashman is to start the 2008 season with Joba Chamberlain in the bullpen. That should be good news to the team’s fans. The long-range plan for the season is to move the sensational young pitcher into the starting rotation. That news might not be nearly as good.
No Mike. Actually, moving Joba to the rotation is actually good news. I’ve said it before, but I think the idea of limiting Joba’s innings is smart and starting him off in the bullpen is the right way to do it. However, the Yankees have to be smart about it and not use him as an 8th inning setup man who pitches every other day. They need to put him in situations where he will have to develop stamina and use all four of his pitches. That was how the Twins broke in Johan Santana and I think it’s safe to say that it worked pretty well.
CHEAP PLUG ALERT
On an un-related note, The Hardball Times season preview is now available for ordering. If you’re into in-depth analysis both statistical and otherwise it a great resource. for example:
The Yankees were right not to trade Phil Hughes
Despite our forecast for Santana’s dominance, that doesn’t mean that the Yankees will be despairing too much when he pitches across town every fifth day. That’s because they’ll get to have a poor man’s Santana in Hughes, and at a much poorer salary.
We project a 4.12 ERA for Hughes in the much tougher American League, and more importantly, our three-year forecast sees that number dropping to 3.84 by 2010. If we put Santana on the Yankees, his forecast for 2010 would be a 3.76 ERA—pretty much equivalent to Hughes! While Santana is the better pitcher now, he probably won’t be any more valuable over the life of his contract than Hughes, if Hughes can stay healthy (or if Santana cannot, I suppose).
Now that’s a big if, but the Yankees have 137 million reasons to feel pretty good about taking that chance.
I’ve got Hughes projected to put up a 3.88 ERA but I’d sign up for a 4.12 right now I think.
Lastly, here’s a sample chapter. I’ll be using the Hardball Times’ projections as part of my upcoming Diamond Mind Projections.
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