http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2009/08/30/2009-08-30_threeandout_for_joba_but_yankees_cruise.html
See link above for recap of the Yankees latest win and Joba Chamberlain’s latest starter.
The Joba Rules are a real tired subject amongst Yankee fans and the New York sports media, mostly because the rules don’t ever make sense fully and change on a monthly basis. The latest plan limits Joba Chamberlain to 3 innings per start for the rest of the regular season so that Chamberlain does not exceed 150 innings this season.
In a previous email on this topic, I half backed the Yankees’ plan, supporting the idea that a pitcher should not throw 200 innings in his first full season starting games. But I know that Yanks’ math is somewhat misleading because they are not simulating the experience of being a starter for Joba. Any baseball expert will tell you that a bullpen appearance is entirely different from a start. Thats why starters may struggle as relievers and vise versa (nevermind closing).
Starters learn to pace, to adapt and craft their way through an opposing lineup 3 or 4 times in one start. They pitch once every fifth day and they are done.
Relievers don’t worry about having the stamina to work deep into a ball game or having enough different looks off the mound to get a hitter out in a second (let alone a third) at bat. They also have to be ready to pitch the very next day.
So while the Yankees claim to be helping Joba Chamberlain’s development by restricting him to three innings per start for the rest of the season, they might actually be stunting his development as a starter. Right now, Joba pitches knowing that he just has to get through three innings. The team can tell him to pitch as though he has to make it through the sixth, but mentally Chamberlain knows that this is not the case.
Therefore, the Yankees are giving him practice as a three-inning long reliever. That means that Chamberlain is not really gaining the experience of 150 innings of starting that the team views as a developmental benchmark. Short term, I am uncertain how prepared Joba will be to start a playoff game this season. The Yanks can’t possibly use the three-inning start model in the postseason.
I am not some old-school minded knucklehead who wants to see Joba Chamberlain go out there and throw 180 pitches during a 9-inning start, but is it too much to ask to see him work five innings? At least five innings forces Chamberlain to work through a lineup two to three times and learn how to pace himself through the majority of a game. Over the last 5-6 starts of the season, would the dozen or so extra innings (innings above the 3-inning per start plan) cause his valuable right arm to fall off at the shoulder?
