Yesterday Alfredo Aceves took a stumble in the competition to become the Yankees’ fifth starter. Aceves’ bad outing combined with Chad Gaudin’s latest clunker most likely lowers the candidate pool to three pitchers; Hughes, Chamberlain and Mitre. All three have stepped up and made their case, but the Yankees really have only one direction to go in and that is to put Joba Chamberlain in the rotation and Phil Hughes in the minors for now.
Putting Joba in the rotation will reignite the howls of protest from fans who insist he is better in the bullpen. They point to his dominance in 2007 and 2008 as evidence that Joba is the next Yankees closer. They point to his 4.75 ERA last season as proof that he is not a good starter. However, if you dig deeper into the numbers, Joba was 7-2 with a 3.58 ERA as a starter through the end of July last year, certainly very good numbers for an AL East pitcher.
What happened after July? That was when the Yankees implemented the “New Joba Rules” and started changing his starts and innings allowed per start. Was that the reason Joba fell apart in August and September? Nobody knows for sure, but the Yankees invested all of 2009 to make Joba a starter in 2010 and they should give him the ball and see what happens.
The other half of that decision is to put Phil Hughes temporarily in the minors. Yes, Hughes was dominant in the setup role in 2009 and he should return to that spot in a few months, but first he should throw as many innings as he can in Scranton. Much like Joba, Hughes’ future should be in the rotation and in 2011 the Yankees will probably have two open rotation spots. But putting Hughes into the setup role in April means he probably will throw no more than 100 innings. That means in 2011 Hughes would be burdened with the type of innings limits that got to Joba in 2009. To avoid that, Hughes could open in Scranton and pitch enough innings there as a starter that the Yankees would feel comfortable letting him start in 2011 without restriction.
The added bonus of leaving Hughes in the minors for now is to protect the Yankees in the event of injury. Mitre is going to have to make the team or be exposed to waivers, which means the AAA rotation would have no one in it that has pitched in the bigs. Hughes in Scranton eliminates that concern.
As 2009 demonstrated, the team that the Yankees head north will most likely undergo radical change during the year. Last year David Robertson and Hughes came up from Scranton midseason to change the makeup of the bullpen. There’s no reason history can’t repeat itself in 2010.
