Joba Joba Joba

I am going to try to use a very bad Mike Celizic article to intelligently discuss what the Yankees should do with Joba Chamberlain this year. We'll see how this goes. I suppose I've gotten off to a bad start with the title, as far as the "intelligently" part is concerned.

"The plan all along had been to use the 22-year-old Chamberlain as a starter, the role in which he excelled as a minor leaguer. But last year he proved to be an exceptional reliever, and in this era of ball, there’s no one more important to a team than a great closer."

I am pretty clearly a big fan of statistics. But I really wish the "save" stat had never been invented. If there wasn't a magical stat associated with finishing games, people probably wouldn't make silly statements like this. In 2007, Jonathan Papelbon was a "great closer". Jake Peavy was probably the best starting pitcher in baseball. Let's compare.

Papelbon: 58.3 IP, 15BB, 84K (wow; 13.0 K/9), 1.85 ERA, 256 ERA+
Peavy: 223.3 IP, 68BB, 240K, 2.54 ERA, 159 ERA+

I am ignoring wins and saves, because they are stupid and counterproductive. You cannot look at this and say a great closer is more valuable than a great starter. It's just not true. Peavy pitched four times as many innings.

"Last year, as Rivera’s set-up man, Chamberlain pitched 24 innings in 19 games. He gave up just 12 hits and one earned run while striking out 34; his ERA was 0.38. I submit those are better numbers than he would have had as a starter."

I'm honestly asking here- is HatGuy making a joke? Or does he actually feel it necessary to argue that Chamberlain would have had an ERA+ lower than 1192 if he was a starter? He must be kidding. Has to be.

"I know it’s a huge sacrifice in the short term to put a potentially great starter in the pen at the age of 22 to be a back-up and an insurance policy."

I love this. If he is pitching the 8th inning, he is a "back-up and an insurance policy". If he's closing, "there’s no one more important to [the] team". Why is this so difficult to understand? Either way, he is pitching high-leverage innings late in games. If anything, he'll be better put to use in a setup role, where he won't come in with three-run leads and will be allowed to pitch more than one inning.

"It’s the most important job in baseball. The Yankees got a kid who’s showed he can fill it. Leave him there."

I'm so lost. There are so many things wrong with this ending. The closer is the most important job in baseball, right? The one that requires a special skill, a "closer's mindset". First of all, that's not where you'd be leaving him- he'd be an "insurance policy", a setup guy. And secondly, how has he proven to have this innate closing skill? The guy has one career save. Fantastic article, really.

OK, enough of that. Joba threw 116 innings last year, including the playoffs. I believe the conventional wisdom is that you don't want to increase the workloads of young pitchers by more than about 30IP. So how long should they hold back and keep him in the bullpen?

Let's say he pitches 35 innings per month as a starter, and 12 out of the pen (these are guesses, but I think that's probably about right). So if he's relieving for three months, and then starting the rest of the way, that'd be 141 innings through the regular season. Maybe that's being a little too conservative, but that's probably a good strategy- chances are he'll be needed for at least one start in October. The Yankees would extract maximum value out of Chamberlain, both this year and in the future, if they kept him in relief until at least mid-June, and then moved him into the rotation.

That's in a vacuum, though. In reality, the decision won't be nearly that measured. If Rivera gets hurt, Chamberlain will be thrust into the "most important job in baseball", and I'd bet he stays there at least the rest of the season, and possibly far beyond that. On the other hand, if Mussina is as bad as he was in August last year, Hughes gets hurt again, or Kennedy struggles, he'll be forced into the location and likely stay there for the rest of his career.

It'll be very interesting to see how this plays out. I understand the Yankees' situation, and would probably be making the exact same decision myself. But it's pretty incredible that the future role of one of the best prospects in the game could be determined by which of his teammates is the first to get hurt.

Photo: Us Versus Them.