The Bronx View

Apparently, baseball has its unwritten rules.   This season, we, as mere observers, have been lucky enough to discover a new one nearly every week.  Never walk over a pitcher’s mound (via Dallas Braden).  Never send your starter out to warm up just to get your reliever a few more reps (via Ron Gardenhire).  Never steal a base with a big lead, even in the fourth inning (via Ozzie Guillen).  Never express anger after hitting a pop-up (via Chris Carpenter / Carlos Lee).

I’d like to throw my hat in the ring on this subject.  Now, never having played the game at a level higher than Little League, the pros can feel free to place this one in the circular file.  And really, it’s more a rule for fans, managers, and front office execs, along the lines of TINSTAAPP.  Here goes: never fall in love with a relief pitcher.  Those dudes will break your heart time and again.

A common stathead mantra is that relievers are fungible.  Some years they’re great, some years they suck, and most years they sit comfortably between the two extremes.  It’s incredibly rare to find a relief pitcher that you can consistently count on for quality innings for more than a couple of seasons at a time.  This is what makes guys like Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, and Joe Nathan so valuable.  This is also why giving guys like Kyle Farnsworth, Brandon Lyon, and BJ Ryan multi-year deals is a fool’s errand.

Which brings us to the case of David Robertson.  Oh, David.  So dominant last season.  The second best K/9 IP ratio (12.98) of all relievers in Major League Baseball with 40 IP, behind only Jonathan Broxton (13.5).  Just 24 years old.  Cheap.  Under team control for the foreseeable future.

There are three things that make relievers awesome, generally speaking: the ability to strike guys out, the ability to not walk them, and the ability to keep them from hitting home runs.  David had two of those things going for him in 2009.  He gave up just 4 HR in 43.2 IP, and struck out 63.  That 4.74 BB/9 IP was not great, to be sure, but not entirely unacceptable for a guy with fewer hits allowed than IP and a huge K rate.  At just 24, it was reasonable to believe that he’d begin to throw more strikes.

And the heroic Houdini act he pulled in Game 2 of the ALDS.  You know the one.  Bases loaded, 11^th inning, no one out.  Escape seemed impossible, defeat inevitable.  At the time, I was hoping for the pessimist’s best case scenario – sac fly and a double play ground ball, 1 run scores, and we’ve got a shot to tie in the bottom of the inning.  Instead, Robertson bears down; lineout, ground out with a force at home, fly out.  Inning over, no runs scored.  Tex leads off the bottom of the inning with a home run, and the rest is history.

I think, by the end of the 2009 season, it was safe to say I was full-on in love with David Robertson.

One of the things that had been driving me nuts about the post-Dynasty Yankees – and there were a lot of things – was the utter inability to develop successful relief pitching.  I looked at teams like Minnesota and San Diego, veritable relief pitcher factories, and was frustrated that the Yankees couldn’t pull the same trick.  Instead, like suckers, we were paying for Steve Karsay, Farnsworth, Tom Gordon, LaTroy Hawkins, The Run Fairy, Chris Hammond, Paul Quantrill, Ron Villone, Felix Rodriguez, et al.  Even the guys we did ‘develop’ – Scott Proctor, Scott Proctor, and uh…Scott Proctor, were mediocrities ridden hard out of necessity and put away wet.

Then, riding on a beautiful white horse with shining armor, came David Robertson, a bona fide relief pitching prospect with nasty stuff and a ton of K potential.  Not a starting pitching prospect we mishandled into being an inconsistent, frustrating reliever, but a born reliever, a guy with the ceiling of a dominant set up man.  And we were paying for him with couch quarters and pocket lint.

Then 2010 happened.

Now I feel stupid.  I feel used.  Everything I ever believed about relief pitchers – that they were flaky, prone to bouts of inconsistency, wildly unpredictable from year to year – I stopped believing in them.  Chan Ho Park – good signing.  Damaso Marte – turned a corner in the postseason (finally healthy!).  David Robertson – stud in the making.  One hundred strikeouts in 2010!  Set up man by year’s end!

David Robertson made me believe that relief pitchers can change.  Then he puts up a 7.31 ERA, a 2 WHIP, walks 9 in 16 IP, and hurts himself.  Marte goes back to being a LOOGY with horrible control, just as likely to walk the lefty he’s brought into face as get him out.  Chan Ho Park fights diarrhea, Dustin Pedroia, and a bum hamstring.  Joba – I’m not ready to write about Joba yet.  Yesterday’s loss still stings too much for me to think anything rational about him.  I’m counting to 10 and walking away.

Is Robertson likely to improve?  Yes.  His inflated .434 BABIP and 17.6% HR / fly ball rate suggests he’s been unlucky.  In fact, his ground ball rate is bang on with last year’s numbers and his fly ball rate is even lower (34% this season vs. 41.3% last year).  But here’s the thing: these numbers aren’t guaranteed to revert to the mean because of how few innings he’s going to throw.  And this is why you can’t fall in love with relievers.  Some years, it all falls into place, they pitch to the league average BABIP, 5% of their fly balls go over the fence, and the line drives get caught.  Then some years, they give up too many fly balls while pitching in the wrong parks, the league hits .400 when they put the ball in play, and the line drives find gaps.

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.  I’d take either from any member of the 2010 Yankees’ bullpen.  And when it comes to my love of David Robertson, the bloom is off the rose.  He’s just like all the rest.  They’ll never change.

The Yankees visited the White House yesterday in recognition of their World Series victory in 2009.

In a jam-packed ceremony in the East Room that was part pep rally, the president pointed out that the last time the Yankees — winners of 27 titles — were toasted at the White House was 2001.

“It’s been nine years since your last title — which must have felt like eternity for Yankee fans. I think other teams would be just fine with a spell like that. The Cubs, for example,” Obama said, drawing laughs from players, coaches, members of his Cabinet and Congress and other guests. He added that his White Sox have gotten close, including a title in 2005.

Ha ha ha.  Obama took a shot at the Cubs.  Ha ha ha.

I’m not going to get off on a rant here, but let me just say this: the idea that a sports team needs to go see the President of the United States because they won a title is a little ridiculous and certainly outdated.  Was it really necessary for Obama to prepare, give a speech, and actually spend time with a bunch of people who play a kids game for a living and make more money in one season than Obama may ever see in his life? Who had the bigger thrill here, the President or the Yankees?  Is that one of the perks of being President?  You can summon a sports team to your house at whim and they have no choice but to oblige?

The whole practice to me just seems kind of silly. I think we’re past the point as a society where we need to glorify the role of sports in our lives by introducing the President to the proceedings. We’ve all become so jaded by backward politics and cheating athletes that neither really does the other any benefit by appearing together.  It’s all pomp and circumstance for the sake of tradition that really doesn’t mean anything.

Sure, baseball is America’s past-time and plenty of teams do it. But why? Why do some of the most privileged people in our society get to add yet another thrill to their PR driven lives, wasting people’s time and money? Why not do something that will have a little more impact like fly in the participants in the Special Olympics and have them spend a few hours with Obama or gather some of the more recognized teachers from around the country and give them some publicity while education budgets get cut and people lose their jobs?

Sports are big money and drive ratings but they’re main point is to be a pleasant diversion fr us, the consuming public. Maybe it’s best if we let the people we’re paying to run the country and keep an eye on things focus on the less superficial.

These little functions are called making news for the sake of making news.  We have enough fluffy news.  Really, was your day any better yesterday because you knew the Yankees went to the White House? What positive impact did that have on anyone?

Ok, so maybe I will rant a bit.

Ah, hitting in the clutch.  What is it about this concept that polarizes people so much?

For a few years in YankeeLand, the poster boy for unclutchiness was Alex Rodriguez. Despite receiving the MVP award in 2005 and 2007, ARod was consistent labeled as soft and unclutchy because of his spotty performances in the postseason.  Then, in 2009 he was accused and later admitted to having used steroids which surely should have led to his most unclutchy season of all time. Of course, that didn’t happen and ARod had a stellar postseason that silenced even the loudest of his many critics.

As is often the case, the hyperbolic explanations came in spades for Mr. Rodriguez’s performance both in the regular season and postseason. “The monkey is off his back.” “He has no place to go but up.” “He’s finally forced to be humble and accept himself and his teammates.” “Kate Hudson is the best thing that ever happened to him.”

All of this was quite amusing. If you believe in the concept of clutch hitting then you believe that it is an actual skill, one that defines a player’s ability to perform at their best under pressure. Certainly, some people handle pressure better than others.  We see that in every day life. The thing is, when I feel pressure in my life, my success isn’t affected by someone throwing a ball to me who is also under pressure.

The truth is, clutch hitting often falls under the category of good/bad timing and small sample size.

Try this: if you had to pick who you believe is the most clutch Yankee of the last twenty years, who would you pick?

My guess would probably be Derek Jeter, at least based on what the media says, Mr. November, the flip, etc etc etc.

Let’s look at Jeter’s basic career numbers:

Okay.  Now let’s look at Jeter’s numbers with men on base:

There are two instances where Jeter’s clutch numbers are better than his career average: with runners on first and third and when there are no runners on base.  How is it that Derek Jeter is so much better with runners on first and third than he is with runners on second and third or with the bases loaded? What is it about that situation that makes it easier for Derek Jeter to hit?

Nothing, really. It’s more of a fluke than anything else.  All of the numbers above hover around Jeter’s career averages.  Nothing really shows any ability to perform better in the clutch, even though we all remember key moments that make us think he has this ability to turn it on at crunch time.

If you dig, you’ll find some players that hit a bit better in the clutch. You’ll also find some that hit worse. But in general, these numbers tend to even out or come relatively close to the norm.

What should we make, then, of the second Most Criticized Unclutch Yankee Hitter Robinson Cano, or as he is sometimes referred, Robinson Can-Not? Cano’s numbers in the clutch have always been underwhelming.

Here’s his career stats:

Now here’s his numbers each season with runners in scoring position:

2009 was just atrocious for Cano with runners in scoring position. This season (with the small sample size caveat), Cano has fared much better batting fifth.

Does Cano deserve the label of unclutch since he has underperformed for so long with RISP? Can numbers that bad be considered a fluke when he has hit a .901 OPS with no runners on base?

It’s probably unfair to assume that Cano will perform at these levels for his entire career.  He’s entering his age 27 season, which means he should be getting ready for a few peak seasons.  If ever there was a time where Robbie can shake the unclutchy moniker, this should be it.

At the same time, one has to look at the differential between his batting average and on base percentage and wonder how much of his unclutchiness comes from pitchers using his lack of patience against him.  Cano’s OBP has always been dependent on his batting average and one would think that a pitcher is trying to get Cano out in every at-bat, not just when there are runners on. That four year decline from 2006 through 2009 makes you wonder if opposing pitchers have found a few weaknesses that Cano poorly tries to compensate.

We’ll know better soon enough.  Used to be that Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez weren’t clutch.  It only takes a few memorable moments for the hyperbole to go away and reality to set it.

And so it began, the 2010 season.

The Yankees kicked it off in Boston for the first time since 1992, eschewing the traditional afternoon majesty of Opening Day for the glittering glamor of ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. Traditionalists barked, as did my need for sleep, weary of kicking off a long season with a late Sunday start featuring two teams that take their sweet sweet time.

Pleasantly, the game only lasted three hours and forty-six minutes, almost bearable even with the 8:10 PM EST first pitch.

Unpleasantly, the Yankee reenacted an all too familiar scene.

Watching the sixth inning unfold during the Yankees 9-7 loss to the Yankees last night, I felt a strange dichotomy. There I was, watching the defending World Series champions collapse under the weight of poor bullpen management and yet, it all seemed strangely familiar.

It would be easy to forget the Aprils of baseball past (or at least the preceding two seasons), especially after the pomp and circumstance down the Canyon of Heroes last fall. What purpose is there in revisiting the mistakes of the early season when you’re biggest problem is keeping the champagne out of your eyes?

There is some purpose, especially if you’re manager Joe Girardi.

The season opener featured Girardi at his bullpen micromanaging best, taking what seem to be easy decisions and dragging them well past the point of reason, leaving the first guessers shaking their heads in hindsight.

Sure, we can’t blame it all on Girardi, just like we can’t laud him for winning 103 games last season. Girardi didn’t force Marte to throw the wild pitch in the seventh that gave Youklis third base, nor did he let Youklis score four pitches later on a ball that nicked off Posada’s glove.

Girardi did seem to abandon reason when it came to CC Sabathia. CC worked his way through a rough fifth inning and started the sixth by walking Dustin Pedroia and allowing a booming double to Victor Martinez. David Robertson, post season hero extraordinaire, was warming in the bullpen with the right-handed hitting and always dangerous Kevin Youklis coming to the plate.

Rather than do the obvious, which would be bringing in the right handed Robertson to face the right handed Youklis with no outs and runners at second and third in a 5-2 ballgame, Girardi let CC stay in the game.

Trusting his ace? Maybe, although what CC had shown over the previous six batters didn’t leave much room for trust. It seemed more like Girardi was intent on getting Sabathia to a certain pitch count (his eventual 104 pitches) than actually doing what the situation required. The end result was a triple by Youklis, scoring two runs and bringing the Sox to within one.

Who knows what would have happened if Robertson came in. Youklis historically has shown almost equal prowess against righties and lefties. But given how shaky CC had looked over the previous inning and Robertson coming in fresh, it made little sense to stick with CC, even with the lefty David Ortiz awaiting on deck.

But CC got his pitches in. If Girardi had pulled CC before facing Youklis, he would have only thrown 95 pitches. Maybe for Girardi and pitching coach Dave Eiland, that wasn’t enough. Judging by the mechanizations of Joba Chamberlain’s career, both men have some devotion to numbers and their beliefs in how they work.

This isn’t a bad thing. We like numbers here. We really do. But we also like judging a performance by what’s in front of us and at that moment in the sixth inning, CC Sabathia was not the right man to face Kevin Youklis.

But hey, who am I? Joe Girardi won a World Series despite making these stupid moves all last season.

Steven Goldman of BP places the cause of Joba’s demotion squarely at the feet of the Yankees:

In naming Phil Hughes their fifth starter and sending Joba Chamberlain off to an unspecified role in the bullpen, the Yankees tacitly acknowledged that in their frantic efforts to protect Chamberlain’s health by limiting his innings, they had failed to develop him properly. But considering the bizarre way in which they’re treated their talented young right-hander the past two seasons, it’s not a surprise.

Let me interrupt for a second here.

Goldman is making a lot of assumptions with this opening statement.  The first is that the Yankees picked Hughes over Joba because Joba does not have the ability to handle the starting role.  That’s possible.  It’s also possible that over the last 12 months, Hughes has proven to be the better pitcher and spring training did little to change that.

It also assumes that, if Joba was “developed properly,” he would have blossomed into the ace pitcher everyone hoped he would be.  That essentially goes against everything people like Goldman know and preach about developing pitching prospects.  Quite simply, the adage is, TINSTAAPP: This Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect.

Goldman is judging the Yankees on the standard that Joba was not only a can’t miss prospect, but a can’t miss pitching prospect.  That is a standard that has long been proved impossible to reach.  The fact that Goldman applies it to the Yankees shows a willingness to disregard standards for bias.

Continuing:

After struggling with his command early last season, Chamberlain caught fire in the immediate aftermath of the All-Star break, allowing just two runs in three starts. The Yankees picked that moment to impose the Joba Rules 2.0, and it was no coincidence that Chamberlain was no longer the same pitcher. The mental effort he needed to succeed on the mound was hijacked by his absorption in “The Rules.” Would he be yanked in the second inning if he burned too many pitches? If he was given a quick hook, would he pitch again in five days or ten?

Actually, Joba had three more starts after he “caught fire” and before the Joba Rules 2.0 kicked in.  In those three starts, he threw 16 innings, gave up 12 runs, 18 hits, 12 walks and 12 strike outs.  Not to on fire anymore.

But as Goldman presents it, it was the Yankees that caused that decline, not Joba’s decline that encouraged them to ease off of his workload.

Continuing…

It says something that Chamberlain was bumped from the playoff rotation for Chad Gaudin, a pitcher the Yankees just released. The move liberated Chamberlain, at least to a certain extent, and he looked more like a pitcher and less like the oppressed last man on Kafka’s pitching staff. His aggregate postseason performance (6 1/3 innings, nine hits, two runs, one walk, seven strikeouts) was effective but hardly dominating. In his attenuated spring training performance, Chamberlain was neither, allowing 10 hits, seven walks, and 12 runs in 6 2/3 innings.

As people in the comments section of the article pointed out, Chad Gaudin never started a game in the playoffs.  If the Yankees kept Joba in line for the fourth starter spot in the playoffs, it may have been he and not Gaudin who only pitched one inning in the entire playoffs.

It made little sense to keep Joba in the rotation when the Yankees had plans to go forward with only three starters.  The Yankees put Joba in the pen where his innings could stay down and they could try and use him in high leverage situations.  The alternative might have been… Chad Gaudin in high leverage situations.  Does that make more sense?

That last number, 6 2/3, is key to the Yankees’ confession of Chamberlain confusion: It’s a tiny sample by which to judge a pitcher who is not only a three-year veteran, but has finally arrived at the Yankees’ arbitrarily determined point of physical maturity, the moment when there would be no more rules. They wouldn’t judge CC Sabathia by fewer than seven innings — indeed, Sabathia has been hit hard this spring, but it’s assumed he’s working his way into shape.

This is another assumption by Goldman, that it was indeed spring performance that tipped the scales and not the regression the Yankees have seen from Joba the Starter dating back to the month before Joba’s injury in 2008.  It also ignores that the pitcher the Yankees gave the fifth starter spot to, Phil Hughes, pitched well last year out of the bullpen and has overall career-wise shown better command of his plus pitches, on top of developing a changeup this spring that has proven effective.  Judging by the last twelve months of performance, Hughes has been the better pitcher.

In Chamberlain’s case, it is impossible to separate the struggles of March from those of August and September. However well Hughes pitched in the 2009 regular season, no matter how promisingly he pitched this spring, there can be no clearer admission that the Yankees no longer know what they have in Chamberlain than their willingness to demote him from the rotation based on such a small sample.

Going into the All Star break of 2009, Joba had a 4.25 ERA, averaging less than 5.1 innings per start. He had a 1.56 WHIP and a 1.86 K/BB ratio.  The ERA is decent but the WHIP and K/BB were not.  It’s safe to say that Joba wasn’t great the first half either and the second half was worse.

Why, then, is Goldman assuming the Yankees are just judging on spring?  Because they said it was a competition?  Cashman said he had no more money before he signed Mark Teixeira last off-season.  When do we take what these guys say at face value?

When it gives us fodder for criticism.

The sad truth of pitching is that it may be inherently injurious. Until the moment pitchers can wear a monitor that gives teams a real-time look at the inner workings of their arms, there is no sure way to prevent pitching injuries. Sure, there are common-sense things to avoid, like 150-pitch outings in a cold April rain. But to pretend, as the Yankees did, that they could spot the injury inflection point and somehow steer Chamberlain around it was no more than the wishful thinking of a team that hadn’t reared a young pitcher in years and had no clue how to go about it.

What the Yankees did was predict how many innings they thought Joba would throw by the end of the year.  When he reached a point where starting was going to give him too many innings going into the postseason, they pulled back.

It’s preposterous to claim that a team thought they knew what the injury point was.  No one is that bold or arrogant.  They were trying to predict workload and how best to manage that workload so that Joba wouldn’t go over his projected innings and still would provide the Yankees with value.

Now they have a pitcher who is theoretically healthy but has diminished control and reduced velocity, and looks over his shoulder when he pitches. As BP’s injury expert Will Carroll wrote, “Joba may be remembered as the nadir of the ‘save young pitchers’ movement. Everything they did was to keep him healthy. Well, he is.” In other words, congratulations, Yankees. You got what you wanted, but lost what you had.

And this last line is just the icing on the cake.

Goldman treats Joba as if his future ability was preordained, which as we discussed earlier is a preposterous stance to take with a young pitcher.  But Goldman is confident in saying that Joba’s “diminished control and reduced velocity” are all factors of the Yankees handling of him and not the typical pitfalls that happen with almost any pitching prospect.  Goldman also makes no mention of the injury Joba suffered in August of 2008 and what possible long term effects that could have had on Joba or the fact that he had shown durability issues when pitching in college.

No, the rules are different for Joba and the Yankees.  When a pitching prospect fails to live up to their calling like so many have done before, it is the Yankees who have screwed him up, not the longstanding theory of TINSTAAPP. It’s great for Goldman to float the theory.  It just would have been nice if he actually provided FACTS or EVIDENCE, two essential and required tenants for this type of criticism, before sending this off to his editor.

Let me be clear about my perspective on this: I think Joba should be in the rotation.  I think they have brought him this far and need to give him the unhindered year they have been working toward.  However, I remain hopeful that the Yankees have every intention on keeping Joba available as the sixth starter should someone fall to injury or should Hughes fail to perform.

If they fail to keep him in that role, my only assumption can be that they don’t believe Joba can handle starting, period.  I don’t agree with making that assessment before giving him the job full time for a season.

I’m proud to announce that this is the one millionth post on the internet about Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes!  In honor of this occasion, we’re having ribs.

But seriously… I do some driving throughout the day.  Not a lot.  I’m not a salesman or taxi driver.  But I spend some time in my car.

Because of this, I usually wind up listening to sports talk radio. I’ve given up on the FM dial, especially in New York where the radio is flooded with pop music, classic rock and little else. For someone who likes sports and hates popular music, there is little choice.

It’s not easy, though.  It’s darn near impossible to be an objective baseball fan while gathering your news from the New York media. News in general is so slanted toward the negative while the pundits make their ratings by expressing what they believe to be the contrary opinion. This usually has the reverse effect when those that actually do gather their news from these sources repeat these contrary opinions at the water cooler the next day.

It’s no wonder why so many people on 660 WFAN in New York call up with so many crazy ideas.

I firmly believe that this rampant contrarian point of view is part of the reason why the baseball writing establishment has had such a difficult time accepting the concept of sabermetrics. It’s not that sabermetrics represents anything bad.  Even the most uninformed statistical person would have to concede that the intentions of the people creating some of these new statistics are pure and can therefore assume that they’re not insidiously hiding negative factors into WAR and Win Shares just to stick it to Murray Chase.

In fact, it’s not so much what sabermetrics does that is threatening to the baseball writing establishment, but what it encourages: objective analysis.

Some of the newer statistics can bend your mind a little bit.  I won’t deny that.  But there has also been an effort to make reading these statistics easier by basing them against the league average.  The higher you are above zero or one hundred (depending on your statistic), the better the player has performed. This makes looking at certain numbers pretty easy.

Most writers in the mainstream baseball media don’t care about such things, though.  The average Yankee fan isn’t going to call up Mike Francesa at WFAN and and talk about Derek Jeter’s steadily improving UZR over the last few seasons. It’s too much work for Joe Baseballfan and way too much work for Mike Francesa to either store that information in his brain or type fast enough to load FanGraphs and speak confidently on the numbers themselves.

More importantly, it’s difficult to be contrarian when presenting actual evidence. It’s much easier to create a false argument based on hyperbole than it is one rooted in fact.  With little actual fact to back up the argument, Joe Baseballfan will get agitated because he disagrees and has a different hyperbolic, unquantifiable reason why, say…  Robinson Cano can’t seem to hit in the clutch.  In it’s own way, it benefits the mainstream media to be lazy and vague because presenting good evidence would curb discussion that drives ratings and what few newspaper sale there are left.

Rarely has this dysfunctional form of communication ignited a story more than the ongoing saga of Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes.

The Yankees entered spring training saying all the right things: nobody has the fifth starter job locked up; everyone has a chance, regardless of their role last year; this is a competition and may the best man win.

That’s all fine.  Baseball is a sport, after all, and if nothing else sport is rooted in competition. It should be competition that theoretically brings out the best in an athlete’s performance.  The need to work hard and excel at one’s craft should go a long way toward improving that person’s skills and ability.

So yeah, I get why the Yankees have entered the spring with that as their mantra both in the fifth starter’s slot and in left field. The thing is, when it comes to the rotation, I have a hard time believing it.

The Yankees have spent the last two seasons nurturing Joba Chamberlain’s young arm in preparation for a hopefully injury-free career as a starting pitcher.  They did this for one reason: they believe Joba has the ability to be a good or, dare I say great, starting pitcher.

Joba’s performance to this point has been a bit confusing.  In 2008, after leaving the bullpen to join the rotation, Joba posted an impressive 2.76 ERA in an injury shortened season. In 2009 as a starter, he posted a more pedestrian and below league average 4.78 ERA.

Which is the real Joba?  One would hope he’s somewhere in between.  Considering the Joba was only 23 last season, we have every reason to believe that he will steadily improve for a couple of seasons barring any type of permanent or lingering arm damage.  That’s a reasonable expectation given what we know about how starting pitchers develop.

The Yankees are aware of this, too, which makes the current competition for the fifth starter’s spot a little strange. Surely, the Yankees can’t base the future of both Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain on a bunch of starts in spring training.  We do have a track record of what both pitchers have done in the majors so far which is much more indicative of their abilities than 22 innings in Tampa.  Joba’s ability to start without limitation this season compared to Hughes’ limited innings would seem to be the deciding factor, especially given the Yankees acquisition of Javier Vazquez in an effort to secure more innings out of their starters.

It would also seem that if Joba were to fail in spring training on such a level as to force his way out of the rotation, it would be questionable whether he could be trusted in the bullpen.  He only needs to be good, not great, to get the fifth starters spot.  If he can’t be trusted there, he probably can’t be trusted anywhere.

Consider Joba and Hughes’ career numbers in the majors:

(the bold columns are only there to make it easier to read)

Joba has more innings and also a better overall performance but his trend has been upward a bit.  Hughes, meanwhile, dealt with a leg injury in 2008 that severely limited his innings and went to the bullpen last season to get more major league experience.  Both men are decent pitchers for their ages which means their success in the bullpen should not be a surprise.  Both have also exhibited the same pattern, which is pitching very well out of the pen and having more difficulty in the rotation.

That’s to be expected for a young pitcher.  The Yankees are not an organization that typically allows a starting pitcher, never mind two, to develop on the major league roster.  That makes it difficult to plan a full season of work for both men in 2010.

But there will likely be opportunities for a sixth starter to make a major contribution in 2010.  In 2009, five starters outside of the main four combined for 32 starts.  In 2008, the Yankees spread 33 starts amongst 7 starters who weren’t considered part of the rotation while Joba,  Sidney Ponson and Chien-Ming Wang split 42 starts in the fifth spot.  In 2007, the also split 29 starts between eight different starters.

The moral of the story?  More likely than not, there will be opportunities for Phil Hughes to pitch in the rotation at the major league level, making this little competition with Joba somewhat unnecessary.

The remaining question: where do you put Hughes in the meantime that he can be stretched out and ready for the rotation when/if that opportunity arises?  They can keep him in the pen and try and get him longer outings so that stretching him out could be a relatively quick and painless process.  They can make him a long man, possibly as a caddy to Joba should he struggle, but the expected innings would be a gamble.  Or, they can send him to the minors and let him start there until needed.

The minors is probably a waste of his arm and the long man option is a minefield of missed opportunities.  The best thing is probably for Hughes to start in the pen, hopefully throwing 2+ inning outings as much as he can.  If the rotation opened up, he could either make a few short starts with a long reliever as a caddy or go to AAA Scranton for three starts and get himself up to five innings if the need is long term.

Today, Mark McGwire admitted to having used steroids during his playing career.

For anyone with even a passing interest in baseball, this won’t be surprising.

What’s surprising to me is how sad I find this whole situation.

“I’m not here to talk about the past,” McGwire so infamously stated during a 2005 Congressional hearing ostensibly called to determine just how pervasive steroid use was in Major League Baseball.  I say ostensibly because while that may be how the hearing was portrayed to the public, in actuality it was little more than a cynical witch hunt designed to put a few of our more, shall we say, ambitious Congressmen in front of a national television audience.

They wanted to appear tough to their constituency.  They wanted to act as guardians of our nation’s great pastime.  They wanted blood.

March 16th, 2005 certainly wasn’t one of Major League Baseball’s greatest days.  We saw Rafael Palmeiro, one of his generation’s very greatest baseball talents, state with conviction, “I have never used steroids, period”.  This statement  began to live in infamy when, in August of that same year, Palmeiro tested positive for a banned substance and was suspended for 10 games.

Baseball fans watched intently in July of 2005 as Palmeiro became 1 of only 4 players in the game’s great history to collect 3000 hits and 500 home runs.  Just one month later, the man had to wear cotton balls in his ears to drown out of the chorus of boos and cat calls he was receiving on a nightly basis at visiting ballparks.

Just like that, in the blink of an eye or the prick of a needle, Rafael Palmeiro was transformed from finger-wagging, steroid-denying braggadocio to lowly, sad, broken former superstar.   His reputation will never fully recover.  He has slipped from a shoo-in first ballot Hall of Famer to now occupying the same purgatory as McGwire, whose testimony at that same Congressional hearing was so disastrous, so shockingly unconvincing, that for 5 years it has been looked upon as a covert confession.

Or at least until today.  McGwire, with languishing support for his Hall of Fame candidacy and a new job as the St. Louis Cardinals’ hitting coach, felt today was the right time to admit to everything everyone has suspected him of doing long since.

Think about it – what has changed in this nation’s consciousness between 1998 and 2010 to make us all so cynical when it comes to big guys putting up big numbers?  In 1998, we watched in anticipation as McGwire and Sammy Sosa both embarked on a chase to shatter one of baseball’s oldest and most hallowed records – Roger Maris’ 61 homeruns, set in the year 1961.  McGwire finished the 1998 season with 70 homeruns, Sosa with 66. In 1998, baseball fans could look upon those numbers and smile.  Nowadays, we look upon them and frown.

We collectively made these guys into folk heros just 12 years ago.  Now, there’s a constant campaign to denigrate them with nasty rumors, with vicious innuendo.  McGwire has been routinely mocked for his Congressional performance, his reluctance to discuss the past morphing into a national punchline.  He’s been portrayed as a hermit, a liar, a fraud, a bad person.  Sosa, meanwhile, is a particular kind of punching bag.  He’s been mocked for his shaky English during the 2005 hearing, was mocked for making a comeback attempt in 2007, and more recently, was mocked for appearing ‘too white’ at a public event.

When it was all happening, it was so exciting.  Baseball took a hit following the 1994 strike, but during the 1998 season, as McGwire and Sosa slugged their way into the history books, fans began to crawl back to the game they used to passionately love.  These were big guys with big personalities, hitting baseballs a very long way, and the country was enthralled.  I’ll never forget watching McGwire’s record breaking homerun quickly disappear just over the left field wall in St. Louis, and the joyous celebration that followed.  Everyone was in the big guy’s corner.

Four years later, he followed some bad legal advice and kept his mouth shut at a Congressional hearing that felt a lot like baseball’s own version of a witch hunt.  His eyes filled with tears.  It hurt him to be there, clearly, and the barrage of questions from our nation’s concerned Congressmen made it difficult to stick to the script.  He was drowning up there, and it was sad.  A lot of people thought it was funny.

The truth is a lot more complex than simply saying “Mark McGwire broke the rules”.  Yes, of course, he did break the rules; he used steroids, and steroids were not legal in baseball despite the absence of what one could term an MLB steroids ‘policy’.  That didn’t occur until 2003, and even then was only used as a survey to determine how serious it all was.  Turns out, it was pretty serious.

But a larger part of the truth is that taking steroids helped keep McGwire on the field, doing the things that he earned millions of dollars for doing – and that earned him the adulation of millions of people.  It’s not so black and white as “he cheated”.  Yes, he cheated, but there was an culture of cheating in baseball at the time, a culture that the public and particularly the baseball press chose actively to ignore.  McGwire could have sat idly by as countless peers used steroids to extend their careers, to improve their offensive output, to get stronger, faster, better.  He could have taken the high road – of course he could have – but what’s the likelihood that you, or I, or anyone in that particular climate would have chosen peace of mind over millions of dollars in salary and endorsements and the chance to break some storied records and to be admired?

Everyone enjoyed the ride 12 years ago.  We thought baseball was entering another Golden Age.  Now, people want to look at the the numbers compiled during this era and demolish them, strike them from the books as though they never happened.

They did happen.  And you probably loved it.  Baseball owners loved it.  Fans loved it.  The press loved it.

I’m not saying what McGwire did is right.  But he’s one of many, and he’s only human.  To single him out, to ridicule him and denigrate his character seems unfair.  My takeaway from all this is not to tear down those that did use, but to have a heightened respect for those whose character was strong enough to abstain.  McGwire was only going along for the ride, giving the people what they wanted, doing the thing he most loved to do, quite possibly the only thing he could do.

Were you not entertained?

The Bronx View has a special section called The Bullpen which features writers who may not contribute on a daily or weekly basis but have a great perspective on the New York Yankees and Major League Baseball.

This week, Tom K. contributes his thoughts about left field.

Since I was so “accurate” with my pitching options entry, I have now decided to breakdown some of the options for left field in 2010.

I intentionally decided to withhold typing this up until after Jason Bay and Matt Holliday signed; as it seemed that a strong percentage of Yankees fans wanted one or the other very badly.  I am not one of those fans; while Holliday would have given this team a shot at legendary offense status, the fact is that you don’t need to be a legendary offense to win.

So, let’s run down the candidates – internally and those who are available on the market.

Brett Gardner (26 years old; .270/.345/.379; 26-for-31 stolen bases) – Back when he was a prospect in the Yankees’ system, a lot of people commented on the unique qualities of Gardner.  He wasn’t exactly a unique prospect; but he was a unique Yankees prospect in that his power had no projection whatsoever, but his speed/defense/plate discipline were all above average attributes.  Thus far, Gardner hasn’t done a great job taking walks at the major league level (34 in 425 career plate appearances), but his minor league history suggests that there could be improvement on the horizon.  The benefits of Gardner taking walks are obvious:  He can steal plenty of bases, and he doesn’t have much power anyway.  If you have a choice between a walk and a single, take the walk – the defense can make a play on a potential single, after all.

Reed Johnson (33 years old; .255/.330/.412) – Reed isn’t as much competition for Gardner as he would be a complement to Gardner.   Johnson has a history of injury issues, especially to his back, but also has a history of hitting very well vs. left-handed pitching (.313/.378/.463 in his career; and he has maintained this throughout his career).    He’s also, according to UZR, a very solid left fielder who can probably also spell Nick Swisher in right.     The injuries are a valid concern, however – so the Yankees would have to determine whether or not he can hold up even as a platoon player.   Injury issues do not tend to get better for baseball players approaching their mid-30s.     Overall, he’d likely be quite cheap – and if you can get lucky with his health, he’ll be productive in a 4th outfielder/platoon role.

Johnny Damon (36 years old; .282/.365/.489) – Someone in the front office was paying good attention when they recommended that the Yankees sign Johnny Damon.   It could have just been a lucky guess, but I doubt Brian Cashman takes very many lucky guesses when he looks to sign a player to a 4-year contract.   Damon produced his 2nd and 3rd best slugging percentage seasons while with the Yankees, all while being beyond his prime.    His defense has definitely tumbled through the years (something tells me that the Yankees thought he’d still be an adequate left fielder even as his contract winded down; but it didn’t work out that way), but overall, Damon was one very solid investment for the franchise.    So, what do they do now?  By most accounts, Damon has cost himself money on the free agent market; the Yankees were much more willing to give him a decent contract a month or so ago than they are now.   Now, they want him back at a bargain price and nothing else.      Something to ponder:   Despite a BABIP of .314 in September, Damon still stumbled to a .247/.350/.315 finish; random data noise or the beginning of an offensive decline?    That could be one reason why the Yankees would probably refuse now to go beyond one year.

Rick Ankiel (30 years old; .231/.285/.387) – Talk about UGLY.   Ankiel was flat out brutal at the plate in 2009; the Cardinals insisted on throwing him out there as often as possible (404 plate appearances), but the Cardinals at the end of the day would have been better off plucking some kid off of a high school diamond and inserting him into their starting lineup.    However, it should be noted that Ankiel did slug .417 off of right-handed pitching, and has slugged .462 off of them in his major league career.    This is not to say we should ignore his 2009 totals (afterall, his batting average & OBP vs. righties were brutal), but it could give a glimmer of hope to the Yankees if they feel his swing is made for the ballpark.   The ultimate low-risk, high-reward player if you can get him at a bargain bin price, and he may just have to take such a deal at this point.  There’s plenty of corner outfield fish in the sea, and not many fishermen are going to want to catch a guy coming off of this type of season.    The Yankees, however, have a hole to fill and a ballpark that may make Ankiel more intriguing to them than most other teams.

Xavier Nady (31 years old; barely played in 2009) – We obviously all know about Nady, a corner position player who put up a solid though not spectacular 2008 season that lead the Yankees to dealing for him midway through that campaign.   Nady has a .792 career OPS, and 108 OPS+ putting him right on the borderline as a corner outfielder.   He doesn’t really bring any one great attribute to the plate; not a big home run hitter, not someone who takes a lot of walks, not someone who is going to hit for a big average, and not someone who will steal much when he does get on.    However, he does just enough at the plate to make him a useful major league contributor and hits left-handed pitching very well (and is good enough vs. right-handed pitching where you feel comfortable giving him playing time to keep him sharp).    If reports are accurate, Nady’s price tag is too steep currently for the Yankees.  That does seem a bit odd to me, given he is coming off of an injury.  My thinking would be that Nady will gladly accept a one-year deal loaded with incentives in an attempt to reestablish his market value for 2011, but if he doesn’t feel the same way, then he is no great loss obviously.

Jamie Hoffman (25 years old; 4-for-22 in 2009 cup of coffee) – From the sounds of things, the Yankees are very intrigued by Hoffman.   So much so that they traded Brian Bruney for the mere rights to draft him in the Rule 5 draft, with no guarantees that they’ll be able to keep him.   From minor league reports, it appears that Hoffman is a gifted defensive outfielder without much power.  He has good speed, but has yet to translate that into a high stolen base percentage and is supposedly good versus left-handed pitching.    This is not the type of player you hand the keys to in spring training for a starting job, but if the Yankees feel there is potential here, they could use him as the 25th man on the roster.      I would rather have Gardner, though so his best chance to make the team in my opinion is if Gardner is handed the left-field job, leaving an additional opening on the bench.

Marcus Thames (33 years old; .252/.323/.453) – Thames’ claim to fame was hitting a home run off of Randy Johnson in his major league debut.   Some may even think that is his only claim to fame, but Thames has become a very useful major league power hitter.    One comparison I like to make is GlenAllen Hill; Thames can’t play defense very well, he’ll strike out a ton, and he won’t take a huge amount of walks.   But when he does connect, the balls jump out of the ballpark.  He has hit 101 home runs in 1,549 career plate appearances and boasts a .491 career slugging percentage despite having a .243 career batting average.   The Yankees are obviously not lacking for power, but Thames can definitely fill a role on the bench as a right-handed bat for Girardi to go to to give Nick Johnson, Brett Gardner, or Nick Swisher a night off.    He’s used to playing a reduced role, which is also helpful.      The biggest drawback of course is the defense.     Given that one role for Thames would be that of pinch-hitting for Gardner late in a game, you’d probably want another OF on the bench to go into the game once he is done hitting.  Perhaps that is where a Hoffman could come into play.

Fernando Tatis (35 years old; .282/.339/.438) – Hey, I like to make fun of Omar Minaya & the Mets as much as anyone.   But whether it was by dumb lack or not, Tatis turned into a very wise two-year investment by the Mets’ franchise.    Tatis was worth 1.6 wins over replacement in 2008, and followed that up with a 1.5 WAR in 2009.   These aren’t numbers that legends are made of, but for a part-time player, you can’t help but notice that he has been useful.     In a very small sample size of 178 innings in 2009, Tatis posted a 17.1 UZR in left field.   (In 2008, his number was -5.2 in 284 innings; though his overall outfield number was -0.8).   I am not advocating the signing of Tatis, but if it is a right-handed bench bat that the Yankees are after, they could do worse…even if he would be sloppy seconds.

Rocco Baldelli (28 years old; .253/.311/.433) – We’ve all heard about Baldelli’s illness; and whether or not he has the severe case or the not-so-severe case, the bottom line is that it will always affect his ability to play major league baseball.   The mere fact that he can actually play baseball is a testament to his will and his athletic ability.    He has plenty of limitations in that you won’t be able to play him everyday; and there may be a period of several days where he’ll have trouble getting onto the field.   But Baldelli is still a solid contributor when he does put on the uniform.  He played a poor right field for the 2009 Red Sox, but has been generally a solid outfielder throughout his career.     However, the bottom line is that Cashman probably wants to bring in someone who gives Girardi flexibility, and Baldelli doesn’t really offer that as you don’t know if he’ll be able to play until he comes to the ballpark every day. It’s no fault of Baldelli’s of course; but it is a tough way for a major league manager to operate.

Gary Sheffield (41…)  OK, I am only kidding.   Relax.

As for the trade market, you can probably always find a team or two dangling a corner outfielder in front of you.  In some cases, it’s a high-salaried player they just want to dump.  In other cases, it’s just the mere fact that there is no big shortage of corner outfielders & corner outfield prospects, making more players expendable.    I just don’t personally see anyone out there who the Yankees would be looking to acquire at this point.  For one thing, they have dealt away a decent chunk of their middling prospects over the past few seasons, thinning out the “middle layer” of their farm system a bit.    For another, they don’t want to take on someone else’s salary problem at this point and they probably feel that the free agents on the market are just as useful as anyone they could trade for.

A name you may hear, however:

David DeJesus (.281/.347/.434) – DeJesus is a decent enough hitter who was a terrible defensive center fielder in 2008.   (Though it should be noted that he has been generally solid in center field in his career).   However, he played a majority of his time in left field in 2009 and came out smelling like a rose, putting up a 15.7 UZR.   Over the course of his career, DeJesus is an 18.8 in left field in 2,263 innings.  In other words, if you want to sure up the defense with a bat that is a bit more of a sure thing than Gardner, than DeJesus could be your man.    However, the Royals probably overvalue him (they are the Royals, after all) and although I would personally see him as an upgrade over Gardner, it’s not by much.  Definitely not by enough for me to give up much of value to get him.   Chone has him at 2.5 WAR in 2010; Gardner is a projected 2.2.

Who would I choose?  I would personally go with Brett Gardner while adding Marcus Thames for some pop off of the bench from the right-side of the plate.  In an ideal world, the Yankees would have a “jack of every trades” in the #25 spot on the roster (a Jerry Hairston type) who can fill in everywhere and go in for defense on those nights you use Thames to pinch hit for Gardner late in the game.    The Yankees supposedly wanted to see if Ramiro Pena can be that type of player, and the jury is still way out there on whether or not he can do it.