Dropped Third Strike

a mistake by converting Joba Chamberlain to a starter. 

The problem is that Joba may be too good for his (and the Yankees’) own good. He’s a strikeout pitcher who is likely to use up his game quota of 100 pitches by the fifth or sixth inning. Then, who pitches the seventh and eighth innings? Do you really want to trust Latroy Hawkins, Ross Ohlendorf, Edwar Ramirez or Kyle Farnsworth to be the eighth inning guy?

General Manager Brian Cashman’s master plan for the long run is to stockpile young power arms and he has done a wonderful job in doing so. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that the Yankees’ most important player over the past dozen years, their MVP through six pennants and four World Series titles, has been [Mariano] Rivera.

And here’s a flash: Rivera is not going to be around forever. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to be replaced by someone with a chance to be as dominant as Mo has been. Only one pitcher has that potential, but the Yankees want him to be a starter.”

Let’s take this paragraph by paragraph. First paragraph in summary: Joba, as a dominant strike-out pitcher, will throw 100 pitches in 5 or 6 innings and will, therefore, have to be yanked too early to be especially useful.

Now since most managers today tend to be guided by pitch counts, the vast majority of big league pitchers are anchored to that 100 pitch count in one way or another, meaning that if we accept Pepe’s premise, then no strike-out pitcher is going to be of great use to his team. This is manifestly untrue. Furthermore, Pepe’s contention that strike-out type pitchers have higher pitch counts is not completely and inarguably true–or at least it’s not the only truth. Now it’s always problematic working with Joba’s numbers because the sample sizes are small and these numbers have been accrued in relief, but we have to work with what we’ve got. That said, let’s take a look at how many pitches on average Joba throws per plate appearance: 3.97. This is higher than the league average (which is 3.79) but not by a huge margin. In comparison, known sinkerballers (and contact, as opposed to strike-out, pitchers) Chien-Ming Wang and Derek Lowe have career pitch per plate appearance averages of 3.41 and 3.61 respectively. Significantly lower. But take a look at those numbers in comparison to Josh Beckett–the pitcher Pepe refers to as a comparison for Joba. Beckett’s career average Pit/PA: 3.77, just below league-average. But his Pit/PA for 2002, his second year in the league, was 3.92, comparable to Joba’s numbers at this point in his career. So yes, right now Joba might not pitch into the seventh or eighth innings all that often, but it seems likely that in the very near future (2009) he will. Also we should keep in mind that a reliever does his best to rack up strikeouts, knowing that he is only out there for an inning or two. It remains to be seen if Joba will make any adjustments to his pitching style that will result in more non-K outs.

Paragraph two in summation: Brian Cashman stockpiled lots of power arms, and Mariano Rivera is the most important Yankee of the last 12 years. 

Well we’re all still waiting on B-Cash’s power arms to come through, but the more interesting claim is the latter. As a Yankees fan, you hear a few statements a whole lot: “Mariano Rivera is the most important Yankee of the last 12 years.” And, “Jorge Posada is the most important Yankee of the last 12 years.” O, and, “Derek Jeter is the most important Yankee of the last 12 years.” Well of course one of these three must be the most important Yankee of the last dozen years, because they’re the only three who have been there for the last 12 years. So maybe of those three, Mariano has been the most important. That’s certainly debatable but we don’t have time. Please feel free to carry the debate into the comments section. We would only like to point out that Pepe shouldn’t have said Mariano has been the most important Yankee, he should have said “Closer has been the most important position for the Yankees over the last 12 years.” This a much easier point to argue, and at this point there is a large body of evidence pointing to the fact that a pitcher who goes 200 innings is more valuable than one who goes 70 or 80. Was it the lack of a quality closer that got the Yankees knocked out of the playoffs the last few years? Simply put: no.

And that brings us to the third paragraph, in which Pepe suggests that Joba Chamberlain is the only suitable eventual replacement for Mariano River in the closer role. Clearly the closer is so important in Pepe’s view that it is worth keeping a premier young pitcher in the setup role at least through 2010 just so he can be in a position to take over when Mariano decides to retire. 

Ultimately, Pepe doesn’t seem to be able to settle on any one good reason to keep Joba in the ‘pen. Either it’s because Joba won’t be a successful starter, or because the team needs someone to pitch the eighth, or because the team needs an eventual replacement at closer. We don’t find any of these arguments especially compelling, and they don’t form a particularly coherent whole when taken together. Furthermore, Pepe essentially defeats his own case. His reasoning is based on the idea that the best way for the Yankees to win games is “to shorten the game and find someone to be the bridge to Rivera,” and that “Chamberlain has proved he is the one best suited to get the game to Mariano. As a starter, the only way he can do that would be to pitch eight innings.” We find these two statements to be incompatible. If the goal is to get to Mariano, then having someone who can lock down 6, 7, or 8 innings every 5 games is by far the best way to do it. Pepe makes it sound like whoever takes the spot Chamberlain was destined for in the rotation will be guaranteed to have success, and that Chamberlain will be able to pitch every game as a reliever. Whoever takes the spot in the rotation, will likely not be guaranteed to be successful, will likely be someone like Kei Igawa or Darrel Rasner (you know, the Rasner that is supposed to be out there, not the quality pitcher we’re currently seeing) and will frequently not even make it to the 5th or 6th inning. And Joba can’t pitch every day out of the ‘pen. While we are great admirers of Phil Pepe in general, and find him to be an skilled and insightful writer, we must completely disagree with him on this front, and wholeheartedly support the idea that Joba move to the rotation as soon as possible.