Media Yankee love fest

[Mantle2600]

Can anyone tell me what the hell is so big about Joba Chamberlain? Why is everyone making him out to be better than Cy Young himself? It's making me nauseous.

[Chubby]

He's no Mickey Mantle I can tell you that...

[Mantle2600]

He came unraveled by bugs last year in the playoffs, but Carmona pitches through it and nobody seems to care because he plays for Cleveland.

And I saw that article on ESPN.com front page which is why I decided to ask this.

[DaddyTorgo]

i agree. he hasn't proved anything yet. he's still just a (largely untested) kid. could he be great...sure. he could also flame out. i hope he flames out just so the media members look stupid - not even because he's a yankee. just because i'm so suck of them sucking his wang.

[Atocep]

i agree. he hasn't proved anything yet. he's still just a (largely untested) kid. could he be great...sure. he could also flame out. i hope he flames out just so the media members look stupid - not even because he's a yankee. just because i'm so suck of them sucking his wang.

The media never looks stupid, they would just make up the reasons that he failed. "Couldn't handle being a starter with the New York media pressure", "isn't clutch enough", "not a gamer", or whatever else they could come up with to create a new story.

[rowech]

New York, Boston, Chicago, and LA.....those are the only cities that are important when it comes to sports, baseball in particular because of the lack of a salary cap.

[Mantle2600]

apparently.

[Maple Leafs]

New York, Boston, Chicago, and LA.....those are the only cities that are important when it comes to sports, baseball in particular because of the lack of a salary cap.Oh great. You've vaguely, indirectly said something that could be taken as negative towards Boston sports teams. Now we're going to have to put up with fifteen pages of "why all the haters?" posts.

[GreenMonster]

New York, Boston, Chicago, and LA.....those are the only cities that are important when it comes to sports, baseball in particular because of the lack of a salary cap.

The lack of a salary cap arguement is totally old and lame. The Yankees have spent a billion dollars in the last 5 years and won nothing, today they are 6.5 games behind the 44 million dollar Rays. The 22 million Marlins are in 1st place. Would a salary cap allow the Twins to keep Santana, no and there owner who is the 107 richest guy in the whole world won't pony up the cash and he is worth 2.6 billion. Teams like the Pirates, Royals, Nationals fail to increase there payroll and make changes in the front office despite years of failure and increased income from baseball's television contracts and revenue-sharing system. A salary cap won't change any of the reasons why these franchises are bad.

[molson]

You guys are adorable when you get all worked up.

I'll explain if you want a serious answer.

The NYC metro area has almost 20 million people. There's a lot of them. That's why they matter more than you. That makes them relevant economically, culturally, and in terms of sports. They're not better, nobody's saying they're better, there's just more of them.

There's at least 10X as many of them as those in greater Cleveland, but even that doesn't tell the story of how much more important they are. Because of their relevance, people care about them in an exaggerated manner, both positively and negatively.

The people at ESPN.com really aren't trying to piss you off.

I'd love for there to be more competitive balance in terms of MLB team spending. But that has nothing to do with the (appropriately) disproportionate media treatment. Even the bad NYC teams are compelling (New York Knicks). And nobody cares about the great teams from small markets (San Antonio Spurs).

[RendeR]

Oh great. You've vaguely, indirectly said something that could be taken as negative towards Boston sports teams. Now we're going to have to put up with fifteen pages of "why all the haters?" posts.


QFT

[jeff061]

Between the Sox, Pats and now the Celts, I don't play the "why hate" card any more.

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Yeah, now I'm now just a straight up mixture of belligerence and arrogance.

[Subby]

Can anyone tell me what the hell is so big about Joba Chamberlain? Why is everyone making him out to be better than Cy Young himself? It's making me nauseous.
Does it literally make you nauseous? If so, you are a huge fucking pussy.

[Ragone]

Brien Taylor called and wondered where his thread was

[SirFozzie]

Between the Sox, Pats and now the Celts, I don't play the "why hate" card any more.

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Yeah, now I'm now just a straight up mixture of belligerence and arrogance.

*sighs*

Don't make it easier for them then it already is :P :)

[JonInMiddleGA]

New York, Boston, Chicago, and LA.....those are the only cities that are important when it comes to sports

Largely because they represent nearly 1/5th of all the TV households in the country.

[stevew]

So yeah, he's been largely unhittable as a reliever, but I dunno about this starting thing. I'd much prefer to have him available in the 7/8 range every other day...with Mariano there for the 9th it significantly shortens the game.

Obviously his first start was a wash tonight.

Time will tell how well he does long term, but he's off to an amazing start for his career. Probably one of the most impressive beginnings of a career in recent history(not involving Jay Bruce).

[Lathum]

So yeah, he's been largely unhittable as a reliever, but I dunno about this starting thing. I'd much prefer to have him available in the 7/8 range every other day...with Mariano there for the 9th it significantly shortens the game.

Obviously his first start was a wash tonight.

Time will tell how well he does long term, but he's off to an amazing start for his career. Probably one of the most impressive beginnings of a career in recent history(not involving Jay Bruce).

whatever.

If he wasn't a Yankee and didn't have a funny name he would be a nobody.

He isn't half the pitcher Pappelbon is.

[Mantle2600]

Does it literally make you nauseous? If so, you are a huge fucking pussy.

No it does'nt literally make me nauseous, it's called a figure of speech. Did you really think it made me nauseous, cause if so you are a dumbass.:p

[Chief Rum]

Between the Sox, Pats and now the Celts, I don't play the "why hate" card any more.

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Yeah, now I'm now just a straight up mixture of belligerence and arrogance.

Now? :)

[TroyF]

whatever.

If he wasn't a Yankee and didn't have a funny name he would be a nobody.

He isn't half the pitcher Pappelbon is.


As much as I'd love to agree with this, it's kind of false. Joba has had an amazing beginning. Last year he ends up with a .38 ERA and gives up 18 baserunners in 24 innings. (to go with 34 K's)

Papelbon was two years older and had a 2.65 ERA in 34 innings his first year in the bigs. Does he deserve this much press? No. He doesn't. But it is NY and we know what happens to those guys.

What is interesting to me is how few of people have brought up the fact that at this point Joba simply isn't ready to start.

He has had control problems for the last month. Coming into this game he'd walked 8 guys in his last 11 innings (including 4 walks in his last 5 innings), he's been struggling to place the fastball in the bullpen, that wasn't going to change in the starting rotation. The other thing is the amount of pitches he's been throwing.

Look at his last few outings in the pen:

1.1 innings, 28 pitches
2 innings, 40 pitches
2 innings 35 pitches
1 inning, 23 pitches
1 inning, 20 pitches

Over 20 pitches an inning. Close to 4.4 pitches per batter. This is with hitters being fairly aggressive against him as he's out of the pen. He's averaging more pitches per batter than Carlos Marmel is. Marmel is averaging 2 k's more per nine innings.

If Joba cannot locate his fastball any better than what he is now, he's nothing more than a 5 inning pitcher, even after he builds his endurance up.

I see why the Yankees are doing this, I just don't quite understand the timing of it. He clearly lacks command at this point and moving him to the rotation is only going to hurt this more as he faces hitters who want to work the count early in the game. I would have kept him in the bullpen for another month and worked with him on pitch counts rather than throw him into a firestorm and watch his biggest weakness come to light.

The question for me isn't if this is going to work. Barring Joba regaining command of his fastball (which to me would be a miracle as the pressure starts to mount, if he does get control of it with the pressure he'll be under, we can get ready for the Cy Young's to pile up), this isn't going to work at all. The only questions I have now are these:

1) Is this going to have a negative long term impact on Joba.
2) How long do they allow this to continue. (starts like this will be the norm unless he regains control of the fastball)
3) Will he regain his form once he gets sent back to the bullpen. (I'd be stunned if he isn't back in the bullpen by the end of the season)

[Chief Rum]

I would say that amazing beginning actually has to be allowed to extend to statistical relevance before we start anointing him myself.

[rowech]

The lack of a salary cap arguement is totally old and lame. The Yankees have spent a billion dollars in the last 5 years and won nothing, today they are 6.5 games behind the 44 million dollar Rays. The 22 million Marlins are in 1st place. Would a salary cap allow the Twins to keep Santana, no and there owner who is the 107 richest guy in the whole world won't pony up the cash and he is worth 2.6 billion. Teams like the Pirates, Royals, Nationals fail to increase there payroll and make changes in the front office despite years of failure and increased income from baseball's television contracts and revenue-sharing system. A salary cap won't change any of the reasons why these franchises are bad.

Has nothing to do with them winning. Some of those teams haven't won in years. It has to do with them having all of the richest athletes, therefore the theoretical best players, and therefore the most media hype. It also has the owners who are most willing to pimp there teams out to the media to get publicity and therefore sell more merchandise.

If Jay Bruce was a Yankee, we would be hearing that he's the next Mantle.

[Logan]

You lose a major part of your effectiveness when you have to change your mindset from "I can gun it for an inning, maybe two" to "I need to control my endurance for 5-7 innings." Even once he builds his arm up to where he could physically throw that many pitches, it doesn't mean he'll be able to throw his pitchers in the same manner he did during relief.

[Ksyrup]

Not sure how great he should be, but since he's a Yankee, I hope he busts and that whatever they do with him is the wrong move.

[Philliesfan980]

You lose a major part of your effectiveness when you have to change your mindset from "I can gun it for an inning, maybe two" to "I need to control my endurance for 5-7 innings." Even once he builds his arm up to where he could physically throw that many pitches, it doesn't mean he'll be able to throw his pitchers in the same manner he did during relief.


That's the exact problem Brett Myers for the Phillies is having this year.

[lordscarlet]

The lack of a salary cap arguement is totally old and lame. The Yankees have spent a billion dollars in the last 5 years and won nothing, today they are 6.5 games behind the 44 million dollar Rays. The 22 million Marlins are in 1st place. Would a salary cap allow the Twins to keep Santana, no and there owner who is the 107 richest guy in the whole world won't pony up the cash and he is worth 2.6 billion. Teams like the Pirates, Royals, Nationals fail to increase there payroll and make changes in the front office despite years of failure and increased income from baseball's television contracts and revenue-sharing system. A salary cap won't change any of the reasons why these franchises are bad.

Are you kidding me? The Nationals have had an owner for roughly 2 years (is it 3 now? I'm terrible with years), how can they have "failed to increase and make changes"? They just started and dont have anything to change yet. Sure, Bowden is still there, but when MLB owned the team they eviscerated the team. It will take years to recover from what Selig and the crew did to the franchise. Bowden has pretty much done nothing but make excellent trades and build up the farm system in the past 2-3 years.

[Butter]

The media likes to cover the Yankees.

In other news, somewhere today, it rained.

[Subby]

No it does'nt literally make me nauseous, it's called a figure of speech. Did you really think it made me nauseous, cause if so you are a dumbass.:p
Oh I'm a dumbass. But a caring one. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. :D

[Lathum]

Give me a freaking break on the stats.

Joba has pitched a whopping 50 innings in the regular season and 3.2 innings in the post season.

Wait until there is a book on him.

[cuervo72]

Alizee's posterior: bad
ASCII Art of teh finga: ok

/writes down in notebook

[jeff061]

Alizee's posterior: bad
ASCII Art of teh finga: ok

/writes down in notebook

This is America sir. If you don't like it then you can get out!

[Dr. Sak]

That's the exact problem Brett Myers for the Phillies is having this year.

And hitting his wife in public.

[TroyF]

Give me a freaking break on the stats.

Joba has pitched a whopping 50 innings in the regular season and 3.2 innings in the post season.

Wait until there is a book on him.

He said he'd had a great start. That is not even for debate. A .38 ERA in 25 innings in a pennant run is damned impressive. There is no question he has to prove it over the course of time. Also no question that he has a lot to prove as a starter.

My personal belief is that he'll be a great, great closer and an average starter. (for the reasons I wrote above)

[BishopMVP]

As much as I'd love to agree with this, it's kind of false. Joba has had an amazing beginning. Last year he ends up with a .38 ERA and gives up 18 baserunners in 24 innings. (to go with 34 K's)

Papelbon was two years older and had a 2.65 ERA in 34 innings his first year in the bigs. Does he deserve this much press? No. He doesn't. But it is NY and we know what happens to those guys.

What is interesting to me is how few of people have brought up the fact that at this point Joba simply isn't ready to start.

He has had control problems for the last month. Coming into this game he'd walked 8 guys in his last 11 innings (including 4 walks in his last 5 innings), he's been struggling to place the fastball in the bullpen, that wasn't going to change in the starting rotation. The other thing is the amount of pitches he's been throwing.

Look at his last few outings in the pen:

1.1 innings, 28 pitches
2 innings, 40 pitches
2 innings 35 pitches
1 inning, 23 pitches
1 inning, 20 pitches

Over 20 pitches an inning. Close to 4.4 pitches per batter. This is with hitters being fairly aggressive against him as he's out of the pen. He's averaging more pitches per batter than Carlos Marmel is. Marmel is averaging 2 k's more per nine innings.

If Joba cannot locate his fastball any better than what he is now, he's nothing more than a 5 inning pitcher, even after he builds his endurance up.

I see why the Yankees are doing this, I just don't quite understand the timing of it. He clearly lacks command at this point and moving him to the rotation is only going to hurt this more as he faces hitters who want to work the count early in the game. I would have kept him in the bullpen for another month and worked with him on pitch counts rather than throw him into a firestorm and watch his biggest weakness come to light.

The question for me isn't if this is going to work. Barring Joba regaining command of his fastball (which to me would be a miracle as the pressure starts to mount, if he does get control of it with the pressure he'll be under, we can get ready for the Cy Young's to pile up), this isn't going to work at all. The only questions I have now are these:

1) Is this going to have a negative long term impact on Joba.
2) How long do they allow this to continue. (starts like this will be the norm unless he regains control of the fastball)
3) Will he regain his form once he gets sent back to the bullpen. (I'd be stunned if he isn't back in the bullpen by the end of the season)Even if I thought Joba was suited to be a starter and he didn't have these control problems, it makes absolutely no sense to stretch him out at a big league level.

Obviously the Red Sox have more SP depth, but we've done a much better job the past couple years of bringing up prospects (Lester, Buchholz, Masterson, (Bowden)) for spot starts and then sending them down to work on their weaknesses out of the pressure/media spotlight. Buchholz is 5x the starting pitcher Joba is right now, but he's being kept in AAA to work on fastball command. Masterson has had 2-3 very good starts at the ML level based solely on his sinker, but he'll be back down soon to work on his offspeed pitches, particularly the changeup (and probably put in the bullpen for the stretch run/playoffs).

This also makes the Yankees much less scary in a pressure game. Joba/Rivera in the 8th/9th was a fantastic combination, but now we get middle relievers in tight situations.

[ISiddiqui]

Buchholz is also in AAA because he had a 5.53 ERA and a WHIP of 1.630 ;).

[BishopMVP]

Buchholz is also in AAA because he had a 5.53 ERA and a WHIP of 1.630 ;).He's also got a FIP of 3.39, best of any starter on the team, and would be 8th in the league if he had enough innings to qualify.

[ISiddiqui]

Walks are kind of an important peripheral stat as well ;).

Plenty of teams would send a player down in AAA in that situation.

[ISiddiqui]

Plenty of teams would be happy to have a pitcher with a K/9 rate of 9.1 and a GB% of 47, particularly out of a rookie. ;)

They'd probably want better K/BB numbers, I think. I don't think anyone would hesitate to send him down to AAA with the early season he's been having, in order to refocus. That isn't something only the Red Sox would do.

[ISiddiqui]

You are being really silly. Combined with his high ERA and high walks and high K/BB, it wasn't rocket science to realize he'd be sent down... and it isn't just Boston that would do such a thing (or has the "depth" to do such a thing).


I mean, Hell, the team you were comparing this great use of pitchers too, by using sending Buchholz down to AAA, sent Ian Kennedy down to AAA as well.

Besides... if his walks weren't that much of a problem, why exactly did Boston send him down to work on his control (which is something you've acknowledged earlier).

[ISiddiqui]

And my point that your assertion that Buchholz being sent down to work on control is an example of Boston's great use of young pitchers to keep them out of media pressure is BS, because it isn't something that would be unique to Boston. Plenty of teams have sent down young players who are struggling after initial success to work out some weakness.

Of the top of my head, Franklin Morales of Colorado has been treated similar (though yes, this year Morales was no where near as good as his 2007 season... or even as Buchholz, but he isn't working it out in the ML).

[BishopMVP]

Besides... if his walks weren't that much of a problem, why exactly did Boston send him down to work on his control (which is something you've acknowledged earlier).They sent him down to work on fastball control so he doesn't rely on his plus curve and changeup too much and also to keep his innings down. Tonight he was pulled after 5IP/82 pitches. Fact is, right now he's better than at least 50% of the starters across the major leagues.And my point that your assertion that Buchholz being sent down to work on control is an example of Boston's great use of young pitchers to keep them out of media pressure is BS, because it isn't something that would be unique to Boston. Plenty of teams have sent down young players who are struggling after initial success to work out some weakness.

Of the top of my head, Franklin Morales of Colorado has been treated similar (though yes, this year Morales was no where near as good as his 2007 season... or even as Buchholz, but he isn't working it out in the ML).I wasn't comparing the Red Sox to all of MLB, I was comparing them to the Yankees. Joba and Phil Hughes were both regarded as being in the same class as Buchholz (as was Ian Kennedy for some reason during the Santana talks) and the Yankees have made both work through significant issues at the MLB level to the detriment of the player or the team.

[ISiddiqui]

Huh? What "significant issues... to the detriment of the player or the team" did Joba have? He has an ERA+ of 168 so far this year, which is good for a reliever. And he had one start and walked a ton, which, yes, was a problem when he was a reliever, but in that one start he also left the game with the lead and only giving up 1 ER.

Hughes, OTOH, has just been constantly injured. If he hadn't gotten injured when he did, he likely would have ended up in the minors at some point around when he ended up on the DL.

[sterlingice]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=gallo/080603&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos2

I enjoy this story :)

SI

[sterlingice]

Oh great. You've vaguely, indirectly said something that could be taken as negative towards Boston sports teams. Now we're going to have to put up with fifteen pages of "why all the haters?" posts.

Another chip of QFT to add to the pile

SI

[sterlingice]

The lack of a salary cap arguement is totally old and lame. The Yankees have spent a billion dollars in the last 5 years and won nothing, today they are 6.5 games behind the 44 million dollar Rays. The 22 million Marlins are in 1st place. Would a salary cap allow the Twins to keep Santana, no and there owner who is the 107 richest guy in the whole world won't pony up the cash and he is worth 2.6 billion. Teams like the Pirates, Royals, Nationals fail to increase there payroll and make changes in the front office despite years of failure and increased income from baseball's television contracts and revenue-sharing system. A salary cap won't change any of the reasons why these franchises are bad.

Are you kidding me? The Nationals have had an owner for roughly 2 years (is it 3 now? I'm terrible with years), how can they have "failed to increase and make changes"? They just started and dont have anything to change yet. Sure, Bowden is still there, but when MLB owned the team they eviscerated the team. It will take years to recover from what Selig and the crew did to the franchise. Bowden has pretty much done nothing but make excellent trades and build up the farm system in the past 2-3 years.

That's ok, you're arguing with a guy who told us our teams "fail to increase there payroll". He also uses tired, old, and inaccurate cliches, unable to grasp the complexity of the issue like saying the Marlins are in 1st place (they aren't and I doubt they're going to be at the end of the season) or that the Royals don't increase the payroll (over $20M more the past 4 years, not including a drastic scouting and talent acquisition budget increase). But we've had threads about this before...

SI

[BishopMVP]

Huh? What "significant issues... to the detriment of the player or the team" did Joba have? He has an ERA+ of 168 so far this year, which is good for a reliever. And he had one start and walked a ton, which, yes, was a problem when he was a reliever, but in that one start he also left the game with the lead and only giving up 1 ER.He's being stretched out from a 1-inning pitcher to a starter at the major league level, which hurts the team. He was never going to go more than 4 innings his first start, and probably won't go more than 5 his next couple. That puts added strain on a staff that only has one starter averaging more than 6 IP a start (Wang).

[Atocep]

He's being stretched out from a 1-inning pitcher to a starter at the major league level, which hurts the team. He was never going to go more than 4 innings his first start, and probably won't go more than 5 his next couple. That puts added strain on a staff that only has one starter averaging more than 6 IP a start (Wang).

This is because the Yankees are handling him like a toddler. He's been primarily a starter in his pro career and is less than a year removed from being a starter yet they're handling him like an 18 year old thats never started a game in his life.

There was no reason to hold him to a 60 pitch limit in his start tuesday and there's no reason to hold him back as much as they will over his next several starts.