My #1 concern is that he gets his ~130 innings in w/o getting hurt.

My #2 concern is that his innings are as meaningful as possible (leverage).

I think it would be easiest to stretch him out to 3 inning relief appearances by the end of the season. He'd be a long man who could, you know, actually pitch well in tight spots.

Switching him to the rotation would be more difficult. I'm not necessarily against it, but I'd hate to see them do what they talked about this spring: send him down to AAA in order to stretch him out. Waste!

The problem with him remaining Mo's setup man all year is that he'll then end up with about 70-80 innings on the year. Then next year you're back to the same problem of innings limits. Joba needs at least 140 innings this year, and I don't see how to do that without him starting at some point this year. Instead of sending him down, his role in the pen could change. He could take what is now the Ohlendorf spot, throwing 3+ inning stints for awhile, and then transition to the rotation.

0 A number of us posted during the spring to express concern that it would be difficult to transition him midseason. As for your concluding statement: "...but am also fine with him sticking out this year as Mariano's set-up man."

I am not at all happy about this. 1] I think that it is a monumental waste of talent, and only reinforces the absurd trend to have specialized 8th inning guys, 7th inning guys, LOOGYs, and the like. 2] This has the related effect of encouraging everyone to carry as many pitchers as possible, rather than bench players. 3] More relevant to the Yankees, I echo the concerns of others: this will only encourage the team to keep using him in the BP, eventually even deciding that he should be the heir to Mo', because we all know that the the last three outs are worth more than the first 20 or so.

3 Oh, and 2 makes a great observation about Joba's innings if he remains the set up man for much longer this season.

I posted on the last thread, if they moved him into the starting rotation in one week and kept him to 5 INN/start, he would barely exceed his 140 INN limit for the season. In other words, if they don't transition him to starter soon, he will likely never reach his innings limit, so the team will be in the same boat next year.

3 Come on, monkeypants. Don't you understand that outs 22-24 are special, and that they require a certain specific skill set and temperament?

0 You know, when I read the post title, I flashed back to an old one and thought somehow Jaret Wright was back on the team. That's what I get for checking Banter just as I get out of bed.

2 Bingo. How many innings did EDSP throw the last few years,
2006 102 IP
2007 86 IP
So Joba's not going to get to his required 140ish by being in the pen.

How about after ASB he starts with 5 IP limits. Of course then there will need to be a long man for the second half of the game.
Maybe a Joba/Moose combo for each one of those starts. Or a Joba/IPK.

Can we clone him?

1 2 I could see Joba throwing 2+ stints out of the pen by early May, and then going down to AAA for 4-5 starts in mid-June to stretch out. I don't think the Yanks have to "lose" him for too long to transition him to starting.

Between Albaladejo, Britton, Edwar, Patterson, even Veras and maybe Melancon, one of those guys can be an average major league reliever for a month. Whoever gets called up doesn't need to take over the 8th inning. Ohlendorf and Bruney seem capable of handling it.

I have faith that there is a plan, and that Joba will be starting by August.

5 Dammit, I always forget that.

I'd like to see more 2-inning appearances. Once he's racked up a bunch of those, I'd like to see some 3-inning efforts.

Then, depending on the team's needs, he could be asked to make a spot (5-inning) start. Etc. Ramiro Mendoza with way better stuff...

5 jayson stark taught me this valuable lesson yesterday in his chat

1 agree.
still not entirely sure how they will get him ready to be a starter.
i would like to see him pitch mulitple innings a little bit more.

i wonder if it would make sense for him to shadow 2 of the 3 non Wang/Pettitte pitchers for a while. that might help all of them out. try to get 4 innings from one of them and then 4 innings from joba. but it probably won't happen or work.

12 Well, I was all about "JobaPhil for 4th starter!" this spring. I like the tandem starter idea... Phil starts and Joba finishes... Mo optional.

That's another possible way of stretch Joba out (and limiting Phil's, or Ian's innings).

6 I thought of the same thing, one of Cliff's most brilliant headlines ever: http://tinyurl.com/6ks8ao

14 Check out the last line from that post, too. Cliff was on a roll that day!

Speaking of blast from the past, has anyone seen the pitching match-ups for the CHI series (Pete Abe)? It's like a bad Yankees flashback.

Lemme guess... Contreras, Rogers and Vasquez?

17 Two out of three. They miss Rogers, or it would perfect.

My guess at tonight's lineup:

Damon
Jeter
Abreu
Posada
Matsui
Ensberg
Cano
Cabrera
Molina

As I posted in the last thread, Joba cannot stay in the bullpen for the whole season. It would be a huge mistake. He is being wasted in the bullpen and he isn't learning how to be a stater.

Joba has to start in the second half of this year. Limit his bullpen innings, send him down to get a few starts in the minors and bring him back up by July or so and put him in the starting rotation. Better to have Hughes, Kennedy and Joba all learn at the same time. This is a case of pain now or more pain later.

8 Do we need him in the starting lineup now, or in 2029?

The one point we're missing on the 140IP limit is that he may be needed for 20 innings in October. Boston would have preferred to have Buchholz last year.

21 Yes, and Boston suffered so greatly with winning the world series and all.

I think planning on making the postseason, with any team but especially this one is a mistake. You do your utmost to get there and then assess. If we're up by 10 games in September than we can rest people, but we have to get there first.

Joining, late, the agreement with 2 . The game plan is SURELY to get him towards that 130 innings, anything else, given how young he still is, is to mess up the process.

I have to assume the pitching staff know this. I am dubious about the efficacy of 2 inning stints in stretching towards a starter's arm. I have no data to prove this, but my instinct is that it just doesn't WORK that way. You need to go 4-5-6 on a steady build-up of stamina. Two inning gigs just lead to EDSP stuff. Nor does this scenario make any account for GAME situations. You don't pitch Joba two to pitch him two in a pennant race! If he might be needed the next day ...?

In other words, my vague surmise is he MIGHT have to go down for a 3-4 week period to be stretched for post All-Star starting. This is HARD to do if we're fighting for the Al East or Wild Card.

Some of the strategy turns on whether PKH or IPK continue to be overwhelmed (denials notwithstanding, and KNOWING their classy nature, I think both are right now).

21 Joba will be more useful starting if the Yankees do make the post-season.

23 "I am dubious about the efficacy of 2 inning stints in stretching towards a starter's arm"

h-c-e, I tend to agree with you, but look at what the Dodgers did with Chad Billingsley last year:

http://tinyurl.com/6rqlpn

He didn't start until sometime in June, and he did fine even though, in relief, he usually pitched 2 innings/appearance. He was not sent to the minors to stretch out, probably because he did have two years of 150+ IP as a starter in the minors prior to '07. Joba, of course, does not.

Still, I think Billingsley's situation is comparable. While I agree that Joba might need a couple of weeks of AAA stretch out 9 , I think he'll be OK for with 2 IP appearances.

Is it just me, or is there more "Chicken Little" this year than in the past? Kids, they are @ .500 in mid-April. Let's not call for the dumping of a planned strategy just because 1/8 of the season has not gone perfect. A month from now there will be new "challenges" that will probably make this debate moot.

25 I see no reason why Joba can't pitch a few 3 inning stints every 3-4 days and start building up stamina in the majors. After that you either send him down for one or two starts at AA/AAA to get to 100 pitches, or you "start" him, but have him shadowed by Moose, Hughes, or IPK so he pitches 4 innings, then 5 etc. Then you turn him loose on a short leash till he starts throwing full games. Even on that restriction he can still help out the ML club while stretching himself out.

27 Oh, I agree completely. Joba could pitch some 3 innings stints, and stretch out just like you said. In 25 , my point is that Joba pitching only 2 inning stints in the bigs now is not necessarily a hindrance to Joba starting later in the year.

Fantasy owners everywhere would rejoice if there were a JobaPhil or JobaMoose hybrid... mastering the lost art of the four-inning save...

26 Well, a lot of us thought the 8th-inning role was a bad idea before the season started. Otherwise, I don't think anyone's getting in the least hysterical about the Yankees' record. We're just talking about how best to manage Joba.

27 Seems to me that in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, which I've seen no one post, there's good reason to go with the Joba Innings Gradual Increase Transition Strategy (JIGITS).

I agree with others about being able to stretch Joba a bit in the majors and then perhaps a few longer starts in the minors. I would add that we need not have visions of weak bullpens in our heads. As July 31 approaches, you know Cashman is going to be pushing hard for strong bullpen help. We might be able to replace Joba's bullpen work without resorting to the Chris Brittons in the system.

Overall, I don't see a problem with this path.

JIGITS makes more a lot more sense than what a lot of columnists have been putting out there. There's certainly no hurry-it won't take place before June anyway-and we have other pitchers who could pitch the other 3-4 innings to get to the BP. (Rasner leaps to mind, as does Horne if he comes back strong. Obviously Hughes or Kennedy are going to need to miss some starts this summer or they'll run out of innings before September.)

21 "The one point we're missing on the 140IP limit is that he may be needed for 20 innings in October."

Cashman.

Has.

Said.

That.

Postseason innings.

Do not count against the innings limit.

22 There's a bit of a problem with that logic... it's much more likely that the Yanks will be either close enough to the lead or not far enough in the lead to not be comfortable resting anyone. For this team, with its issues, to be up by 10 games entering September, Boston would have to collapse through severe underperformance or major injuries. That's certainly possible, but it seems much more likely to me that we'll be within 5 games of each other or the Yanks will be way behind.

31 Well the argument against it is that it reduces flexibility. A starter needs four days off, so let's say that a 3-inning pitcher needs three days off, a 2-inning pitcher two days, and a 1-inning pitcher should get one day off in between (see: http://tinyurl.com/3mq4x9).

When Joba moves to the two-inning phase of JIGITS, he's going to need time off between appearances. Even 1996 Mo only worked back-to-back days four times, and went more than an inning in just one of those appearances. I don't have the time to go through every boxscore, but I'd imagine that there were days when Mo couldn't pitch that someone else had to take the 7th and 8th innings. So, this year, do we trust the 2008 version of Jeff Nelson (Kyle Farnsworth) or the 2008 version of Bob Wickman (LaTroy Hawkins)? This becomes an even bigger problem when JIGITS goes to phase 3, and there needs to be even more time in between appearances.

Phase 4, though, as a spot-starter, is not so bad... at least we won't have Brian Bruney starting games anymore. Overall my big fear is that Farnsworthless and Hawk will start blowing 7th and 8th inning leads in May, which fuel temptations to keep Joba in the bullpen, in a one-inning role.

32 Even without Joba we have a decent pen already. Bruney has been lights out aside from 1 inning in KC, and he did bounce straight back from that (Torre would have benched him for 2 weeks, brought him in and then complained when his command was off). Dorf has been great and sucked up innings. Yeah, Kyle sucks and Hawkins does to a lesser extent but for the back end of the pen they aren't so awful. In AAA we've still got Edwar, Alby, Britton, Patterson. There's also Dave Robertson at AA who is mowing hitters down. He's given up like 1 run. That's also not counting the TJ rehab guys, Sanchez, Cox, etc. I think we'll be able to find someone who can get 3 outs here and there.

34 I don't think Cashman has ever said that. In fact, he has never even identified what the innings limit is. Everyone is guessing about the 140IP number.

It could very well be that the Yankees have an innings limit in mind that takes into account the need to also pitch in the post season. If it ever looks like the Yankees are not going to make the playoffs, they may need to accelerate Joba's workload, but until that point, they have to save those extra innings in the tank.

35 I was not saying they would be up 10 games, I was saying that worrying about innings caps for the postseason is just a "mute" point. Worry about the postseason when and if we make it. If the team is way ahead or way behind we can rest guys. Otherwise, you do your best and assess in October.

36 See 37 . Yes it would reduce flexibility, but its better than no Joba at all. The alternative is Joba purely in the minors. Both have their merits I'm just proposing an alternative.

37 This week was a perfect illustration on why the "8th inning" guy is not as important as a quality starting pitcher. Every game the Yankees won did not feature a meaningful appearance by Joba, but the three they lost resulted from very poor starting pitching.

Having said that, because of the innings limit, the Yankees have no choice but to keep Joba in the bullpen until June or July. I am sure they have all kinds of contingencies, but until that time, it doesn't make sense to proclaim a definitive path for returning to him to the rotation.

34 I'd like to see that, but it sounds like he's thinking 'You've got all winter to rest'.

38 I think that's about right.

"Failing to plan is planning to fail" My first boss after college had that motto on the wall of his office, he was an a-hole but I remember that stupid ugly piece of crap sampler. I've heard people repeat that aphorism mindlessly throughout the years since, it makes my skin crawl sometimes. I think it applies here though: If you expect to be in the playoffs you have to plan for the playoffs. Part of that planning is making sure that a program for the valuable young assets they have, Franchise IPK and Joba in this case, is in place. It affects not only this year but the years to come. You have to have a plan to get there and you have to have one for when you get there and they better be integrated.

Chad Billingsley made the transition on the fly rather well for the Dodgers last season.

34 I'd like to see it too, because - frankly - it would be a moronic thing to say and Cash has never seemed stupid to me. If you have a cap for the year, how can playoffs POSSIBLY not be part of it? The arm enters hyperspace?

The problem with the 2 innings, then 3 stuff is exactly what william says (and I think I said it in my first comment): it assumes you aren't playing for the next game, that in the standings you have the luxury of destabilizing the bullpen and the team needs during that week to kill a major bullpen figure for 2-3 days.

Some might say, better than sending him down for 3-4 starts, but I disagree. Not only is it an inefficient way to stretch him, it puts pressure on others in the pen (and rotation) since someone COULD be called up if he does his 3-4 in AAA.

No, I'd say you time it with the All-Star break if you are going to do this, and get him his proper starts in AAA. Two inning relief in games that matter, among other things, is NOT the place to learn to balance and utilize four pitches.

There are almost infinite ways this can be handled, most of which will be decided by in-game situations and the health of the rest of the staff. I love how everybody becomes an expert on the grooming of pitchers based on Billingsly, Liriano etc etc. Me, I'll defer to Ca$h and Joe (way before any Stein) and trust that they make the best decision for not only this season, but Joba's future development.
Now don't get me wrong, I love philisophical baseball debates as much as the next guy, but I don't think there are two people in Yankee-land that would agree 100% on how to handle this progression. But isn't that part of the beauty of being a Yanks fan? They'll do what is needed to win because, ultimately, that's what they strive for.

I think that most posters on this thread have been in basic agreement, but have minor disagreement on the mechanics. I think the main reason they're not telling anyone what's in their plain is the same reason they didn't want the 'Joba rules' made public last year: they don't want everybody picking it apart.

I also agree that the notion that postseason innings don't count is kind of bizarre. I would think that, if anything they count more than a start in mid May.

38 45 et al.

140 INN limit, according to Kepner:

http://tinyurl.com/52y987

As for innings limits/playoffs, I could swear that I read that, but to be honest, I cannot find a quote. So I retract my statement.

That said, there is almost NO reason not to exceed his innings limit if the team makes the playoffs.

2] If it looks like they are going to make the post season, the team can skip a start or two near the end of the season, or only have him pitch a couple of innings. This would "save" around 10 or 12 innings. There is very little chance that they will need him for much more than that during the playoffs, unless he suddenly becomes the team's #1 or #2 starer; and if that's the case, they probably aren't going to make the playoffs anyway.

Alternately, they could use him as a reliever in the PS; again, it would be difficult to imagine that he would rack up more than 10 innings in that role.

2] If it doesn't look like the team will make the playoffs unless Joba keeps pitching, then you have to pitch him through the end of the season. there is no point in saving innings for a post season that won't come. At that point, the team has to make the call as to whether or not to exceed his limit for the purpose of the PS.

So, no matter how you slice it, "saving" innings for the PS should be a non-issue. They should plan to transition him to the starting rotation, with an eye to getting him to 140 INN by the end of the season.

49 "I also agree that the notion that postseason innings don't count is kind of bizarre."

It's not bizarre at all. It's about relative values. This sounds crass, but winning in the PS might be considered a more valuable goal than the longer-term risk (not guarantee) that extra inning will led to injury. It's not like if he goes a few innings over his limit that his arm automatically falls off.

This is a classics sports conundrum: do you trade the blue chip prospect who might be the next Mickey Mantle or Tom Seaver for the proven veteran who will help you win now? Do you trade to get players down 3 games at the ASB, or do you trade players away?

Yes, it would be e great shame if a young pitcher's career were ruined by being pushed too hard in the PS, and if everyone knew that would happen, then I doubt the coach or GM would go for it. But what if someone said that you could increase the chances of winning the WS this year by 30% (for sake of argument), but the risk of long-term health problems for Joba would increase 5%, would anyone take it? What if someone said that pitching Joba extra innings in the PS would make his career more likely to be 10 years instead of 12? Is that a good deal? Will Joba still be on the team after he files for free agency in 6 years?

I am all for protecting the young pitchers, but the ultimate goal of developing talent is to win--especially the big prize. Short term and long term goals must always be balanced; nothing should be dogmatic.

49 Hmmm..I'm talking to myself. Actually, that was meant for 47 , of course.

49 "Short term and long term goals must always be balanced; nothing should be dogmatic."

Yes, and I agree. But I think Jaret Wright might say there is no guarantee of an October win, and if you don't win, then what was the point of fragging the kid's arm in the first place?

In any case, events between now and September may make the playoff discussion moot. Not just the Yanks being out of it. What happens if Joba gets hurt and misses a month? I prefer to wait and worry about postseason innings later.

51 "Yes, and I agree. But I think Jaret Wright might say there is no guarantee of an October win, and if you don't win, then what was the point of fragging the kid's arm in the first place?"

Exactly, all sport is a gamble.

51 Schweet, you managed to actually bring Jaret Wright into this thread, making my 6 even more relevant. Excellent...