JO-JOBA’S WITNESS
BRIAN Cashman authorized research by his staff during the offseason to see if the organization’s plans for using Joba Chamberlain in 2008 were revolutionary or had many historical cousins.
He discovered that the new Joba Rules were hardly novel. Cashman refused to share the data about pitchers who morphed from relievers into starters during the season. But when I identified one hurler who emerged from my research, Cashman said of Johan Santana, “He stood out because of his name. It is the name you can throw back at people who say what we are doing is messed up.”
The Yanks want to limit Chamberlain to about 140 innings “because he is just not ready to be put at risk for 200 innings,” Cashman said. Chamberlain came so fast in his development that he did not have a standard minor-league gestation. Instead, he arrived to the Yanks at the conclusion of his first pro season as a domineering reliever. But he pitched just 1121/3 combined innings between the minors and majors.
“He hasn’t been stretched out to pitch 200 innings,” Cashman said. “I can’t turn him loose [in the rotation]. Well, I can but then I would have to shut him down in midseason [when he reached his innings limit]. We will transform him to the rotation later on.”
The in-season flip from relief to starter was once common with many pitchers breaking in as swingmen before joining rotations fulltime (think Baltimore manager Earl Weaver doing so with youngsters such as Dennis Martinez and Mike Flanagan). But even over the past 10 seasons, 113 pitchers have 10 starts and 20 relief appearances in the same season (thanks, Elias Sports Bureau). Many are journeymen such as Jorge Sosa, Ramon Ortiz and Brett Tomko, who have made careers out of the flexibility to bounce between jobs.
The Cardinals are masters of this maneuver. Rotation members Brad Thompson, Todd Wellemeyer and Joel Pineiro (on the DL) each had 10 starts and 20 relief appearances in 2007. Ace Adam Wainwright and Braden Looper moved from closers to starters. St. Louis GM John Mozeliak said longtime pitching coach Dave Duncan “has a model in mind of who can make the conversion generally it is big guys who have shown durability and have more than two pitches.”
Chamberlain is certainly a big guy. And Gil Patterson, who worked as a pitching coordinator for the Yanks in 2006-07, vouched that Chamberlain’s “curve and changeup are not far behind his fastball and slider, which are electric” and that “there is no question with stamina. He was throwing [last year] 95-96 [mph] in pitches 80 to 90.”
Patterson, now the A’s minor league pitching coordinator, was Toronto’s pitching coach in 2001 when Kelvim Escobar relieved in 47 straight games before starting 11 in a row. Escobar, who bounced between roles most of his early career, has a similar body type to Chamberlain and, Patterson said, the Jays felt Escobar’s four-pitch repertoire was being wasted in relief.
But the two cases most similar to where the Yanks are with Chamberlain involve Santana and the Dodgers’ Chad Billingsley:
SANTANA
As a Rule 5 pick, Santana had to stay on the 25-man roster all year in 1999, so he was used as a swingman “just to survive” the jump all the way from A-ball, according to Twins GM Bill Smith, who was then the assistant GM. Nevertheless, Santana remained in the dual role for four seasons, despite being Minnesota’s best starter in 2002-03, both seasons the Twins won the AL Central. In ’03, the Twins signed Kenny Rogers in mid-March, bouncing Santana from the rotation. People close to the serene Santana say that was as upset as they have seen the lefty.
Smith, though, reasoned that Minnesota was better with both pitchers than just Santana in the rotation a case Cashman might be able to make similarly with the current rotation and Chamberlain in the ‘pen. Santana relieved in 25 of his first 27 outings. He then started 15 straight games and went 8-2, pushing the Twins from 44-46 to the division title.
Santana climbed from 1081/3 innings in 2002 to 1581/3 innings in 2003, and then in his age-25 season began a four-year stretch in which he became exclusively a starter and led the AL (9121/3 ) in innings before joining the Mets. Santana’s arm probably was protected by the gradual innings progression, as the Yanks hope they are doing with Joba.
“At this point, I would have to say, yes [that the ‘pen was good for him],” Santana said. “Back then? No. I wanted to be a starter my whole career. . . . I learned a lot in the bullpen. It gives you more time to think, and I went through every possible situation as a pitcher. You’re exposed to everything out there, and I’m a guy who’s always watched and listened. If Joba does the same thing, he’ll be fine.”
BILLINGSLEY
The Dodgers righty was 22 last season, the same as Chamberlain this year. It was his first full major league campaign. He opened with 23 games in relief (6-4, 3.09 ERA, 40 strikeouts in 35 innings). He followed with 20 starts (8-5, 3.38 ERA with 101 whiffs in 112 innings). In total, he pitched 147 innings and began this year as a full-time member of the rotation, a combo similar to what the Yanks envision for Chamberlain between 2008 and 2009.
And Dodgers GM Ned Colletti cited almost the same reasons for Billingsley’s usage pattern in 2007 as the Yanks offer for Chamberlain in 2008: “He was ready for the big leagues. Our bullpen was comprised in such a way that we needed him there to start. We got him big-league time and experience without extending his innings or putting him in danger physically. . . . By the end of the year, we wished we had two of him because when we took him out of ‘pen the ‘pen suffered.”
It is possible Chamberlain, also, might prove too irreplaceable to the ‘pen. Don’t forget the initial plans were that Mariano Rivera and Jonathan Papelbon were only apprenticing in relief before returning to the rotation. Nevertheless, their value, repertoires and temperament proved more conducive to a late-game role. Cashman, though, insists Chamberlain will be made into a starter, and he has confidence that it can be done because the research he authorized shows “it has been done many times. . . . We try to do things with a great deal of thought and study.”
