It's pretty clear at this juncture that the Yanks are a playoff tease, playing on the peripheral edge of contention. They win a few games in a row, maybe five out of six, and then lose a few in a row to give the momentum back. Quite simply, they aren't good enough this year, and they dug themselves too big a hole early on.
I would like nothing more than to be wrong here. After all, four games out of the wild card with two months left to play does not seem insurmountable. But with Joe Torre continuing to mismanage the team in a variety of ways, and the bullpen continuing to under perform, the writing seems to be on the wall for the 2007 season.
Therefore, my main concern right now is that they don't make any trades or any personnel decisions that will compromise the 2008 season. Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and Ian Kennedy must be protected and nurtured.
The recent announcement that the Yanks are moving Joba Chamberlain to relief in Scranton is clearly in anticipation of adding him to the Yanks' bullpen, perhaps as an 8th inning guy. On the one hand, I'd like nothing more than to see Kyle Farnsworth's tenure as the 8th inning set-up man come to an end.
However, Joba Chamberlain is simply too valuable a commodity to impede his growth by asking him to drastically change rolls from a starter to a reliever. His minor league numbers (9-2, 2.57 ERA, 13.38 K/9) are formidable. Senior VP of baseball operations Mark Newman is saying the right things:
"We don't want to do anything in anyway that's going to impact his long range future, which is, as everyone knows, big."
But what the Yanks Front Office says and does are often two different animals.
Perhaps if the Yanks were managed by a man who had an inkling of how to handle a bullpen, the Joba move wouldn't be as troublesome.
But keep in mind the man who is being trusted to nurture young arms like Hughes (who will rejoin the Yankee rotation soon), and apparently Chamberlain, recently had this to say about how he works the pen:
"Not that we willfully abuse people, but you know, when panic sets in during a game, man, throw them all out there."
One just needs to review Torre's abuse of Edwar Ramirez as the most recent example. After not pitching for two weeks, Rameriz got lit up (big surprise) and then sent back down to the minors. The point is not that Rameriz was going to be a great pitcher; rather, the point is that Torre has no idea how to provide regular work to young bullpen arms. And he seems cavalier in his understanding that he is an abuser.
If one is in the "circle of trust," Torre burns out the arm through overuse (Quantrill, Sturtze, Proctor, et al.). If one is outside this circle, one rots in the pen and seldom gets called upon. Such inactivity is a death knoll for a young pitcher.
Torre does the same thing with young hitters. Once Shelley Duncan had his first 0-4 game, we all knew he wouldn't get another start for eons. Again, this is not to say that Duncan is the second coming of Hank Aaron; he isn't. It's just that he will not even get a chance to be Shelley Duncan.
Whenever Torre has to choose between experience and talent, he will always choose experience. Always.
If Chamberlain does come up to offer support in the bullpen, hopefully it will mean that Farnsworth had been traded. Although I can't imagine that Farnsworth helped his trade value at all with his shenanigans on Sunday when he crossed up Posada and then refused to talk to him when he came out to the mound.
With Detroit scouts in attendance, I don't think Farnsworth's antics will translate well to Jim Leyland's ears.
Farnsworth can not be trusted; he walks too many people. He can not pitch more than one inning or two games in a row…and now he is complaining about his lack of work. The worthlessness of Farnsworth never ceases to amaze me.
Further angst in the bullpen comes from Brian Bruney. He throws hard, but he doesn't throw strikes.
In his last 22 games, Bruney had allowed 36 baserunnners in 16 1/3 innings. That's not the kind of guy you want pitching down the stretch.
So, aside from the re-emerging Luis Vizcaino and the innings-eating Scott Proctor, the Yankee set-up and middle relief has been poor. Why else would Mariano be warming up in a game that the Yanks were winning 10-4, and then have to come in to insure a win?
The need for Chamberlain to work some heroics in the last two months of the season is obvious. My concern is that the Yanks have the wrong manager at the helm to work with the young bullpen arms.
I really want to be wrong here. But being wrong requires that Joe Torre act out of character.
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