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March 21, 2008

Prospectus Hit and Run

Joba and the MISERs

by Jay Jaffe

Wednesday's disclosure that the Yankees have decided to shift Joba Chamberlain to the bullpen to start the year didn't exactly qualify as news. Despite off-season denials of such a scenario, several pieces of data pointed to the inevitability of the decision, ranging from Chamberlain's success during last year's stretch run (pre-bug spray, at least), his age (22), his workload capacity based on the Rule of 30 (about 145 innings, based on the time he spent at four stops plus the postseason, though Will Carroll will tell you that only the major league innings count when it comes to parsing injury risk), and the current health status of Chien-Ming Wang, Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina, Philip Hughes, and Ian Kennedy.

If you're a Yankee fan, you should knock on wood, since Opening Day is still ten days away, but if those five aforementioned pitchers are healthy enough to start the year in pinstripes instead of on the shelf, that rates as a much bigger surprise than the latest Joba Rule. As somebody who's spent the past decade watching the Yankees very closely, I've been fond of reminding anyone within earshot that for all of their perceived surpluses of capable starting pitchers, the Yankees are rarely forced to exile one to the bullpen. Injuries and ineffectiveness inevitably arise to make such decisions a moot point; to borrow a phrase from Chris Rock, that train is never late. (Particularly when you've got Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright on the payroll.) Even with Wright a distant, nightmarish memory and Pavano a rehabbing non-entity, the Yankees' Team Health Report has them as the only AL East team without a single green-light pitcher.

If recent history is any guide, the chances of the Yankees' five-man rotation making it through the season intact are pretty slim, whether due to injury or ineffectiveness. In fact, while their rotation as a whole has been serviceable over the last three years--ranking 19^th, 15^th, and 13^th in team SNLVAR--it's been one of the least stable in the majors in terms of games started by the five busiest bodies:

Team  Year   GS5  Rank
NYA   2005   111   28
NYA   2006   136   10
NYA   2007   121   27
NYA   TOT    368   24

For the sake of comparison, the runaway leader over the three-year span is the White Sox with 461, with the Indians ranked second at 434. Dead last are the Rangers at 342, just ahead of the Royals, Nationals, Devil Rays, Cubs, Dodgers, and then Yankees. That's not exactly auspicious company; the six teams below the Yankees mustered just two post-season appearances (the 2006 Dodgers and last year's Cubs) in the three years in question. Suffice to say that if you're going to have an unstable rotation, it helps to put 900 runs on the board.

So, the recent Yanks have averaged about 123 starts per year from their top five, leaving 39 starts to be absorbed by the rest of the staff. Even if they were to play towards the high side of that time span, 136 starts, those extra 26 are more than one extra pitcher can be expected to absorb. Of that surplus, how many can we expect Chamberlain to make?