The New York Yankees have been around since 1903, a stretch of one hundred and five seasons. Over that stretch, they have been the most successful team in baseball history, winning more games, pennants, and championships than any other club.
About the only thing the Yankees have been bad at during those one hundred and five years is cultivating young pitchers. They’ve been especially bad at bringing up right-handed pitchers.
How bad? In their entire team history, the Yankees have brought up exactly three right-handed pitchers who went on to win 100 games for the team:
|
Name
|
Wins
|
Age as Rookie
|
|
Mel Stottlemyre
|
164
|
22
|
|
Vic Raschi
|
120
|
27
|
|
Spud Chandler
|
109
|
29
|
Of the three, only Stottlemyre, who was twenty-two when he broke in with the Yankees, could be considered a ‘young’ pitcher. Vic Raschi was twenty-seven when he made the Yankee rotation, and twenty-nine when he had his first full season with the team. Spud Chandler, the only Yankee pitcher to win an MVP, broke in when he was twenty-nine, but didn’t notch 200+ innings until he was thirty-four.
It is a remarkable fact: in the one-hundred year history of the New York Yankees, they have brought up and benefited from exactly one good young right-handed starter: Mel Stottlemyre.
Any casual fan of baseball knows why. The Yankees have always been one of the wealthiest teams in baseball. And they have always been a team that expects to win. Both characteristics work against young pitchers: a team expected to win can’t tolerate a struggling rookie, and a team with plenty of financial capital has no particular reason to.
A third factor working against right-handed pitchers was the park itself. Yankee Stadium, built in 1923, was a great park for left-handed pitchers. Not surprisingly, the Yankees have brought up a number of successful young southpaws:
|
Name
|
Wins
|
Age as Rookie
|
|
Whitey Ford
|
236
|
21
|
|
Lefty Gomez
|
189
|
21
|
|
Andy Pettitte
|
178
|
23
|
|
Ron Guidry
|
170
|
24
|
|
Fritz Paterson
|
107
|
24
|
Not on the list is Dave Righetti, another lefty who came up in 1979, winning 74 games and saved 224 more for the Bronx Bombers.
The Tipping Point
The Yankees have has a very successful century without having to ever bring up good young pitchers. They have succeeded, in part, because for most of the 1900’s they had a wider pool of talent than other teams. For much of the decade, teams like the Red Sox and A’s operated as farm clubs for the Yankee machine.
Since free agency began, the Yankees have succeeded because they have more financial resources available than other teams, and have been more willing than other teams to pay for free agents.
This is largely a supposition, but I think the strategy of out-buying everyone can’t work forever. The system of buying up all the free agent talent has reached a tipping point, and now the cost of signing superstar free agents is starting to outstrip the return. Simply put, signing the two biggest free agents every year costs too much in prospects, and it costs too much in roster flexibility.
The second point is worth further mention. When a team commits money and talent to acquire an expensive free agent player, that team is limiting its flexibility. If CC Sabathia suddenly loses his efficiency, the Yankees will not get their 1st round draft pick back. They won’t get the money back. If they trade him, they will be subsidizing his work for another team. And, if Sabathia can only pitch at a sub-par level, the Yankees will have to let him pitch. They have committed too many resources not to.
Younger pitchers allow for flexibility. They are tradable commodities. They can be rotated in and out of the rotation as needed, brought up or down as necessary. And they are inexpensive, and const controlled.
The other teams in the AL East, most notably Tampa Bay and Boston, realize this. And if the Yankees want to have a second century as good as their last one, they have to realize it, too. They have to start developing young pitchers.
What Joba Means to the Yankees
I think the year that Joba Chamberlain has for the Yankees will tell us how the next ten years will be for the Yankees organization.
In case you missed it, Joba Chamberlain is one of the five best young arms in baseball. Last year, only six players have a better ERA in starts than Chamberlain did.
|
Name
|
ERA
|
|
Rich Harden
|
2.07
|
|
Johan Santana
|
2.53
|
|
Cliff Lee
|
2.54
|
|
Justin Duchschere
|
2.54
|
|
Tim Lincecum
|
2.62
|
|
CC Sabathia
|
2.70
|
|
Chamberlain
|
2.76
|
|
Roy Halladay
|
2.78
|
|
Jake Peavy
|
2.85
|
He also averaged 10.19 K/9 IP during those starts, the third-best total among major league starters.
|
Name
|
K/9 IP
|
|
Rich Harden
|
11.01
|
|
Tim Lincecum
|
10.51
|
|
Chamberlain
|
10.19
|
|
Scott Kazmir
|
9.81
|
|
Edinson Volquez
|
9.46
|
He pitched one of the finest games I saw all season, when he took on the Red Sox in Fenway Park, on July 25th. Matched against Josh Beckett, with the Yankees needing a win to keep pace with Boston and Tampa Bay, Chamberlain threw seven stunning innings, allowing three singles and a walk while striking out nine batters.
It was more than a great start. It was a remarkable, intelligent performance, a display of pitching mastery that revealed Chamberlain’s remarkable skill.
As I said, how Chamberlain does in 2009 will say a great deal about where the Yankee organization is going.
Manager Joe Girardi has said that the team is committed to letting Chamberlain start this year. That said, a cursory glance at his career with the Yankees shows little very little consistency.
Joba Chamberlain had been a starting pitcher his entire life. He was a starter in college, and he was a starter in the minor leagues in 2007. So what do the Yankees do when he makes it to the majors? They put him in the bullpen.
You know how the Yankees reasoned this? They said that the team didn’t have room for Chamberlain, that the rotation was full. That they couldn’t afford to give him starts.
And it’s horseshit. In the two months that Chamberlain was being wasted in the bullpen, Mike Mussina made nine starts, posting a pitiful 5.92 ERA. Andy Pettitte made eleven starts and posted a 4.22 ERA. Roger Clemens made seven starts and posted a 4.67 ERA.
I’ll say this again: Chamberlain posted a 2.76 ERA as a starter in 2008. You don’t think he could have managed an ERA under four in 2007?
It wasn’t skill that kept Mussina and Pettitte and Clemens in the rotation. It was their salaries. The Yankees were too committed.
In 2008 Chamberlain was again in the bullpen. It makes sense: why would anyone give the ball to a twenty-two year old who averages 10.5 strikeouts per nine innings, when you have the likes of Sydney Ponson and Darrell Rasner begging for starts.
Apparently that’s changed. In spring training this year Girardi pegged Chamberlain as the team’s #5 starter. He seems adamant about this, but one can’t help but sense that it’s a tenuous #5. If he has a bad month, is he still going to have a job? What if the Yankees are five games out of first? What if Hughes is pitching well? What if they trade for someone like Jake Peavy?
Joba Chamberlain is a barometer for where the Yankees are going. If the Yankees give him a chance; if they endure the inevitable bumps on the road, then they will be a very good team over the next decade. If the Yankees are really smart, they will extend the same chance to Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, and even Alfredo Aceves.
But if they submit again to the ‘win-now’ pressures of the last thirty years, they will deny Chamberlain the chance to be great, they will handicap their franchise against teams like Tampa Bay and Boston and Toronto, and they will rob the rest of us the pleasure of watching a great career unfold.
(Dave Fleming is a writing living in Iowa City. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com).