Should the Yankees be worried about
Joba Chamberlain? George King in
today's N.Y. Post:
The Yankees right-hander blew away the best hitters in the majors, and made them look ill against a slider with fangs.
Remember that heat? Good. Because memories are all you have, since Chamberlain isn't going to be able to consistently fire 96- to 98-mph aspirins as a starter.
"I think as we get into the summer, we might see some of that," manager Joe Girardi said yesterday of Chamberlain reaching 98 mph with the fastball.
"But you are not going to see it [consistently], because he has to throw his fastball more than 12 times an inning or 10 times or eight times. That's pretty much true for all relievers. Starters who go to relievers jump a few miles an hour."
So if Chamberlain, who entered professional baseball as a starter, can dominate hitters with high-octane heat in the eighth inning and won't be able to sustain that through six or seven frames, why is he the fifth starter instead of setting up Mariano Rivera?
It's a debate that has lost a little juice and will never end.
Scouts who have watched Chamberlain this spring are puzzled with his lack of velocity. In his last outing against the Phillies, the fastball was clocked between 88 and 92 mph. He labored so much that one scout wondered if Chamberlain was healthy, or concerned that a shoulder problem that landed him on the DL last year was going to resurface. Another scout noticed Chamberlain slowing down as he was ready to uncork a pitch.
The buzz word around the 23-year-old Chamberlain, who starts against the Reds today in Sarasota, has been "mechanics."
That was this morning. And now this afternoon …
from Tyler Kepner in the Times:
SARASOTA, Fla. -- If anybody is worried about Joba Chamberlain's velocity, don't be. He is out after 5 1/3 innings here in Sarasota against the Reds, and he looked terrific. A scout I just talked to said he clocked Chamberlain as high as 96 miles an hour, and in the sixth inning he was throwing 93 to 94 m.p.h. "He was throwing very well," the scout said.
As a starter, Chamberlain's days of throwing 100 miles an hour are over. But if he's throwing in the mid-90s, with his slider and curveball working like they were for five innings today, he'll be just fine.
It's natural to fixate on tiny sample sizes in March, because they're all we've got. But that doesn't mean they mean anything. Most of them don't. Most of them -- the great
majority of them -- are just statistical noise. If Joba's throwing 88-92, he's going to have problems. If he's throwing 93-96, he's going to be really good. And until he's starting every five days in April and May, we really won't know which it will be.
