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The Post, sensationalizing, bemoans the playoffs and the Joba Rules

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Leave it to the New York Post to turn the Joba Rules and a new playoff format into some whiny article with little basis in reality.

In today’s sports section in the once-proud paper, Larry Brooks opines on the way The Man is conspiring to keep down the Yankees. Brooks says:

That’s because, The Post has learned, the AL regular-season champion will be given the choice of whether to play Division Series A, in which the if-necessary five games are scheduled to be played in seven days beginning on Thurs, Oct. 4; or in Division Series B, in which the five games are scheduled to be played in eight days…

Is it such a stretch to think that the Red Sox, who went into last night leading the Angels by 2½ and the Indians by 3½ for the league’s best record, wouldn’t jump at the chance to play the eight-day series if for no other reason than to require the Yankees to play the seven-day series so Joba Chamberlain would only be available for three games, instead of the four in which he’d be allowed to pitch in the extended version?

When did “regular-season champion” become a term? I thought the regular season champion came out of the League Championship Series. Shows how much I know about baseball.

Throughout the rest of the article, Brooks finds fault with the Yankees for failing to finish with the league’s best record. He says they picked a bad year; he basically says baseball is conspiring against them.

Not once does Brooks consider the obvious: Perhaps in the postseason, the Yankees will relax the Joba Rules.

“Heresy!” you may scream. Well, before you burn me at the stake for offering such an audacious suggestion, let me remind you that the Yankees themselves talked about relaxing the Joba rules earlier this month.

Heaven forbid someone at the Post actually do some reporting before levying doomsday playoff scenarios. Alexander Hamilton must be spinning in his grave.

The umpires are complete fools

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To offer up a counterpoint to Mike, I don’t think Joba was trying to hit Kevin Youkilis intentionally. I don’t know what happened with those pitches; I don’t know what was going through Joba’s head. But it doesn’t make sense.

That is, however, besides the point. I want to direct your attention instead to a quotation from umpire crew chief Derryl Cousins in this Jack Curry article:

“Those were two pretty nasty pitches the young man threw,” Cousins said. “Up here, you need to be a little better throwing strikes, and we just had to put a lid on it.”

Now, in my opinion, the 9th inning was handled badly by everyone today. Torre’s decision to stick with Joba in the 9th is indefensible when Chamberlain is limited in how often he can pitch. Furthermore, Angel Hernandez, the umpire who ejected Chamberlain, was out of control. Chamberlain threw two bad pitches, and no warning during the course of this entire series was issued. So why not warn the 21-year-old and let the game continue? No one wants to see Angel Hernandez flailing around like a power-hungry fool. They do, however, want to see Joba Chamberlain.

Then, when the game ends, Derryl Cousins has the nerve to refer to the 2004 fight between A-Rod and Jason Varitek as the supposed history between these two teams. He then starts talking condescendingly about “up here, you need to be a little better [at] throwing strikes.” So the umpires decided to “put a lid on it.”

Last I checked, most relief pitches don’t get ejected when they can’t find the strike zone. Did Edwar Ramirez get ejected when he threw 19 of 20 pitches out of the strike zone last month? He certainly wasn’t too good about throwing strikes “up here.” Last I checked, pitching coaches are the ones who determine when to “put a lid on it” when their young pitchers aren’t near the plate. I didn’t realize Angel Hernandez was actually helping the Yankees by removing a wild pitcher from a game. I guess we should thank him then.

So who knows what happened? Who knows why Joba was throwing over Kevin Youkilis’ head. If he did it on purpose, more power to him. If he didn’t, then oops, and everyone’s blowing this out of propotion. But there is no doubt in my mind that Angel Hernandez first and Derryl Cousins second have handled this situation so poorly. Their actions and words cast more of a negative shadow on the game and the sport than two of Joba’s errant pitches did today.

Olney: Joba the wave of the future

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There’s nothing in it that we don’t already know, but Buster Olney and ESPN The Magazine have hopped aboard the Joba bandwagon. In this upcoming magazine piece, Olney waxes poetic on young Mr. Chamberlain’s arrival in the Bronx, the impact this could have on the Yanks’ future and the way this symbolizes Brian Cashman’s control over player development. And now you don’t even need to read it.

Thoughts on Joba

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Lemme start off with a little story…

As I’m at the game last night watching Joba take his warm-ups, the guy sitting next to me (young guy, probably 21 or 22, resident Angels’ fan rockin’ a Chuck Finley jersey) turns to his friend and says “Joe-buh Chamberlain? Who’s this fucking clown? We’ll be back in this game in no time.” I cracked a little smile, looked at the guy and said “Man, you have no fucking idea what you’re in for.” Five minutes later, he was singing a much different tune.

Random thoughts after seeing him pitch:

  • Holy crap.
  • You can file Willits’ hit under the “nice piece of hitting” category, because that pitch was nearly at his shoestrings. Even so, it was little nubber back up the middle, far from a hard hit line drive. Oh, and can Reggie Willits & Howie Kendrick switch names already and restore order back to the universe?
  • Dude, he schooled Vlad on 3 pitches. Like really schooled him. Had him way out in front of a first pitch slider, blew 100 mph heat (drew lots of ooohs & aaaahs) that Vlad barely fouled off (if he centered that pitch though, man, that ball would have landed in Encino), then finished him off with a devilish slider. Ridiculous.
  • I still like Phil Hughes more, but Joba’s got the clear edge in EORP (Excitement Over Replacement Player). It’s going to completely nuts in a few years when those two hit their prime.

Joba’s now thrown 102 pitches in the bigs, 68 for strikes (66.67%). The opposition is hitting a flaccid .115-.179-.115-.294 off him. I want you take a second and get a good look at Joba’s career K/BB ratio at the bottom of the Joba Watch (that K/BB ratio includes everything, Hawaii last winter, Futures Game, bigs, minors, everything). I mean take a reaaaaal good look at it and understand how completely sick that is.