Should Joba and Hughes Switch Roles?

While most of us were grillin' and chillin' on Labor Day, Rob Neyer was laboring away:

It might be too late. But I wonder if the Yankees should send Phil Hughes to their secret compound in Tampa and retrain him to throw six innings at a pop. Because lately the Yankees seem to have only three starters, and these days you need four in October.

... In three late-July starts, Chamberlain went 3-0 with a 0.83 ERA and pitched into the seventh inning in each start. The highlight came on the 29th in St. Petersburg, when he needed only 101 pitches to blank the Rays for eight innings. Vindication! For Brian Cashman, for me, for others of my ilk, and (most of all) for Chamberlain. Since that game in St. Petersburg, Chamberlain has started six games. He's not pitched more than six innings in any of them. He's won just one of them and lost three. He's struck out 20 hitters and walked 17. His ERA has jumped from 3.58 to 4.41. He's looked nothing like a pitcher you might trust in a big game. And he's pitched 137 innings, which doesn't seem like a lot but is 36 more than he's ever pitched before. If he's struggling now because he's tired, what's going to happen in October after another 25 or 30 innings? Which is where Hughes comes in. Chamberlain is the Yankees' No. 4 starter.

Sergio Mitre

is the Yankees' No. 5 starter. Which means the Yankees, as things stand now, have only three reliable starters. And again, you need four of them when the leaves are turning in New England. I know, I know ... Phil Hughes has been

so

good in the bullpen: 1.11 ERA with an overpowering strikeout-to-walk ratio. Make him a starter again and he's not going to post numbers anything like those. But to help the Yankees, he doesn't have to be anywhere near that good; he just has to be measurably better than Chamberlain and Mitre. Particularly if -- and I know this is highly speculative -- Chamberlain regains his dominant stuff upon returning to a relief role.

I was banging this drum on the podcast back in April when the Yankees were first setting up their rotation and Phil Hughes was toiling in AAA.  I thought Hughes could start out in the pen while Joba started, then have to two pitchers switch roles around August. Since then, a few things have changed:

1. Phil Hughes has been converted to a one inning pitcher

2. Joba has exceeded 2008's innings.

I understand where Rob is coming from because a lot of people have wondered whether this was the proper fix for the Yankees rotation come August.  Given the players and factors involved, I don't think it would be a smart move. I don't care so much about taking Hughes out of the pen; I think there's enough there at this stage to sustain the playoffs.  My bigger concern is with the workload on the Joba and Hughes. Obviously, Cashman and Girardi have been aware this problem was going to come for awhile.  Sergio Mitre has been in the rotation since July 21st and it didn't take a mathematician to realize that Joba was eventually going to run out of innings. The problem is that Hughes wasn't put in a bullpen role that allowed him to keep his inning per appearance flexible.  Since first coming out of the bullpen June 8th, Hughes has made 33 appearances, averaging just under 1.1 innings per appearance. I was concerned about this back in July:

The decision to use Hughes in such short relief is hard to fathom.  Wang returned to the rotation June 4th, throwing 4.2 innings and allowing five runs.  It was an improvement over previous starts but hardly a confidence boost for Wang or the Yankees.  Hughes didn’t debut as a reliever until June 8th (four days after Wang’s blown start) and pitched only one inning.  Two days later, Hughes pitched 3.2 innings… in relief of an ineffective Wang, who gave up three runs in 2.2 innings against the Red Sox.  Hughes hasn’t thrown over two innings in an appearance since. It’s difficult to imagine Brian Cashman or Joe Girardi drawing up their 2009 plans this way.  While they may have had Joba’s season planned out from the beginning, the crumbling of Chien-Ming Wang threw a major wrench into Cashman’s plans for both the rotation and for Phil Hughes. It would have made sense upon moving Hughes to the bullpen to utilize him in a long reliever role as much as possible.  Backing up Joba alone would have given Hughes a decent amount of innings every fifth day.  In that role, Hughes could have made the transition back to the rotation a bit easier than he can right now. ... The bullpen is definitely stronger with Hughes aboard but probably could have survived without him.  Wang’s return to the rotation after being rushed back from rehab left the Yankees with two options: waste Hughes talent in the minors or get the most out of his work for the season and stick him in the bullpen. It was the right decision at the time.  It’s the handling of Hughes in the bullpen that is going to burn the Yankees, possibly necessitating a deadline trade for a starter.  The Yankees have been resistant to carrying a long reliever the last two years, despite having young, old, and injury prone pitchers in their rotation.  It would have been a fitting role for Hughes these last few months and would give the Yankees a little more security come September.

Well, that security has probably passed them by. If the Yankees thought it were safe and reasonable to convert Hughes back into a starter, the process probably would have begun already.  I doubt Cashman is worried about the media backlash, which would certainly draw comparisons to the Yankees converting Joba from starter to reliever in 2008. As you might remember, Joba came down with shoulder tendinitis in August and missed almost a month.  The Joba For Reliever gang blamed his starting innings.  The Joba For Starter group blamed his relief innings.  It could be somewhere in the middle, possibly explaining the hesitancy to convert Hughes so late in the season and risk losing him for part or all of the playoffs. Neyer poses the question: "If he's struggling now because he's tired, what's going to happen in October after another 25 or 30 innings?"  If Joba is tired from his workload (having already surpassed his 2008 innings), is putting him in the rigorous role of fireballing setup man the best thing for his arm?  That doesn't sound like a pitcher you want suddenly adopting a relief pitchers schedule, which historically has not proven to be the healthiest of occupations.  The Yankees haven't babied Joba to this point to suddenly let him overwork his arm while past his +30 innings for the season. It doesn't make sense for either pitcher to change their roles and, frankly, I think Joba should be shutdown for the season, if not now then if he continues to struggle in September. The best solution in terms of protecting the valued arms in the system and possibly tightening the fourth starter role for the playoffs may be converting Alfredo Aceves.  Aceves has shown good ability as a starter in the past and has become less of a one inning pitcher in Girardi's bullpen.  The Yankees don't have nearly as much invested in Aceves from an organizational point of view and it would probably take another season of injuries for Aceves to gain a permanent spot in the Yankees rotation next year. The bigger question: would Aceves be an upgrade over Mitre?  At this point, I think most anything would be an upgrade over Mitre, but there's no reason the Yankees can't carry both the first two rounds of the playoffs.  Not having to deal with the pitcher in the batting order means the Yankee bench can be role players like Gardner and Hairston, giving the Yankees a little bit of flexibility in the pen.  Carrying both pitchers in a long role capacity may enable the Yankees to stop the bleeding quickly if a critical game four seems to be getting out of hand.