Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Yankees Fifth Starter Race Down to Four

According to Ed Price via Twitter, the Yankees have put Chad Gaudin on waivers. It makes considering he would make the most money of any of the fifth starter candidates and his performance was the worst of the five this spring. So that leaves just Alfredo Aceves, Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes and Sergio Mitre.

Aceves is most likely ticketed for the bullpen, while Mitre could end up back at AAA Scranton. Chamberlain and Hughes pitched yesterday and while I couldn't watch Chamberlain because it was an intrasquad game, I did catch Hughes four innings against the Phillies and they were some of the best I've seen him throw.

Obviously the results were not what you would want considering the three home runs he gave up. Still his changeup looked very effective. He had Jimmy Rollins falling over as he rolled over on a changeup that went for an easy grounder to first. Later he even had Chase Utley jumping out of his shoes at one.

Joba, on the other hand, seems to have remember how to pitch of late. He is throwing more strikes and attacking hitters. He is getting groundballs at a better rate than earlier in the spring. His recent performance has given Joe Girardi something to pause over as Hughes continues to dominate.

Many think that the logical choice would be either Hughes or Chamberlain while one of the two goes to the bullpen as Mariano's set up man. I think the logical idea would be to send the loser to AAA as a means of keeping them stretched out for when a call up is needed. I would be very disappointed if either Chamberlain or Hughes was forced to waste another year of their career in the bullpen. Sure they don't have much to learn down there, but at least it will keep them hungary when they come back up.

4 comments:

Dennis said...

Can they both be sent down without having to clear waivers? I feel like Chamberlain should be out of options by now...

Peter said...

They both came up in 2007 so I am pretty sure they each have one option left this year. Plus Chamberlain was a late season call up in '07 so I don't think it counted as a year of service time.

Joe said...

I know he works for the Boston Globe now, but Peter Abraham heard it is Hughes.

Dennis said...

Buster Olney had something in his blog the other day (I didn't go to the link) saying it was going to be Hughes as well.