Today in The Journal News
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Mar 20, 2008 
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Joba Chamberlain will open the season in the pen. But how long will he stay there?
Phil Hughes got roughed up last night. This notebook also has word on a delayed hearing for Shelley Duncan and Melky Cabrera and a Rule 5 pick who is coming back.
Yankees at Blue Jays this afternoon. The game is on YES and ESPN. Check back later for the lineups and other news.
That wind was really blowing out last night.
But Matt Morris was getting hit hard.
Joba rules! This is great news to me. Helps to solify our bullpen, buys time for our other guys in the minors to develop and possibly get a call up by the all star break, AND gives our rotation a chance to prove itself and hopefully stay healthy. Should be an interesting first half of the season.
Alex Rodriguez has 518 career home runs. This season he will catch and pass Ted Williams who had 521 career home runs.
I wonder if MLB will put special markings on the balls that are pitched to him like they did when he was approaching 500 career home runs.
hey util. Were you there?
Actually if you listented to the Pitt announcers none of the Yankee balls were hit hard.
http://www.newsday.com/sports/.....589.column
He actually forgot one big detail, that the Yankees knew they had to cut the coaches into their pot.
jennifer- that pretty much sums up how feel about it. No class, no brains,no need. Just play ball you jokers.
I pray that Yankee management does not keep Joba in the pen all year. He is way too talented to be restricted to two pitches.
Looked like the wind was effecting the pitchers. They wouldn’t use the wind as an excuse but with all the walks you could tell it was effecting them.
HOBS, I believe Pete was on the one who brought up the fact that if you kept Joba in the pen all year he’d only be up to 80 innings, so you’d run into the same problem next year.
My prediction (if everyone is healhty , fingers crossed), that they would go to a 6 man rotation or have him piggy back a starter.
If he will truely be a starter next year you need to start getting his innings up this year.
Thanks for posting that article, Jennifer.
Should the Bosox players have been concerned that they got “bribed” but the coaches didn’t? Yes.
But to threaten something that would hurt the fans? There were many possible courses of action (some suggested in the article), but they chose about the worst possible.
If that game were nixed, imagine having to explain to your kids why your long-anticipated plans were ruined? Just sad.
Question for the arm preservation experts:
In terms of arm wear and tear, is there a rule of thumb or ratio about how bullpen work compares to starting work? Is it 2:1, or 2.5:1? We joke about 80 or 100 innings from Scott Proctor being murder, but of course 200 innings for a veteran starter is par for the course.
Yazman – I agree. The team’s FO could have paid for the stipend in protest. Any way you look at it, boycotting was not the way to go. That they were actually willing to nix the trip to the detriment of the thousands of fans for the sake of 10(or more) coaches tells me that the team’s priority is not baseball, far from it.
yazman, the knew MLB would never allow the games in Japan to be cancelled. There would be egg on mlb’s face.
Jennifer – I missed that article this morning. Thanks for posting it. The Red Sox were at fault for not including the coaches when they divided up the money. They knew they had to include them when they divided up playoff and world series shares.
It was funny litening to the radio, will this help team chemistry what??? Because they all agreed? Give me a break. The A’s were fine with their coaches not being paid, but once the soxs called agreed with their protest, as did the Jays. Does that mean that the Jays, A’s and Soxs all have great chemistry? No it means they all belong to the same union and have to agree.
This is from Buster Olney this morning:
As the Red Sox threatened a boycott of Wednesday’s game, they worked for team unity, as Jackie MacMullan writes.
The sentiment behind what was essentially a three-hour boycott was admirable, but the players handled the situation very clumsily; it was their union that negotiated the stipends for the players and did not support the coaches, just as it has for years, and if the players weren’t aware of that, that’s their fault. But it was the fans who bought tickets to the game in Ft. Myers on Thursday who ultimately suffered, and were forced to sit around without information, while waiting to see if a resolution could be reached.
Given that it was the responsibility of the Red Sox players to understand the situation before it became a crisis, a more magnanimous gesture would have been for some of the Boston players to offer up their stipends to the coaches, given that some of them are paid somewhere between $60,000 and $100,000 a day, rather than victimizing the fans. Or the Red Sox players could’ve quietly informed the Players Association and Major League Baseball that once in Japan, they intended to insist that the coaches’ situation be addressed. The nuclear option of sitting out games only needed to be implied, because there was zero chance that the Red Sox would’ve forfeited these games; there was zero chance that Major League Baseball would’ve let that happen.
Instead, the Red Sox walked out on a crowd that had paid in good faith to see a baseball game. “At the end of the day, it is the fans that took the hit,” said a major league executive with another team, in disgust.
To repeat: The sentiment behind the gesture is admirable. The relationship between the Red Sox players and their coaching staff is as close as any player-staff relationship in the sport. It was a money matter that had nothing to do with greed on the part of the players. But their action was rash and not particularly thought out or executed well.
Where was the team chemistry when they had to vote on the Japan trip? It was far from unanimous in the Red Sox clubhouse then.
Phil Hughes will be fine. Being roughed up in a spring training game is not a big issue. These guys are working on all of their pitches. I live it that Joba will start in the pen. Now we need Kennedy and Mussina to step up.
http://www.recreateyourlifenow.com
Yeah Jay….I was there………leaving tonight 820PM
Rishi – I often differ with Olney on his opinions, but today I think he hits the nail on the head. The Sox acted rashly, but with defensible sentiment. But they knew that MLB would cave pretty quickly.
The Newsday article makes it seem like it’s going to be cushy for the Sox to travel to Japan. It’s easy! It’s luxury! Dude, flying to Asia sucks, no matter how swanky the flight is. The jetlag trashes your body, the weird schedule will trash their routine. They may have some fun, but if anyone thinks that this will in any way improve their baseball performance…that this is easy living…they are pretty deeply deluded. Or they write in New York and want to throw some red meat to the Yankee faithful. Either way, it’s a silly and inflammatory article.
Comparing the obviously deeply classy move the Yanks made in playing against VT with what happened with the Sox is apples and oranges.
If I were Girardi, there’s no reason to take him out of the bullpen unless they are short on starters. Joba is way to dominant. It is hard for the batter to ajust from 90 mph to 100+ fatballs and a filthy slider(not to mention his occational curve ball and change-up). He4 is the catalyst the yanks need to close out games.