You’re also comparing the season (2000) that led to Halladay going back down to A ball with Joba’s season this year.

I don’t understand that.

Halladay is a different beast of a pitcher and the point I’m trying to make is that he (unlike Joba) has shown it since the beginning.

Halladay’s 1999 stats (his first full year in the league): 16 starts. 6+ innings: 10. 7+: 3. 8+: 0.
Joba’s 2008 season (first full in the league): 12 starts. 6+: 7. 7+: 1. 8+: 0

Halladay 2000: 13 starts. 6+: 3. 7+: 1. 8+: 0.
Joba 2009 (to date): 9 starts. 6+: 4. 7+: 1. 8+: 0.
Through first 7 starts in 2000, Halladay’s ERA: 11.97
Joba through 7: 3.76.
(I would have used through 9, but Halladay had a relief appearance where he gave up 3 runs in 1 inning and I didn’t feel like doing math)
It’s amazing just how different the stats are…

I’m not saying Joba is as good as Halladay. I (and the Yankees) think he could be and you have to NURTURE that to get him there.

Joba hasn’t.. he hasn’t even reached the 8th inning of a game.. his 12k’s were in 5 innings and he was out of the game.

He’s gone to 7 twice… once against Boston last year and once against detroit this year.. That’s still a little short to be comparing him to what Halladay was like in the beginning.

You’d have a better argument comparing Phil Hughes to Halladay than you do Joba.. Hughes has had those dominating games.. Joba hasn’t.

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Do you forget him striking out 9 and shutting down the Red Sox last year? Didn’t Joba just strike out 12 batters in a game a couple weeks ago?

Hughes almost tossed a no-hitter a year ago. Since then he’s had what, three good starts? I like Hughes and think he’ll be great too but to put those starts on pedestal while diminishing what Joba did is silly.

If anything, all of them should be discarded due to small sample size. Three games does not tell anything about a pitcher. Bronson Arroyo looked good for three games too.

Presuming he’s talking about all of baseball, that means he thinks Joba would be the #1 starter on no less than 4 teams and the #2 starter on the rest of them.

If he’s talking about the 14 team AL, that means he thinks Joba is the #2 starter on no less than 3 of the teams the #3 starter on the rest of them.

What. An. Idiot.

Did he watch the last time we were in the playoffs? Did he see the cameraman veer out to Mariano Rivera…the great Mariano…sitting on the bench unable to be used because our starting pitching got shellacked?

That’s the problem with making relievers your top guns. If your starters suck, you never get to them.

If we get into the playoffs and Joba’s at or near his innings limit, I have no problem with him being in the bullpen then. Lots of teams do that if they have good 4th or 5th starters they aren’t planning to use.

But to say he should be in the pen now is just stupid.

The point with Halladay is.. his stats weren’t average. He had a few dominant starts in there. Yes he had to go down to the minors and get reworked… but you’re comparing the season that led to that to Joba’s season now.

That just doesn’t make sense.

Joba spoiled us by being a dominant set-up man for Mo. He is not that as a starter. Not yet, he needs time. Check his stats as a starter this year, they are average.

I think cherry picking is taking single complete games in bad or mediocre seasons and using them for your argument.”

The 2nd start of 2000 when he was 23 and comparing it to Joba is not a whole season argument… it’s a single game argument.

Please read before you post.

Taking stats over whole seasons is cherry picking?

I think cherry picking is taking single complete games in bad or mediocre seasons and using them for your argument.

Outside of the freak case, it takes TIME to become a top starter.”

And the two previous seasons, he pitched complete games in the majors. Stop cherry picking bad stats and pretend they mean something because of the age.