A Look at Baseball's Fifth Starters of 2009

Written by Greg Fertel | 24 March 2010

Nope, I'm not talking about Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes again. Today, I just want to take a look at what fifth starters did in 2009 and what a team should expect to get out of the pitcher who starts the season in the back end of the rotation.

I used MLBDepthCharts.com to find out which pitchers were named fifth starters to begin the season. Just from looking through the names on my list of starters, it looks like there are four types of pitchers who start the year as fifth starters.

First, you have your good prospects who are ready to break into the majors, but the team's don't want to put much pressure on them so they put them in the back of the rotation. Next, there are developing young starters, who are still developing, but have pitched a full season in the majors already.

Those are the ideal fifth starters for teams; they have legitimate upside. The downside with them is that a team doesn't necessarily know what they will get and they will likely be inconsistent. The other two types of fifth starters are veteran pitchers who aren't very good(your Livan Hernandez's) and minor league veterans who are called up to fill a hole.

The average pitcher who started the year as the fifth starter in 2009 started 14 games, and threw 74.1 innings with an ERA of 4.84. Many of them also contributed in relief, but these are just their statistics from the games they started. This just confirms what has always been said, fifth starters are very fungible. Having one who will go out and give you 25+ starts is extremely valuable when comparing them to what the average fifth starter gives a team.

Now, just to relate this to the Yankees situation, I don't think it makes much of a difference who is the fifth starter in 2010. Whether it's Sergio Mitre, Phil Hughes, or Joba Chamberlain, the Yankees fifth starter will be much better than the pitchers most teams use as their fifth starter. The issue, as I always like to dwell on, are long term implications.

The Yankees should put themselves in a situation where both Hughes and Chamberlain can be starting pitchers in 2011 if need be. By placing one of them in the bullpen without giving them the chance to be the sixth starter and get some innings, they are eliminating this possibility. As a Yankee fan, I hope that I don't see this happen.