The Loser of the Fifth Starter Battle and Bullpen Chaining

Written by Greg Fertel | 17 March 2010

Sorry to continue to delve into the fifth starter debate, but Jay at Fack Youk posted an idea that I thought was definitely worth looking into and commenting on.

Jay suggests that the Yankees may be best off by naming Phil Hughes the fifth starter and sending Joba Chamberlain to Triple-A to work on his repertoire, and get some more experience starting.

At first, I'm opposed to the idea. As a major league team, it's best to have your twelve best pitchers on the roster and utilize them in the most efficient and best way possible. Here are some of Jay's key points, all of which make sense to some extent:

• Chamberlain has only 88.1 innings in the minors, with only eight of those coming in Triple-A.
• He is not the same pitcher he was before his injury in 2008. His velocity is down and his stuff does not seem as sharp.
• He is trying to work in his curveball and changeup more, two pitches that he did not use frequently as a reliever.
• If the Yankees send Chamberlain to the minors to be a starter instead of using him out of the pen,"due to bullpen chaining, it's not likely to make that much of a difference."

The first three points are facts and I can't argue with those. What I did want to take a look at was how much it would cost the Yankees to send Chamberlain to Triple-A and replace him with whatever bullpen filler the Yankees so choose(Boone Logan, Jonathan Albaladejo, etc.).

Sky Kalkman of Beyond the Boxscore recently shared a bullpen chaining spreadsheet and I figured this would be an opportune time to try that out. Starting with a bullpen where Mariano Rivera is the closer and Chamberlain is the setup man and include leverage, the Yankees' bullpen(using CHONE) projects to be 69 runs above replacement. Replacing Chamberlain with a replacement-level reliever who projects to have a 4.75 ERA, the Yankees' bullpen would project to be 61 runs above replacement.

The difference of eight runs is close to a win, and shouldn't be ignored. The question is whether the development Chamberlain would get in Triple-A is more important to the Yankees than the one win he would add to the bullpen. Personally, I don't know if facing Triple-A hitters would help his development.

While it is Jay's idea, he doesn't seem to be very confident it would either, stating, "I'm fairly certain it might help him work on some of the skills it takes to be a starting pitcher." It's definitely an interesting idea and worth looking into, but I am not convinced.

I don't take spring training results very seriously, so I am still standing where I have all along. Entering the season, Joba Chamberlain should be the fifth starter, and Phil Hughes should be in the bullpen ready to fill in if/when the Yankees need him.

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