A 6 Man Rotation, I'm Sober and Serious

The point of having guys like CC, AJ, Javy and hopefully still Pettite is that they are workhorses. You WANT them out there on the mound. If it was physically possible…I’d want CC Sabathia on the mound every single game.

…6 man rotation only puts days between CC starts longer off.

I think you may see someone take the ball from Andy Pettite every now and then to keep him fresh for the 2nd season…but for the Yanks, with potentially 3 aces…a 6 man rotation makes no sense.

Sorry Dugg. Lay off the Purple Haze…..or at least pass that sht.

but my understanding is that power pitchers (Joba, CC, possibly AJ) tend to perform better on normal or 3 days rest versus 5+ days rest because it keeps the muscles in their arm fresh, whereas finese pitchers (Andy, Javier, Hughes???) could benefit from an extra day of rest. I think we can agree that Joba has the potential to be the 200 inning, 3.75 – 4.00 ERA, 175+ K guy if he is kept on a regular routine, he was leading ERA starting pitcher before his routine got messed up in July.

I do agree Hughes should be tossed back and forth. I think Joba is practically due his 5th spot due to everything the front office has put him through since 08.

It will be interesting, thats for sure. With CC not being at his best it April, maybe April and May could be a good time to utilize some form of a 6-man, but i think it all depends on what the plan is for Hughes

is that pitching depth can quickly become nothing at all.

We all remember how the Sox had “vaunted” pitching depth last year. What happened to all of that once Penny and Smoltz were forced into action? They lost 8 1/2 games on the Yankees in the standings, and that all happened over 6 weeks.

I suggested a similar thing a couple weeks ago. The Yankee schedule is pretty unforgiving in the opening weeks.

I would consider it IF all 6 starters come out of Spring Training firing on all cylinders. I think a series of co-ordinated spot starts by #6 is more realistic.

but in the end, we’re going to have to choose the bullpen for one of either Hughes or Joba, which I’m not thrilled about. But AJ,Andy and (Mo forbid) CC might have an injury early on, in which case they would be primed to start. It might take a few starts for Hughes to get used to the workload, but it’s the only way to do it, since, as the posters above me mentioned, he is a slow starter and needs to build up arm strength.

that weakens both the bullpen, and the rotation at the same time. If you take Joba and Hughes both out of the pen, it weakens the bullpen (obviously). And it also weakens the starting rotation. CC, A.J., Andy, and Vasquez are the top four. They are each 200 inning horses. You want them to get as many starts as possible. A 6 man rotation will take starts away from ALL FOUR of those starters. Thats obviously not what they want.

Pitchingwise, the Yankees are fine. The only concern they have right now is left field.

is the idea that adding an extra man to the rotation means taking a start away from our excellent guys at the top (CC, AJ, Javy). But, this is why I think that that is unlikely to matter.

Other than CMW, the Yankees had just about no injuries to the staff last year. It is very unlikely that this will happen again. Therefore, the idea that all six of these guys will be healthy for the entirety of the season is unlikely. I’d love it, but it’s probably not going to happen.

Therefore, when somebody goes down, the rotation immediately gets shortened to a 5-man, without the necessity of “stretching out” either Hughes or Joba midseason by slowly increasing their pitch totals either at AAA or at the MLB level.

Also, even if everyone stays healthy, I am only advocating that the Yankees do this for two-maximum three-months. To avoid stunting the growth of Phil Hughes am I willing to take two starts away from CC, AJ, and Javy in April and May? You bet.

Those guys should be pitching as much as possible at the end of the season and in the playoffs, but the season is a marathon and I think the Yankees would do well to perhaps sacrifice a few early season games in return for fresh starters and Hughes being able to fully join the rotation in 2011.

would be to have Hughes start in AAA and Joba in the rotation and bring Hughes up to fill in for someone if they get injured. I don’t think it would be demeaning to Hughes, since he’d understand his role and probably accept it if he knows he’ll be in the rotation in 2011. Either way, to continue to develop into a starting pitcher on the major league level, Hughes needs to adapt to longer workloads, so he could get most of his innings in AAA and be brought up either in case of injury or in September to spot-start. I think it’d be bad for Hughes and bad for the Yankees to keep Hughes in the bullpen.

This leads me to think more about the future rotations and the speculation that the Yankees would try to acquire Cliff Lee next off-season. When would Joba and Hughes both get to start in the rotation if Lee is signed to replace Pettite (if he retires) or Vasquez (if he doesn’t have a year that warrants a re-signing next year)?

I guess if Andy and Javy both don’t come back, there’s 2 spots available for both Joba and Hughes, even if they sign Lee. That’d give us a rotation of CC, AJ, Lee, Joba, Hughes in 2011 (again, assuming for some reason Pettite and Vasquez both don’t get resigned).

i think keep hughes in the pen and let joba be a regular starter, i think the reason he had his downs last year was his innings limit and not being a regular starter and hughes is a force in the pen, but i think the yankees will make the right decision, i will back them with whatever they do. 26 DAYS!!!!!

is that a 6-man rotation would mean more ip/start than a 5-man. a 6-man is actually the norm in Japan, where starters are expected to go at least 7 innings, if not a CG.

it’s not a bad idea if the starters do go longer each time out. but i would worry that since ML pitchers are unused to it, it could mean a very rough ‘break in’ period, especially for guys like CC and Burnett who need repetition to ‘get right.’