Around The Yankees Galaxy - 11/14/10

What sort of year does Joba have to have to say he’s succeeded as a starter? Nobody was worried about Hughes after a pretty huge decline in the last month or so since it was his first full season as a starter. Does Joba get that same leeway at the end of the season?

In his rookie season, I’ll honestly be happy with a .260 average and 20 home runs. If he does that I consider his rookie season a success. If he exceeds that it’s just a bonus, but from what I’ve heard about him I won’t be surprised if he hits like he did in AAA next year. The key with him is patience. If they are serious about him being their starting catcher next year and in the future, then they need to have patience with him. Not write him off as a bust if he struggles for a few months like he did in AAA.

I agree, Joba deserves a shot. It’s time to put him in the rotation and see what he can do. A full season without an innings limit. Let go of the leash and let him pitch. Even if he’s just a back-end starter, thats more valuable to the Yankees than a mid-reliever. And Joba has great stuff with a ton of upside, so I think if the Yankees give him a real opportunity he’ll be better than a back-end starter.

Whether he lives up to those or not is a different story. I hope he does.

While we all hope for ridiculous numbers out of young Jesus… we’re not going to see them. All we can hope for is him to develop a bit this year and progress toward superstar status.

Jesus hit like .360 in the second half in AAA. I would expect him to maybe have a period of adjustment like he did last year, but if he rebounds and hits around .300 for the second half of the year, I wouldn’t be surprised.

.210/.240/.290 from Jesus… (that way Yankee fans will be pleasantly surprised rather than disappointed and won’t boo the barely-able-to-drink catcher).

as for the FA pitchers, Mussina only just missed the cut. he averaged 31 starts but his ERA+ was 117 rather than 120.

Which will lead to Francessa and the like saying he’s not ready and other grabage, and me throwing something through my tv at his face.

and I’m an atheist.

Could he lead the team back to the top of the Montero? Montero – that’s Spanish for mountain isn’t it?

James is predicting a .285/.348/.519 for Montero, and if he did that he’d be in historic territory.

Looking at a certain other rookie catcher, that’s not an entirely unreasonable projection. Posey hit .305/.357/.505 this year. He didn’t play a full season, he was a little more polished than Montero (being a little older and a college guy), and I don’t know how well Montero will adapt to big-league pitching, but I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t put up similar numbers.

As for the ‘being in New York and expecting to win the World Series’ part… yeah, that’s a lot of pressure. But Jesus will probably be hitting eighth. If he doesn’t succeed, the rest of the lineup will pick him up. Posey was hitting cleanup most of the time, in a lineup that wasn’t necessarily going to be able to succeed if he didn’t do well.

Again, I have no idea how Montero’s temperament stacks up against Posey’s, but given his talent level, I don’t think it’s at all unlikely that he could put up numbers that good this year.