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Posted 06/03/2008 at 01:34 PM
Making his first start today, Joba Chamberlain has the talent to be a great starter in this league but he will experience some growing pains and his endurance could be a problem in his first few starts. Chamberlain will be fine, he has tremendous talent and drive and he has proven he can be a successful big league pitcher. His move from the bullpen greatly weakens the Yankees however and for a team that is already struggling to keep pace in the AL East it could mean trouble.
New York has had problems in the bullpen this season and the New York rotation now features several pitchers that can not go deep into games, with two unproven young pitchers and two aging veterans. Outside of starts from Chien-Ming Wang, New York will need a great deal of innings from the bullpen. Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte are really not guys you can get more than 5-6 innings out anymore and the collection of Ian Kennedy, Darrell Rasner, and Phil Hughes have not been able to eat innings.
The high priced bullpen acquisitions like Kyle Farnsworth and LaTroy Hawkins have not been able to get the job done for New York and losing Chamberlain as the bridge to Mariano Rivera will be significant. Edwar Ramirez and Brain Bruney have had success but they have not pitched many innings and Ross Ohlendorf has not been very effective. New York will need to make a move to bolster the bullpen as an already overused unit is about to see even more innings with Chamberlain moving to the rotation.
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