"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
It was just three weeks into this season when Hank Steinbrenner—who has taken control of the New York Yankees from his ailing father, legendary team owner George—lost patience with his ball club's lackluster .500 start and fired off his first meddlesome shot from the hip (and, of course, the lip).
Hank, unmistakably a chip off the old block, was clearly peeved, criticizing his management team for keeping its young fireballing reliever Joba Chamberlain in the bullpen when the team's starting pitching has been so woeful. His first vent of the season, to the New York Times, made headlines: "I want [Chamberlain] as a starter and so does everyone else … There is no question about it. You don't have a guy with a 100-mile-per-hour fastball and keep him a setup guy … You have to be an idiot to do just that."
The idiot in question is, of course, general manager Brian Cashman, who may indeed be an idiot if he imagined that he would ever be able to run the Yankees' baseball operations without some heavy-handed Steinbrenner berating or second-guessing him publicly. And it certainly raises the question of whether Cashman, a savvy baseball man in the new general manager mode, will remain with the Yankees after his contract expires this season.
I freely admit that we who are not enamored of the Yankees were lying in wait to pounce on Hank at the first sign that he was channeling his dad's bluster. Still, what was remarkable about Steinbrenner's opening popoff—before the season he had displayed considerable chippiness, particularly about the rivalry with the upstart Red Sox—is that it was so ill-considered, ill-timed and, quite possibly, completely wrongheaded.
Ill-Considered: It is one thing to sound off when the team is playing lackadaisically or there is a discernible malaise on the team. But there is no evidence of that. Going into the season the Yankees were well aware that there were big question marks surrounding the team's starting rotation. Veteran starter Mike Mussina, at age 39, has shown no Clemens-like sign of being able to thrive in old age. (Even my New York-based fantasy league demonstrated the conventional wisdom that Mussina was cooked; at our auction, he went for two dollars less than Boof Bonser.) And it is always perilous to count on young hurlers, even if, like the fresh Yankee arms Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, they arrive highly touted. (Though the Red Sox are off fast, their two hotshot kids, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz, have struggled on the mound too, combining to allow 87 base runners in a little more than 52 innings.)
Knowing all this, the Yankees brain trust, including Steinbrenner, agreed on a plan for Chamberlain that started him out in the bullpen, and there is simply no reason to panic in April and undermine your GM and manager. As much as he would prefer not to, Steinbrenner might take a cue from the Red Sox. About this time last season, rookie second baseman Dustin Pedroia wasn't hitting his weight (or just as bad, maybe he was hitting his weight) and fans were clamoring for the Sox to put him on a bus back to Pawtucket. Red Sox manager Terry Francona, backed by GM Theo Epstein, kept Pedroia in the lineup (while ownership kept silent), and Pedroia went on to win Rookie of the Year honors.
Ill-Timed: Chamberlain is a 22-year-old rookie who started only 15 games in the minor leagues. The last thing he needs is the added pressure of being the pinball in a power struggle between the owner and the hired help. He particularly didn't need it at this time. It showed no class to single out Chamberlain just as the youngster returned from "bereavement leave" in Nebraska, where he had been bedside with his ailing father. While Chamberlain's dad now appears to be recovering, Steinbrenner, at 51, should at least have enough judgment to consider the young man's distress. Instead, his first consideration appears to be "I want" (and then, with a rich kid's sense of entitlement, the assumption that because he wants, everyone else does too), and that adolescent sensibility bodes future trouble.
Wrongheaded: There is a growing body of baseball science that suggests that young pitchers are vulnerable to career-threatening injury if their innings are ratcheted up too quickly. The magic number appears to be 30, as in it is ideal to boost a pitcher's workload by no more than 30 innings a season. Chamberlain pitched only 116 innings last season, so the Yankee brain trust would like to limit him to at most 150 this year. That means he might be ready to assume a starting role later in the season. But 25 or more starts beginning now would likely push him well over the desired limit. Next year, when that limit rises to around 180, Chamberlain should be a neat fit in the rotation.
Moreover, Steinbrenner is showing precious little appreciation of his team's recent history. The setup role has been a critical part of the Yankees' tremendous success for more than a decade, be it Mariano Rivera setting up for John Wetteland or later the Nelson/Stanton tandem filling that role for Rivera. The Yankees haven't had a decent setup man since Tom Gordon departed after the 2005 season. Gordon was so valuable that former Yankee manager Joe Torre simply wore him out—171 appearances in two seasons—so that Gordon had nothing left when his manager called upon him six times in the historic 2004 ALCS against the Red Sox. Torre's punishment was to be reduced to choosing between such luminaries as Kyle Farnsworth, Luiz Vizcaino, Sean Henn and Brian Bruney for that critical late-inning role. Why remove Chamberlain from the mix and saddle new manager Joe Girardi with another Farnsworth flop or the dreaded LaTroy Hawkins option?
It is worth noting that there are many writers and fans who regard Red Sox setup man Hideki Okajima as the MVP of the team's 2007 championship season. He was an impeccable bridge to closer Jonathan Papelbon and spared the team any temptation to overuse its young closer, who had had shoulder woes the previous season. As a result Papelbon stayed healthy all year while pitching a scant 59.1 innings—and he was fresh and untouchable in the postseason, nailing a win and four saves while surrendering no runs in seven appearances. Chamberlain has been superb in a critical role. He will likely excel as a starter, too, someday, but rushing that transition could create a new problem without solving the old one.
The Yankees face some more pressing problems in the transition from the George and Torre era to the Hank and Girardi era. The lineup boasts some aging and declining big-name, big-money players, most notably Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon, while the team's favorite son, Derek Jeter, whose already limited range at shortstop is further diminishing, should probably be relocated to another position. (First base, anyone?) Some Yankee fans have fretted that in recent seasons the team has lost its sense of urgency, drifting—with Torre at the helm—toward an unhealthy complacency rather than its former healthy cockiness. This may be the rare case in which Steinbrenner is the perfect owner for Yankee lovers and haters alike. He does not appear to be a man who will simply make mountains out of molehills, but rather one who recognizes no difference between the two.