This gives the Yankees the best chance to win in both ’08 and ’09, and by 2010 he’s a full fledged starter.

To try to break three rookies into the rotation during the same season, and to significantly weaken your bullpen in the process, makes no sense to me. Its taking an unnecessary step backward to go forward.

By ’09, Hawkins and Farnsworth won’t be clogging up the pen, creating spots for youngsters not quite ready this year to fill the void created by Joba’s departure.

It’s obvious Joba deserves a shot in the rotation, but rushing him into it mid-season is detrimental to Joba and to the team. There would be too much pressure to hurry him back to the Bronx. If you don’t believe they’d rush him look how quickly the Joba rules went out the window. Spring training is the best time to do this. The Yankees have planned this poorly.

Also, that Smoltz guy was pretty darn good in the pen, what is he doing now? O yeah, they moved him back to the starting rotation. Man, those Braves are sure dumb. I mean seriously, he’s only averaging about 15 wins and sportin a low 3′s ERA the past three years. That obviously didn’t pay off for them did it?

The Yankees will put him in the rotation and he won’t see the bullpen again unless he gets hurt, is ineffective or possibly in the playoffs.

First, let me say, somewhat sacrilegiously I suppose, that Joba’s better than Mo, or at least 22 (23?) year old Joba is better than was 22 year old Mo. That NY Times article said that Mo, at 26, had a “fierce slider.” I mean, he didnt have a fierce slider. If he had one, he’d be throwing it in relief. He throws all kind of fastballs, and that’s it. I remember watching his horrible few starts in ’95. He was “developing” a change, at 26. Joba’s apparently got an OK change already, at 22. Mo is the perfect closer, just as Smoltz was or Beckett/Verlander would be the imperfect (though outstanding) closer. Mo doesnt have the tools to be a good starter! But he does to be a closer! We’re reeaaally lucky to to have Mo; he’s dominant as a closer, and made the decision to make him one easy, because he couldnt have been a starter.

The fact remains that, gun to my head, I’d release Mo before Wang. A starter pitches 200+ innings; HE HAS MORE IMPACT. This debate is ridiculous! Asinine, I say! Unbelievable, even.

Let’s think about it this way. Let’s take as gospel, for the sake of argument, that Joba is more valuable as a reliever than a starter: that Joba, as presently deployed, is more valuable than an ACE, which is what M and the MD think, as they would have the Yankees never even TRY him in the rotation. Then it stands to reason that, since a great reliever is more important than a great starter, a good reliever is more important than a good starter, and an average reliever is more important than an average starter, and so on down the line.

Well, fine. For the sake of argument, we’ve accepted this. Why, then, have starters to begin with? Let’s carry the 12 pitchers who are best in 1-2 inning spurts, and play every game like the other day in KC before IPK came in. Pitch about 6 pitchers a game, get about 120 innings from every pitcher on the staff. It would be a headache for Girardi, but it’s the logical destination of Mike Francesa’s and the rest of the Bullpenners’ ideas.

Are there problems with this model? I believe so, and I believe Mike Francesa would even think so. Perhaps it’s faulty, trying to balance on a totally erroneous premise about value in pitching.