Yesterday, the debate began all over again, as if we hadn’t made our arguments a hundred times over. With just one open spot in the starting rotation, either Phil Hughes or Joba Chamberlain will start the season in the bullpen. Ben tackled the topic yesterday, noting how Joba is saying all the right things — and doing them, too, as he’s in camp early. What he didn’t do is link to a Joel Sherman column about how the Yankees have supposedly already pegged Joba for the pen. He took the idea one step further, into pretty crazy territory.

Why not put both Joba and Hughes in the pen? That would, he claims, make the role of fifth starter even less necessary, because of the Yankees’ high-powered offense and, with both young pitchers in tow, their lights out bullpen. He at least admitted that it would hinder the development of either one into a future starter. With Andy Pettitte’s and Javy Vazquez’s contracts up after this season, the Yankees will need one, if not both, to hit the rotation in 2011.

While many of us just wrote off the idea as crazy, Dave Pinto, creative as he is, proposed a different type of idea. What if, instead of using Hughes and Chamberlain as one-inning setup men, the Yankees deployed them as bridges to Mariano unto themselves? In other words, they take over when the starter exits, and they pitch from that point until the ninth. If the Yankees rack up the score late, they could even pitch the ninth themselves, further increasing their innings totals.

In theory, I love the idea. I’ve long advocated changing the way teams use their bullpens, with a trend towards the multi-inning reliever. Having two pitchers in this role would help, as they could cover most late-inning situations, with the short relievers taking over when the starter goes seven and the game is close. But this is all theoretical. How would this work in practice?

April seems like the best opportunity for this type of bullpen scheme. Pitchers are still getting into the groove, and it seems like starters pitch fewer innings per start in April than any other month. That was true, at least, for the Yankees. Last April the Yankees starters pitched 126.1 innings, out of 197.1 total. That includes Wang’s three short starts, so it skews the sample in a way, but if the Yankees use both Hughes and Chamberlain in the bullpen they’ll have a fifth starter who, while not as bad as 2009 Wang, still probably won’t go shutting out opponents for eight innings.

In nine of the 22 starts, the starter did not make it out of the sixth inning. In an additional three starts, the starter went exactly six innings. These are the opportunities for the super relievers. Either Hughes or Chamberlain would enter in this situation and pitch up to, perhaps including, the ninth inning. As an experiment, let’s see how this could have panned out in April 2009, ignoring that some of the starts were made by Hughes and Chamberlain themselves.

Obviously this is a very rough estimate of when and how much they could pitch, and clearly the 2010 innings will not go the same as 2009. Using that as a guideline, however, it appears that in the super relief role, Hughes and Joba could get close to the number of innings they’d get as starters. Not quite to that level — Joba pitched 23 innings in April 2009 — but it would be pretty close. Plus, since they’ll prepare in spring training as starters, their arms can probably handle longer stints earlier in the year.

This accomplishes a few things. First, it reduces the need for a 12-man pitching staff. With Joba, Hughes, and Mo covering almost 50 innings in relief, the Yanks shouldn’t need four other guys to cover the rest. Second, it allows them both to keep their innings up while also keeping them manageable. It would be much easier to keep Hughes under his innings limit if deployed in this manner. Third, it keeps them ready to fill in if a starter goes down — or if the fifth starter just isn’t working out.

Again, this is all theoretical. We have no way of knowing if this scheme can come close to working in practice. Can both pitchers adjust to this usage schedule, pitching two to four inning stints every three or four days? Also, what happens if the Yanks’ starters dominate one turn through the rotation? That might mean one inning each for Joba and Hughes over five days. There’s plenty of unpredictability in this model, and the Yankees might not favor that for their young starters.

The risk involved probably makes this idea a nonstarter, but it certainly has merits. It allows young pitchers to transition from AAA to the majors without jumping in as full-time starters. It allows teams to more easily manage their innings. It keeps them stretched out, so they can jump into a rotation spot in case of injury. But it also hasn’t really been done, at least to my knowledge, in recent years, and we don’t know what kind of effect these usage patterns will have on a pitcher’s arm. Maybe some small-market team will try this one day. Until then, I doubt a team like the Yankees will take any path except the traditional.

Credit: AP Photo/Matt Slocum

Everybody’s talking about pitching these days. Jorge Posada went on the FAN this week and voiced his belief that the Yanks could use another starter. Meanwhile, at yesterday’s Curtis Granderson press conference, the Yanks’ beat writers quickly turned the focus to pitching.

What came out of it were a few sensational stories. ESPN 1050 AM spent Thursday alleging that Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi both said that one of Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes would be in the starting rotation while the other would set up for Mariano Rivera. It sent Yankee fans into the usual bullpen-inspired Eighth Inning frenzy. Who will get exiled to pen and who will stay in the rotation?

After a few RAB readers e-mailed us, I consulted and reviewed the Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman media sessions. Neither of the two said anything close to what ESPN Radio spent the afternoon reporting, and while the team may not be committed to having both Joba and Phil starting all year, that is simply a function of innings limits than anything else. Listening between the lines made me believe that the Yanks are definitely eying Ben Sheets as a possible starter, but the team will give Phil and Joba every chance to excel as starters.

So what did the Yankee brain trust say? Well, Joe Girardi was at the mic first, and after the cursory Curtis Granderson statements, the focus turned to pitching. Does he want to see the team bring in another starter? “I don’t think you can ever have too much starting pitching. I really don’t,” he said. “Especially with the age of some of our starters, you don’t necessarily want to feel like you have to push them too far, and that was one of the things we were able to do.”

The next question was a loaded one. Could Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain both handle a 32-start workload next year? “I think Joba is more prepared than Phil because Phil didn’t throw 150 innings last year,” Girardi said. “It will be much more difficult to throw him in 32 starts.”

This statement from Girardi was one that made people think Phil would be ticketed to the pen. Of course, that doesn’t make sense if the Yanks want him to reach 150 innings. He certainly won’t get there pitching in relief.

In fact, the next question specifically asked if Hughes would move to pen, and Girardi denied it. This is where I think the Yanks’ interest in Ben Sheets started to show. “I’m not saying that,” Girardi said of a bullpen role for Phil. “That’s something that we’ll have to discuss and see how that fourth starting pitcher is, if he’s someone who can give you 32 starts.”

Ben Sheets, by the way, hasn’t made 32 starts since 2004. In his last season pitching in the Majors — 2008 — he took the hill 31 times. He would be the perfect complement for Phil Hughes and an innings limit.

In the end, the Yanks were mum with their plans. They had to be simply because they don’t have that pitcher — whether its Sheets or Justin Duchscherer or someone else — locked up. All we know is that Joba Chamberlain, as Brian Cashman said, has no innings limit while Phil Hughes does. One of them could wind up in the pen but only if the Yanks enjoy a surplus of pitching. Despite what the radio may tell us, it’s far to early to pigeonhole one of the live young arms for the Eighth Inning. Let’s wait until at least the end of March for that.

We learned a lot about Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain in 2009. They both went through ups and downs during the season, so we got to see them at their best and at their worst. That can tell you a lot about a player, but you’ll never get the whole story from just one season, especially for pitchers as young as those two. The main takeaway is that both can succeed at the major league level. Whether that is in the rotation or in the bullpen remains a question, and will be until they prove where they’re best situated.

I’ve always taken the stance that a starting rotation should consist of the team’s five best pitchers — that is, pitchers capable of starting baseball games. If Joba and Hughes are among the Yankees’ five best options, they should be in the rotation. Given their potential, there’s a good chance that they’re in that top five. If not, a spot will eventually open. The best strategy, then, is to assume that they’re starters and then assess in Spring Training. According to Peter Gammons, this is exactly what they’ll do.

“They can always go from starting to the bullpen, but it’s tough going the other way,” says Brian Cashman.

This statement is not groundbreaking. The Yankees prefer to have pitchers prepare as starters and then convert them when necessary. They did it in 2007 with Scott Protor, and did it again last year with Phil Coke. There is no surprise, then, that they will have Chamberlain and Hughes prepare as starters. Why pigeonhole them now, when they could ultimately be one of the team’s top five starters?

Still, the Yankees will assess all of their options in the rotation. In fact, it’s probably the most important item on the off-season docket.

“I think the first thing you have to address is our rotation,” Girardi said. “Right now if you looked at our starters you’d say that we have two starters for sure and then you have a mix of some other guys, so I think that’s probably the first thing that we have to address. But I think that’s probably first on everyone’s list, pitching.”

Pitching always comes first, and the Yankees learned that lesson in recent years. It’s why they got the top two guys on the last free agent market, and why they’re trying to develop high-ceiling arms in the minors. Just because it’s first on everyone’s list, however, doesn’t mean that the team will necessarily sign John Lackey or trade for Roy Halladay. It just means that they understand the importance of pitching, and will consider any move that makes the rotation stronger in 2010 and beyond.

(Which, of course, could include signing Lackey or trading for Halladay.)

Do the Yankees have a contingency plan for the bullpen should both Hughes and Joba break camp in the rotation? I guess that depends on your definition of contingency plan. Buster Olney thinks that the Yanks will pursue “two relievers, in all likelihood.” Why they’d do this, I don’t know. Again, we’ve learned the lessons of free agent relievers over the past few years, and with a number of in-house options, bringing in a middle reliever, or even a closer who will pose as a setup man, seems to be a luxury item rather than a necessity. That’s what Cashman says.

“We have guys knocking on the door from the minor leagues, and it’s always easy to take a starter and make him into a reliever – I think we’re good at that,” Cashman joked. “Is it an area of obvious need? No. You’ve got to look more at the rotation and left field.”

The Yankees have a lot of pitchers, and many of them could factor into the rotation and bullpen plans for 2010. That affords them the luxury of choosing only the players they see fit. If they like the cut of John Lackey’s jib, they can bring him aboard. If they don’t like something about him, they can let it go and wait until next off-season. The team is in a good position now, even though some of the rotation spots are nominally unsettled.