The Yankees may rely on Sergio Mitre or Ivan Nova to be their fifth starter this year. You may think that this is patently un-Yankee-like, but you’d be wrong. In the past five seasons, Yankees starters have compiled 72.5 WAR, good for eighth most in the Majors. However, virtually none of that was compiled by their fifth starters.
The fifth slot in the Yankees rotation has rarely been consistently filled by the same person, making it generally impossible to give one player credit for being the fifth starter. In 2006, Shawn Chacon started the year as the fifth starter, but in examining the game logs, Cory Lidle, Aaron Small, Sidney Ponson and Jeff Karstens all took turns there as well. That magical quintet combined for 32 starts and -0.4 WAR. The next season, Phil Hughes’ debut offset Kei Igawa’s own disastrous debut, but the net result between their performances and Darrell Rasner’s was 0.7 WAR. Two-thousand and eight’s motley mix of Ponson, Ian Kennedy and Carl Pavano tallied a whole 0.3 WAR. The next season, 2009, saw Hughes back in the fifth-starter mix, as he, Chad Gaudin, Chien-Ming Wang, Chad Gaudin and Mitre combined for 0.9 WAR. And last season, the Javier Vazquez Experiment, Version 2.0 didn’t end all that spectacularly either, as he posted a -0.3 WAR. He was replaced late in the year by Nova, who undid his damage and balanced the scales with a 0.4 WAR.
And the second discusses Chamberlain's stuff as a starter:
Yesterday, while doing a question-and-answer session with WFAN, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman was asked about Joba Chamberlain‘s role with the Yankees. Chamberlain has bounced back and forth between the pen and rotation several times, but spent all last year in the pen. Now with the Rafael Soriano signing and questionable back-of-the-rotation options (which Paul Swydan outlined earlier) many have wondered whether Chamberalin would start next year.
But Cashman said the Yankees view him solely as a reliever. “I don’t think his stuff is the same since he hurt himself in Texas [August 4th 2008] … The stuff plays up better in the pen.” Cashman continued, “His stuff doesn’t play out of the rotation anymore like it did before prior to his shoulder.”
You'll have to take the jump to Fangraphs to read the entirety of each post - and I highly recommend that you do so.
