Ben Shpigel on the Yankees' latest weighty issue:
Yankee Brass Unhappy With Joba Chamberlain’s Conditioning
arrived at the most important spring training of his young career listed at 230 pounds, just as he was all last season. This would not be a problem except that Chamberlain weighs more than 230 pounds, and the are hardly pleased that he does.
This is the oldest story in baseball, the big young pitcher who shows up fat. In the 1940s, the writers would delight in dropping hints about a player’s avoirdupois, because they weren’t really supposed to just say that Joe Blow reported to spring training looking like a giant pear. It happened all the time, though, and baseball players in the old days routinely reported to camp expecting to shed 15 or 20 pounds.
Today, though, players are generally expected to stay in great shape during the off-season, and most of them do. Which is why management today gets perturbed when somebody shows up looking appreciably worse than he did just a few months earlier.
It is accepted that Chamberlain will never throw the baseball the way he did in 2007, when he dominated out of the bullpen; a shoulder injury in August 2008 sapped velocity that has yet to return — and most likely will not. “The stuff used to be equal,” Cashman said. “It’s not equal anymore.”
Which is why the Yankees are adamant that Chamberlain’s days of shuttling between the bullpen and the rotation are over. He is, once and for all, a reliever, and one who still has value. He led the team with 73 appearances last year, and his peripheral statistics — strikeout, walk and home run rates — improved enough to give Cashman hope of a turnaround.
Cashman's probably so frustrated by Chamberlain's weight because he figured Chamberlain was almost money in the bank. No, that 4.40 ERA last season wasn't pretty. But that 3.5 strikeout-to-walk ratio was bettered on the entire staff by only Mariano Rivera (4.1), and he gave up only six home runs in 72 innings.
Oh, and he was routinely throwing his fastball 95 miles an hour.
No, he’s not the pitcher he was three or four years ago. That Joba Chamberlain could hit 98 out of the bullpen, 95 as a starter. We’ll probably never see that guy again. But you know, a reliever with Chamberlain’s stuff and command is good enough to close for most clubs. Let’s stop worrying about what Joba might have been, and start enjoying what he is.
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