Breaking news: Hank’s obviously insane, but he’s probably right.

Alright so I’ve had some time to think about Hank’s little explosion today and here are my thoughts. First off, the guy has already managed to surpass his father in the pantheon of blowhards (which is no small feat in-and-of itself) and he’s just a racial epithet away from entering Marge Schott territory, which is quite the accomplishment considering he’s only been on the job for a little over six months. At this rate he’ll at least have a rule or two named after him when all is said and done.

What may be crazier than Hank himself, though, is that there’s a lot of merit to what he said. In case you’ve been marooned in a cubicle all day and have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s what Mt. Steinbrenner spewed this morning:

“I want him [Joba Chamberlain] as a starter and so does everyone else, including him, and that is what we are working toward and we need him there now,” Steinbrenner told The New York Times. “There is no question about it, you don’t have a guy with a 100-mile-per-hour fastball and keep him as a set-up guy. You just don’t do that. You have to be an idiot to do that.”

Alright, so I know I’m going against popular convention on this– at least as far as what I’ve seen in the media and on various blogs today– but Hank has a more-than-valid point: Joba should be in the Yankee rotation. The operative word there is “should,” but I’ll get back to that in a bit. Most everyone is coming at this from two viewpoints. The first train of thought is that elite relievers/closers (a large contingent of Yankee fans… alright, all Yankee fans, have pegged Joba as Mariano’s successor) are harder to come by than elite starting pitchers. There’s obviously no denying that. I could probably rattle off about 15 starters who have a legitimate shot at the Cy Young this year, but there are only four guys who make the opposition piss their pants at the end of games: Rivera, Papel-boner, K-rod, and Joe Nathan. So sure, Joba is probably in line to become one of those elite guys given his total dominance in a set-up role, and yeah, having a ridiculous, flame-throwing closer is a nice luxury to have. But the thing is, you don’t need one to win a World Series, which automatically makes Joba’s potential value as a starter much greater. Don’t believe me? How’s this– since 2000, these are the names of guys who have closed for World Champs:

2000: Rivera
2001: Byung-Hyung Kim (was the Yankees’ best player in games 4 and 5… even while wearing a D-back’s jersey)
2002: Troy Percival (wasn’t even the best reliever on his own team [K-rod was the set-up man])
2003: Braden Looper (my apologies to any Met fans who had a stroke while reading that)
2004: Keith Foulke (still trying to figure out how his arm remains attached to his body)
2005: Dustin Hermanson (don’t worry, no one else has heard of him either)
2006: Jason Isringhausen/Adam Wainwright (my apologies to any family members of Met fans who killed themselves after reading that)
2007: Papel-boner

So what did we learn from our little history lesson? You’ve got just as good a shot at winning the series with a potential Hall of Famer at the back-end of your ‘pen as you do with some guy who has a 5 ERA and craps his pants every time he comes in for a save. In other words, the Yanks can win it all with Kyle Farnsworth closing games every bit as much as they can with Mo coming in for the ninth. I know that sounds ludicrous, but it’s the truth. That being the case, why waste someone with Joba’s talent in a role that could just as easily be filled by Ross Ohlendorf? And that segways to the second line of faulty thinking…

Everyone’s comparing the Joba-Rivera duo to the Rivera-Wetteland combo that shortened games to six-inning (in some cases 5) affairs when the Yanks won the title in ‘96. Don’t feel bad, I’ve been guilty of it also. What people are forgetting, though, is that our top three starters that year were Andy Pettitte, David Cone, and Jimmy Key (not to mention Kenny Rogers and Doc Gooden, who, despite their flaws, won 12 and 11 games, respectively). So yeah, we had a ton of leads heading into the sixth inning thanks to those guys and, crazy as it may sound, it’s a whole lot easier to shorten games when you are, you know, WINNING. Not surprisingly, it’s pretty hard to do it when you’re trailing after five, and it’s near impossible when your starters don’t even make it through five, which is what we’re all finding out right now. Using Joba as a starter will obviously go a long way towards fixing this.

But beyond that, starting pitching is the most crucial ingredient for winning a championship. We always hear the “Good starting pitching beats good hitting” spiel when the Yanks sh*t the bed in the first round every year, yet somehow everyone’s forgotten that here. And yeah, the stats bear out this reality out too– since 2000, EVERY SINGLE CHAMPION HAD AT LEAST 3 GUYS WITH DOUBLE-DIGIT WINS. And in the case of the ‘05 ChiSox, ‘04 Sox, and ‘03 Marlins, it took four double-digit winners. As it sits now, the Yanks will have just two of them (Chienny-Ming and Andy). I know it’s early, but I’m not exactly gonna hold my breath waiting to see if Moose, Hughes, or Kennedy make a run at 10 Ws. And everyone’s right– there’s no guarantee Joba will be nearly as effective as a starter when he can’t go balls to the wall on every pitch. But he’s got the best stuff on the entire staff, so why not give it a go, right?

Unfortunately, here’s where the “should” thing comes in– this all would’ve been a fantastic idea had Joba been groomed to start from the outset of spring training. Trying to transition him now would take a long a$$ time, and with Boston already threatening to run away with the AL East like they did last year, I’m not sure we can afford to remove arguably our best pitcher from the roster completely, regardless of whether he’s prepping to become a starter or not. So yeah, as the saying goes, we made our bed…

My only real beef with what he said has to do with him calling someone who wouldn’t start Joba “an idiot.” I’m just gonna go ahead and give him the benefit of the doubt here and assume that he was referring to Ca$hmoney, ’cause if he was talking about Joey-G, well then he’d clearly be in violation of the 28th amendment, which makes insulting #27 punishable by death.