Jorge Posada hopes the Yankees beef up their starting pitching in 2009, but one player he does not believe belongs in that rotation is Joba Chamberlain.
“Leave him in the bullpen,” Posada said during a taping of YES Network’s “CenterStage” yesterday in Manhattan. “I think if you start him and he pitches 200 innings he won’t be able to. You’re going to lose him; he is going to get hurt. I don’t see him as a starter.”
Chamberlain took the chance to respond to Posada’s thoughts last night, saying: “He’s been around the game, and that’s his opinion. I’m not going to fault a guy for having an opinion. . . . I [started] for however long in the middle of the season, so I know what it takes. I see guys who have done it and been successful. I know what it takes to get there.”
Chamberlain began this season in the bullpen then moved to the rotation in June. He missed most of August with rotator cuff tendinitis and then moved back to the bullpen when he returned earlier this month.
“A little tendinitis, it tells you a lot,” Posada said after the taping. “I think his body is made up for a reliever.”
Chamberlain said he will sit down with Yankees brass and figure out “what is best for the team in the long run.”
“It’s your career, and you have to be a part of it,” Chamberlain said. “You have to take action and understand that you do what’s best for yourself also, but the end goal is to win a championship.”
Posada said his rehabilitation from season-ending shoulder surgery in July is going well. He expects to begin throwing again in December and said he will be ready to catch when the Yankees report to spring training in February.
Some believe Posada will have to play first base if his shoulder problem lingers, but the 37-year-old said that’s not going to happen.
“I don’t want to play first base,” he said. “I want to be a catcher.”
He then added that Ivan Rodriguez, the current Yankee catcher, will have to look for work.
“Pudge, he’s my friend, but he’s going to have to go somewhere else,” he said.
Posada said he has not been able to watch more than a few innings of the Yankees’ games because it’s too tough for him. As for why this team’s in fourth place, Posada pointed at the pitcher’s mound.
“What I’ve seen is we don’t have enough pitching,” he said. “It’s tough to really come back every day and score six and seven. It’s tough for the lineup to overcome that.”
To that end, he believes that Brian Cashman must go out this winter and land a couple of big-ticket free agent starters like CC Sabathia or A.J. Burnett.
“We’re pretty much going to be in it, but you don’t know if those guys are going to want to come here,” Posada said. “I hope they do.”
The show will air on Sept. 28 after the Yankees-Red Sox game. – Additional reporting
by Mike Puma