THE plan has gone horribly awry. Six months ago, the Yankees were building both their short- and long-term future around young starting pitching.
Today?
Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy are at Triple-A, and – more vitally – the Yanks anxiously will await the results from Dr. James Andrews’ examination on Joba Chamberlain’s right shoulder. They will hope – pray, sell their souls to the devil – that the news is just bad, and not devastatingly so. Because there is no avoiding bad news.
Chamberlain was not sent to Pensacola, Fla., to see Andrews because he was a scared 22-year-old who wanted to have the elite surgeon give a second opinion to confirm a positive first diagnosis by Yankee doctors. Chamberlain is a tough kid who would not need that kind of reassurance. He was told to go see Andrews by the Yankees because the team read an MRI exam taken in New York yesterday that chilled them.
After Monday night’s game when Chamberlain was injured, Joe Girardi did not seem overly worried, thinking the quick look Yankee trainers gave to Chamberlain in Texas meant he likely would miss one start. Now the Yanks would probably sign up for Chamberlain just being lost for the rest of this year, even with how that would potentially extinguish playoff chances in 2008.
They would sign up for anything that did not endanger Chamberlain’s 2009, sign up for anything that did not involve a scalpel going into a shoulder that the Yanks believe is priceless. Yankees officials, however, were bracing for far worse information.
It is the latest and most debilitating occurrence that has soiled all of those dreams – those grand plans – the organization had for Hughes, Kennedy and Chamberlain. The Yanks saw them blossoming in full in 2008 to assure the playoffs while promising so much more for the future. This trio was supposed to be the first wave of a young arms brigade that was going to make paying veteran starters such as Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina unnecessary.
Except now Pettitte and Mussina are more necessary than ever if the Yanks are going to make the playoffs this year. And here is the more shocking item: They are pretty darn important for next season, too.
Remember those severe inning limits that Hughes, Kennedy and, especially, Chamberlain were under in 2007. Well, each young righty will throw fewer professional innings this year than last year. Which means they cannot be expected – even with full health – to have the restrictions lessened next year. In fact, the restrictions might even be tighter.
But the Yanks would take that 2009 obstacle, right now, if Hughes and Kennedy could recover from their horrible early-season dud performances/health issues to finish this year in a successful fashion, and for the news out of Pensacola to provide as benign a result as possible.
However, they already had to make a concession to the worst because there are not two more ominous words in baseball than “James Andrews.” No one goes to see him for his witty banter. And significant shoulder injuries still provide even the best, such as Andrews, more difficulty in restoring a player in full than even the most serious elbow injuries. So this sets up as the worst of all worlds for Chamberlain and the Yankees.
It is a reminder of what a lot of personnel men have been saying since the Yanks drafted Chamberlain with the 41st overall pick in June 2006. Those personnel men said Chamberlain’s talent was well defined – top-of-the-draft obvious. But as one AL executive said echoing a common view, “There were just too many red flags with health.” There was a knee injury in college and that violence at the end of his motion. So Chamberlain tumbled in the draft to the appreciative Yanks.
Still the Yanks were ultra-cautious. They drew up the Joba Rules last year and opened with Chamberlain in the bullpen this year to limit his overall innings. Yet, even at just 89 total innings this season, just 113 for his major league career, Chamberlain raised the red flags in full, headed off to see Dr. James Andrews, took a chunk of the Yankees’ immediate and long-term future with him.
The plan has come crashing down.