Joba following a successfully travelled path?

Joel Sherman has put together a good piece in today’s NY Post about other pitchers who have followed, or are following the forecast career progression of Joba in going from a reliever to a starter, possibly as soon as the latter stages of this season.

It may all end up being a moot point, and he may end up proving too effective in short relief to move out of the pen, but if, as researched by Sherman, he can progress in anything like the manner Santana did (even though his use in relief started as a matter of necessity), then he may well live up to the hype he has received.

With all reports, and early signs from spring pointing to all four of his pitches being ‘plus’ pitches, he certainly seems to fit the mould for a similar career path. Maybe keeping hold of Hughes, Cabrera etc at the expense of losing out on Santana this offseason may not hurt us as much as some who want instant success seem to think it might.

Inside today’s back pages

After another pretty awful performance last night, it’s nice that today’s papers have got quite a lot of things in them not related to the slow start to the season.

As can be expected though, some people, such as John Harper at the Daily News seem to be thinking that Pettitte’s poor showing yesterday may be the first signs of a decline, as seems to be the norm after he has a less than average start these days. Thankfully though, Mark Lelinwalla’s attitude to the sleeping bats seems less pessimistic. There’s no doubting that the runs will come, no matter what some people seem to think they can conclude from the first 5 games.

Elsewhere, it seems that we all need to keep our fingers crossed that Giambi won’t miss significant time after coming out of the game yesterday. With Shelley suspended this evening (yeah, I know it’s an afternoon game in NY, but it’s still an evening game over here!) he could really be used in the lineup, especially since he’s played a tidy defensive 1B so far. Joe Girardi also figures to be back on the bench….good news, just so long as he doesn’t pass on his bug to anyone else. A small lineup change went through yesterday, with Albaladejo being optioned to Scranton to make room for Pettitte. A shame, because he was practically lights-out the other night. It’ll surely only be a matter of time before he’s back in the Bronx.

A lot of the NY papers have started doing their series’ featuring Stadium retrospectives. I’ve had a read through most of them, and here’s some of the highlights;

• A nice piece from the Daily news about the a youngster’s bid to be the first fan into The Stadium in 1923
• A look back at some of the more memorable Stadium openers over the years from the Daily News, including some scary stats about how poor attendance at Opening Day was in the last year of the original Stadium, and the first year of the team’s stint at Shea
  
• Some memories of the bittersweet occasion of Babe Ruth Day
• A fantastic piece about the nickname that has held throughout the whole lifespan of the Stadium, seemingly from just after the 1923 opener

And as a final wee note, I’m sure you’re all aware of it by now, but ESPN has reported that A-Rod’s pay exceeds that of the whole Marlins roster. Most places will use this to slag off and abuse A-Rod and the Yankees, but since the Marlin’s highest paid player still earns comfortably less than the league average, how about giving Jeffrey Loria the negative press he deserves for asset stripping his team to such a disgusting extent, and showing absolutely no signs of a desire to progress.