Bronx, N.Y., January 6, 2008 — Hall of Fame selection days have been frustrating and disconcerting trials for some ballplayers, an annual cycle in raised then banished hopes that ex-Yank closer Goose Gossage hopes to escape in 2008. It has been a great day for others, though, including one-time Yank Phil Niekro, who celebrates the 10th anniversary of his selection Sunday.
Phil won 32 of his 300-plus games in the Bronx, but his arrival as a free agent signee on January 5, 1984 forced the team to make a choice, the same kind of decision they’ll need to make again in the coming weeks. The arrival of Niekro, along with the expected loss of Gossage that year, had the 1984 team entering the season with six proven starters but no closer. The team was in transition from Billy Martin as 1983 manager to Yogi Berra, and it was decided young lefty Dave Righetti would be moved to the closer role.
It was a controversial call. Ron Guidry was starting to struggle, and Righetti seemed the perfect successor, the dominant lefty the Baseball Cathedral doctor ordered. He had good stuff, featuring a hard fastball and curve, and he won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1981. He had posted a 14-8 mark in the just completed 1983 season, including his Fourth of July Yankee Stadium no-hitter against Boston. It just did not seem right to take the ace lefty job from the kid just when he was in line to take it and make it his own.
But despite what you may have heard about the eighties, Righetti was a good closer, setting up opponents with the hard breaking curve; he was young, strong and cocky enough that he could escape situations when that failed with his well-above-average heater. Vintage Rivera is a guy who stops rallies before they begin. Righetti often worked his way into trouble, then escaped with a big whiff or a double play ball. He cashed in two July 1986, 5-4 wins in an eight-day period where he loaded the bases with no one out only to retire the next three. The heart attack kid, that was Dave’s modus operandi, but he worked it well. He won the Rolaids AL Fireman Award in both 1986 and 1987, and actually held the season saves record for a few years with the 46 he posted in 1987. He would finish his career with an 82-79 record with 252 saves.
We’ll never know how Dave’s starting career may have flourished had he not been moved to the pen. The Yankees of the mid- and late-eighties had a good offense led by Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield, who were then joined by Ricky Henderson. And “Rags” held his own at the end of the pen. But Detroit started 1984 with a rush, reaching 40 wins before they lost 10 games, relegating New York to third. New York came in second, second and fourth the next three years, but battled to a healthy mark 16 games over .500 in the latter. The team came up short, but they battled gamely in every year Rags closed until 1990, a year when the only starter who came close to double-figure wins was Tim Leary at 9-19.
The Yanks face a similar 2008 choice vis a vis the role of Joba Chamberlain, the recent arrival who dominated late 2007 as setup man to Mariano Rivera. Even with the stellar bullpen work of Mike Stanton, Jeff Nelson, and Ramiro Mendoza in Joe Torre’s early years, the team hadn’t owned the ends of games so dramatically since Rivera set up for John Wetteland in 1996.
With the Minnesota tag sale featuring Johan Santana receding into the background in recent weeks, the team appears likely to field a rotation featuring lefty stalwart Andy Pettitte, the still young Chien-Ming Wang, and veteran Mike Mussina, perhaps starting his final big-leagues campaign. But fans are even more buzzed that those vets figure to be backed by youngsters Chamberlain, Phillip Hughes, and Ian Kennedy. Without even deigning to mention the talented yet trying Kei Igawa, that gives the team six starters, the same situation they faced on January 5, 1984 with the signing of Niekro.
Joba Chamberlain is not the reincarnation of Dave Righetti by any means. Righetti already had parts of four big leagues campaigns behind him in January 1984, with a 33-23 record as a starting pitcher. He was a lefty. And unlike Goose Gossage, closer Mariano Rivera is not leaving, just the opposite really, with the ink barely dry on his three year extension. Joba would work in tandem with Rivera, not replace him, at least not for now. Chamberlain won two games and saved one last year in 19 outings, but he never started, often went just one inning, and rarely pitched on back-to-back days. Many in the organization and in the fanbase think it would be a crime to keep him in the pen without even trying to find out just how good a starter he could become. But that is an aspect that these two situations share. Fans thought the same of Rags in 1984.
It is true that Chamberlain’s arsenal includes more than the dazzling heat, and the off-the-table slider, two pitches good enough all by themselves for the guy pitching the eighth inning. He showed glimpses of a knee-bending change, and a big fluttering curveball too, as last year trickled down to its final days. The situation was the same with Righetti, who had all the pitches. He was moved to a vacant position, not shifted to closer because his pitching arsenal was insufficient to start games.
The Yanks appear likely to fill other key bullpen roles this season with young arms, with Jose Veras and Russ Ohlendorf perhaps at the head of the class. Will the club keep young Chamberlain carrying inherited leads to Rivera, or will other young guys get to vie for setup innings with newly signed veteran Latroy Hawkins, while Joba makes his mark in the rotation?
I think it can be argued that it’s impossible to know if Righetti’s conversion to closer 24 years ago was the right move for him, but that it was a good move by the club. They contended in the years that followed, and Rags performed well, clearly showing the ability to pitch just as well with the game on the line as at the beginning. Chamberlain has proven he has that skill too. If the Yanks hold firm and say no to Minnesota, they’ll already have two young studs fighting for starts. I’m glad that it’s Joe Girardi, Dave Eiland, and Brian Cashman’s call, and not mine to make. But if it was my call, and I had two youngsters already pounding early rotation heat, I would think that Chamberlain could be kept in the pen, in a role we know he can perform.
Stay tuned. One last number. Those 19 games in which Joba came out and pitched in the bigs in 2007? Seventeen wins, two losses. Thirty-three days until pitchers and catchers.
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!