DEFENDING JOBA

I'd like to welcome the Season 1 host of the MLB Fan Cave to Bleeding Yankee Blue, Mike O'Hara. He'll be writing once in a while for us.  It's an honor to have him.  Here's his first entry and it's outstanding analysis on Joba. Give him a nice welcome... Thanks Mike!  --Casey

The Major League Baseball Trade deadline has come and gone, and if you look down in the Yankee bullpen, you’ll still find a young man wearing #62. That’s right, Justin “Joba” Chamberlain remains a New York Yankee.When he first arrived in the Big Leagues Joba was sold as a “can’t miss” type superstar. He threw a fastball that touched triple digits. His breaking stuff was plain filthy and Yankee fans jumped to their feet to marvel at the Nebraska man-child who was ticketed to heir to the Great Mariano Rivera someday.  Chamberlain was an instant hit on the biggest stage in the world…it seems so long ago doesn’t it?

Today Joba is a four-letter word to most Yankee fans. They rip him on social media, groan when he enters the game (mostly for mop up minutes) and warms up to Motley Crue’s “Shout of the Devil”. Sports writers call him a flop, as if he was an overly hyped Will Smith movie. They all now claim, they never really thought Joba Chamberlain would be that good…ever notice sports writers are never wrong?

The truth of the matter is Joba was and could still be great. He was once fearless and had a howitzer hanging off his right shoulder. The young reliever seemed unfazed as to who was standing in the batter’s box sixty feet, six inches away. No matter the situation he had the same approach, reach back and throw his heart and soul to the catcher’s mitt. It worked. His numbers initially  (a small sample size I grant you) were proof. And when the opposing hitter helplessly tired to catch up to Chamberlain’s high heat for strike 3, Joba would let out a deafening war cry, pumping his fist and pounding his chest. As a Yankee fan if that didn’t fire you up…well, you may as well take the 7 train over to Queens and root for the Metropolitans.

Many around the league found his “antics” to be classless, disrespectful or just obnoxious (though you have to wonder if he’d been a Cleveland Indian or Florida Marlin if the objections would have been so prevalent). Even his own organization would tell him to cool it. Mariano apparently pulled the fiery former Corn husker aside to tell him, “That’s not how we do it around here.”

Look, I love Mo. I always have and always will, but there is only one Mariano Rivera. Not everybody does it the same way. Where as some lose the strike zone with too much emotion, Joba seems to become more focused. Sure, Rivera is like a machine. He throws the cutter to the same point over and over again, keeping Louisville Slugger in business replacing broken bats. And when Mo records the final out he shakes the catcher’s hand and walks off like the Zen Master he is. That’s Mo, and all of baseball will miss him when he takes his final curtain call this fall.

I have never been a fan of the “Joba Rules.” I think that “protecting” a young arm does more damage than good. The Yankees, in all their wisdom, handled Joba’s role on the staff poorly. How can we hope for consistency when all the Yanks gave Chamberlain early on was an inconsistency? “He’s going to be a starter for us.” “We feel at this point he’s better learning the ropes in the bullpen.” “Ya know what? We are going to skip his turn and see what’s what.”

The Yankees blew it and what’s more, they know it. And rather than take a bit of responsibility they blame Joba. Now I am not saying this whole mess is the Yankees fault. Joba has not helped his cause much. He has at times been careless, defiant and injured (his fault at times and not at others).

But imagine if the Yankees handled Joba the way they did Rivera. What If they said. “This guy is the closer of tomorrow. He will understudy the Legendary Sandman until he is ready to take the wheel.”

Imagine if they embraced the style. What If they allowed Joba to be Joba? If they took the cuffs off of him and allowed him to throw hard, intimidate and go wild when he completed his work on the mound? Imagine that. It is clear to me we would be talking about a very different Joba Chamberlain today.

I will root for him no matter where he ends up, say Boston or either of the Los Angeles area teams. I will remember watching the young; passion fueled machine gun when he first appeared from the bullpen in 2007.

These days, post Yankee dynasty, the team lacks many notable components, but the one that seems to be in short supply is fire. The fire that Joba Chamberlain had, the fire the New York Yankees put out.




--Mike O'Hara, MLB Fan Cave Host, Season 1
   Twitter: @mikeyoh21
"Paulie was always my favorite player."

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