Raisin’ Joba
By Dr. Mark Filippi ~ July 9th, 2009. Filed under: Digest Contributors.
I wanted to give my two cents on all the Joba Chamberlain talk on the site.
If you go by stats and performance, everyone wanted to bottle that ’07 version of Joba. That season was suited to his mental approach to the game. It was a sprint that started in AUG. He had a very clear task and he was never overused due to the ‘Joba Rules’. That all changed in ’08 as Torre left and the Cashman/Girardi era began. Joba’s ’08 season was the polar opposite to ’07. It was a marathon not a sprint. His task was altered several times. And his role was challenged and tinkered with so much that he was placed in a positioning of ‘proving himself’ in-season. He got hurt and was shut down. Then his off-season was impacted by the DWI and his family’s struggles. He flew under the radar in the A-Rod saturated spring. This ’09 season is a carbon copy of ’08. I just wish the Yankees knew how to profile.
If you want my take, this lunacy has to stop. He’s not wired to start, period. He won’t ‘develop’ into one over time either. He’s still traveling in an adolescent brain that is struggling to organize what’s called a ‘narrative coherence’ – which is the life story you take into adulthood at 25 years old. Joba carries the signatures of an ONTO brain design, which functions best when it’s able to self-reference. That means he’s a priority-based, task to target, frontal lobe-oriented individual. If you put the task and target too far apart, he loses focus. His behaviors are more rhythmic when doing fine motor activity than gross motor. So with respect to pitching, intensity is more welcomed than duration. That’s not a starter folks.
Joba’s prone to losing his rhythm as a starter within a game, an inning, even an at-bat! Why? The payoff for being an elite starter is 200+ innings and 35 starts away. Within a given game, he isn’t given his fish until he gets 7 innings and 100+ pitches in. So that leads an ONTO like him to get bored, sloppy, not challenge hitters, fight with Posada, etc…In a nutshell, be a rebellious, temperamental ‘teenaged brain’. Put him in the pen and have him throw 2 pitches well instead of 4 pitches competently and instead of an overachieving 5th starter who will tease you he’s a number 2, you’ll have a caged lion for the 8th inning and eventually the 9th, in years to come. By the time he’s 25, he’d be Papelbon’s #1 rival. And it’s not like an ONTO can’t succeed as a starter. The Yankees have AJ Burnett finally on track. It’s the rare young ONTO that can shift their attention to the mechanics of pitching (like Tom Seaver) and thrive in that role easily.
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July 9th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Since you never saw Joba pitch out of the rotation in the minors (and probably ignored his excellent work out of the rotation last season), I can tell you unequivocally that you are dead wrong and you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.
I’m sorry I wasted 3 minutes reading this tripe.
The worst thing the Yanks ever did was put Joba in the pen in 2007. He will not be that guy again.
It doesn’t take an ounce of talent to throw two pitches as hard as you can until you empty the tank.
There was no book on Joba back then. There is now. He never threw his slider for strikes and still got most of his strikeouts on that pitch. They would simply lay off that pitch now.
Joba continues to be the most overanalyzed pitcher in the major leagues.
Leave him the hell alone and learn something about patience and developing young pitchers.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Why do you keep perpetuating this Joba to the ‘pen crap? Unreal.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Joba is a waste of a conversation and quite frankly he’s not worth talking about. Everybody hold onto to your hats, but the reality of things is Joba belongs in Scranton. The Yankees saw a very good pitcher for a small sample size in 2007. Joba migrated through advanced A ball to short stints in AA and AAA (11 Starts 48.1 In). His numbers are impressive in the minors but Joba never stayed around long enough to give the hitters a second go around. The Yankees caught lightening in a bottle with a hard throwning young pitcher, who caught the league off guard for 2 months. Over a full season is it nieve enough to think professional hitters wont catch up to a 98 mph fastball? Joba would have seen success in the bullpen but a few times around the league his command issues wouldve been figured out. Joba has an immense amount of talent but his repatoir is not ready for the big leagues. The Yankees got stuck in a position where they used Joba’s 2007 callup as a way to give the fans hope during a collapsing season. However, Cashman and brass went too far where they cannot retrack on Joba and admit he’s not ready. Philip Hughes is a great example because he showed flashes of success, took a few beatings, and now you see an effective major league ready pitcher. Young players are not only measured by there stats but also by the way the comeback from adversity. Joba has never had the opportunity as the Yankee brass yank him the minute he gives up 3 or 4 runs. I think a few beatings will put into perspective that his stuff needs alot of work. If Joba doesn’t experience some adversity and learn how to deal with it; you’ll never see him maximize on the talent he has. Even the great pitchers only completely dominent for short periods of time a la Pedro Martinez’s 97-03 period. Give the hitters credit they know how to hit. Give the pitchers credit it takes a lot of work to be a great pitcher and front end starter. Let’s see if Baby Joba earns it; if he has the guts to take it.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
’09 is a carbon copy of ‘08..?? How is that..??
“His task was altered several times. And his role was challenged and tinkered with. He got hurt and was shut down…”
In ’09 his tasks have not been altered once, his role has not been challenged or tinkered with (if anything his value as decent 5 is more appreciated with Wang’s troubles), and he has made every start (yes he came out of the one but that’s b/c he got hit with the ball and he made his next starts since)…
Please let this nonsensical argument rest and give him at least a full season before deciding he cannot make it as a starter…
July 10th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Wow…lots of fighting words here…I’ll try to make my case again.
#1 His ship has sailed…and the crew has changed!
Joba HAD the potential to be a #1 starter. But they rushed him in ’07 and warped his path a lot. Now the best he can be here is a #3 or #2a with CC & Burnett in front of him. Not his fault. So for two reasons he’s not going to get the the open tryout he had in 2008 when Cashman’s ‘start the kids’ plan was in full effect. One is b/c of what Joba is. The other is what the Yankees are, which is a win now, win every year team. Short of a trade to a small market team, Joba is in baseball purgatory. He’s getting micro-managed, over-protected, and ultimately underdeveloped as a MLB starting pitcher. He’s Cashman’s greatest botched project.
#2 Brain Diva talking: “I know, you don’t, so listen…”
I realize NYBD readers love their stats. But to dismiss the role of brain design in an athlete’s development as ‘icky voodoo’ is silly. I’ve been out here profiling human beings in all walks of life for over 20 years now. All I did was say what I see everyday. To make it a little more obvious to the uninitiated, Joba relies on what’s known as the THRUST coordination pattern. Betzy Wetzig and others did the research on this 30+ years ago… http://is.gd/1taLd
What’s happened to Joba is what happens to most of us when we use our override patterns: pain & burnout…http://is.gd/1taU1 – If the Yankees recognized WHAT kind of brain they we’re working with, they’d understand that to drag him through the last three seasons like this was a high risk proposition, maybe he would of been sent to Winter Ball to work on his slider, eh?
#3 I’ve seen this movie before…
The idea that this season Joba’s role has been clear and his tasks unaltered exists only in a vacuum. Every start he makes is anticipated, scrutinized and evaluated BECAUSE the entire
organization has no solid way to develop him as a starter OR a reliever at this point. He pitches with the shortest leash possible, gets taken out if he gets hit early, and never seems to look in command for more than one outing in a row. The innings count for the season looms out there as a choke collar (sorry for the pun) so Giradi has to ration out the Joba or he’ll have none left for the stretch run. This is the SAME logic as 2008. So I don’t have to wait to know.
Joba lacks the inner coherence and outer guidance to absorb a ‘re-start’ in the minors now. He’s not as balanced as his ONTO teammate, Philip Hughes, who went underground after being hurt and is now thriving in the pen (as Joba would have). Joba is following in the shoes of Mike Pelfrey of the Mets, another young ONTO starter with a shaky psyche. Unlike Big Pelf though,
Joba has not been allowed to FAIL at the major league level b/c the Yankees are a win now, win every year team that already sacrificed the ’07 season by opting for Cashman’s Kids…
Again, I know all this is not the typical way to break down a player. But instead of the hand wave mentality, take a look at the role of brain design in GENERAL and then figure out if it applies to the development of consistency in a major league starting pitcher or not. Google the work of Stephen Porges (neuroception), Dan Siegel (MINDGAINS.ORG) & Daniel Goleman (social intelligence) and realize that the people around Joba also shape how he overcomes the obstacles of not having a mature brain yet (not until 25), let alone a mature approach to starting in the major leagues. With that said, let the midges loose!
Travel Light, MRF 07.10