Epic Drop: Top 10 Disappointments from Joba Chamberlain's First Start

Here's the link, and good grief... it's like there's never been a 22-year-old pitcher with good stuff before. I get that the rules (Joba or otherwise) are different in New York, but we've got 120 years of history with this game here, folks. Young pitchers struggle. It's what they do. They get nicked from guys bleeding out walks and fouling off pitches and they don't, for the most part, come out and justify starting ovations and World Wide Lemur hysteria and blogger meltdowns.

Do I think the Yankees are doing the right thing in getting him to transition this way? I have no idea. They're paying a lot of money right now to not win games, and he's a better idea than Kei Igawa or whatever else is behind Scranton Door Number Six. On the other hand, the specter of Mark Prior and a million other good young SPs that didn't get to become good old SPs lurks. It's amazing that, given the money involved, MLB still really doesn't know how to handle young arms, and that it's little better than a medieval dunking test to determine witchcraft.

Anyway, coming back from the esoterica... assuming he doesn't get hurt, he'll be fine. In a year to three years, he'll be more than that. And the world will little note, nor long remember, that his first start didn't last long. Sadly, the world will also little remember any of this the next time some hotshot rook takes the bump in an MLB+ town...