It may be best to leave Chad Green in the bullpen.
The New York Yankees have been down this road before; tantalized by an elite relief pitcher’s arsenal, they decide it is worth the risk to move him into the starting rotation, stretching him out to see how his elite stuff would play. In theory, it’s a great idea, as even in the age of bullpening, fans and analysts alike would agree that a dominant starter is more valuable to a team than a dominant relief pitcher. However, there’s no guarantee that the move to the starting rotation would benefit said pitcher, or that his body would be able to hold up from the rigors of throwing upwards of 100 pitches each time out. Although these two stories take place ten years apart, the Yankees have to make sure they don’t make the same mistake with Chad Green that they did with Joba Chamberlain.
The 41st pick in the 2006 MLB Draft out of the University of Nebraska, Chamberlain flew through the Yankees minor league system, reaching AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre by July 24, 2007, and promptly struck out 10 batters across five innings in his first start. Although looked at as a starter long-term, the Yankees decided to move Chamberlain into the bullpen so that he could help the team down the stretch in a tight AL East race with the Boston Red Sox. After being promoted to the Yankees roster on August 7, Chamberlain showcased a dominant 100-mile per hour fastball, which complemented with a mid-80s slider and curveball allowed the right-hander to succeed immediately. Despite being limited by the “Joba Rules” which prevented him from pitching on consecutive days and gave him an additional day of rest for each inning pitched in an outing, Chamberlain was dominant for the Yankees, going 2-0 with 0.38 ERA, 0.750 WHIP, 12.8 K/9, a 5.67 K:BB ratio, and an insane 1221 ERA+ in nineteen games. Despite a midge-aided loss in Game 2 of the ALDS, the future was bright for Chamberlain, and it appeared that the Yankees had their next great arm of the future, and potentially the successor to the immortal Mariano Rivera.
After beginning the season in the bullpen, Joe Girardi announced in May 2009 that Chamberlain would move to the starting rotation. In total, Chamberlain made 42 appearances in 2008, twelve of which were starts, going 4-3 with a 2.60 ERA, 1.256 WHIP, and 10.6 K/9 in 100.1 innings pitched. Chamberlain’s 3.6 WAR that season makes up a little under half of his career 7.9 total. Sadly, 2008 was the beginning of the end for Joba.
Despite the Yankees planning to limit him to less than 160 innings due to a new set of “Joba Rules,” Chamberlain, at 23, headed into the 2009 season prepared for his first full season as a big league starter. Overall, the results were less than stellar, as despite winning his only World Series, Chamberlain struggled for most of the season, going 9-6 with a 4.75 ERA, 1.544 WHIP, and a 97 ERA+ in 157.1 innings. Over 32 games, Chamberlain led the league with 12 hits batsman and saw his K/9 drop from 10.6 to 7.6, while his BB/9 rose from 3.5 to 4.3. When it came time for the postseason, Chamberlain was left out of the rotation, although he did appear out of the Yankees bullpen in ten out of their sixteen games, giving up two runs in 6.1 innings.
The next season, Chamberlain was beaten out by Phil Hughes for the fifth spot in the Yankees 2010 rotation, and from there, he was never the same, going 8-5 with a 4.25 ERA and 1.399 WHIP in 167 games with the Yankees from 2010-2013. Chamberlain’s 8.9 K/9 and 2.64 K:BB was a far cry from the dominant numbers he put up as a rookie, and just like that, the once-promising Yankee career of Joba Chamberlain was over at 27. After signing on with the Detroit Tigers, Toronto Blue Jays, Kansas City Royals, Cleveland Indians, and Milwaukee Brewers, Chamberlain failed to make an MLB roster in 2017, at the end of the season, announced his retirement at the age of 32.
In Chamberlain’s defense, injuries did play a big role in his decline, including Tommy John Surgery, and a dislocated ankle suffered in a Tampa jump center. However, most would agree that the Yankees had something special on their hands with Chamberlain and that shifting him to the rotation while placing severe limitations on his workload was what ultimately led to his downfall, both mentally, and performance wise.
Ten years after Chamberlain set the baseball world on fire, the Yankees found their next great relief weapon in a twenty-six-year-old out of the University of Louisville, Chad Green. To say that Green was a huge asset last year was an understatement, as armed with an upper 90s fastball and a wipeout slider (much like Chamberlain was once upon a time) he went 5-0 with 1.83 ERA and 0.739 WHIP in 40 games. In 69.0 innings pitched, Green struck out 103 batters, with a 6.06 K:BB ratio, 13.4 K/9, and 248 ERA+, and perhaps most importantly for a pitcher who calls Yankee Stadium home, 0.5 HR/9. In his breakout, 2.7 WAR season, Green had 30 multiple inning appearances, giving the Yankees the bridge they needed to get to David Robertson, Dellin Betances, and Aroldis Chapman in the back of their bullpen. Perhaps most importantly, Green had enough gas left in the tank to turn in a dominant appearance against the Houston Astros in the ALCS, pitching in 3 games, and giving up no earned runs in 6.1 innings, striking out seven while walking one.
Under new manager Aaron Boone, the Yankees have decided to stretch Green out as a starter this spring training. So far, Green has thrown 3.2 innings as a starter, going 0-0 with a 2.45 ERA and 1.64 WHIP in two starts. Green himself has said that his role this season will change his approach, citing that if he is in the rotation, he wants to develop a changeup to produce weak contact as a third pitch, but later mentioned that he doesn’t feel the need to develop the pitch as much out of the bullpen.
When a pitcher is young and has elite stuff like Green, it makes sense that a team wants to see if they could have a potential front of the rotation arm for the future. Green may have that stuff, as he was so dominant last season he held hitters to a .045 batting average with two outs and runners in scoring position last season. But right now is not the time to try this experiment, as the Yankees already have an above average five-man rotation in Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, Sonny Gray, CC Sabathia, and Jordan Montgomery, with Chance Adams and Justus Sheffield waiting in the wings in the minor leagues. That exact rotation had the Yankees one win away from the World Series last season, and they were able to do so because they knew they only had to give the team 5-6 solid innings before Green could take the ball from there. In today’s game, with injuries and pitch counts limiting starting pitchers like never before, a dominant, multi-inning relief pitcher is an incredible luxury to have; if you don’t believe me, go look up Andrew Miller highlights from the Indians run to the 2016 World Series. In Green, the Yankees have just that, an elite relief pitcher who proved time and time again last season he isn’t fazed by pressure. Hopefully, the Yankees learn from their miscues in the past, and keep Chad Green in the bullpen rather than letting history repeat itself a decade after ruining the career of their last can’t-miss relief pitcher.
