What Hughes can offer is still a mystery

Pitcher A has made 43 major-league starts -- all in 2008 and 2009 -- in the regular season, totaling 2212/3 innings, and has a 4.18 ERA. He has averaged 8.4 strikeouts and 4.1 walks per nine innings in those starts.

Since the start of 2009, Pitcher B has 39 major-league starts in the regular season, totaling 2191/3 innings, and has a 4.88 ERA. He has averaged 7.3 strikeouts and 3.2 walks per nine innings in those starts. Not dramatically different, right?

Pitcher A is Joba Chamberlain. Pitcher B is Phil Hughes.

We present these stats not to argue that Chamberlain should replace Hughes in the starting rotation now that Hughes is on the disabled list with a "dead arm." Rather, it's to display how much of a mystery Hughes remains, his current problem notwithstanding.

Even if Hughes can get his velocity back, in other words, exactly what are the Yankees getting?

"There is concern," Joe Girardi said Friday while announcing the transaction, "because we know the importance of Phil to our rotation."

He undoubtedly is important because Cliff Lee's reunion with the Phillies and Andy Pettitte's retirement left the Yankees with an unusually thin starting rotation. On Friday night, rookie Ivan Nova failed to complete five innings for his second straight start as the Yankees fell to Texas, 5-3, at Yankee Stadium. This rotation features more questions than an episode of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?''

Yet is it reasonable to make Hughes such a critical member of the team?

The Yankees had little choice but to plan on Hughes duplicating his first half of 2010 (a 3.65 ERA, 91 strikeouts and 29 walks in 101 innings) and forgetting his second half (a 4.90 ERA, 55 strikeouts and 29 walks in 751/3 innings). So for his first three starts of 2011 to go so horribly (a 13.94 ERA in 101/3 innings), even Hughes acknowledged, "Something had to be done."

It's a terrible development but not necessarily a fatal one for the Yankees, who needed only to look across the field Friday for inspiration.

The Rangers started Scott Feldman in their 2010 opener and Rich Harden in their second game. Feldman finished the season with a 5.48 ERA and Harden a 5.58. Yet they arrived in New York this weekend as the defending American League champions, having ousted the Yankees in last year's AL Championship Series.

"Plan B is patience," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman repeatedly said during the offseason after his failure to sign Lee.

Yankees fans will have to dip into a reservoir they don't often employ and hope the team's offense and bullpen continue to cover up for the inadequacies in the starting rotation.

Should a stud starting pitcher become available in June or July, the Yankees will be in prime position to finish the deal, thanks to their payroll flexibility and respectable supply of prospects as trading chips. Even if such a trade occurs, however, the club would need a lot more to go right to survive a Hughes disappearance.

It would need A.J. Burnett, who has battled inconsistency his entire career, to maintain his encouraging start. It would need Nova to get closer to his ceiling.

Hughes still is only 24 years old. He has time to mature. He also has time in, however. He pitched 330 minor-league innings from 2004-09. What exactly is Hughes? We don't know yet. This latest setback makes the final answer all the more evasive.