Mets, Yankees tread carefully with young pitchers

ATLANTA

Joba Chamberlain is a reliever now, no longer burdened by "The Joba Rules," which limited his innings as a starter, but Yankees general manager Brian Cashman still bristles when the organization's policy regarding young pitchers is brought up in conversation.

The new wave of thinking is really not so new anymore, especially in the wake of the Verducci Effect, a data-based syndrome relating to innings and development that bears the name of Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci, formerly of Newsday. And the old-school mind-set, which still refuses to accept a correlation between an early overload of innings and catastrophe, is fraying faster than a suspect rotator cuff.

Given the choice, Cashman sides with the data, and the Yankees strictly abide by a program that limits innings for pitchers under the age of 25. The game of baseball may be more than a century old, but that doesn't mean this generation has to follow the mistakes that teams made during the past millennium - and some still are making.

"I don't care what an old-school person wants to say, the old school is what we're learning from," Cashman said. "Too much, too soon and it's bye-bye to the asset. Just like back in the day, when they said it was OK to smoke, that smoking wasn't bad for your health, and then it turns out everybody is dying of cancer. Now they don't say that anymore. They learned from what happened in the past and so you evolve, and you improve, and you tweak, and continue to grow.

"That's why we have a program. I'm not saying it's perfect, and it's the best, and it's exact - but it's always evolving. We go over it with our baseball people so we're comfortable with it and we're continuing to try and learn and adapt."

Gradual buildup

Generally speaking, the Yankees' system prevents pitchers below the age of 25 from surpassing their previous year's innings total by more than 50. This step-by-step method is no guarantee that a pitcher won't get injured, but the Yankees, as well as other clubs, believe it's the best way to at least guard against it.

"There's been a lot of studies done, and a lot of time and effort put into it," said Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland, who monitored Phil Hughes closely in the minors. "It was all explained to me as to how and why and I bought into it. Then over the years, I've seen how it works, and kind of given my input into it."

The Mets follow even stricter guidelines. Pitching coach Dan Warthen said they subscribe to a 30-inning cap in subsequent seasons, but in the case of Mike Pelfrey, the team abandoned that policy in 2008 as the Mets exhausted themselves in trying for a playoff berth - and ultimately fell short.

That season, Pelfrey, who was 24 at the time, was right at the cusp of a 50-inning increase, and the Mets discussed cutting him back significantly for the final month. Pelfrey said he was shown a schedule that had him pitching only three times in September, but then John Maine went down with a season-ending shoulder injury. At first, Pelfrey was not happy with the idea of his innings getting cut, but he understood why.

"You don't like it, but you realize they're trying to look out for you," Pelfrey said.

In 2007, Pelfrey threw 1522/3 innings split among three levels - Class A St. Lucie, Triple-A New Orleans and the Mets. Pelfrey then had what was considered a breakthrough year the following season when he went 13-11 with a 3.72 ERA in 32 starts, but reached 2002/3 innings, primarily because of the injury to Maine.

After that significant increase in innings, Pelfrey struggled in 2009 as his ERA ballooned to 5.03 in 31 starts for a total of 1841/3 innings. Pelfrey blames some of that on confidence issues, but also acknowledged there was a physical component.

"It was probably more mental," Pelfrey said. "I don't know if that workload attributed to it, but I know there were times when my arm didn't feel as live. Earlier in the year, I also had some elbow tightness."

No experience like majors

Though Pelfrey has stabilized in the first six weeks of this season, the Mets have another case study on their hands in 20-year-old Jenrry Mejia, who set off a public debate at the end of spring training when he made the club as a relief pitcher. Mejia is considered the Mets' top pitching prospect but he never had been used out of the bullpen previously.

Given the Mets' underwhelming bullpen expectations for 2010, however, the team's decision-makers figured that Mejia, with a 97-mph fastball and little else at this stage, already had the best arm of their relief corps.

It probably didn't help that manager Jerry Manuel began comparing the natural movement of Mejia's fastball to Mariano Rivera's lethal cutter, but the Mets made the judgment call that using him in the bullpen initially could actually benefit him in the long run - or at least not damage Mejia. Manuel said that he did not follow any particular guidelines for Mejia in using him out of the bullpen the first six weeks of this season, other than avoiding the most pressure-filled situations.

"I just don't think there's one formula that you can say is the perfect formula," Mets general manager Omar Minaya said. "You take it on a case-by-case basis. Each organization may have their own philosophies, but each player is different. You have to take into account their age. Did they come out of college? Did they come out of high school? All of these things you have to take into account."

The bigger question was twofold: Were the Mets doing what was best for Mejia's development? And by rerouting him to the bullpen, would delaying Mejia's return to a starting role maximize his value to the Mets, both short and long term? Based on Mejia's uncommon maturity level, Minaya was comfortable with the decision.

"Without a doubt, yes," Minaya said. "The other day, against the Phillies, having him go out there and having to face Placido Polanco, Shane Victorino, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard - that's a great experience. In the minor leagues, there's no way you're going to learn the adrenaline of facing those kind of guys. So that's development right there."

Making adjustments

The Mets and Yankees don't see eye to eye on many things, but the Mejia situation, like that of Chamberlain and Hughes before him, is one on which the two teams do agree. If there is a need at the major-league level, both GMs have no problem with changing a prospect's role for the immediate future.

"In a perfect world, you'd love to keep everybody in their incubator and complete their programs and pop them up," Cashman said. "But at the same time, you have a living, breathing, trying-to-win situation right here in front of you and you never want to have guys sitting down below that are better than the guys you have at the top.

"And so that's the conflict, and when that exists, you basically pop those guys up top - but you continue their development up top, too. Just because their jersey doesn't say Scranton anymore and it says New York, you can't all of a sudden say, now that he's a big-leaguer, you don't need to do any teaching or any protecting, that's BS. These guys are your assets, it's what you're building yourself around. This is what your future is supposed to be."