Yankees DFA Eric Hacker

And the streak of curious roster moves by the Yankees continues...

I wrote this on another post so please excuse me for being redundant, I'm just really pissed:
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On a whole other topic, I am SOOOOO freakin' sick of the MLB TV announcers bringing up the "Joba to the pen" arguement. Yes, the middle pen sucks right now. But this arguement was brought up right on the heals of the last out being recorded in tonights debacle where the SP Hughes failed to 2 innings and gave up 8 runs.

I don't care how great of a reliever Job can be for an inning or two. He would be absolutely meaningless to the Yanks if the Yanks SP staff can't deliver 6 quality innings and hands the ball over to our bulley when were down by 8 in the 2nd inning! Johnathon Paps would be useless if the starters bury the team byt the 4 inning.

And the fact that Joba has gone as follows in his last 3 starts:

Bos- 5 innings and 1 run
Det- 7 innings and 1 run
Bos- 5 inning and 4 runs but 12 ko's and 2 walks. He had 1 bad inning (the 1st) where he allowed all 4 runs and then settled down and DOMINATED one of the best offenses in the game.

Sending Joba is NOT going to fix the bullpen problems!!!! The bullpen needs more than 1 guy and I wish people would get this thru their heads!!!!!

If Bostpn's starting pitching struggles will they EVER suggest that Paps should be turned into a starter again? I think not. Yanks need to to be strong 1-5 if they want to compete in this division.

I think Joba should be in the pen, but not right now. Their top 2 rotation spots are set for the next 3-5 years, so he's not going to be an ace on that staff anytime soon. Being a 4th or 5th starter won't help any in the playoffs, and their rotation should get them through the season if Wang gets his act together.

I don't think he goes deep enough into games to provide enough value, and he puts more pressure on the shaky pen by going 5 or 6 innings.

If they can trade for someone like Kevin Millwood to plug into the rotation then move Joba into setup duty, they would be a much better team.

It's a tough decision to make, though. I don't think there would have been many questions if they just signed a reliable arm like Juan Cruz or Russ Springer who signed cheap deals on less than stellar teams.

Take away Joba from the rotation and you're left with AA, C and Pettite as your only dependable starters. Pettite is gone next year and we can only hope that Wang can return to form. Even then, you'ld have AJ, CC, Wang and probably HUghes 1-4 next year, which means the Yanks would have to go out and acquire another starter. This notion that Joba can not last past 5 inning is pure stupidity. Joba thru 106 pitches in last game yet only pitched 5.2 innings. Why because he threw 24 pitches in the 1st inning where he gave up 4 runs. When he's on he's efficient and ends up throwing fewer pitches thus allowing him to go deeper. Also, keep in mind that he's still only 23 years old and is still acclamating himself to being a power pitching starter. As he goes on his arm will get stronger and he will learn to be more efficient. In his 5 starts he's avg'd 94 pitches and yet has only avg'd about 5 innings per start. As he becomes more dominant and gets 1-2-3 innings w/ out walking runners or allowing hits then he'll be able to limit his pitches per inning and spread those 90+ pitches into the 7th inning.

I know I'm smart but I'm not a rocket scientist so why is this so difficult for others to get?

I'll tell you what else pissed me off last night.....we have Aceves and Tomko now on the roster...and when Hughes needs to come out in the 2nd inning last night, Girardi brings in Edwar! Not only has Edwar been terrible, he's NOT a 3 inning pitcher!! He could have brought in Aceves...just like he did against Boston...and he could have gone 4-5 innings and kept us in the game. That's why you HAVE two long men on yor club!!

Guys like Melancon, Aveces, & Robertson are collecting dust...while Ramirez and Albaladejo are getting the innings and pitching poorly right now.

Tomko can be a decent reliever, but you can't expect much more than mediocrity.

He's posted FIP's between 4.55 and 4.59 in the past three years, and he's maintained similar peripherals through that span of time.

I'll never quite understand why Tomko has struggled so much in his career. He's always had pretty good stuff, but he doesn't quite seem to keep himself together, which is why he's posted just one sub 4.00 FIP in his whole career.

I would've kept Eric Hacker over Tomko, though.

He's already 26 and his pure stuff isn't that good, but he's continued to perform well in the upper minors. He's shown some ability to miss bats, he doesn't walk many guys, he induces groundballs and he's shown a great ability to avoid giving up home runs. He did post a 2.88 FIP in 142 innings between High A and AA last year, though, so he's shown some ability to pitch.

Berroa is still on the 40 man incase Arod experiences some sort of setback they can start pena at 3b and still have a UTIL in berroa. He's just Arod insurance for the time being.