Are Joba Rules helping or hurting?

Wow! Am I glad there were no "Joba Rules" when I was Joba Chamberlain's age. There were no 'Kitty Rules," only just keep sending the kid out there and see if he learns to pitch on the big-league level. Bases loaded, sixth inning. No idea of how many pitches he's thrown Jack McKeon would come out to the mound, (he was my playing manager and catcher in 1958) and say "Okay kid, see if you can pitch your way out of this mess."

Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't. But I did learn how to pitch out of jams, do some damage control and limit what could be big innings to a couple runs, and learned how to use different pitches and different speeds to get out of the inning and still keep my team in the game. That was the way I learned my trade when I was Joba's age.
 
Now, let me clear about this, Joba didn't have the backlog of innings as an amateur pitcher that I did. I remember pitching a seven-inning game at 11:00 a.m. in a tournament and when we won I pitched another game at four that afternoon. I was 15 years old. I never had serious arm issue in my career until September of 1967 when my elbow gave way after pitching 305 innings in 1966 and then in the heat of the best pennant race ever, September 1967, I was pitching my 65th inning of the month, seven starts averaging nine innings a start and trying to go 8-0 and pitch the Twins into the World Series.

Not to be. It may have been smart to give my arm a little breather at that time but that wasn't even a thought then. I don't say this to boast, only to point out the difference n the training of pitchers then and now. A nice blend of the two would be nice. It is more difficult to pitch today than at any time during my baseball lifetime for a number of reasons that you are all familiar with: strike zone, size of parks, and size of hitters, size and weight of bats, no brushing hitters back off the plate, body armor and on and on. It's a hitter's game today and a pitcher is at a huge disadvantage. That really accentuates how great Zack Greinke has been!
 
But Chamberlain or any other young pitcher is never going to learn how to pitch going to the mound every nine days and having a pitch counter looking over his shoulder like playing the old quiz show game "Beat the Clock." I feel sorry for him. I have great respect for Brian Cashman, Joe Girardi and the Yankee staff that has this plan in place. I'm sure they've thought it out thoroughly. I just wonder if they've asked for input from anyone who has pitched 250-300 innings a year several times, how they trained and what they might do differently.

This seems like a tremendous disservice to Chamberlain. If he does well in October the people behind this plan will say, "See, we knew it would work." But are they helping him long term? Are they teaching him how to pitch? Or are they just interested in arm strength, miles per hour and power instead of pitching.

Time will tell. I'm just glad I was never subjected to it. I may have been a part of the people following the game and not playing it long before my 25-year career ended.