I can't get enough of this picture.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like a starter who can go for six, even seven innings. Gone, of course, are the days when it wasn’t considered a crazy feat of superhuman strength to pitch a complete game. That all ended when we started paying our pitchers enough to consider them worth “protecting.” But, still, I like a good long, solid start when I can get one.  You know one where the starter makes it through a minimum of, say, four innings.

Presumably, you know where I’m going with this.

Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about Joba.

Here’s the way I see it — there’s mindfulness and there’s going off the deep end. In Joba’s case, I think we’ve got a clear example of the Bomber’s having gone completely insane.  Back in the days when the great Joba debate was raging, the main argument for using Joba as a starter was to fully maximize his mind-blowing abilities. It seems to me that the current strategy – if one might even dignify this insanity by referring to it as a “strategy” —  is at odds with our goals as they relate to Joba. When the Yanks insist on forcing Joba to either take a stupid number of days of rest between outings or yank him after a measly three innings, that hardly seems an effective way of maximizing his potential.  Certainly not if maximizing means maximizing in a quantitative way.  Based on recent evidence, the Plan isn’t doing much to help him maximize the quality of his outings either.  However, if we stick to the current plan — pitching Joba on a regular five-day rotation while putting a ridiculous cap on his pitch count — the one thing the Yanks are certain to maximize is the level of fatigue in our bullpen.  The month before the postseason.

Joba has, at times shown great promise, to be sure.  I just don’t see how anyone sees this as a logical way to develop a young pitcher. Nor do I see how this could possibly stand to benefit the Yanks.  To point out what I would think should be the obvious, if Joba manages to avoid an injury because he’s only facing seven batters a week, it still doesn’t do us much good if he’s got nothing when he faces them.

And, again, if we’re afraid to make full use of this guy as an actual starter who pitches on a regular schedule and for a normal number of innings, why did we insist on making him a starter.

With only a few weeks to go until the postseason, I think the best possible way to prepare Joba for what might be a must-win Game 4 ALDS start is to let him get his groove back. Rest is one thing, rhythm is quite another. Joba’s got no chance of performing effectively when the time comes if we don’t let him get back into some kind of semblance of a normal flow.

But then again, what do I know?  My way the guy runs the same risk of winding up on the DL as — oh, I don’t know — pretty much every other ballplayer alive. Their way, we get a mediocre, infrequently used pitcher who’s just about guaranteed to never sustain an injury.

Tough call.