AJ Burnett - His Importance as the Yankee's #2 Starter

Earlier today AJ Burnett was announced as the second starter for the Yanks to begin the season. Whether or not you think that job was better suited for Phil Hughes or that because of his inconsistencies Burnett should have been more of a back end of a rotation guy so he could get skipped once in a while until he proved more stable on the mound is a moot point now.

When AJ is on I have always felt he is one of the top ten pitchers in the American League, with absolutely unhittable stuff. When’s he’s off… let’s just not bother with that anymore because if you’re reading this you know what happens when he doesn’t have his command.

Now that we know where AJ lines up in the rotation I want to take a look at the early part of the season and dissect a little bit of what to expect from him and how a poor start could affect the Yankee chances of winning games.

The adage in baseball that you are only as good as your next day’s starting pitcher holds a lot of influence for me. And if you receive two or three sub par outings from your starters then you wind up wearing out your bull pen much too early in the season. Close games can be lost in the late innings if your relievers don’t have their sharpest stuff if they have been used too early and too often to pick up bad starts.

The Yanks have the greatest blessing in all of baseball by having Mariano Rivera as the anchor of their pen. But he is rarely, if ever, going to pitch in a non-save situation. That means Logan, Robertson, Chamberlain, Feliciano, Soriano and my guess is Freddy Garcia will be your middle relievers.

CC is the kind of pitcher who will eat up 7-8 innings most days, so in his start you can expect an inning of
Soriano and Rivera. And the key, not just to winning the next day, but to securing victories later in the week now lies squarely on Burnett’s shoulders.

A three inning outing by AJ the next day that finds the yanks down 5-0 quickly and forces Garcia to mop up for four innings means that if Phil Hughes has a poor showing the next day, Garcia isn’t available and now you expend Joba, Robertson and Logan and we are only three days into the week before the unknowns of Ivan Nova and Bartolo Colon have even made it to the mound.

If Nova winds up over his head, and Colon gets shelled, we will have an exhausted and over used Yankee bullpen in any five game stretch. Losses and injuries to the pen could quickly mount in May and June if this keeps up.

All of this can be traced back to bad starts by AJ Burnett early in any week.

Of course, even if AJ leaves a game early, it is entirely possible that Hughes picks him up the next day by going 8 innings and allowing the bullpen to rest. And I am cognizant that the scenario I am discussing above is your typical doom and gloom negative attitude many Yankee fans are stereotyped for these days. But it isn’t my fault Burnett melts down and this should be a non-story if he wasn’t prone self destruction. Nor would it be so pressing if the AL East were as easy as it has been in the past. But there are five excellent teams, all with very potent lineups, that the Yanks are going to have to play 18 times each this season. I’m not even convinced that the wild card team will be able to come out of the AL East this year because it is so hard.

If that is the case, then the Yanks have to win their division to even make the playoffs; a truly difficult thing to do this year.

Am I being a little alarmist?  Yeah, sure... possibly.

But we have also seen this story with AJ play out for two years now and I think it is only rational to make the connection between short outings by the starting pitcher and the ongoing wear and tear it will put on the relievers and how it relates to specific wins and losses.

Knowing that AJ will bet the #2 starter to start the season we can now project his early opponents:

Saturday April 2 vs Detroit at Yankee Stadium
*Thursday April 7 vs Minnesota at Yankee Stadium
Wednesday April 13 vs Baltimore at Yankee Stadium
Tuesday April 19 AT Toronto
Monday April 25 AT Chicago White Sox

*Here is an interesting note: based on how the rotation shakes itself out, the Yanks first series against a division foe will be in Boston April 8, 9 and 10 and Girardi will have to start Hughes and the 4th and 5th starters: Nova and Garcia or Colon.

So my nightmare scenario could come into play during the second week of the season where, if AJ flames out on April 7th against the Twins we will lose our long reliever that day. If Hughes has a rough outing his first time at Boston this year, the bull pen will be desperately depleted for the final two games at the Red Sox when we’ll have the rookie Nova and the luck of the draw in Garcia or Colon.

Is there anyone reading this, any Yankee fan, coach or member of the media comfortable going in to Boston with a tired bullpen with games being started by Phil Hughes, Ivan Nova and Bartolo Colon? Not me.

This team has a phenomenal relief corps, so if AJ Burnett can just keep it together on Thursday April 7th against the Twins, then the Yanks will have a much better chance of winning games in Boston over the course of the next three days.

I’d say “in short,” but that would be pointless… so I’ll go with “ultimately.” Ultimately, my point is that the entire pitching staff’s success this season is going to hinge upon AJ Burnett not getting pulled from games in early innings. He doesn’t need to go 8 innings every time, but I think at least 6 innings, and hopefully into the 7th while keeping games close is the single most important pitching concern of the 2011 season for the Yankees.

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