The Broken Record

Any who listens to Mike Francesa on WFAN-AM knows you get a mix of entertainment, information, absurdity, arrogance, knowledge, etc. all rolled into one (no, that's not a weight joke). You also get repetitiveness and repetitiveness and ..you get the idea.

Yesterday afternoon I saw a blog post by the Journal News' Peter Abraham about Francesa discussing Joba to the bullpen...again. This was early in the afternoon. I got into the car close to 5:30 and guess what? He was still talking about harping on it.

And as is his usual style, he shot down differing view points or twisted them so that they really didn't fit the argument.

Case in point- a caller who mentioned that the Yankees should show some patience and let Joba establish himself as a starter. Francesa quickly went into a whole diatribe, something to the effect of, "Haven't you learned by now that the Yankees don't develop young pitchers? This is New York, not some last place team where you can pitch for 5 years and stink".

What does that have to do with leaving Joba in as a starter? Another caller mentioned that despite his struggles this season (we are in total agreement with that), Joba still has a sub-4.00 ERA.

Francesa deflected it by saying (again paraphrasing), "You just agreed that Joba will not have much of an impact as the #5 starter".

So what you are saying Mike, is that if Joba won't have an impact a starter in the playoffs, he shouldn't be a starter in the regular season? Sheer nonsense.

It is much easier to replace bullpen components than it is to get a good young starter. In addition to his ERA, Joba's 9.13 strikeouts per 9 innings is outstanding. Sure, you can use him in the pen come playoff time, if indeed the Yankees get there, but for now he should be taking the ball every 5th game.

And Mike Francesa should stop beating a dead horse already.