WasWatching.com

Something small but interesting I noticed about this article.

The AP reports the quote as "Last year, it was kind of frustrating, having the rules,.."

If it were the New York Post or Daily News, it would have been "Last year, it was kind of frustrating, having The Rules..."

The Post is notorious for this when they write they quote a player talking about "The Boss".

Just a little something that gets on my nerves.

Terming it "the rules" lends credence to the idea that there really weren't "Joba Rules" per se, but rather every pitcher has/had "rules" governing their respective usage pattern.

The use of the term "Joba Rules" furthers the meme that there was a disagreement between Cash and Torre on how to use him.

In the interests of full disclosure, I kind of liked that take because I tend to believe that Torre had become a hindrance to the development of the pitching prospects that Cash has assembled.

This specific instance doesn't really show what I'm frustrated about, it was just something that caught my eye, especially since it was the AP and was an example of them not doing it. I see it as a way of the hack journalists at the Post changing the meaning of what someone says. An example: a player is talking about a comment Steinbrenner has made, and he says "Well, you know, he's the boss!"

If you run it as "he's the boss!", that's really not anything. It's a guy saying "well, he owns this team and he can do what he wants, just like any other owner of any other company with employees." If you run it as "He's The Boss!", you're making it sound like the player is reaffirming this notion that George (and now Hank) Steinbrenner is a caricature of an owner whose antics deserve their own proper noun.

Now, don't get hung up on whether or not it's true (about Steinbrenner being a caricature, or the player wanting to refer to him as such.) The point is that the journalistic integrity isn't there and that the journalistic is using a trick to change the meaning of the words someone says. This happens so much, and I've only begun to realize it in the past season by becoming an obsessive listener to the audio clips Pete Abe puts up at LoHud. If you haven't checked them out, you're missing out on some usually very good stuff.

Some may see it as a way to drive down their earning potential - working out of the pen instead of the rotation. Two thumbs up to Chamberlain for looking at the big picture.
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Most likely Joba realizes that this won't impact his earning potential because by the time he's up for arbitration or a new contract, he'll be a full-fledged member of the rotation (as long as he's healthy). This year's plan is a way to cap his innings and build him up for a likely full workload in 2009.

We seriously need help out of the pen, plus we have some depth in the rotation. No surprise that Joba's going with the flow, he seems like a team guy all the way.

"Some may see it as a way to drive down their earning potential"

Yeah I don't think Joba really cares about that. He was working as a janitor in Oklahoma a few years back. Now he's making league average salary and pitching for the Yankees.