Opinion

Say what you want about George Steinbrenner and his management style, but I guarantee that the Joba Chamberlain debacle would not have happened under his watch.

The word came down today that Phil Hughes has won the fifth starter spot over Joba. It's the right decision–I'm not arguing that. The problem is that the Yankees have spent the last three years messing with Joba's head and because of it, he may very well end up needing a one-way ticket out of the Bronx to get his career back on track.

So it was all for nothing.

The innings limits, the pitch limits, the extra days off between starts the Yankees forced Joba Chamberlain to undergo during the second half of 2009—that rendered him impotent come the playoffs—under the guise that they were "protecting his arm" so that he could at long last become a full fledged starter this season...it was all a lie.

Tossed aside because of 3 2/3 spring innings.

Manager Joe Girardi and the Yankees staff evaluated the entire spring training and came to the same conclusion I did: Phil Hughes should be the fifth starter.

Hughes beat out Joba Chamberlain, Alfredo Aceves, Sergio Mitre, and the recently released Chad Gaudin.

Girardi has been very impressed with the much-improved changeup that Hughes has been using and working on throughout the spring.

Chamberlain, Aceves, and Mitre are all now competing for spots in the Yankees bullpen. Nobody, including Chamberlain, is guaranteed a role. Each player will need to earn it.

After almost two years of blogging on Jorge Says No! , I have decided to start a new venture in the baseball blogging world.

Young outfielder Tyler Colvin will make the Chicago Cubs' Opening Day roster if the team can find him sufficient playing time, according to manager Lou Piniella . Colvin, 24, would need to get somewhere in the neighborhood of two starts per week in order to justify keeping him on board, by Piniella's reckoning.

We wandered in here the week of the UW vs Arizona State game after walking two miles from 3rd and Mill to East Apache Blvd. and Rural in 100 degree weather, in search of liquor and food. Fortunately for us, this place specializes in both.

The Baers Den is a must stop if visiting just for Game Day or for Baseball's Fall and Spring training camps.

The thought is that I would do a follow-up to my article that was written on October 22, 2009.

We spent 11 days in Tempe for Spring Training and St. Patrick's day in the desert.

One of the best things about being a Yankees Featured Columnist here on Bleacher Report is being able to bring up and address certain rumors that float around.

This will be another story pertaining to one of those rumors currently floating around, which now will be addressed by me, and I'm sure will be addressed amongst the Yankees B/R community here as well. I'm looking forward to it.

Lately, a certain big-named pitcher who will be a free agent pitcher after the 2010 season is now being linked to the Bronx.

I come at this with a bias; this I admit willingly.

You see, I am a Tampa Bay Rays fan.

I would love nothing more than to see the Evil Empire crumble and fall and watch Hank Steinbrenner go off his meds and give his best "like father, like son."

Every year I hope that the "aging" Yankees finally, well, show their age. 

Every year people wonder when these three players' stars will begin to dim.

Once a proud franchise that spent much of the early part of the last decade as contenders in the American League West, once a franchise that was hailed all across the world of baseball as a club that practiced the once revolutionary method of "Moneyball" under the direction of general manager Billy Beane, once a franchise that fans could count on to challenge the New York Yankees for American League supremacy, the Oakland Athletics are now one of baseball's failing franchises—a downward spiral that has taken place over a mere three seaso

Aroldis Chapman was forced to leave an exhibition game on Monday, March 22, versus the Colorado Rockies with what my best friend and mentor, Hal McCoy, described as, "a twinge in his back, or stiffness in his back, or tightness in his back."

Either way, the Cuban flame thrower has a sore back. 

The band Alkaline Trio once sang, "When you're only 23 it's not attractive to complain about your sore back."

For Reds' fans the news is less than "attractive"; in fact, it's just plain scary.