Ahhh, okay. I wasn't aware of how the rules worked. That's good then. I'd still like to see Nova up here now though. :wink: I honestly didn't mean that as serious. It was an off-hand remark just showing that I agree with whatever the Yankees feel is best for Hughes' long-term health. Obviously Burnett is going to have to play well for us to win it all, but without Pettitte he becomes significantly more important because let's be honest, we can't count on Javy. See above. :wink:
Well he got injured in 2008, and he had to pitch out of the bullpen in order for the Yankees to make the playoffs last year. So if you make any effort to look at it rationally, you'll see that there wasn't much the Yankees could have done to avoid an innings limit. And this type of "abuse" is hardly limited to the Yankees. Are the Nats "abusing" Strasburg?
As mentioned above, he lost a lot of time in 07 and 08 to injuries, and then spent much of last year in the pen... So he didn't really get the chance to ramp up his innings on a normal timeline. As for the rule of thirty, the important thing to remember there is that it's used to help young pitchers safely increase their workload while their bodies are maturing. With Hughes, they're at the tail end of the period where you really worry about that stuff, so while they don't want to do anything crazy and fatigue his arm, they also don't have to be as strict as when he was 20. Remember, if it wasn't for those two lost years, he probably would have been off his innings limit in 2008. (175-180 would have been his likely target as a 21 year old in 2007.)
