Brian Cashman: Joba Chamberlain Is 'Not a Lock' for 25-Man Roster

Here's how you know that it's officially baseball season again: The New York tabloids are blowing things about the Yankees wildly out of proportion.

Yankees camp opened for pitchers and catchers on Monday, leading to a question for general manager Brian Cashman about Joba Chamberlain's role on this year's team. Cashman's answer was the kind of fairly innocuous pablum you hear all the time in spring training about no one's spot on the team being 100 percent secure.

"Anybody who has (minor league) options is not a lock for anything," Cashman said. "Any player with options has to re-earn everything. You earn more or you earn less --New York or Scranton. I fully expect Joba to be in our bullpen. If not, he would have worked his way out of it."

Naturally the eye is drawn to the part about Chamberlain not being a lock for anything rather than the part where Cashman fully expects him to be part of the bullpen this season. The fact that such an expectation exists, however, would make you think it would be a bit too boring a comment to land on the back page of a newspaper. As long as the New York Post exists, your thought would be wrong.

The real story here isn't about Chamberlain's role on this year's Yankee team. He'd have to be totally awful to lose his spot on the roster. The real story is about where Chamberlain stands after four years of shuffling roles, constant scrutiny and steadily diminishing returns.

Chamberlain hasn't panned out as hoped after his brilliant initial run as a call-up during the 2007 season, either as a starter or as a reliever. That's led to a lot of agita in New York as some believe the team ruined him by making him a starter while others think that Chamberlain himself has let the team down with an inconsistent approach to the job. His value has dropped steadily and might be at its lowest point ever right now thanks to Cashman's offseason assertion that he's never been the same pitcher since hurting his shoulder in 2008.

Rebuilding that value, either as a trade chip or to the Yankees directly, is going to be Chamberlain's priority this season. It's hard to imagine he'll be doing that in Scranton, but it's also difficult to see how he'll do that in New York in the present situation.