I don’t know him, but I’d be willing to guess that Husker knows more about pitching than anyone on this site.

Played at Lincoln Northeast High School, which is about 10 minutes from my house. As a senior I personally saw this kid throwing 82 mph, how do I remember, how do you forget the name Joba, right? He then went to Nebraska Kearney (D2) and went from 82 to 92 in a calendar year. You do realize that doesn’t happen every day, right?

He then transferred to Nebraska Lincoln. It was at this time that I started working with a college catcher from, you guessed it, Nebraska Kearney. You may not have ever been to Nebraska in your whole life (I know you’ve driven through, right?) but around here, regardless of the season we talk about one thing, the Huskers. As you can imagine, in my work with this catcher the topic of Joba and how he knew him might have come up.

While at Nebraska, Joba developed severe bicep tendonitis, now he has rotator cuff tendonitits. Maybe those two injuries are coincidental and happenstance, maybe they aren’t…...but then maybe they are typical injuries of a pitcher that’s used. I’m not saying he’s using now and any time in the recent past, I have no clue.

King, I don’t know you from Adam and I doubt we’ve ever talked before, but I’m not big on projected things or rumors. You won’t find many posts from me in flame wars or player projections because I think alot it is nonsense and opinion. In fact the only other rumor I’ve passed along on this site was what I heard about Francisco Liriano’s rehab from a Twins player I knew. I said then (March I think it was) that his rehab had not gone that well and that he might be looking at coming back as late as the all-star break. Funny part is, someone just like you jumped in and told me how crazy I was and stop throwing out “baseless accusations”......or something like that.

I’d make one point: I’m not sure if it’s more useful to divide players for these purposes based on whether or not they’d make the Hall of Fame or not based on their whole careers than by how they are doing now, at age 38. For example, Randy Johnson is a future hall of famer, but this year he has a 4.58 ERA (to take the simplest stat). Takashi Saito, on the other hand, will not make the hall of fame but as a 38 year old he has a 2.18 ERA. Obviously a pitcher with Randy Johnson’s history is more likely to be offered a job past 38, but our question should be, where it’s more likely for a 38 year old starter to be a good pitcher or a 38 year old reliever.

Of the 19 38 year old relievers, Mariano Rivera, Saito, Arthur Rhodes (in limited time), Brian Shouse and Russ Springer are pitching excellently. Troy Percival, Trevor Hoffman, Dave Weathers, Doug Brocail, Rudy Seanz, Yabu, is pitching well, Timlin, Mike Herges, Todd Jones, Allan Embree, Al Reyes and Ron Villone is pitching badly. Kent Mercker’s been injured. You can dispute the particular descriptions, but I think it’s right that about 1/3 of these older relievers have been pitching excellently, a third decently and a third badly.

Of the non-injured starters, I would classify Smoltz (albeit in limited time) and Mussina as pitching excellently, Randy Johnson, Maddux, Wakefield, Lieber and Moyer as being decent, while Kenny Rogers and Tom Glavine as pitching terribly. Oddly, this is also symmetrical, though with a much higher proportion of older starters being decent, and only a few either excellent or terrible.