Chien-Ming Wang might continue to be bad-to-awful – This, on the surface, is a somewhat valid reason. But the next question is, why did you activate him early you idiots? The other problem with this is Phil Hughes needs to be working consistently (he’s not a complete product!) and if Wang is merely average and not outright terrible there’s no reason for Hughes to be around piggybacking. If he’s not putting in starting work, he should be in AAA, working on that change-up so he can get lefty batters out.

Andy Pettitte needs a rest – This one is pretty obvious. In his last few starts, it’s pretty clear that something is wrong with Andy. Probably that he’s old (wild guess). He has an incentives based contract, so no he isn’t going to volunteer to have some starts skipped so he can rest his back. It’s the job of the team, however, to tell him he needs to skip a couple of starts. Who better than to slip in for a few weeks than Hughes? After that, though, he can go back to the land of his favorite TV show and bump Casey Fossum or Josh Towers out of the rotation (or not, but I don’t care where they go as long as it’s not the New York Yankees).

The Yankees want to give me an aneurysm – Because having to listen to the B-Jobbers talk about Joba needing to be in the bullpen wasn’t, it’s already started since Phil Hughes looked good last night in that one inning. Guess what? Any potentially above average starting pitcher should look that good–they’re supposed to have the stuff to get through the opposing lineup three times so once shouldn’t be a problem (of course, sometimes it is but that is not my point). I must have whined too much during the relocation process and this is their revenge.

The mainstream media needs something to talk about - I am okay with people whining that Hughes should stay in the bullpen this year and not hit his innings cap, thereby delaying his progress as a starter if it keeps Wallace Matthews from pounding out insane columns about how Alex Rodriguez makes the Yankees lose simply by breathing.

He is very close to his innings cap – Luckily for us as Yankees fans, he isn’t going to hit that in June! This is the only actual circumstance I am okay with Hughes lingering around in the MLB bullpen for an extended period. If he is near his cap towards the end of the year, I will also be ridiculously ecstatic and you will probably hear me crying tears of joy over Hughes’ first healthy year in professional baseball.