But beyond the next few weeks, you have to wonder where this is all heading for Chamberlain. Even though Joba still occasionally cranked up his fastball to 95-96 mph this season, Yankee people privately admit that since injuring his shoulder in 2008, he hasn’t had the same life on his heater or the same bite on his once-unhittable slider.

It doesn’t mean Chamberlain can’t be effective. He finished the season with a 4.40 ERA, but that was due mostly to some blow-up innings in the first half. As Girardi said Tuesday, “He had hiccups just like everyone else, but his hiccups were usually a little bigger, lasted a little longer.”

Chamberlain was better in the second half, posting a 2.15 ERA over his final 30 appearances.

– John Harper, N.Y. Daily News.

You can’t really blame Joe Girardi for slotting Kerry Wood above Joba Chamberlain on the Yanks’ postseason bullpen depth chart. After all, Wood posted a 0.69 ERA in 26 innings after joining the Yanks. Sure, he probably enjoyed a little bit of luck — he struck out an impressive 31 batters in that stretch but walked 18 — but it’s hard to argue with those results.

And I’ll add that, though Chamberlain’s average fastball velocity isn’t far off his mark from 2008 — it was 95.0 then and 94.6 in 2010 — as Harper asserts, there’s a chance that shoulder troubles have impacted its movement and effectiveness. Neither his fastball nor his slider rates as well as it did in 2007 or 2008, and he induces fewer swinging strikes.

But all that said, Chamberlain is still a good pitcher and there’s a whole lot of evidence to suggest he suffered a great deal of misfortune this season. He struck out more than a batter per inning and walked only 22 guys in 71 2/3 frames, and his FIP, xFIP and tERA were all more than a run lower than his ERA. And it’s easy to forget that he’s still only 25.

If the Yankees are silly enough to have devalued Chamberlain because of a rough season ERA-wise, some team would be wise to make a move for him this winter, expecting he’ll return to form. The Yankees usually don’t work like that, though.