No offense to Joba. He is certainly a talent and could be a great player for years to come. But never has one Yankee generated so much off-the-field hype while doing so little on it. It’s part of what is wrong with the Bombers in Generation YES. The network fed into the fan hype and hysteria from the get go and produced that terrible, ostentatious interview show - filled with blubbering schoolteachers and ex-girlfriends. And every time he throws a pitch, YES broadcasters are right there to give us the radar-gun reading. As if he’s the only guy in baseball that can throw 98 mph! But that’s the problem: it’s all moving too fast. Yankee Legends are made in October, not the regular season. On this scale, Joba’s bug episode is his defining Yankeeography Moment thus far. And that’s not good news.

So here’s an idea: give the kid some breathing room and let his talent (not the hype) dictate his place in Yankee lore.