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Joba Chamberlain has picked up where he left off (prior to the midge invasion) in 2007 and could now be the most dominant reliever in the game.

As I noted previously, Joba needs a more old-school relief role on this team. After being limited to the eighth inning his first couple of appearances, Chamberlain was brought in with the tying run on base in the seventh inning and proceeded to get six quick outs in serving as a longer bridge to Rivera.

I continue to maintain that there's not a shred of evidence anywhere that having Chamberlain throw 30 pitches every two or three days in a multi-inning relief role will in any way harm him. And it's going to be really hard for the team and it's fans to stomach either Kyle Farnsworth or LaTroy Hawkins in the seventh inning of a one-run game a day or two after Chamberlain threw 13 or so pitches in the more conventional role.

The argument can also be made that extending Chamberlain in this way will aid his eventual transition to the rotation. But that transition is not happening this year. Let's get real.

Hawkins is not just over the hill in terms of stuff but pretty far down the wrong side of it. His days of dominating hitters are over, as he now can't even strike out five guys per nine innings as a short reliever.

Farnsworth has lost about five mph off his fastball but can still touch the mid-90s. But he's had just two above-average years since 2001, so the odds are decidedly against his harnessing his control enough to thrive in an eighth-inning role. I will concede that he's off to a decent start with five Ks and zero walks through Monday night.

No one else in the pen has the stuff or experience to step up, not this year.

While Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy got off to bad starts in the young season, Mike Mussina has looked serviceable despite his declining fastball. If you view this Chamberlain issue as a race between whether the bullpen or rotation needs him more, I'm keeping my money on the bullpen. There's less than a one-in-three chance that Chamberlain becomes a Yankees starter in 2008.

Is Bobby Abreu back? Last year, I defended him when most Yankees fans had written him off. He responded with OPS averages of .870, .972, .969 and .851 the last four months. The front office doubled down by giving him another year at $16 million instead of buying him out for $4 million and finding another right fielder.

I'm not buying that Abreu is a suitable No. 3 hitter on a premier offensive team. I think the expectation for him at this stage of his career should be the OPS he put up for all of last year, which was about 15 percent better than average.

Abreu's walk rate continues to decline. But he might be an option at the top of the lineup if Johnny Damon continues to hit weak flies to right field like he's swinging a Wiffle ball bat.

I wrote that Damon's decline last year was greatly exaggerated. The foundational skills (when measured objectively via statistics like strikeout/walk ratio, line drive percentage and average on balls in play) appeared to be largely intact, especially in the second half of 2007, when he sported a .365 on-base percentage. And the only thing that changed then was his average on balls in play, which climbed from .280 to .310. That seemed like a sustainable trend in light of Damon's career and given that the average hitter bats .300 on balls in play.

But Damon's hitting .217 this year on balls in play, and that doesn't seem unlucky given how weakly the ball leaves his bat most times. His line drive rate is a paltry 13 percent (average is about 18 percent, which Damon achieved last year).

You don't want to overreact to the early season. That's a natural tendency given how long we wait for games that once again count. But thinking the glass is half empty with Damon is not an unreasonable position at the moment, I'm afraid. It doesn't help matters that he should be a designated hitter given the embarrassing condition of his throwing arm, which literally is Little League-caliber.

Finally, there is some controversy regarding Alex Rodriguez moving to shortstop in the event that Derek Jeter's injured quad forces a more extended trip to the bench. The only other option on the active roster, Wilson Betemit, is not really one beyond an emergency.

John Harper writes foolishly in today's Daily News that, "As protective as Jeter is of his status as the Yankee shortstop, you know that would change in a hurry if A-Rod were asked to move back to his old position." Jeter's the Captain, right? Are we really to believe that he would put petty jealousy ahead of the best interests of the team? If that's what Harper thinks, he' buried the lede because then Jeter's selfishness should be the story. Of course, he has no basis for his view, which is merely a wild, wholly speculative piece of pop psychology.

The better question is, "Can A-Rod capably play short after such a long hiatus from the position?" The Baseball Info Solutions video scouts don't put him among the top seven third basemen. His range last year at third was well below average. So the answer is likely, "No." However, he doesn't have to play a capable short, he only needs to replace Jeter, who was second-worst in allowing hits on 34 grounders that the average shortstop would have turned into outs according to the Bill James Handbook.