YES Network.com

NEW YORK — The answer to how to fix what was broken around the Yankees in 2008 is a simple one to Jorge Posada. That's starting pitching and plenty of it coming off a season when the Yankees passed on trading for Johan Santana and, according to Posada, youngsters Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy succumbed to the burden of high expectations barely the infancy of their careers.

CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets and A.J. Burnett are the top pitchers to hit the free agent market. Posada's message is not to sign one of them, but to import at least two front-line starters.

"We need a five-man rotation," said Posada after a taping of GMC Truck Presents CenterStage, premiering on the YES Network on September 28 after the Yankees Post Game Show. "You cannot have question marks. Those question marks have to be erased. The question is do they want to come to New York? I hope they do."

Surprisingly, Posada, on the mend from season-ending surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder, told CenterStage host Michael Kay that the rotation should not include Joba Chamberlain. Transitioned from dominant eighth-inning reliever to a potential ace in the making, Chamberlain's promising season was curtailed by rotator cuff tendinitis. That, says Posada, is a clear indication that Chamberlain doesn't have the physical makeup to handle the rigors of a starting pitcher, something he's believed since the dawning of Spring Training.

"Leave him in the bullpen," Posada told Kay. "You're going to lose him because he's going to get hurt."

"He's 22 years old and I don't think he's going to put up the work of having 200 innings every year even at a young age," Posada elaborated to reporters. "This year shows you a little sign. A little tendinits tells you a lot. There's not much you can do to prevent him from throwing 200 innings. I don't see it."

Chamberlain is beyond the point of exasperation regarding the ongoing debate about his role with the Yankees. When asked about Jorge Posada's comments that he's better suited for the bullpen, Chamberlain wished he was able to clone himself into two, one a starter and the other a reliever.

"I'm so tired of it to be honest with you," Chamberlain said. "It's going to be that way and people are going to have an argument or a say about it until we finally figure out where I'm going to stay. At the beginning of the year, we're going to have to say this is good and I won't to have to answer any questions like that again.

"He's been around the game and that's his opinion. I [started] in the middle of the season. I know what it takes."

When asked if Chamberlain can handle the workload as a starter long term, general manager Brian Cashman clarified he has not discussed what's planned for him or anyone in 2009. Like Cashman, Girardi was OK with the opinions expressed by his veteran catcher, even about a topic that's sometimes been touchy around the Yankees.

"All players have opinions and I'm OK with that," Girardi said. "We still envision Joba as a starter. We just didn't have a chance to build him up."

What Posada hasn't seen is the disappointment that is a Yankees team with a $200 million payroll and on the brink of missing the playoffs for the first time in a full season since 1993. It's not necessarily the on-field product that has turned Posada off — "I can't take nine innings of watching it on TV," he told Kay — but he didn't deny that the commitment to win of teams past hasn't been apparent.

Injuries have taken its toll on the Yankees - Posada and Chien-Ming Wang were lost for the season and Hideki Matsui missed two months with a sore left knee that will likely require surgery. But while other teams, read the Red Sox and Rays, had to depth the fill the voids and keep winning, the Yankees did not.

More disturbing has been speculation that a few players have essentially quit on the season. Manager Joe Girardi pulling Robinson Cano from Sunday's game for a lack of hustle, and the media questioning what took him so long to send such a message to talented but enigmatic second baseman, are unbecoming of the Yankees' championship teams. After a terrible loss midway through the season, Posada threw his bat down and shouted that it wasn't Yankees baseball. Many believe the accountability the fiery Posada demands could have translated into a few extra wins.

"I hate going to the Stadium and not knowing that the guys are trying to do their job and trying to win the game," Posada said. "It's not a good feeling. You get to the Stadium and you expect to win every day. When losing becomes OK, it's just not why you're playing the game."

Speaking of the shoulder, Posada says he's feeling fine after the procedure tightened a shoulder he described as too loose and "dancing around." With his doctors' blessings, Posada expects to be ready when Spring Training begins next February — and catching.

Even if it's at the expense of his friend Ivan Rodriguez, acquired at the trade deadline in hopes of filling the gaping void left by Posada's absence.

"I don't want to play first base. I want to be a catcher. I feel comfortable there," said Posada, who rehabs the shoulder every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. "Pudge is my friend, but he's going to have to go somewhere else."