As I’ve said before, don’t be surprised if Manny is wearing pinstripes next year though admittedly a longshot.

Girardi’s response to his coaching staff demonstrates his intractable nature when it is abundantly clear at least one move is order. He will have to be directed to make the change.

Of course CC has not publicly stated anything like that. Why would he? That would be stupid for him as a free agent trying to maximize his appeal and demand to all teams interested in signing him. Like other high profile FA’s, CC and his agent have a game plan and probably will execute it well. However, there are people in baseball who know CC personally (whether it be close friends or ex teammates, coaches, or members of the media) and know about his desires. CC may have express his feelings about pitching for a particular team that he likes or dislikes. Why is that hard to believe? So to answer your question, no CC has not “publicly stated” that does not want to pitch for the Yankees. But, if you can read between the lines, I think CC does not want to pitch here. I hope I am wrong, but right now it’s all wishful thinking.

Because it sort of makes a kind of synchronistic sense. Think of this: it must be annoying for some current Yankee players to have the team’s ridiculously successful history thrown in their faces everyday. This edition, and the last several years, have not been able to live up to it. On top of that, there’s the stupidity of the so-called mission statement ridiculing anything short of winning the whole thing. Really, the Yankees shouldn’t have to explicate such a goal; all teams are trying to win a championship, at some point or another.

What Cashman has done is thumb his nose at the platitudes and the dinosaur template of trying to create a team of free agent All-Stars at the expense of developing a real system. That’s not what produced the 96-2000 run. It was the abandonment of what produced that run that has cost the Yankees, in their zeal to replicate that success.

Cashman acknowledged that something fundamental was broken, and he put in place what had been neglected for years. In doing so, his efforts may not only produce a championship, but perhaps a run of them.

So maybe it’s important that these new Yankees have their new digs, and a place to create their own place in Yankee history.

I am loathe to call that new park Yankee Stadium, however. I’m also glad it doesn’t have some bozo corporate name. I will reference it as ‘New Yankee Stadium.’

As far as Pettitte is concerned, there should be no rush to resign him, waiting to see how our starting rotation shapes up. He clearly proved he doesn’t have 200 innings in him any more, and how many pitchers do we want going 5 or 6 innings, allowing 1-2 baserunners an inning and reaching 100 pitches by the 5th inning?

Plu he claims all he has is rotator cuff tendinitis which should heal with time—–which in his 36 yo body might just re-occur.

If we’re lucky enough to sign Sabathia, and you don’t want Pettitte for 12-16M, but want another lefty, whose young, there’s Oliver Perez, who can pitch in NY, but tends to walk too many, or Scott Olsen of the Marlins who has potential and had a row with management this year, or Randy Wolf whose arm is stronger and strikes out batters, or my favorite Kuo, of the Dodgers.