The LoHud Yankees Blog

Got this announcement from the Yogi Berra Museum.

The Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center will be hosting its “Watch the World Series With Yogi” event on Thursday, Oct. 28 for Game 2 of the Series, with visitors getting to rub elbows with the man who has won more World Series rings (10) than anyone in baseball history.

The event,including a ballpark dinner,will take place in the intimate Museum theater, with only 65 guests. Tickets are $250, with proceeds to benefit the Museum’s education programs. Call (973) 655-2378.

Yogi answers questions throughout the evening

Sam and I talked about this story during today’s chat…

It seems during the ALCS, Cliff Lee’s wife, Kristen, was not happy with the way Yankee fans treated her while she was sitting in the Rangers family section at Yankee Stadium.

“The fans did not do good things in my heart,” she said. “When people are staring at you, and saying horrible things, it’s hard not to take it personal.”

These stories come and go every winter, and it’s always hard to know how much — if any — things like this play a role in a player’s decision about where to sign and where to play. I don’t think something like this can be a deal breaker, but it might be one more thing in the Pro list for Texas.

Dallas is fairly close to the Lee’s home in Arkansas, the Rangers have some money with new ownership and a massive TV deal, and there are bound to be some good feelings after this run through the playoffs.

If I had to guess right now, I’d still say Lee will be wearing pinstripes next season — they’re going to pay him well, his friend CC Sabathia is here, he knows he can win in New York — but the Rangers might be legitimate competition.

Terrible news this afternoon about official scorer Bill Shannon who has died in a house fire in New Jersey.

As Sam wrote on Twitter, Bill will be missed by anyone who had the pleasure of knowing him. To give some idea of how much Bill was liked and respected in the press box, here are a few tweets from folks who have been in that press box, and the Mets press box, a lot more than I have…

Kim Jones: “Always willing to laugh and joke around. And a true gentleman. I’ll miss him.”

Bob Klapisch: “He knew (and loved) baseball more than anything else.”

Jack Curry: “Wrote story about defensive indifference, a rule I hate, so I interviewed Bill Shannon. His passion for it and all bb rules was incredible.”

Peter Botte: “A NY press box legend and a guiding hand to all of us.”

Pete Abraham: “Considered best at what he did. A real NYC character. Just terrible news”

Sweeny Murti: “Bill Shannon’s voice was known only to those in the press box, but was as distinctive as Bob Sheppard’s.”

Ed Price: “Horrible news. We’ve lost he best official scorer in baseball”

The video chat with Sam and Chad starts at noon at this link: http://www.lohud.com/protalklive

Don’t forget, Sam and I are hosting a chat today at noon. Obviously, there’s plenty to talk about after the Yankees postseason exit, the decision to not bring back Dave Eiland and the pending offseason moves. We’ll be right here at noon. Stop by. Until then…

A few notable leftover comments about Derek Jeter from Joe Girardi’s press conference yesterday.

On keeping Jeter at shortstop
“That’s something we’ll continue to discuss. Everyone talked about Derek’s offensive numbers this year, and I thought he swung the bat pretty well in the month of September and the playoffs for us. He had a tough month, but I’ve also talked about that we played him more than we wanted to, when Alex went down and fighting for our division. We had to play him more than he wanted to. But I still think he’s a very good player… This is a guy that has a pretty good skill set, so right now I’m not assuming that he’s changing positions.”

On dropping Jeter from the top of the order
“That’s not something that I’ve put a lot of thought into at this point. By asking that question, I think you’re assuming that he’s going to hit .270 again. It might be a year when he hits .325 and you’ll be talking about the Derek Jeter that we saw the year before. I really haven’t gotten into that. We don’t know exactly what our team is going to be next year. We’ll make those decisions. That’s something that I’ll think (about) months down the road.”

On Jeter playing more than expected
“I think we had some stretches where he played like 27 out of 28, and we weren’t able to DH him, and it’s not something that you necessarily want to do. It’s not something we wanted to do to Alex either. Alex went down and it became a little more difficult not to pencil his name in the lineup. It’s not something I would assume we would do next year.”

On Jeter’s skills possibly fading
“As a manager, when you sit down and think about things, you know it’s possibly going to happen. You do. You don’t necessarily think it’s going to happen tomorrow, though. I still believe that Derek can play at an extremely high level and be the player that he’s been. But eventually it happens to all of us. It happened to me, and I’ve seen other players it’s happened to.”

There are times when it’s not in Joe Girardi’s best interest to tell the whole truth. It’s frustrating, but understandable. In the case of the Yankees postseason rotation, Girardi was hiding a significant piece of information.

Andy Pettitte felt tightness in his back and hamstring during the division series. It was severe enough that Pettitte had to cut short his following bullpen session, his scheduled start in Game 5 would have been no sure thing had the series gone that far. Had Pettitte been healthy, Girardi said, the ALCS rotation might have been different. As it was, they took their chances on a little extra rest helping Pettitte get through Game 3.

“Every time he went after a ball, I was concerned,” Girardi said. “If you share that knowledge, maybe they bunt more. Maybe they try to do more things. And that was a concern of mine.??”

Even with the playoff tightness and the midseason groin injury, Girardi said he’s still confident Pettitte will be healthy enough to pitch next season. And Girardi hopes he does exactly that.

“I think (after) a full offseason he’ll heal fine,” Girardi said. “In saying that, he needs to make a decision, but Andy’s a Yankee. Let’s hope that he decides he wants to play again.??”

Here’s Girardi’s explanation of exactly what happened with his No. 2 starter in the postseason:

Sometimes as a manager you have to do things for certain reasons. As I said before, we lined up our rotation, there were a lot of factors that went into our rotation. Sometimes you’re going to take heat or people are going to question things that you do about it because you’re trying to protect a player or protect a strategy. Let me take you back.

Andy Pettitte pitched Thursday against Minnesota. In the seventh inning, Andy’s back started locking up a little bit. His hamstrings got really tight. He gutted it through the seventh inning for us and got through it. He wanted to go back out for the eighth. I think he had about 88 pitches. And I said, ‘No, you’re not going back out. You’ve done your job.’ He came in on Friday and his back was locked up. Saturday was his bullpen because he basically had to prepare for Game 5. He got about halfway through his bullpen and had to walk off because his leg grabbed at him. A little different spot, his adductor.

So we thought it was in our best interests, and I thought talking to the trainers and the doctors, if we could give him a couple of extra days he might be able to get through that series. He didn’t throw a light bullpen until Wednesday because we were fearful. The last time Andy walked off a bullpen (while rehabbing the groin injury), it became a couple of weeks. If I only had Andy for one game in that playoff, I was willing to take the risk to make sure he was healthy.

In talking to doctors, trainers, our staff, Cash, we thought we had to give him those two extra days. Andy had some leg problems down the stretch, he had some back issues. It was unfortunate and he pitched a great game. Who knows what would have happened if he was able to pitch Game 2? We just felt that after having that issue on Saturday, we’d better give him a couple of extra days.

Associated Press photo

First a quick note that Sam and I will be chatting tomorrow at noon. Stop by and we’ll do our best to answer as many questions as we can. Tuesday. Noon. Yankees chat tight here at the LoHud Yankees Blog.

Brian Cashman sat at the podium for more than 40 minutes this afternoon, all while his young daughter Grace sat watching from the front row. As the session came to a close, Grace was given the last question.

After some deliberation, she asked her dad what he was going to be for Halloween. Turns out, Grace has already picked out her father’s costume, and Cashman laughed a little before telling Grace she was allowed to announce it to the room: The Yankees GM will be Nacho Libre for Halloween. Clearly, that’s hilarious.

The costume announcement was a light way to end an afternoon that was an odd mix of frustration and optimism. Cashman not only has to make his team better this offseason, he also has to negotiate with his manager and at least two of the organization’s cornerstone players in Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera.

“Like Joe Girardi, the intent for the organization is to have them back,” Cashman said. “We want them back. The intent of the players is to stay. They don’t want to be anywhere else. That creates a great atmosphere of getting something done… If a player wants to be here and we want to keep him, and the discussions are fair and legitimate, it gets done. If things don’t work out that way, it means one side sees it differently than another, and then it can drag out. That’s also possible, too. At the end of the day, I think the recipe is all there for positive relationships to continue.”

Cashman said has not entered into negotiations with anyone. He’ll begin talking to Girardi’s representation tomorrow, but he has not started on Jeter or Rivera. No one seems to know whether Andy Pettitte will come back. There is also a loomed free agent market that begins with Cliff Lee and includes outfielders Carl Crawford and Jayson Werth, each of whom could fit into this Yankees lineup.

“We have a strong team,” Cashman said. “We have areas of need, areas of weakness. The job is to attack those areas of weakness. We fully intend to do that. Hopefully come up with a good game plan. We haven’t done so yet, (but) we’ll do our best. That’s what George Steinbrenner taught everybody that has a chance to work here. Just do everything in your power to be the last team standing. It’s frustrating. We lost that goal two games away from getting to the World Series. We’ll be back at it.”

Here’s the Cashman audio. It’s a very long file, one that added up to well over 5,000 words — nine pages, 10-point font — when transcribed. It would be absurd to post all of it here, but feel free to give it a listen. I’ll try to hit on some highlights in this post, and in a few others to come.

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• In acknowledging his bad offseason, Girardi also admitted that Nick Johnson was no higher than his No. 3 choice for the Yankees designated hitter this season. “He was a Plan C,” Cashman said. “Our plan was obviously Johnny Damon first, and then if Matsui was still on the board we would have went to him. But he was already off the board so we wound up with Nick. And that did not work out at all.”

• Cashman on the potential decline of Jeter: “These guys, as professionals, their jobs are to attack their areas of weakness and Derek does that. And he will do that because he wants to win. That’s the bottom line. I remember years ago talking to him about some things and he will do anything necessary to put himself in a position to be successful if told properly about what he needs to work on. He will be dedicated this winter like he is every winter… There’s still game left in that guy and he’s going to be a part of this franchise.”

• Cashman on the age of the Yankees: “I think you look old when you don’t play well. I think that we didn’t look old against Minnesota at all, and that was a week before we looked old against Texas. Texas made us look old because of how they played against us and how we played against them. That’s all a credit to Texas. I don’t think that series was indicative of the strength of our team and what we’re capable of.”

• Cashman called the Yankees farm system one of the 10 best in the game, and said he’s still dedicated to focusing on home grown talent. “Astute free agent signings and astute trades, along with complimenting your home-grown players is the way to go,” he said. “That’s what we’ll continue to do”

• Speaking of which: Cashman indicated Jesus Montero will be given a chance to win a big league job in spring training. “I do have people who believe he’s Major League-ready at the catcher position with a tremendous offensive bat,” Cashman said. “But nothing gets handed to somebody. You take it and earn it. He’ll have a chance to come to Spring Training and fight for something and show that he’s ready for something more at a higher level or not.”

• Might not happen, but Cashman wants to keep his negotiations as private as possible, especially with guys like Jeter and Rivera. “The intent will be to keep things private and work through things privately and with respect to the players here,” he said. “These aren’t your run-of-the-mill guys you have typical conversations with. These guys are legacy players.”

• Given the age and injuries to Jeter, Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees infield and catching depth could once again be a significant issue. Cashman, though, indicated the team will focus on the everyday players, even if it means waiting to address the bench. “With the expected negotiations we’re about to have, and what’s left over after that, sometimes you don’t get all those pieces in place in the winter time,” Cashman said. “And we utilize the summer to do that.”

Associated Press photo

Kerry Wood was terrific during his two and a half months in New York, and the Yankees have the option of bringing him back before he hits the free agent market, but that seems unlikely.

The Yankees have contract options on three players:

• Wood has an $11-million club option.
• Lance Berkman has a $15-million club option.
• Nick Johnson has a $5.75-million mutual option.

It’s unlikely any of the options will be picked up.

“They’re all pretty obvious,” Brian Cashman said. “I have to sit in the office and look at the numbers and stuff like that, but I think, probably, they’re all such large numbers that we wouldn’t be picking up options for anybody off the top of my head. But I have to sit down and go through it and talk to ownership. But my initial thought is they’re all pretty obvious.”

Brian Cashman met with Hal Steinbrenner this morning, and he’ll meet with Joe Girardi’s agent tomorrow. Girardi wants to come back, the Yankees want him back and the negotiations are going to happen quickly.

“It doesn’t mean we’ll have anything to announce tomorrow, but there’s an interest level on both parties to keep moving forward together,” Cashman said. “We’ll let that work its way out. When we have something to discuss publicly, we will. Prior to that, I’m not going to give a debriefing on how my conversation went yesterday. The meetings will start tomorrow. Will it go long? Will it go days? Will it be quick? I can’t tell you.”

Barring some sort of surprise snag in the negotiations, it sounds like a deal is only a matter of time.

“Those discussions will probably take place fairly quickly here,” Girardi said. “I said after we lost on Friday that I love being here. I’ve loved working here. It’s a great work environment, great relationship with the front office and everyone involved, the players, coaches. So i want to be back. I hope it gets done quickly.??”

For whatever it’s worth, Girardi was told — not necessarily asked — about the decision to get rid of pitching coach Dave Eiland. Cashman said it was a general manager decision. If Girardi had objected?

“It didn’t matter,” Cashman said.

UPDATE, 2:43 p.m.: The Yankees just released this statement from Girardi about Eiland: “Dave spent his entire coaching career with the Yankees organization, and there is little doubt the impact he had on a great number of pitchers during his tenure. He was a passionate and knowledgeable pitching coach on the Major League level, and he played a valuable role in our team’s achievements in recent years. I wish him continued success moving forward as his baseball career continues to evolve.”

UPDATE, 2:49 p.m.: It would have been a long-shot anyway given his relationship to Tony La Russa, but Dave Duncan has signed a two-year deal to stay in St. Louis as the Cardinals pitching coach. Scratch him off the list.

Associated Press photo

Brian Cashman just announced that the team is not bringing Dave Eiland back next season.

“It has nothing to do with what took place in the playoffs,” Cashman said.

Cashman said the decision is not based on performance. He labeled the reason as “private.”

“It was my decision,” Cashman said.