The LoHud Yankees Blog

Among the early notes from Joe Girardi is the fact Andy Pettitte was dealing with leg and back problems through the playoffs.

He felt tightness in the division series but pitched through it. Then he was unable to throw his full bullpen between starts. Had Pettitte been healthy, Girardi said, the ALCS rotation might have been different.

“We thought we had to give him those extra couple of days,” Girardi said.

The Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman press conferences are about to begin here in the Bronx. Meanwhile, in the Yankee Stadium the outfield, the pieces of turf are literally being removed one by one.

The Yankees season ended three days ago. Today, Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman will give what amounts to a State of the Yankees press conference at Yankee Stadium. The manager will answer questions at noon, the general manager at 12:30.

There’s plenty to discuss.

Girardi just finished the final year of his contract. Cashman has said publicly that he wants Girardi back, but the Yankees manager faced intense scrutiny through the final month of the regular season and into the playoffs. His team struggled down the stretch, played very well in the division series, and could hardly have played worse in the ALCS.

Cashman faces a winter in which three cornerstone players are eligible for free agency. Last winter’s moves did not work, and now he’s facing not only the free agency of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte, plus the looming temptation of Cliff Lee and possibly Carl Crawford. Pitching seems to be an obvious area of need, but Cashman might first work to re-sign Girardi.

I have no idea how much Girardi or Cashman will be willing to talk about the future, but those will be the most interesting questions. The past is the past. Talking about it won’t change it. More important now are the days ahead.

Turns out, a lot of people watched the Yankees season end on Friday. This is from a press release sent by the league.

Game 6 of the 2010 ALCS registered 11.86 million viewers making it the second most-viewed baseball game ever on cable television beating the game where Mark McGwire tied Roger Maris for the most home runs in a season on ESPN on September 7, 1998 (10.62 million viewers). Only the 2008 ALCS Game 7 between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays registered more viewers (13.36 million) on cable.

Not exactly the kind of thing the Yankees were going for that night.

Also, for whatever it’s worth, this was the most watched LCS as a whole since 2007. It was the most-watched NLCS since 2006, and the most watched ALCS since TBS began airing the series in 2007.

An empty Yankees locker room was not the most exciting place to spend six hours on a Sunday. It was an easy place to watch two football games at once, but aside from the random appearance of two left-handed relievers and a few comedic attempts at poetry from Pete Caldera, there wasn’t much to help pass the time.

So I decided to write about the room itself.

The Yankees clubhouse is a kind of oval, with the lockers along the edges and six flat screen televisions hanging from the ceiling in the middle. Three TVs face one direction, three TVs face the other direction, and there are identical sets of couches and chairs that form sitting areas on each end. On the floor, in the very center of the room, is a massive interlocking NY.

If you imagine the room as the face of a clock, there are doors at 12, 6 and 3. There’s a blank space of wall at 9. Each section isn’t perfectly equal, but the room is more or less divided into four quadrants. The ends of the room – basically from 11 to 1 and 5 to 7 – are flat walls, so those sections are kind of set apart as well.

Here’s the basic layout of who belongs where, using that imaginary clock to put everything in place.

From 11 to 1
This is the far end of the room. The door at 12 leads into the players-only area (the training room, the dining room and whatever else is back there). On the left side of that door is Jorge Posada. On the right side is Derek Jeter. They sit alone at the end of the clubhouse, a place of honor and significance.

Jeter and Posada have empty lockers next to them. If you’re looking from the opposite end of the room, from left to right, you see an empty locker, Posada’s locker, the set of double doors, Jeter’s locker and an empty locker. During September call-ups, those empty lockers were occupied by Juan Miranda (next to Posada) and Royce Ring (next to Jeter). For most of the year, the empty lockers were used as extra storage.

In every clubhouse, empty lockers are strategically placed, giving the bigger name players a little extra space.

From 1 to 3
This is the rotation section of the room, with a few notable exceptions

In order, from 1 to 3, beginning next to Jeter’s empty locker: A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte, Javier Vazquez, Joba Chamberlain, CC Sabathia, Lance Berkman, Phil Hughes, Robinson Cano, Sergio Mitre and Francisco Cervelli.

The empty locker next to Jeter is also a spillover locker for Burnett. I’m sure Pettitte and some of the other pitchers in that area have used it as well. Cano seems out of place, but his locker has been there all year. Cervelli’s locker is next to a door that leads to various offices, including Joe Girardi’s.

Berkman’s locker was occasionally empty this season, serving as a kind of spillover locker for Sabathia. It was occasionally filled by call-ups. Miranda was there for a while. I think Colin Curtis might have had it at one point. Maybe Chad Moeller back when Posada was on the DL.

Based on the decoration, this is also the family section of the clubhouse. Burnett, Pettitte, Vazquez, Chamberlain and Sabathia are one after another, each with a ton of family pictures hanging inside their lockers.

From 3 to 5
This is the section that’s usually filled with the lower-profile  members of the coaching staff, plus Alfredo Aceves. There are four lockers in this section, all of them very barebones: One shelf at the top plus a bar to hang clothes. There’s no installed computer or set of cabinets like in the other lockers. These lockers are wide open, which lets players share them during September call-ups, when the room is overpopulated.

In order, from 3 to 5, beginning next to the door leading to Girardi’s office: Colin Curtis/Kevin Russo, Jonathan Albaladejo/Romulo Sanchez, Greg Golson/Andrew Brackman and Aceves. When Jesus Montero and Dellin Betances were up for a couple of days, they were also thrown into this mix.

Aceves had his corner locker all year. Until September, the other lockers in this section were filled by coaching assistant Brett Weber, assistant video coordinator Anthony Flynn and bullpen catcher Roman Rodriguez. Russo, Albaladejo and Curtis had different lockers during their mid-season call-ups.

Coolest thing in these lockers: A vinyl Jimi Hendrix album sent to Curtis by a fan. It’s not there any more, but I’m pretty sure it was Electric Ladyland. That’s what I remember it being, anyway. Hendrix and Curtis are both Seattle guys, and Curtis used to have Hendrix as his at-bat music.

From 5 to 7
From the media’s point of view, this is the front of the room. The door at 6 is the one that serves as the media entrance. It’s also the door that leads out to the batting cages and the dugout. Just like the flat wall on the opposite end, there are four lockers, two on either side of a set of double doors.

In order, from 5 to 7, beginning next to the Aceves locker: Eduardo Nunez, Ivan Nova, double doors, Ramiro Pena and Dustin Moseley.

The Nunez locker was empty through most of the year. The Nova locker was used for multiple call-ups throughout the season. Mark Melancon had it for a while. Chad Huffman had it for a while. Albaladejo had it for a while. Nova won that spot in the rotation and the locker was his the rest of the way.

On the other side of the door, Pena had his locker all season. The Moseley locker belonged to Randy Winn at the beginning. I knew someone had it before Moseley, but I honestly had to look at the Yankees season stats to remember that Winn was even here at the beginning of the year. Incredibly nice guy, but easy to forget this season.

From 7 to 9
This section is split between the bullpen and the lineup.

In order, from 7 to 9, beginning right next to Moseley’s locker and ending with a blank wall: Boone Logan, Dave Robertson, Mark Teixeira, Brett Gardner, Chad Moeller, Austin Kearns and Nick Swisher.

With Moseley, Logan and Robertson grouped together, this is the country-boy section of the clubhouse. Gardner is in that mix too. And yes, I spend a lot of time over there myself. Moseley and I once stood in that corner and talked about growing rice. My father would be very proud.

The Moeller locker once belonged to Nick Johnson. The Kearns locker was filled with a few call-ups during the season. It was Russo’s locker back when Russo was playing fairly regularly. For much of the season it was full of random Swisher stuff.

Swisher is next to a bit of blank wall that’s also next to Mariano Rivera’s locker. Swisher has some stuff spilling along that wall, including a small fridge that has his Code Blue recovery drinks. In terms of decoration, these are pretty boring lockers. Swisher has some random things, Kearns and Teixeira have a few family pictures, but for the most part these are baseball lockers and nothing more.

From 9 to 11
Back in the higher-profile back of the room, the left side is split between the bullpen and three key position players.

In order, from 9 to 11, beginning with that blank wall next to Swisher and ending with Posada’s empty locker: Mariano Rivera, Chad Gaudin, Kerry Wood, Damaso Marte, Curtis Granderson, Marcus Thames and Alex Rodriguez.

The empty locker next to Posada also serves as a spillover locker for Rodriguez. Random pictures and boxes of mail from Rivera’s locker have spilled over to fill the space in front of that blank wall.

I don’t remember who had Gaudin’s locker at the beginning of the year. It might have been empty (makes sense next to Rivera). Wood’s locker belonged to Chan Ho Park. The position players in this section make sense: Granderson and Thames are old teammates and friends. Rodriguez gets a spot on the high-profile end of the clubhouse with an empty locker next to him.

There are a few decorations here and there, but most of these lockers are full of nothing but standard baseball gear. Right now, Rodriguez’s has about a dozen Nike boxes.

A second player showed up! It’s an extravaganza of interviews! Remarkably productive for Locker Clean-out Day.

As I type this, Boone Logan is standing in the corner of the clubhouse, putting his stuff into a Yankees duffle bag. There’s a big pile of bags in the room, and when Logan couldn’t find his own, he just grabbed one at random — Robinson Cano’s — and swapped out the name tag.

After Damaso Marte’s announcement that he’s out until the second half of next year, at best, Logan actually seemed like an appropriate guy to show up.

“I got traded to the Yankees and I was hoping I would have a career year with this team,” he said. “I just had a good feeling coming into spring, and luckily I had a good season.”

The Yankees needed Logan, and it’s likely they’ll need him again next season. It’s amazing the change between Opening Day, when Logan was crowded off the roster, to the ALCS, when he was among those key late-inning relievers.

“About halfway through (spring training) I had a feeling I wasn’t going to make the roster because the roster was pretty much full,” he said. “Then we got Chan Ho and I was like, I didn’t see it happening. It’s unfortunate, but that’s just the way it is.”

Logan said he’ll work this offseason to keep his arm motion sharp. He’ll basically mimic last winter, when the routine led to him feeling more prepared this spring than ever before. Not bad for the “other guy” in an major offseason trade.

As for what went wrong in the playoffs, Logan’s take was pretty much the same as ever other Yankee. The Rangers were just too good.

“The Rangers, they were on fire,” Logan said. “They’ve got great hitters and they were all hitting. Everybody was doing their job. Their leadoff hitter was getting on. He was stealing. They were getting him over. They were bunting. We would intentionally walk their best hitter to get to their second-best hitter. It’s just unfortunate. You have to go that way, but the way they’re hitting, there’s really, in my mind I don’t think there was much stopping them.

“They were just hitting everything, and we couldn’t find anything to get going. When you don’t have that, you’ve got a team that’s sitting there just pouncing on you until the end. It’s tough to get up for air.”

Associated Press photo

In a shocking upset, a player has arrived on locker clean-out day.

That player was one of the least likely to be here: Left-handed reliever Damaso Marte who just walked in with his left arm in a sling. I have to assume that means he had the surgery that Brian Cashman previously said was possible.

He walked in and out, but said he’ll be back to talk in a few minutes.

UPDATE, 11:21 a.m.: Marte had labrum surgery on Friday and won’t throw until after the all-star break. Oddly enough, he took that as good news. Marte was worried that surgery would mean the end of his career.

UPDATE, 11:34 a.m.: Marte seemed to feel legitimately bad that he wasn’t available to pitch in the postseason. He also seemed legitimately relieved to get the problem diagnosed and fixed.

“It’s hard when you feel something inside and sometimes they don’t find out what’s the problem,” he said. “Right now, we know what we have and the labrum is very cut. But now they fix it, and I feel happy because I know I can pitch maybe next year.”

By “cut” I have to assume Marte meant torn. Whatever the exact problem, a bad labrum is a significant problem for a pitcher. It’s revealing that Marte through this might be the end of his career. That’s much more significant than some light shoulder soreness.

“I have to make (the shoulder) better because it’s a lot of pain,” Marte said. “Right now I feel comfortable because the doctor, he gave me a good idea for my arm. He told me, you’re getting better. Next year, I think I can pitch.”

I’m on my way to Yankee Stadium for what might be a complete waste of time. But it’s worth a shot.

The home clubhouse is open to the media for a few hours today. It’s time during which players might or might not stop by to clean out their lockers. Considering the team got back into town yesterday, my guess is that a lot of guys gathered their things last night. A few days after last year’s World Series, a group of writers sat in the Yankees clubhouse for hours without seeing  a single player.

Obviously, I’m hoping for better luck today.

Mostly, I’m  trying to decide how much Mizzou apparel I can wear and still look somewhat professional.

One day, that’s all it took for the hot stove to connect Javier Vazquez to a second-tier National League team.

Citing a source close to Vazquez, MLB.com says the forgotten Yankees starter would be open to pitching for the Washington Nationals next year, giving him a chance to stay on the East Coast and move back to the National League.

Just guessing, but I’d say there’s a zero percent chance Vazquez will be back with the Yankees next — I don’t think either side would be interested — so I’m not sure any Vazquez rumors have any real impact on the Yankees offseason, but this is the kind of thing that sparks the hot stove season.

Nothing’s going to happen for a while, though. For now, the NLCS is the biggest thing going in baseball, but I’m one of those people without Fox right now. That leaves me with a perfect excuse for ignoring baseball for a night and watching my Mizzou Tigers try to knock off Oklahoma.

Let there be no doubt, Bernie Williams was cheering for the Yankees last night, but the team’s elimination did clear up a scheduling conflict for Bernie and his band. Here’s part of a press release about his charity concert tonight in Suffern.

Bernie Williams and his All-Star band were booked to play a concert on Saturday Oct 23 at the historic Lafayette Theater in Suffern, NY, months before the Yankees clinched a post-season berth or the playoff schedule was set. The show was going to go on whether the Yankees were playing or not, and plans were made to give updates after very song of Bernie’s two-hour set should the game be played.

The entire nine-man band are all die-hard Yankee fans, so everyone was rooting for a Game 7, even if it meant many would-be concert goers would feel compelled to stay home and watch on TV. We were going to be monitoring the game, and like previous concerts, we know fans with Blackberrys and iPhones would be shouting out the play by play.

Bernie understood how important this game was, and we were going to go with the flow. Now, we hope Yankee fans, disappointed at ALCS loss, will come to Suffern for a wonderful night of music, as Bernie shares his songs and stories of his life in baseball and music.

A portion of the proceeds from the concert will benefit the foundations and scholarship funds created by the families of two Suffern High School baseball players who were tragically killed in a car accident this year. Williams reached out to the team and families soon after the accident, and he will be raising additional funds with a special autographed photo, limited to 51 copies, with all proceeds from the picture going to both families’ foundations.

An Evening with Bernie Williams
Tonight, Saturday October 23
8:00 PM
The Lafayette Theater, 97 Lafayette Ave, Suffern, NY
For tickets: www.ArtsRock.org or call 866-811-4111