The LoHud Yankees Blog

Good decision by the Yankees, who are hosting a conference call with Brian Cashman beginning at 12:30. Better to let him answer all of these questions once rather than answer all of these questions a dozen times from a dozen different reporters.

I’ll update this post occasionally throughout the call.

UPDATE: 12:31 p.m.“Plan B is patience. We’ll engage the remaining free agent and trade market, and pursue what interests us at the level that we feel is appropriate.”

UPDATE, 12:33 p.m.: Cashman says Cliff Lee has no impact on Andy Pettitte. Whether Pettitte comes back is up to Pettitte. “I don’t wake up today with the Cliff Lee decision having to make a phone call to Andy.”

UPDATE, 12:36 p.m.: “I’m not angry. It certainly would have been nice to have him in our rotation, but that’s not going to happen.”

UPDATE, 12:38 p.m.: On the failed mid-season trade attempt: “I’m thankful even more so now that I didn’t do that.”

UPDATE, 12:39 p.m.: On Russell Martin: “I would not comment.”

UPDATE, 12:41 p.m.: On his wide net: “I’ve stayed in touch and I suspect that the first stage of this stuff, people are going to dial up on both trade and free agent price tags on us.”

UPDATE, 12:42 p.m.: “I think it would be a rare situation for me to include Montero in a deal.”

UPDATE, 12:45 p.m.: “The one thing The Boss has taught me personally is the fact that you have to get in the arena and fight. Sometimes you win the fight and sometimes you lose the fight… We’re not down and out at all.”

UPDATE, 12:50 p.m.: Cashman got the news late last night, between 11:30 and midnight. Darek Braunecker called, told Cashman he was going a different direction — Cashman didn’t ask where he was signing — and Cashman immediately called Hal Steinbrenner. Cashman said, at that point, he was not surprised to hear the news.

MLB.com is reporting that Russell Martin has agreed to terms with the Yankees. The deal is pending a physical, which isn’t quite a formality given Martin’s history. MLB.com reports that the deal could be announced at some point today.

The deal would give the Yankees another option at catcher, and — in theory — make it easier to trade Jesus Montero for a front-line starter.

I don’t think signing Martin makes it inevitable that Montero will be traded. Martin isn’t a sure thing as an everyday catcher, and there’s still a solid chance Montero could outplay him for the job. That said, Montero is clearly the Yankees top trade chip, and if they’re going to try to find a top-of-the-rotation starter on the trade market, trading Montero might be essential.

At the very least, Martin solidifies the situation behind the plate and makes it easier to deal Montero for a pitcher.

On Monday night, it was Cliff Lee himself who called Rangers general manager Jon Daniels. Lee who broke the news personally, telling Daniels that he would not be re-signing with Texas, and he would not be leaving for New York.

Lee was going back to Philadelphia, and leaving money on the table to do so.

“People rag on players for following that last dollar,” Daniels told MLB.com. “Cliff didn’t do that. I have a lot of respect for him.”

This was Lee’s free agent market. No available starting pitcher approached his combination of talent and track record, and any team in baseball would be interested at the right price. Lee, it seems, simply decided where he wanted to pitch and made sure he got there.

Counting a vesting option in the Rangers offer, Tim Brown reports that Texas actually offered more money than the Yankees. Of course, the Yankees offer was no small amount.

None of which mattered in the end. Lee picked a team, not a contract. It was a positively stunning turn of events, and what comes next for the Yankees will be fascinating.

Talk about a mystery team.

Whatever tricks Brian Cashman has up his sleeve, he might need all of them in the next month or so. Here’s the latest from The Associated Press. As an aside, just when you think it’s safe to get away from a computer for a few hours to see your friend’s newborn baby girl, something like this happens. Thank you to Sam for jumping in and getting an update posted while I was gone.

NEW YORK (AP) — Cliff Lee is returning to the Philadelphia Phillies, the team that traded him nearly one year ago.

The free-agent pitcher reached a preliminary agreement on a contract with the Phillies on Monday night, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press.

The deal is subject to the 32-year-old left-hander passing a physical, the person said on condition of anonymity because the agreement was not final.

The New York Yankees and Texas Rangers received telephone calls Monday night telling them they were out of the running, two separate people familiar with those team’s negotiations said, also on condition of anonymity.

Lee 2008 AL Cy Young Award winner turned down longer and more lucrative offers to return to the team he helped reach the 2009 World Series after a midseason trade from Cleveland.

New York had started with a $138 million, six-year offer to Lee, the person familiar with the Yankees’ negotiations said. After outfielder Carl Crawford agreed to a seven-year, $142 million deal with the Boston Red Sox, New York immediately increased its offer to Lee to $150 million over seven seasons, the person said.

Philadelphia dealt Lee to Seattle as part of a four-team, nine-player swap after the 2009 season while simultaneously acquiring Roy Halladay from Toronto and signing him to a new contract that added $60 million over three seasons. When the Phillies sign Lee, he will join Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels to form what would be considered the top rotation in the major leagues.

The Phillies have been considering trading pitcher Joe Blanton and/or outfielder Raul Ibanez to clear payroll space, a person familiar with Philadelphia’s deliberations. said. That person spoke on condition of anonymity because those talks were ongoing.

Lee had a good time during his stay with the Phillies, who acquired him from Cleveland in July 2009.

“At first, I didn’t believe it. I thought we were working out an extension with the Phillies,” Lee said the day after the trade. “I thought I’d be spending the rest of my career there. … I was under the impression they wanted to keep me there for a long time. In my mind, it was going to happen.”

Associated Press photo

Vent on Cliff Lee turning down the Yankees with Sam Borden right here! He’ll take your questions and comments on the Cliff Lee news for a little while.

If you’ve been following the reports tonight you know that the ball seems to have been rolling this way for a few hours now, but word from SI’s Jon Heyman is that the Yankees have been told they are out on Cliff Lee. There is also a report that the Rangers have been told that Lee will be signing with the Phillies.

Believe it or not, as we approach the end of Day 4 of the Cliff Lee Watch, other teams are actually making small moves here and there. Don’t they know nothing else is supposed to be happening right now?

• Hideki Matsui is on the verge of a one-year deal with the Athletics. That lineup needs some sort of pop, and Matsui looks like their everyday designated hitter.

• Dustin Moseley has finalized his $900,000 deal with the Padres. Great signing for him, and probably a good one for San Diego. Despite what the linked AP story says, Moseley did not spend, “the previous four seasons in the Los Angeles Angels.” That’s wrong on many levels.

• Apparently my friend Marc Carig didn’t get the memo about Yankees reporters asking nothing but Cliff Lee questions until Lee signs. Marc reports that the Yankees have checked on Jerry Hairston Jr.

• Buried in this story from Ken Rosenthal is a note that the Dodgers might consider Bill Hall for their everyday left field job. I’ve never really bought Hall as a legitimate option for the Yankees, and an everyday opportunity in Los Angeles would make Hall even less likely for the Yankees.

• Baseball America has updated its minor league transactions, including a few familiar names: David Winfree signed with the Diamondbacks, Brian Bruney signed with the White Sox, Omir Santos signed with the Tigers, and Wilkin de la Rosa signed with the Dodgers.

• Speaking of the Bruney signing, who was the winner of last winter’s Bruney trade? I’d say the Dodgers, because they lost Jamie Hoffmann a team that was never going to keep him. The Yankees finished somewhere in the middle, if only because they didn’t have to pay Bruney. Washington lost. Definitely.

For that generally unbearable two or three weeks of back and forth between the Yankees front office and Derek Jeter’s representation, a large part of the Yankees fan base seemed to turn on Jeter, labeling him as a greedy, ungrateful prima donna. How dare he try to negotiate the largest contract possible? I got more than one email suggesting Jeter could learn a thing or two from Mariano Rivera, who so quietly settled on a two-year deal to return as the Yankees closer, reportedly shunning an offer from the rival Red Sox.

Now here’s a report that it was Rivera’s camp that approached the Red Sox — not the other way around — about an offer to bring the great Yankees closer to Boston. Pretty good negotiating strategy if you ask me, and apparently an effective one.

But what to make of Rivera’s use of the Red Sox to create leverage?

My advice? Make nothing of it.

If you want to root for these people as baseball players, that’s great. If you want to appreciate them as people, even better. In this game, it’s hard to find better examples of players who so perfectly blend Hall of Fame talent with general decency than Jeter and Rivera.

Contract negotiations, though, are something completely different. To borrow a word from Hal Steinbrenner, they tend to get “messy,” and there are forces involved well beyond the players themselves.

“When they’re on the field, that’s when it’s at their best,” Brian Cashman said during Jeter’s press conference last week. “When they’re at the negotiating table, it’s a different arena. It’s a different type of game than the one they’re used to playing on the field. That’s why it’s a good thing there are agents in between.”

Associated Press photo

It’s pretty well established — and difficult to argue — that the Yankees need Cliff Lee. They have their ace, but the rest of the rotation is either relatively inexperienced (Phil Hughes), unreliable (A.J. Burnett), untested (Ivan Nova) or unnamed (is Sergio Mitre the fifth starter right now?).

Didn’t the Yankees just rebuild their rotation two years ago?

It was at exactly this time in 2008 that the Yankees signed Burnett and CC Sabathia, landing two premier free agents who immediately helped them win a championship. Now the Yankees are in desperate need of pitching help again. What happened to that group of starters?

CC Sabathia
Good as advertised
Whatever rotation problems popped up in the past two years, they weren’t Sabathia’s fault. Two years into a seven-year deal, Sabathia has 40 wins and a couple of top-four finishes in the Cy Young voting. The No. 1 spot in the rotation is secure.

A.J. Burnett
Worst-case scenario
Burnett had a hit-and-miss reputation when he came to the Yankees, but he also had five-straight seasons with a 4.07 ERA or lower. He made it six straight in his first Yankees season, then he made arguably the most important start of the 2009 postseason. Of course, 2010 was a different story altogether, the idea of a repeat performance makes his spot in the rotation unreliable at best. Burnett has three seasons left on his deal, and he could bounce right back, but last season was cause for significant concern.

Andy Pettitte
The inevitable question
When Pettitte re-signed before the 2009 season, it was with the understanding that he was nearing the end of his career. One year. Two years. Three years. However long the wait, Pettitte’s spot in the rotation was never built to last, so the fact he’s considering retirement certainly comes as no shock. The question of whether Pettitte would come back was inevitable. Of all the current rotation questions, this one was most predictable.

Joba Chamberlain
The tough decision
Chamberlain had some good moments in his first full season as a Major League starter, but his 4.75 ERA wasn’t exactly inspiring and last spring he was bumped back to bullpen by the emergence of Phil Hughes. After years of back-and-forth questions, the Yankees finally made a decision on Chamberlain, declaring him a full-time reliever, and they don’t seem likely to stray from that approach. He’s essentially been replaced by Hughes, giving the Yankees one young, homegrown starter instead of two.

Chien-Ming Wang
Still trying to recover
That 2009 season was supposed to be a return to form for Wang. He was supposed to be healthy, and a healthy Wang was supposed to mean another season of effective sinkers and close to 20 wins. Instead, Wang won one game that year and he hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since. In reality, the two-year unraveling of the Yankees recently rebuilt rotation started with Wang. He couldn’t make it through the season, Chamberlain’s future was in the air and no one knew how much longer Pettitte would pitch. The Yankees rotation had been rebuilt heading into 2009 season, and by that winter there were already significant longterm questions.

Associated Press photos

Thirty seconds on the phone. That’s pretty much all it takes for Brian Cashman to give his update on the great Cliff Lee Watch of 2010.

“Dude, I got no idea,” he said. “In terms of when are they going to make a decision, when they do, the whole world will know.”

Cashman doesn’t seem flustered or impatient. A weekend has passed, not a month.

“Just like every other day,” he said. “I’ve got no word.”

• Cashman would not comment on the team’s reported interest in Russell Martin. Buster Olney continues to report that the Yankees are being aggressive in their pursuit, and he wouldn’t be surprised to hear of an agreement.

• Karl Ravech says the Rangers are making a push for Adrian Beltre, which Ravech takes as a sign Lee is leaning toward New York. I’m not as convinced. Don’t know yet what kind of splash that new ownership is going to make, or how much they’re willing to spend. It’s curious, no doubt, but it doesn’t significantly affect my opinion on the Lee decision.