The LoHud Yankees Blog

Good thing I have all of this skiing gear. It’s freezing here in New York! Spring training opens in three weeks, until then, it’s probably best to get used to the cold days and the slow news days like this one. Granted, we’ve gotten used to the slow news already. Here are a few links from today.

• The guys over at River Ave. Blues looked at whether Sergio Mitre might be a better rotation option than some of the free agents occasionally linked to the Yankees this winter.

• Speaking of potential rotation additions, one of them came off the market today when Armando Galarraga was traded to Arizona.

• More proof that not all top prospects becoming top big leaguers: Today Andy LaRoche settled on a minor league deal with the A’s and Clayton Mortensen was traded to Colorado after being designated for assignment.

• In the AL East, the Rays are still figuring out what to do with Jake McGee and the Blue Jays might look to make additional trades to move the pieces they added in the Vernon Wells deal.

A little more than a month ago, the remaining free agent market offered enough to put together a solid — thought defensively challenged — 25-man roster. Today, the market has thinned considerably. There aren’t many unanimous decisions on this list. It’s pretty much a matter of personal preference.

Lineup
Scott Podsednik LF
Cristian Guzman 2B
Vladimir Guerrero DH
Russell Branyan 1B
Jorge Cantu 3B
Jim Edmonds CF
Bengie Molina C
Lastings Milledge RF
Felipe Lopez SS

A lot of veterans who still have some power but not much else. Of these nine, the only ones who might fit for the Yankees seem to be Milledge and Lopez, who could fit as bench players. Andruw Jones is technically still a free agent — his deal isn’t official — but I decided not to count him.

Bench
Troy Glaus 1B
Ryan Church OF
Orlando Cabrera SS
Chad Moeller C

Just go through a list of free agents and take a shot in the dark. Maybe you like Bobby Crosby’s chances of a bounce-back or David Eckstein’s veteran experience. There’s no such thing as a sure-thing here.

Rotation
Andy Pettitte
Kevin Millwood
Freddy Garcia
Justin Duchscherer
Jeremy Bonderman

I still think there’s a good chance one of these five ends up going to spring training with the Yankees. Wonder which one they’d prefer?

Bullpen
Lance Cormier
Chris Ray
Blaine Boyer
Elmer Dessens
Juan Cruz
Joe Beimel
Dennys Reyes

This might be the position that’s taken the biggest hit in the past month. When I made a list like this in mid-December, the bullpen was incredibly deep and powerful. Now it’s questionable and unreliable, but with a lot of arms that are capable of playing a legitimate role at the big league level if things go well.

When the Yankees make their Andruw Jones signing official, they will have to make an accompanying move to open a spot on the 40-man. Most of the players on the roster are there for an obvious reason. They’re either premier young players or have an obvious role to play in New York, and this group won’t even enter the discussion of who to drop from the roster.

Clearly staying on the roster: Dellin Betances, Andrew Brackman, A.J. Burnett, Joba Chamberlain, Pedro Feliciano, Phil Hughes, Boone Logan, Sergio Mitre, Hector Noesi, Ivan Nova, Mariano Rivera, Dave Robertson, CC Sabathia, Rafael Soriano, Francisco Cervelli, Russell Martin, Jorge Posada, Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter, Brandon Laird, Eduardo Nunez, Ramiro Pena, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Brett Gardner, Curtis Granderson, Melky Mesa, Nick Swisher

Beyond that group, there are a few who might not jump out like the ones listed above, but they’re clearly a step ahead of some of the alternatives. They’ve either already played a role in the big leagues or help to fill a legitimate hole in the upper levels of the minor league system (specifically left-handed pitching, relief pitching and outfield depth).

No reason to lose them: Steve Garrison, Ryan Pope, Colin Curtis, Greg Golson, Kevin Russo

For me, that leaves seven candidates who could fall off the roster and open a spot for Jones. Most of these are pretty much unknowns within the Yankees system, having never played in the organization. The roster might be full, but in a lot of ways it’s also wide open with spots that could open without the Yankees taking a significant hit.

LHP Robert Fish: Rule 5 pick whose slim chances of making the roster became even smaller with the addition of Feliciano. Dropping Fish from the roster would likely have no impact on the big league roster, but there is something to be said for having this option in spring training, especially as an injury contngency plan.

LHP Damaso Marte: I’m fairly certain that players can’t be put on the 60-day disabled list just yet, which means Marte has to either stay on the roster or be designated for assignment. The fact he won’t take up a spot when the year starts makes me think the Yankees will keep him around for now and try to rehab him back for a late-season addition.

RHP Romulo Sanchez: The big, hard-throwing right-hander could compete for a long relief job this spring — and his raw stuff is pretty impressive — but he’s also out of options, meaning he has to make the team to pass through waivers. If the Yankees don’t think he can make the big league club, they could drop him from the roster now. Otherwise, they might as well keep him around to give him a look.

RHP Brian Schlitter: Claimed earlier this month out of the Cubs organization, Schlitter had solid numbers in the hitter friendly PCL last season, and he has options. For a minor league system that’s lost some upper-level relievers, Schlitter seems to fit as solid minor league depth, but he’s also the most recent 40-man addition and it’s hard to say just how highly the Yankees actually think of him.

RHP Daniel Turpen: The other Rule 5 pick is in the same boat as Fish: He seems like a long-shot to make the roster, but there’s a lot to be said for bringing him to camp as a contingency plan should someone else get hurt. The Yankees could lose him and we’d all probably forget his name within a few weeks, but the Yankees think there’s legitimate talent there and might want to get a closer look.

INF Reegie Corona: Granted, I don’t have all of the scouting information that’s in front of the Yankees, but Corona would be my pick to dump from the roster to open a spot for Jones. That’s not to knock him as a player, but he did hit only .238 last year and suffered a pretty serious injury, one that will keep him from opening this season on an active roster. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him clear waivers, and even if he’s lost, Corona is somewhere behind Nunez, Pena, Russo and Laird for an infield call-up.

OF Jordan Parraz: I wouldn’t expect this one to be dumped from the roster, but Parraz was an offseason waiver claim, and my guess is the Yankees prefer the outfielders they know — Golson, Curtis and Russo — as minor league depth. That could make Parraz expendable, but I’d be surprised to see him go. The Yankees outfield is thin in the upper levels, and that probably gives Parraz real value that’s worth keeping.

Associated Press photo of Marte

I quite literally lost myself in the back bowls of Vail last week, but when I came back to New York, I found myself right at home with the unavoidable Yankees topic of the offseason. I guess it’s hard for the Yankees to escape Andy Pettitte these days. I tend to agree with Jesse’s morning post — I’m not sure Pettitte’s a Hall of Famer — but right now the Yankees don’t need a Hall of Fame addition to their rotation.

They’ve built a remarkably deep bullpen, their lineup is still arguably the best in the league and they have some new power on the bench. What they don’t have (still) is depth in the rotation. It’s an issue that’s going to linger, and until Pettitte gives a definitive answer about his future, his name will never fall out of offseason speculation.

As for recent events, I actually missed a fairly active week. A few highlights:

Rafael Soriano became official
Press conferences for new free agents are fairly predictable. The team is happy to have the player. The player is happy to be with the team. Those situations are interesting only because it’s a new face in a new uniform, not because there will be any sort of interesting news or realization. This week, though, the Yankees signing of Rafael Soriano became official, and the team had to address the obvious: That the general manager wasn’t in favor of the signing and ownership ran the show in signing the team’s biggest winter addition. This topic has been discussed over and over again, and there’s no sense rehashing it here, but I will say that this was one of the few press conferences that I actually thought might be legitimately interesting. I was on an airplane at the time.

Rumor became fact, Andruw Jones became a Yankee
At some point around the first of the month, the Yankees and Andruw Jones became a constant rumor. They were talking. They were interested. They were sorting the details. Last week, it was done, with Jones taking a one-year deal worth $2 million plus incentives. It fits into the going rate for similar players, and I like the signing. As I’ve written before, I think Jones made the most sense for the Yankees. Of the outfielders in this market, only Matt Diaz might have been a better fit, and he got a regular gig with the Pirates. Jones isn’t what he used to be, but the Yankees don’t need him to be what he used to be. They need him to hit for power and play the outfield corners. He can still do those things, and he can do them without costing much this season or putting the Yankees on the hook for any long-term risk.

The Yankees avoided arbitration with everyone
No arbitration hearings this year, which is probably better for everyone involved. Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain and Boone Logan all settled on 2011 contracts last week, locking up the only arbitration eligible players still on the Yankees roster (Sergio Mitre had already re-signed, Chad Guadin had already been released, and Dustin Moseley had been non-tendered). I actually thought all three might get more money than they did, but my ability to judge arbitration value is suspect at best. Those three are still a year or two away from becoming truly expensive for the Yankees.

Johnny and Manny together again
While the Yankees settled on their fourth outfielder, the Rays also completed their outfield picture by signing Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez to one-year deals. Damon seems likely to get most of his playing time in left field, Ramirez at designated hitter. To me it’s a nice signing for the Rays, but not a big loss for the Yankees. Neither Damon nor Ramirez exactly fit the Yankees needs – defense plays a role here, so does Damon’s left-handed bat – but the Rays had a wide-open DH situation and an outfield in flux, stuck somewhere between Carl Crawford and Desmond Jennings. To an extent, Jones, Damon and Ramirez each made sense for both the Yankees and Rays, but it seems to me that the Yankees got the guy who best fit their needs and the Rays got the guys who best fit their needs.

The Angels showed what desperation really looks like
Whether true or not, there was something about the Yankees Soriano signing that seemed desperate: It wasn’t a perfect fit or a good contract, but at least it gave them a significant addition. However, when it comes to perceived desperation, the Angels took the prize this week when they traded for Vernon Wells. I like Wells and wouldn’t be shocked to see a repeat of 2010, but his contract is an absolute mess that the Blue Jays have clearly wanted to dump for a while. Not only did they dump it, they dumped that contract – all of it! — for two solid young players, and to a team that didn’t necessarily need an overpaid center fielder. It’s like the Soriano level, only on a whole other level: Wells might make the Angels better, but does that mean he’s worth this sort of cost and risk?

Marcus Thames remembered his glove
Last winter, Marcus Thames was – pretty much without question – Brian Cashman’s best offseason signing. He came to camp on a minor league deal and settled into a significant and productive role as a semi-regular. Thames has some very real power, and he can really hit against lefties, so it’s easy to see why the Dodgers signed him last week. Of course, you might have noticed that the Dodgers are a National League team without a designated hitter. Thames is best left out of the defensive game plan, but to be honest, if he hits like he did last season, his bat will be more than enough to make up for shaky left-field defense. That’s my guess, anyway.

Jesse Ghiorzi grew up rooting for the Yankees in Westchester, and he’s next up in our Pinch Hitters series. Jesse played baseball in high school and coached some Little League after college. Today he lives in Columbus, OH and works as the PR Director for a racetrack. He goes to at least one Yankees road series in the Midwest — Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, etc. — every year, and makes sure to get into the Bronx when he visits his parents back home.

Jesse is 26 years old. He lucky enough to see David Cone’s perfect game in person, but he has one Yankees regret: “I was at the Mantle (HBO documentary) screening in Dallas,” Jesse wrote, “and Mrs. Mantle was right next to me during the post-showing reception. I wanted to give her a hug and kiss on the cheek, but then his son (the one who looks a lot like him, David(?)) glanced over at me and I felt like The Mick was peering into my heart and telling me to stay away from his wife. I was terrified and walked the other way.”

Jesse has his own blog, and for his guest post, he broke his own heart by evaluating Andy Pettitte’s chances of landing in the Hall of Fame.

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Andy Pettitte is Not a Hall of Fame Pitcher

Though it’s often difficult, I’m going to attempt to separate my head from my heart as I make this argument. Of course, as a Yankees fan, I’m sure that Dandy Andy Pettitte — he of the most all-time postseason wins — is a first ballot Hall of Fame inductee. However, when I look at his career objectively, I’m not so sure that’s the case.

My baseball writing history consists of a couple of years of blogging, sometimes about the game, so I’m clearly not qualified to vote on the Cooperstown crew. If I had a vote, I’d define a Hall of Famer as someone who was the best at his position for a number of years, or at the very least, near the top of the game for a long time.

Pettitte was always very good, but rarely great in the regular season. The 13 seasons in which he started at least 25 games, his ERA was over 4.00 a surprising nine times (and 3.99 once). Even in the Steroid Era, the best pitchers in the game – like Maddux, Halladay, Martinez and Johnson – were more effective than that. His regular season win percentage of .635, while impressive, is more a result of the powerful offenses he has played with than anything else. Only twice as a Yankee (and four times overall) have the bats behind him failed to score at least 800 runs in a season. When you have guys mashing for you on a consistent basis, you can get away with a career ERA nearly a run (.92) over that of the average Hall of Famer.

Every year, between 12 and 18 pitchers in each league are named to the All-Star Game. Between fan voting and manager selections, this roster is often made of the top arms in any given season. Pettitte has been named one of the top pitchers in the league just three times and finished in the top three of Cy Young voting only once (1996). Though he was often pitching much later into the fall than his counterparts, it was not always because of his extraordinary events in the summer.

Postseason
When you talk Andy, you talk playoffs. His October wins record (19) is amazing, but it’s also a record based on quantity as much as quality. With 42 starts, he has seven more than the next closest pitcher and nearly double the figure of the highest totaled non-Divisional Era starter. Look at any of the postseason records in baseball’s history. They are filled with names from the current era of Bombers: Jeter, Williams, Posada and Mussina. Those names are there because they are very good, but also because of the extended playoff format. While you have to be good to get the chances, that in itself does not always grant you a spot in baseball’s upper echelon.

History
Among qualified pitchers (1,000+ IP), Pettitte ranks 720th in ERA, next to names like Derek Lowe, Jack Morris, Barry Zito and Jack McDowell. Nice pitchers, but not Hall of Famers. Looking at modern statistics, he’s tied for 163rd in ERA+ and sits 48th in WPA behind too many non-Hall of Famers to mention. According to Bill James’ Hall of Fame Monitor, Pettitte checks in at 123 (100 is likely to be inducted), but with two points assigned for each WS start and another two for each win, his Fall Classic performance accounts for 36 of the total, meaning his regular seasons are not up to snuff. The average Hall of Famer has led the league in a major category 40 times, Pettitte has just seven next to his name, furthering my point that he was never one of the best pitchers in the game. The rest of his numbers are mostly comparable to those of an average Hall of Famer, but is that the type of person we want to induct in the Hall? I do not.

Though I am thankful for all the wins he’s helped bring my team and all the times I have felt at ease down in a series with Andy on the mound in a pivotal game, my head tells my heart to ‘shut up’ after I spend some time breaking down his place in history. Also, I would bet Pettitte would rather have five rings from the South Bronx than some bronze in upstate New York.

Associated Press photo of Pettitte’s reaction to this piece!

Just a reminder that any of you watching the Jets game tonight should come on over and live chat with me about it. We can talk Sanchez, Rex, Holmes, Big Ben … and even Joba in the rotation if you want (maybe just for a minute or two).

Come on over. The chat just started and will run through the game. It’s located right here.

UPDATE: Sorry guys, the chat is here. My mistake.

Yankees fans know all about what Jets fans are feeling today. For the Jets, today is pretty much like Game 7 of the ALCS — something with which Yankees fans are intimately familiar. They’re one game away from the biggest stage of all.

Remember what it felt like in 2003? That’s what the Jets fans are hoping and praying they’ll get to feel tonight. Remember what it felt like in 2004? That’s what they felt like a year ago in Indianapolis.

I know this is a baseball blog but obviously the Jets and the NFL have been the dominant story in New York lately. If you know a Jets fan, take sympathy on them today – they’re probably going crazy waiting for kickoff. If you are a Jets fan? Do your best to stay sane until 6:30!

(By the way, for those who are interested: Here’s a story I wrote in today’s paper about the Jets long road through two – and maybe three – championship quarterbacks this postseason. Here’s a column I wrote on how they’ve shown they can take a punch and keep coming back. And here’s my unit-by-unit breakdown of today’s Jets-Steelers match-up. Read down for my prediction!)

* That’s a camera phone shot of the field from the press box, three hours before kickoff.

There is an interesting piece by Hall of Fame columnist Bill Madden in today’s Daily News in which he writes about the possibility of Brian Cashman wanting to leave the Yankees after his contract expires next winter. Cashman, Madden says, may be coming to the end of his rope with regard to the unusual dynamic that comes with working for the Steinbrenner family.

Now, to be fair, there have been whispers and chatter about this notion for a long time. I know that some people are very much down on Cashman – and believe me, I’m well-aware of the stinkers he’s been part of, too – but I’ve always felt he got way, way too much anger directed his way. In truth, he’s sort of in a no-win; he’s been part of a club that delivered four championships in five years, went to two more World Series in the next three years then won another World Series six years after that. If you don’t think that’s a fantastic output, talk to some Jets fans today and see how on edge they’re feeling going into tonight’s game.

Of course, it’s easy to look at all that and say Cashman “didn’t do anything” because he could “pay whatever he wanted to get anyone.” I’ve never quite bought that and I think it’s largely unfair to say Cashman isn’t a very important part of the Yankees success. Is he fed up with being – as he once said – the “director of spending?” That may be. So maybe he does go looking for a different gig in a year, maybe he does want to try a smaller-market situation. I’ll believe it when I see it.

I’ll say this though: If and when he does go, whatever the circumstances, I do think there will be plenty of fans who find themselves missing him more than they expected.

Our next Pinch Hitter, Mark Braff, lives in New Jersey and has been a Yankees fan since 1965. He wrote that he’s been rooting for the pinstripes, “from Horace Clarke and Dooley Womack to Robbie Cano and Mariano Rivera.” Mark said he feels kind of like “a child of the Great Depression who later in life never forgot the value of a dollar.”

Today, Mark cheers for a team of all-stars, but it hasn’t always been that way. Mark’s early Yankee years weren’t so successful, and for his guest post, Mark wrote that the lean years made him appreciate the fact that — even today — every team has at least one all-star on its roster.

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I know the All-Star Game is quite a ways off (July 12 at Chase Field in Arizona, to be exact), but it feels good to think about the mid-summer classic as I nurse snow-shoveling aches and pains incurred during this brutal winter in the Northeast. There is hope that summer will arrive — eventually.

And as surely as summer will arrive, so too will complaints from fans that so-and-so, a deserving All-Star, was left off the team while roster spots are taken by players on the Pittsburghs of the world because every team is required to be represented.

I’ll take the opposite view.

I believe strongly that every team should have at least one player on the All-Star roster. This viewpoint might seem strange coming from a Yankee fan of 45 years — after all, my team sends a plethora of players to the mid-summer classic every year — but it is precisely because I have been a Yankee fan for so long that I can empathize with the 8-year-old Pirates fan whose team is pretty much irrelevant to the baseball world two weeks into the season.

I became a Yankee fan in 1965, aka, The Dark Days. Today’s younger Yankee fans consider the rare non-playoff year, like 2008, to be a “bad” season. But I have to tell you folks, you don’t know the meaning of bad Yankee seasons.

Try this on for size:

1965 — 77-85 (6tth in a 10-team league)
1966 – 70-89 (10th, dead last)
1967 – 72-90 (9th of 10)
1968 — 83-79 (5th of 10, my first-ever .500+ season! Why was there no parade down lower Broadway?)
1969 – 80-81 (5h in a six-team division, made even worse by the fact that the Mets –- are you kidding me? — won the World Series).

Growing up, a Yankee season highlight for me would be the split of a Sunday doubleheader with the mighty Baltimore Orioles. Suffice it to say, my Yankee goals were modest.

These were my ages 8-13 years, a time when a single year was an eternity as opposed to how they fly by when you are older.

And, so, when the All-Star game would come around in mid-summer, I would enjoy one of my few thrills of the season when Mel Stottlemyre or, a bit later, Bobby Murcer, would enter the game. Play-by-play man Curt Gowdy would tell an entire nation watching on NBC what a fine pitcher Stottlemyre was. I still recall the feeling of pride that I had for “my guys” because now the entire country was getting to hear how good they were. Remember, there was only one national game of the week in those days, and the Yankees were rarely if ever on it. They were, frankly, irrelevant.

Today, of course, there are many more nationally televised games, but really, how many times are teams like the Pirates shown? That 8-year-old fan in Pittsburgh, who is just learning to love baseball and whose team has little chance to succeed, needs something to feel good about.

So, yes, let’s send Andrew McCutchen or Pedro Alvarez to the All-Star game even if someone on another team might be more deserving in any given season. Somewhere in Pittsburgh, a kid will feel a sense of pride and have a memory to cherish. Is that asking too much?

Associated Press photo of Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez with Carlos Guillen

Two important reminders:

1. Yankees spring training workouts begin in Tampa in just 24 days.

2. The LoHud Jets Live Chat begins right here and right now!

Come on over and talk a little Jets with me ahead of the big game tomorrow. You can find the chat at lohud.com/protalklive.