Was doing some reading this afternoon and came upon a nice piece by good buddy Bob Klapisch, who wrote about Joe Girardi’s spring training opening address to the Yankees. Klap is right in that some of the best advice Joe Torre ever gave his teams came in these speeches, and I can remember talking to one rookie shortly after the speech one spring and the kid giving me the widest-eyed look you’d ever seen; it wasn’t because Torre was fired up  (Torre was usually very understated, as you’d expect) but because of the difficulty of the message: Simple as Torre might have made filtering out the distractions sound, the notion that it had to be a point of emphasis on the first day of spring hammered home the idea that playing for the Yankees is something different.

We talk all the time about chemistry and, as I’ve said before, I’m of the belief that chemistry is much like a team’s manager – it gets too much credit when the team wins and too much blame when it loses. That said, in New York – especially on a team like the Yankees (and even more especially when George Steinbrenner was at his peak) – the vibe in the clubhouse matters. There’s too much pressure for it not to make a difference.

Many of you emailed after Melky Cabrera was traded to ask about how his departure would affect Robinson Cano, who was his best friend on the team. There were also questions about how Hideki Matsui’s departure would affect team chemistry since Matsui was an established veteran. In neither case did I think the player leaving would make all that much of a difference; Cano will miss Cabrera, but he’ll be fine and Matsui was a rock, to be sure, but not necessarily a vocal leader.

Johnny Damon, though, is a slightly different story. Assuming Damon does, in fact, sign elsewhere it will be interesting to see just how the clubhouse is affected. A few years ago, I would have said his departure could have caused a much bigger change; with CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Nick Swisher now on the team, there are others who can provide the “light” element that the core four doesn’t necessarily offer. Damon was also a stand-up spokesman, someone who would not hesitate to speak about big-picture team issues on tough days – a role which is important because it allowed his teammates to avoid the stresses of the media on days when emotions were high. In a market like New York, that’s important.

Girardi (deservedly) got a lot of credit for improving his clubhouse tenor last year and it will be tested again this year. Without Damon, can he find the right balance again? As he tries to lead the Yankees to repeat, it may be one of the biggest challenges he’ll face.

Extra-special birthday wishes go out to the spirit of Babe Ruth today, who is no doubt looking down somewhere and wondering what all the fuss over Johnny Damon wanting millions of dollars is all about. The Babe, who passed away in 1948, would be turning 115 today.

Earlier this week we debated the greatest Yankee of all time (which, probably, isn’t Derek Jeter) and obviously Ruth is the clubhouse leader. If you’ve got a minute, take a look at his baseball-reference page; it’s ridiculous! Although it’s very difficult to compare players from different generations, I think we can all agree that Ruth’s career OPS+ of 207 – which is still the all-time record – is pretty darn impressive.

So happy birthday, Babe. There’s never been another one quite like you.

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Also, wanted to take a minute to thank all the blog readers who came up and said hello at today’s World Series trophy showing in Westchester. It’s always an honor to be recognized and it means a lot to hear from so many folks who enjoy what we do here. Thanks for taking the time to stop by and say hi.

(By the way, for those who asked: There are actually two Commissioner’s Trophies that the Yankees use to commemorate the World Series win. Unlike, say, the Stanley Cup, a new trophy (or two) is made each year for that year’s champion. So, while one trophy has been in Asia this past week, the other is here in America. I asked Tony Amelio, the Yankees security manager who escorted the trophy today, which one this one was and he said he wasn’t sure but believed that it was the one on the field after the Game 6 clincher.)

In general, I’m a very big believer in the present tense as it relates to sports. While I absolutely appreciate the concepts of “up-and-coming,” “upside” and “potential,” most of the time I look at all those terms and just think they’re nicer ways of saying “haven’t made it yet.”

In baseball (especially when it comes to the Yankees), I feel even more strongly about this. Do I think the Yankees should be a team of guns-for-hire? Mercenaries? A team that – to borrow a recently nonsensical quote – just goes out and signs the Cy Young award winner every year?

Hardly. But I do think that, when given a chance to pull the trigger on a deal for a high-level established major leaguer (especially a pitcher), it’s worth giving up a lot of “prospects” to make it happen. In other words, I would have absolutely made the deal for Johan Santana a few years back.

That trade (or non-trade, I suppose) may well go down as one of the best decisions that Brian Cashman made. Some folks will be revisionists and say they “knew all along” it was a bad idea but I’ll cop to my true thoughts at the time and take my lumps – I thought the Yankees should have pushed for Santana two years ago and, given the same set of circumstances now I’d probably say they should push for it again. As Moshe wrote this morning, I’ll always value a player who I know can play at the major-league level over someone who may be able to play at the major league level. There are too many can’t-miss prospects who do; too many guys who burn out before they ever make it big.

If you look now at the potential Santana deal the Yankees could have made, you’d have to call the Yankees winners overall; they probably wouldn’t have had the money to sign CC Sabathia and/or A.J. Burnett and/or Mark Teixeira if they’d given Santana an extension, for starters, and then there are the prospects. The Yankees used Ian Kennedy and Melky Cabrera in other trades (hello, Curtis Granderson and Javy Vazquez), while Jeff Marquez and Jhonny Nunez were in the Nick Swisher deal. Phil Hughes? Well, you know what’s happened to him.

Thing is, while Santana hasn’t been as successful for the Mets as they’d imagined (though he’s been pretty darn good), but who knows what he would have done for the Yankees. And who knows how the budgets of the past few years would have played out if he’d gotten an extension in the Bronx instead of in Queens. It’s easy to look at where everyone is right now and say the Yankees did the right thing, but maybe they’d have done even better over the past few years? And more importantly, what did you think they should have done at the time?

Given the exact same opportunity for the exact same star player and the exact same prospects (at that point in their careers) again, I still think I’d be in favor of going out and getting the best pitcher in baseball. That’s no knock on the Hughes of a few years ago (or any of the other kids in the deal); it’s more a testament to what I believe the value of an established superstar is and should be.

What would you do?

Next up in the Pinch Hitters series is Moshe Mandel, who used the career of one young pitcher to evaluate the trade of another young pitcher.

Moshe is a second-year student at Harvard Law School, “and would love to use my legal education to find a job in sports,” he wrote. The law education came in handy when his year-old blog, The Yankee Universe, was given a cease-and-desist from the Yankees, who seemed to have a problem with the blog’s name.

After a name change – to TYU — the blog has continued with a staff of six writers. It’s another of the truly great Yankees blogs out there. Bookmark it.

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A few weeks ago, John Sickels released his top 20 Yankees prospects list for 2010. One notable omission from the list was Dellin Betances, who was not even referenced as an honorable mention.

It represented a significant fall from grace from Betances, who was drafted by the Yankees in the 8th round of the 2006 draft. He came highly regarded, with a big arm, exciting repertoire, inconsistent mechanics that caused control issues, and some questions about his durability. He quickly made his way onto top prospect lists, coming in at 100 on BA’s 2007 list and getting a very solid B from Sickels, who is not one to hand out rankings like that to pitchers with such limited experience. In 2008, Sickels dropped him to a B- after a 2007 season in which he pitched only 25.1 innings due to a strained elbow. However, he had a solid 2008, and seemed to solve his control problems in the second half as went from 40/64 BB/K in 55 innings before the All Star break to a 19/71 BB/K in 60.1 innings after. Based on that performance, Sickels left Betances at B- but bumped him up to 3rd on the Yankee list for 2009.

Betances’ 2009 was a disaster, as he pitched just 44 innings, saw his K rate drop below 10 for the first time in his career (8.9), and had his BB rate climb back over 5 (5.5). He once again got injured, and the early word was that it was Tommy John surgery. However, it was in fact ligament enhancement surgery (Mariano had the same one near the start of his career), and he should be ready to pitch in High-A Tampa near the start of the year, when he will be 22. Sickels left Dellin off of his 2010 list entirely, and he currently has little trade value.

While he should not be written off and could still turn his career around, it seems that this is one lottery ticket that is probably not going to yield positive results. There is a lesson in Betances’ story for Yankees fans like myself who obsess over the minor league system. There is no such thing as a pitching prospect. To delve deeper, the high-ceilinged, super skilled projects toiling in the lower levels that we get excited about are unlikely to ever see the majors.

Most of those high-risk, high-reward guys are lottery tickets, and the lotto rarely pays off. Betances was a top prospect from the moment he was drafted, sporadically displayed tantalizing potential to maintain that status, and now is a 22 year old who has never been past High-A and is coming back from a fairly significant injury. We get excited about these guys, project them as future aces, and hope that the team refuses to deal them for anyone but the greatest players. The fact of the matter is, many of these lottery tickets should probably be traded in for useful major league players before injuries and ineffectiveness sap them of their value.

It is the job of the general manager to try and maximize the return on investment that can extracted from such players by refraining from falling in love with their potential and then identifying which of these gambles should be cashed in. That is why it made sense to trade Arodys Vizcaino (who is likely a better prospect than Betances was at his age) for Javier Vazquez. You need to give the other club something of value in a trade for an established performer like Vazquez, and relinquishing a Low-A player who is not yet a top 25-type prospect is a prudent use of resources. It is possible that Vizcaino will make the Yankees regret that trade at some point in the future. But as the saga of Dellin Betances shows us, it is unlikely.

Scott Boras is still spinning on Johnny Damon, telling USA Today that he is “negotiating with a number of teams” and then adding that, “There are three teams out there that if they don’t have Johnny Damon, they’re not winning the division. He’s the difference in these teams making the playoffs or not contending.”

Now, it would seem that Boras is talking about the Tigers, Braves and … the famous “mystery team” that Boras has often used in negotiations. Word out of Detroit is that the Tigers could have already signed Damon if they were willing to go to a second guaranteed year but they are – not surprisingly – reluctant to do that. If Damon would take one year, he’d probably already be packing for spring in Lakeland.

What’ll happen? I’d bet on a one-and-one (one year, one option) with the Tigers but who knows? We’re literally weeks (and fast approaching days) from spring training and Damon has no team. Not exactly the way he saw this winter unfolding.

• Alex Rodriguez’s 500th home run ball sold at auction for $103,579. Not a bad haul for the guy who caught it, but milestone baseballs – like everything else in the economy – seem to have dropped in value. Barry Bonds’s 756th home run ball sold for about $750k while Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball from 1998 went for a cool $3 million.

• Normally a list of players invited to Mets spring training wouldn’t merit much notice here but one catcher – Francisco Pena – deserves a mention on a Yankees blog. Francisco is the 20-year-old son of Yankees bench coach Tony Pena. Tony is one of the good guys in baseball and the Mets haven’t exactly had overwhelming success at catcher since Mike Piazza, so here’s hoping Francisco has a good spring.

• Don’t forget that the World Series trophy will be at the Westchester County Center tomorrow from 11-2 for fans who want to come and see it (and take pictures). Admission is free, parking is $4. For more info, click here.

• Barring some crazy news, that’ll probably do it for the blog today. Check back over the weekend for more Pinch Hitters and some Super Bowl predictions, as well as anything that might break. I know it’s been slow for a while around here but the good stuff is just around the corner.

… maybe the Yankees would consider bringing in this guy?

Joachim de Posada is a relative of Jorge’s, and apparently he’s quite the motivational speaker. In one of his more recent sessions with a pro team, Joachim reportedly addressed the (unbelievably bad) New Jersey Nets before a game against the 76ers. At one point, while explaining how success is tied to mind over matter, Joachim stuck himself in the face with a needle to demonstrate the power of a person’s will.

Of course, mind-over-matter only takes you so far. The Nets still lost that night (as they’ve done almost every game this year) and some of the players were (understandably) more weirded out by the experience than inspired.

Somehow, I don’t see Joe Girardi turning to Joachim for help firing up the Yankees later this summer.

Yankee Stadium – old or new – will always have a certain special quality because of the Yankees place in baseball history. But not every park has the built-in advantage of being the place where one of the more famed teams in all of sports plays its games. Most stadiums have to bring something else to the table.

As I was reading Jason’s post this morning I found myself ticking off a list in my head of all the ballparks around baseball that have that “something” – the something which makes you want to go there almost regardless of who the home team is playing.

Everyone has different criteria for what appeals to them at a park, and mine aren’t particularly unusual – I like an open feel, good food and decent acoustics, not to mention a good scoreboard. Those aren’t ironclad rules, though; sometimes I just like the vibe of a park and that’s all it takes.

Here’s my list of top 5 most enjoyable parks to visit, non-NY division (and I listed them by city because I hate sponsor names). What’s yours?

1. San Francisco – Great view, great atmosphere, great food both in and nearby the park. One of my favorite cities, too.
2. Seattle – Fantastic sushi and the coolest roof ever.
3. Baltimore – Starting to lose a little of its luster over the years, but still a fave (though not if its the dead of August). Can’t go wrong with a pre-game crab cake at Phillips.
4. Pittsburgh – Great stadium, awful team.
5. Anaheim – Underrated park with great sightlines and cool rocks beyond the outfield wall. Plus, I like when the Rally Monkey pops up in bits from “Jaws” and “Pyscho.”

Honorable mention: Kansas City (great scoreboard), Cleveland (non-midge season), Philadelphia (about a billion times better than the Vet)

Next up in the Pinch Hitters series is Jason Rodriguez, who is glad this winter’s conversation has focused on new players and not a new stadium.

Jason was born in the Bronx, graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology and currently lives in Rockland County. His first trip to the old Yankee Stadium as in 1996, when he got Derek Jeter’s autograph.

“Not knowing any better, I also had the ball signed by the likes of Dale Polley, who was only ever in the big leagues for 3 months,” Jason wrote. “By the time I hit 14, I realized how big of a mistake that was. To this day, I still get ‘Who is Dale Polley?’ when I show anyone my baseball.”

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The prospect of moving to a new stadium is an exciting event for fans of most teams. However, when you leave the historic Yankee Stadium, the excitement can be somewhat tempered, if not missing altogether for some fans.

As Opening Day approached last year, the concerns started to pile up: ticket prices, some bleacher seats with limited sightlines, separation of the rich fan from the average fan, renewing partial season ticket plans, etc. Not to mention questions over whether or not the new ballpark would have remotely the same atmosphere as the old one.
To be honest, none of the changes implemented by the Yankees impacted me to a large degree. Yet as the year progressed, I found myself caring less.

Sure, the upgrade in food, enormous Jumbotron, and Metro-North direct service contributed to my love of the new Stadium. But one thing trumps all others: Winning. With a MLB best 57-24 home record (the Yankee’s best since the same record in 2004), countless fans were being sent home happy on a regular basis.

Now, what if 2009 was a repeat of 2008? Would the Yankee organization still be taking heat for some of their decisions regarding the new stadium? The Yankees took a number of proactive measures to increase fan satisfaction. Opening up lower-level access during batting practice as well as having players greet fans on select home dates showed some effort on the organization’s part. A year later, almost all is well in Yankee Universe. The new Yankee Stadium is now synonymous with walk-off heroics, pies in the face, and most importantly: a 27th world championship. Conversation is now much more focused on the lineup changes and defending our title rather than the new stadium.

This is a welcome change to both fans and the Yankees organization. In light of the changes being made at the ballpark in Queens, would we be feeling differently about the new stadium if the 2009 season was a disappointment rather than a tremendous success?

David, a devout reader of the blog, lives in Hong Kong and took his son to the airport Thursday afternoon to pick up the in-laws. While waiting for the flight, he suddenly noticed this particularly interesting piece of lugagge going by:

That led to – a few minutes later – this memorable photo.

Not bad for the price of short-term parking, right?

Don’t forget – those of you in the Westchester area will have your chance for pictures on Saturday at the County Center. Click here for more info.

Teams signing young pitchers to long-term deals during their arbitration years has become increasingly common (Verlander, King Felix) but there’s one notable exception – Tim Lincecum, the two-time reining NL Cy Young winner, is currently embroiled in one of the most intriguing arbitration cases in baseball history.

Quick summary: Lincecum filed for arbitration and has asked for a $13 million salary next season; the Giants have submitted a proposed salary of $8 million. If the sides can’t agree, there will be a hearing before a three-person panel during spring training in which both sides argue why their proposal should be chosen.

The hearing process can be brutal. Recently, the Yankees famously went to arbitration with Chien-Ming Wang (over about $600,000) and Wang was said to never quite past it emotionally. Remember, arbitration is adversarial – the team is basically obligated to tear down and minimize the player’s positives since it is trying to show that the player’s proposal is unjustified. That can get ugly.

Now, win or lose, Lincecum will end up with a record award for a pitcher (and $13 million would be a record overall) but it’ll be interesting to see if the Giants really take this to a hearing. MLB.com’s Doug Miller did a great breakdown of some of the historical precedents here, and looking at some past awards it sure seems to me like Lincecum’s got about as strong a case as anyone.

If I were the Giants, I’d be doing whatever I could to make a deal before it gets to the hearing. Plus, what would they say negatively about Lincecum if it got there? That they don’t like his hair?