On the Yankees beat

It sure looks like those two enjoy the Texas atmosphere together. The signing of Andy Pettitte if it happens will be very difficult. So many emotions of family and friends are tied to this cotractural agreement.
I hope plan C is on the drawing board.

What is plan c. Trading for garland

I'm just hoping the Astros and White Sox find a way to complete the Garland deal so Andy sees clearly which team really wants him.
Frankly I don't understand the White Sox giving up Garland when they have weaker pitchers on their staff who are tradeable. I guess they're cutting payroll, I don't know.

Plan C is a mystery and my guess is it could be a last ditch shot at Zito. I think that is what Zito is waiting on as well. They figure if the Yanks don't get Pettitte they will be desperate and Boras can use the Yankees as his trump card against the Mets, Rangers and Mariners. I'd still like to see some kind of trade, but not for Brad Penny, he doesn't do much for me even though he throws very hard. We need a LH who can give us innings and that pitcher is available so we need to close this deal.
Andy: We promise, you and Roger can still do commercials together in NY, just quit the nonsense and come on home where you belong.

Do you think we can get Zito at 4yr 57mil

He's a Boras client so my guess he goes where the money is. All he has to do is look at Carlos Beltran and see that he can take less money in the contract but he'll get it back in endorsements and so forth. I doubt he signs for less than 5yrs/$75M though. At 28 yrs old, you can't argue with too much there, but he's just not a number one guy and I don't think the Yanks would give him top dollar AND max years. They'd prefer to keep it shorter and pay more is my guess. Even if he signs a five year deal he's only 33 when the contract expires and could still sign another long term deal. I wonder if they would consider something like a 5 yr deal, but the last two are team options. I doubt it, Boras will milk this cow for all he can, but that's his job.

You will never get zito for a 4 year deal. I say let the Mets have him; he is not worth the $$$

Cashman is making all the right moves by not making most of these moves.

These pitchers going for millions of dollars are not worth the money and the years.

I feel as if our rotation as it is right now will make the playoffs since our offense is really deep. If we get in trouble during the season we can always bring people up or make a trade.

Signing Pettitte to a one or two year deal makes perfect sense and it would give us that lefty arm we will need against the Sawwwx, as well as the depth in the rotation we will more than likely need come half way through the season.

Do you think The Yankees can still received a draft pick eventhough Villone decline arbitration?

Yes. The Yankees will receive an extra draft pick if Villone signs with another team, which seems likely.

Doug: Plan C is getting a credibile starter by trade but not Zito. I think privately the Yanks do not feel that he's worth it. I agree. The Yanks can do as well promoting their farm hands.

I would feel comfortable with our rotation as is with the young guys being tossed in every now and again as their results warrant. We won the divison last year with 3.5 SP. One guy had a 5.00 era and the other could not get to the sixth inning. The signing of Andy would be icing on the cake. Mussina and Wang held the fort for us. The other teams are paying big bucks with long term deals for .500 pitchers. We have a great hitting club with better than average defense especially with Melky and Abreu on the corners.

Man...I hope Andy comes. By the way, that commercial was so stupid. Come on, I know you guys are friends, but spend more than five frickin minutes apart from eachother for f**k's sake. Maybe his wife DOES want Andy to come back to the Bronx to be away from his mistress Roger..

Anyway, plan C better be something good, because I'm getting more and more skeptical as we speak. And since my idea of a plan c usually leads to a girl "accidentally" falling down the stairs, you can imagine how nervous I am about Cashman's plans...

Larry,
I don't know if I feel comfortable with the rotation the way it is. We lost in the first round of the playoffs with this rotation last year and all we've done is subtracted from it. Igawa is a question mark, a big one as far as I'm concerned. Wang cannot be expected to repeat his performance from last year, Moose and RJ aren't getting any younger.
Pettitte is not icing on the cake to me, he is a huge, huge (did I say huge?) necessity. I frankly am not confident in this rotation at all going into next season. The kids aren't exactly ready (Sanchez and Hughes) and the other kids just didn't impress me all that much (Karstens and Rasner).
I might just have a case of "anal retinitas" but my outlook for this staff is pretty sh*tty right now.

Plan C: Boomer. Oh man, I can't believe I just wrote that. That might be plan Z.

No, no, Jim. You go with the coat hanger first before you get that desperate.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/story/478311p-402362c.html

Funny how Lupica the Yankee hater is all worked up about the Yankees spending 16M for Pettitte and 25M for Igawa when teams like the Cubs just dropped 270M this off season and the Red Sox spent $173.5 Million this Offseason alone . Matsuzaka is not even signed yet.

AND, Pettitte isn't even signed yet!!!! LOL

Where was his big Mets article when they signed Pedro? A guy who took the extra cash and has done nothing for them.

Nice job, Mikey. Once in a while he gets it right, this is not one of those times. Must have been a slow day.

I love how when a reporter writes something dissenting about a yankees potential move he is a hack, and a loser.

But the second they write something positive that supports an opinion their article is the 1st to be posted. Just a double standard i find funny here.

With that said, he makes some decnt points baout andy's shoulder, teh yankees concern, the fact that he has 500 more innings on it since those concerns etc etc.

But he is missing the big picture in that especially in this horrible market the yankees, of all teams, have been among those that have been wise in their spending for once, and that a short term deal like this is their best and quite honestly only reasonable option..

According to a report in another NY area paper, the Yankees and Pirates are talking about a deal that would send OF Kevin Thompson to the Bucs for LRP Damaso Marte (owed $4.7 mil over the next two seasons) as insurance if Villone leaves. If the Yankees do deal Thompson it improves Bernie Williams's chances of staying with the team.

Gil Meche got $1 million per win in his career. Clemens should offer teams a discount, half a million for each of his wins.

Octavio Dotel set to join the Royals for 1 year $5 mil

Atticas: I think JT would go w/ the coat hanger first, that's for sure.

On Lupica: He's a pompous nerd who has ruined "The Sports Reporters" on ESPN. He totally controls and tries to dominate all the issues. I think he really hates athletes because he's a little pipsqueak.
I have a lot of respect for Jason Whitlock for going off on him, even though it cost him his spot on ESPN.

Obviously Dotel really cares about winning. He may get to close about 6 games in KC.

I can understand Lupica's point but I think he's off base in that while the Yankees would be overpaying for Pettitte he represents something Cashman views as being more important than money right now and that's a short term contract.

The Yankees for the first time in a very very long time have multiple top level pitching prospects who are at most a year away from being ready for the majors. If you look at the current contracts and the assumed Pettitte one, all but Wang will be up after the 2008 season at latest. Why sign a 28 year old Gil Meche for $55 mil or 30 year old Ted Lilly for $40 mil when over the course of that contract you have multiple guys (Hughes, Sanchez, Joba Chamberlain, Chris Gomez) who could out perform them and other guys (Tyler Clippard, Jeff Karstens, Darrell Rasner) who might not be quite as good, but will be good enough?

Is Lupica a Mets or Red Sox fan? He never has anything good to say or write about the Yankees !

Just watched that disturbing Clemens-Pettitte commercial again. The infatuation these two have with each other is a little disturbing. The only thing missing is the awkward "man hug" at the end that I was expecting, you know like the one between Rocky and Apollo in Rocky III.

Lupica is a Met fan.

Speaking of the Red Sox though. According to Murray Chass, many teams are starting to question the practices of the Boston front office. There are accusations of tampering in both the cases of JD Drew and Julio Lugo - remember last season at the trade deadline the Rays accused Boston of tampering with Lugo and after the league said there was nothing they could do about it, Tampa decided that any player Boston tried to get through waivers for the purposes of trading, the Rays would claim.

The gist of the Drew argument is that there is no way a player with JD's injury history would walk away from $33 million without knowing exactly what was waiting for him. The fact that he only seemed to negotiate with Boston does nothing to negate those rumors. It was, in part, because of these rumors that a Manny to the Dodgers deal never happened. As the Dodgers saw it, the Sox created the hole in the Dodger offense by convincing Drew to opt out and then wanted to take advantage of thier situation by fleecing them for Manny.

In addition to the tampering allegations, executives are looking closely at how the Sox are going forward with the Matsuzaka negotiations, the fact that Luccino was so obvious in his attempts to strong arm Seibu into giving part of the posting fee to Matsuzaka to facilitate a contract was a smack in the face to the system and the other teams who bid in good faith.

Yea, I really hope that Colletti files a claim with the front office. Could you imagine if Steinbrener did something like that? Hell, he got suspended for making questionable political contributions, which had nothing to even do with baseball. I hate Red Sox fans.

why is it disturbing??

Was it disturbing for The Mick and billy martin and whitey ford and Yogi. That right there is what the game is missing .. friendship bonds. that right there make it better. that is what destroyed the yanks in 03. Diss pettite and clemons was outta there then to add insult he unretired and pitched where his friend pitched created such a nice enviroment in houston and having houston look like some nice family oriented club. MArketing

I live in the Bay Area and have watched Barry Zito from day 1,if I had a choice I'd take Pettitte for 1-2 yrs @ 16 per, having said that Zito is 6 yrs younger than AP and has a very consistent track record,please I don't want get into postseason track records,but Zito did beat Santana in round 1 ,that left an impression on me,so why not give Zito 5-6 yrs @ 16 mil,he'll be 34 when the contract expires,barring injury youre looking at 100 wins.

Yes, Clemens came back JUST for his buddy. Not the millions of dollars he stuck Houston for the second year or the preferential treatment he's received since he got there.
Do you guys remember that Clemens basically told a radio station he couldn't "un-retire" because the Yank had given him an orange Hummer and he didn't want to have to give it back, so low and behold, the station buys him one.
I have a grudge against Clemens because he always leaves a team on bad terms and does not seem like a man of his word at all.

I have a lot of good friends but I don't follow them all over the country and plan my life around them. It's just weird that's all.

Yeah, I loathe Boston and hope that this all comes back to bite them. Keep in mind that while things are looking good for them this winter, it could blow up very easily:

JD Drew does not have the make-up to play there, plus he is essentially replacing a very popular player in Trot Nixon (he is to Boston what Paulie was here), he could very easily be their next Edgar Renteria

Manny will once again be Manny

No one knows how Papelbon's shoulder will be. He could pitch great, or he could be Mark Prior Lite.

They still have no closer and appear to be settling on Eric Gagne who can't be counted on.

Beckett has to adjust to the AL

Matsuzaka has to adjust to the United States and the fishbowl he's going to be under not just as a Red Sox pitcher, but due to the huge posting fee.

Crisp/Pena have to play better

Schilling, Varitek and Wakefield have to hold off father time.

Bottom line, they have just as many holes as the Yankees and not nearly as many young solutions on the way up.

Speaking of the Yankees. If they plan to go with Phelps at 1st base (not a bad option) I wouldn't be shocked if they also picked up Aubry Huff. Huff hasn't been great the last two years, but he can play both corner infield and outfield positions, is familiar with the AL East and would provide some nice insurance for the inevitable Giambi injury.

Again gentlemen, the Yanks want cheap,young,promising, players that will lower the payroll and reduce our luxury tax. "Cash" may be forced to sign Pettitte due to fan reaction, but is hopeing Andy stays in Houston. No way we sign either Clemens or Zito. We are now doing business with the "team payroll" the primary factor, not winning.

The Jury is out on Sanchez , he is not a starter as of late he was a reliever, and coming off a injury , Once again we overhyping players before we see them there for applying pressure , we need to bring them up like we did Pettite and kartsens, rasner whom I think will be better than the advertised Sanchez etc. remember Pettite Success was mostly on the strenght of the run support the yankees was giving him. look it up stats had him as one of the leading pitchers with run support(had the most in the yankee rotation) which also gave him msot victories after a lost and so on. remember the Raners kartsens etc. pitched last year in the middle of a playoff run and had decent ERA's etc, those are going to be your stars. they are overhyping sanchez so when he rehabs in the minors and do a avg job it's enuff to convince a team he is fit and trade away a bonafied player. Detroit would,ve held on to him but realised his injury and said ohh well maybe he'll rebound but we know for sure we HAVE a proven power hitter.

of course money played a role especially if you know you pimping a organization. his buddy went there and he did well in his EXPERIMENT year making him national league ready . clemons knew he was not going to have CY -YOung years here in NY or even Boston becasue the american league would've got to him not too bad but bad enuff. so his stats became a selling point to earn more mula .

What I like about Sanchez is that before the offseason reall kicked into full gear, I kept hearing that the Tigers might move Jeremy Bonderman. After Sanchez was dealt to the Yankees, all of a sudden he was off the table, which means they viewed Bonderman as expendable so long as they had Sanchez to slip into the rotation to replace him. Any young pitcher that makes Jeremy Bonderman seem expendable makes me feel comfortable to have on my team.

this garbage about Rocket-Pettitte is like the Ringling Bros Barnum and Bailey Circus...time to move on...if the Pirates are willing to trade Marte for Thompson as rumoured ,I say go for it

Normally I would agree that everything we hear about guys like Sanchez, Hughes, Tabata, etc., is too good to be true and just another case of the Yankees pumping up young players like they did with Christian Guzman, Ruben Rivera, Rafael Medina and many others; but the Yankees aren't the ones making these evaluations. The evaluations of the players in the Yankee system are coming from independant scouting organizations like Baseball America. Can I tell you that Humberto Sanchez will be an ace for years to come? No. But at the same time I can tell you that he will at least be as good, if not better than Ted Lilly for about $39.5 million less over the next four years and Hughes will be better than Gil Meche for $54.5 million less over the next 5 years. That is money the Yankees can put towards making a run at Vernon Wells or Andruw Jones next year.

In the new wave of baseball the players, pitchers especially, who hit the market are in some way flawed. Either with age or lack of consistancy. Teams that have good stud players keep them, they lock them up with long term deals that take them through their arbitration years and into the first couple of years of free agency. The days of a young Alex Rodriguez or Manny Ramirez hitting the open market are gone, so why spend like they are out there?

ATTICAS.

Of course! but that could be a ploy yes we'll trade Bondeman and insert Sanchez , BC thinking clever says no give me the youngster detroit winks and says all of a sudden sure you can have him knowing damm well he is a big Question mark coming off a injury ,they did a yankee move on the YANKEES

The 2008 Free Agent Class

I believe it's been posted on here before, but if you think this years FA class got some bling, check out the names for next year (This looks like it was put together in October of 2006, so barring any extentions or trades, here it is):

1. John Smoltz (41)
2. Michael Young (31)
3. Carlos Zambrano (27)
4. Joe Nathan (33)
5. Mariano Rivera (38)
6. Chris Carpenter (33)
7. Jorge Posada (36)
8. Curt Schilling (41)
9. Bobby Abreu (34)
10. Ichiro Suzuki (34)
11. Andruw Jones (31)
12. Carlos Guillen (32)
13. Jeff Kent (40)
14. Mike Lowell (34)
15. Vernon Wells (29)
16. Jason Jennings (29)
17. Jake Westbrook (30)
18. Ivan Rodriguez (36)
19. Trevor Hoffman (40)
20. Freddy Garcia (32)
21. Kenny Rogers (43)
22. Torii Hunter (32)
23. Jason Isringhausen (35)
24. Omar Vizquel (41)
25. Marcus Giles (30)
26. Eric Byrnes (32)
27. Paul Lo Duca (36)
28. Bob Wickman (39)
29. Corey Patterson (28)
30. Adam Dunn (28)
31. Randy Johnson (44)
32. Scott Linebrink (31)
33. Doug Davis (32)
34. Michael Barrett (31)
35. Milton Bradley (30)
36. Jon Lieber (38)
37. David Eckstein (33)
38. Aaron Rowand (30)
39. Juan Uribe (29)
40. Bartolo Colon (35)

Atticas,Your point is well taken....everyone is talking about Hughes and Sanchez not being ready,well maybe they are ready ,Hughes could jump from AA to the bigs its been done before,He is widely considered to be the best pitching prospect in the Minors....Sanchez is a diamond in the rough.

Bomber:

According to all scouting reports (done by independent scouts) the biggest question with Sanchez was his conditioning. The injuries from last year were in part a result of that. Reports on him say that when his best friend in the organization (Joel Zumaya) was promoted to the big club, it lit a fire under Sanchez and he has been working much better ever since. Will that translate? Who knows. But, consider that before the trade Baseball America was preparing to do their Top Ten Prospects for the Detroit Tigers and had Sanchez and Kevin Whalen (also brought over in the Sheffield trade) listed at numbers 2 and 8 respectively. I'll take the chance with him, especially since Sheffield had no place on this team and was a cancer in the club house.

Yea, I'm sick of Sheffield's crap. What other Hall of Famer has had such a journeyman career? It's not a coincidence.

Anyway, I like the FA class for next year. I'd love to see Ichiro in RF, but, he's going to be 34, and so much of his game is speed, which is usually the first thing to go. Still, I'd take him for 2 years, and that arm? Forget about it...

Two things: Ruse, the Yankees now are keeping their top prospects at AA vs. AAA. You'll remember, both Cano and Wang were promoted from AA two years ago. The AA team is closer to New York and it makes it easier for the Yankee front office to monitor their progress by having them in Trenton vs. Columbus (now Scranton)

Also, this is what Baseball America (which has no ties to the Tigers so has no reason to pump up their prospects) said about the players the Yankees got back for Sheffield.

The biggest piece the Yankees get in return is Sanchez, a 2001 31st-round pick signed as a draft-and-follow out of Connors State (Okla.) Junior College. The starter for the World team in this year's Futures Game, Sanchez was born in the Dominican Republic, but grew up in the Bronx, just miles away from Yankee Stadium.

One of the premier pitching prospects in the Tigers' system, Sanchez has power stuff starting with his fastball that regularly tops out at 97 mph. He complements his heater with two hard breaking balls and an above-average changeup. His repertoire was major league ready by midseason, but a tender elbow shut him down after a promotion to Triple-A Toledo.

Sanchez's biggest problem over the last two years has been staying healthy. The 23-year-old worked hard to trim his weight after lat muscle and groin problems hampered him throughout the 2005 season, and he needs to keep his weight down in order to enhance his overall durability.

Sanchez went a combined 10-6, 2.63 while posting a career-high 123 innings between Double-A Erie and Triple-A Toledo in 2006.

The Yankees also add a potential future piece to their bullpen in Whelan, a fourth-round pick out of Texas A&M in 2005. A converted catcher, the 22-year-old righthander already has two plus pitches in his fastball and splitter. The splitter is his best offering, and he shows two different variations of the pitch--one dropping down lower than the other--and it's been clocked as high as 89 mph. His fastball sits in the 92-94 mph with average life.

Though Whelan has above-average stuff, he lacked consistent command of it in 2006 at high Class A Lakeland, where he walked 29 in 51 innings. Part of the high walk total was due to Whelan trying to develop a slider, which is his third pitch.

Claggett, an 11th-round pick out of UC Riverside in 2005, ranked in the top five in the low Class A Midwest League with 51 appearances. He struck out one batter per inning with West Michigan while relying on a 92-94 mph fastball and slider. Both pitches grade as average to just above-average, but they play bigger because of his size and deceptive delivery. The 22-year-old also tinkered with developing a changeup in 2006, though it is still a work in progress.

Chip,I agree on your talent evaluations,although Guzman turned in some very good seasons w/ the Twins and did net the Yanks Knoblauch who was instrumental in helping the Yanks to 3 straight titles....the Yanks have absolutely no interest in Wells or Jones,they have an outfield under contract for the next few yrs....if Abreu has a great season I'm sure the Yanks will lock him up to a 3yr deal.

I agree but actually the yanks were trying to rid themselves of Giambi and keep sheffield ,and people in the clubhouse actually said they like the man (sheff) i remember yankee prospects being overhyped, so i know the routine done, conditioning is the MAJOR thing with a pitcher. I believe the whelans and others may excel cause they are not in the radar. i hope sanchez does well

Schoenweiss

I hope we stay far away from this guy...look at his stats, he's horrible! He makes Villone look like Koufax. Marte or Villone I say

How many years you think Mo is going to want? and how much you pay him as well as posada , Lu duca is a FA as well that is going to be a money year

Ruse,

Abreu has an option for one year at $13 mil after this season. I'm pretty sure that what the Yankees will do is similar to what they did with Sheffield. Pick up the option and then spin Abreu for young players.

If that is the case I could see them going after either Wells or Jones, shifting and shifting Damon to right field. That said, the other scenario is moving Abreu and freeing up right field for Jose Tabata who will start this season at AA after impressing everyone in baseball a season ago - so much so that he became the youngest player to start a Future's Game.

These Yankees, under Cashman and Swindall are doing something previous Yankee regimes aren't. Rather than flexing their financial muscles to get free agents they are using their fiscal power in the draft and to sign international free agents. Players like Joba Chamberlain, Delian Bentaces were both given contracts higher than their draft positions warranted to ensure that they signed with the Yankees rather than leave to go to college (as Mark Prior did to the Yankees years ago). The Yankees are operating like a mutated version of themselves and the A's. They are building through the draft, but rather than looking for bargains in the draft they are using their financial will to make sure that they get every player they want.

Chip, excellent analysis. I have to say, it's not a bad philosophy to ensure longterm, continuing success. A hybrid of the A's system, combined with the financial muscle that the Yankees always have, could be great longterm.

Steinbrenner must have made Lupica pay for his ticket and hot dogs, because it is comical how Lupica rips the Yankees in an illogical manner every chance he gets. For example, if the Yankees spent this year, he would rip them for ruining the game. If they try to hold the line by signing Pettitte to a short term contract, they're idiots. Meanwhile, no matter what the Mets or Red Sox do, it's brilliant(Mets signing of players in their 40s with injury histories are ignored, and the Red Sox $51.1 millon dollar bid shows a dedication to winning, etc.) He's a wanna be Dick Young and politacal commentator rolled into one. Never happen, and his writing style is unbelievably annoying, with his short, clipped sentences which he thinks are somehow dramatic.

Good view , but damons stays in center or better yet Damon and Matsui becomes DH , trust me in no way the yankees ignore that outstanding OF class

I'd rather move Damon to LF, he doesn't have an arm for Right.

Was that a guy with a Yankee hat on behind Pettite during the commercial?!?

To Jim A: I'm not the ultimate optimist but we do the have the ultimate lineup for producing runs. The goal from the pitchers is to keep the ERA under 4.5 which is now worth 11 million a year for 4 or 5 years. Can you you believe this. BC did the right think not making an offer to any FA pitchers. Getting back to the team. I believe our rookies and pitching staff can pitch to this level. This is mediocrity with one hell of a lineup. We'll win .600 of our games. how many teams cam match or win.601. Keep the faith.

Roy ,I certainly agree in principle with your notion about trimming payroll,but I see it as 2-3 yr project,but for the Yanks to remain competitive they still will continue to plug holes thru free agency and lucrative deals.They have made major moves w/ unloading Sheff ,renegotiating Mussina' contract,they jettison RJ's next yr...but most everyone else is tied to relatively long-term contracts...Your thoughts?

Can anyone here compares Both Yankees and Redsox .Obp and .Ops?

Which of these two teams has better average as in Obp?

thanks..

Chip,I see a flaw in what you propose,Jones & Wells are going to command far in excess of what the Yanks are willing to spend...no way a weak armed Damon moves to RF,if they do flip Abreu, Tabata & Melky are waiting in the wings...my feeling if they pursue any free agent next yr it would be Teixeira.

Jerome: I prefer wins over stats. You don't win on paper but between the lines there is some dirt and grass.

Larry,
I agree our young guys will indeed be ready, but I don't think they will be ready for this season. Hughes has been babied so far and won't be ready to step into the rotation until 2008. Maybe he spends from July on with the Yanks and is effective enough to put in the playoff rotation, I don't know. However, while I realize we have a great offense, that offense has not been enough to go anywhere in the playoffs. I can't think of any team in recent memory that slugged it way to a WS victory. Winning the division and having a great regular season record are one thing, but we want to win the WS pretty soon as time is running out on our offense: Giambi; Posada; Damon and Matsui are getting older and will probably start to slip a bit. The big thing for me is to win while Mariano is still effective, I'm not sure how much longer he'll play but it will be a very sad day when he's gone.

My faith is up, the signing of Pettitte to bridge the gap between the old and young would really convince me that a good plan is in place.

XM radio channel 175 will be discussing the Astros next course of action in about 3 minutes if anyone is interested in listening in.

damn i wish i had xm...jim, let us know what they say, alright?

Will do. You're not missing anything with XM, it's mostly crap IMHO.

Ruse:

I take your point. I would prefer Texiera too...one problem though, and actually it would be the same problem as signing Andruw Jones and that's the agent. Scott Boras is poised to screw over the Yankees big time at the end of next season. And if it comes to pass I can't envision Cashman wanting to negotiate with him.

While everyone knows that the Yankees would like to at least entertain offers for A-Rod, everyone also knows that Boras is telling Alex to not waive his no trade clause. At the same time Alex has in his contract a clause similar to the one JD Drew used to opt out of his contract. With the way contracts are going there is no chance Boras wouldn't tell A-Rod to use that clause. The Yankees will get nothing in return for him.

Also the Yankee contracts are not as bad as you might think. At the end of this season Posada, Abreu and Johnson, and possibly A-Rod, come off the books (rumors are that the Yankees are trying to get Alfonzo, the young catcher from the Giants now that they have signed Molina. He would back up Posada this year and be in place to take over next season and hold the fort until uber catching prospect Jesus Moreno is ready) after the 2008 season Giambi, Mussina, Matsui, and Pavano are all free agents as well. Obviously all those players will have to be replaced, but as I mentioned before, for the first time in a long time, the Yankees are in a position to replace many of them from within rather than overpay for a mediocre player.

On another note, in his column today Jon Heyman floated a trade rumor of his own making. He suggested that the Yankees scrap the idea of finding a right handed bat for first and flip Humberto Sanchez to the Nationals for Nick Johnson. In my opinion that would be a horrible trade. For one thing you don't like to ever trade young pitching for hitting. Also, while I like Johnson, he has yet to prove he can stay healthy and is now coming off a terrible broken leg. If the Yankees want a lefty bat at first they should either sign Aubrey Huff or trade a lesser prospect to the Astros for Mike Lamb and work a straight platoon with Lamb and Phelps or Phillips.

Okay, here's the dump from a Houston writer on XM:
The Astros will not get into a bidding war for Pettitte. They have offered $12M per year for two years but aren't willing to go higher. They are disgusted by the fact that Pettitte waited until the middle of the winter meetings to announce he was coming back so it would cause a frenzy and they will not wait for him to make a decision. They are still talking to the White Sox about pitching, maybe not Garland though. Now they're talking about Vasquez. The Cardinals and Rangers are going to make offers.
Finally, the Astros are not happy that Pettitte jumped into the "circus" atmosphere that Clemens usually causes by making them wait for him to make up his mind. They put up with it from Clemens but they don't feel Pettitte is worth that. They need to improve other areas on their team so they need to get the # 2 starter situation nailed down right away so they can move on. The reporter said she gets the feeling that the Astros wish Pettitte would just go ahead and sign with the Yankees so they can move on.

Chip: On Nick Johnson: I live in the Northern Virginia area and the word on Nick's recovery is that he is not doing so well and they are blaming him. They say he is not rehabbing as he should.
I agree with you, this trade should not happen, not for Sanchez. Nick can't stay off the DL and we don't need that.

Chip,excellent excellent points,ya I agree no way you trade a talent like Sanchez for such a brittle player in Johnson...plus why give away your strengths when you can find a player of equal merit thru free agency..I personally like Huff think he's a pretty solid ballplayer.

Jim...thanks for the Houston information.

I think we'll know where Pettitte winds up no sooner than 12/22. Keep in mind, leaving 3 years ago was not just about family but also because he and the Boss had a rocky relationship at best. Pettitte and Clemens did not like the way Mel was treated by Steinbrenner and George always considered Andy somewhat soft. It will be interesting to see if that is water under the bridge or if it still remains enough of an incentive for Andy to remain in Houston.

Chip: I agree about Pettitte's decision to leave being more than about wanting to go home. A couple of us actually posted similar items yesterday as the Yanks were complacent and gave Pettitte the impression he was not their priority at all. Cashman even told Pettitte to "go out and bring me your best offer", that is a decent strategy but it backfired when Pettitte started to contemplate going home. The lesson learned was to lock him up early like he wanted. Oh well, Dec. 22 is an eternity to wait but I guess we'll have to.

I think one thing that could very much work against the Yankees with Pettitte. If Andy were to at least want to get a feel on whether Clemens would pitch again next year, Roger knows that the Yankees will not let him write his own ticket the way Houston does. By that I mean Torre will not allow Clemens to skip road trips and go home on days he doesn't start. Houston will, Boston might. And if Pettitte is determined to pitch with Clemens that means he won't be able to do it in NY.

Here's something else, not really related to Pettitte or even this season. If the Yankee plan is to get younger and work in more players from down on the farm then I think this season has to be Torre's last. He does not have a good track record of trusting young players, especially young pitchers. While I know that Cashman's first choice to succeed Torre is Mattingly, I would actually be more comfortable with Joe Girardi for the next couple of years. His success with the Marlins' young players was amazing. He knew just how hard to push his young pitchers, knew just how hard to tax his pen and how to balance praising his young players without letting them get full of themselves. As good as Torre is with a veteran team, I think he would do more harm than good to the likes of a Hughes, Sanchez, Tabata, Clippard with the lack of trust he has been known to show in young players (many times yanking pitchers as soon as they get into jams, forcing them to think that they have to pitch perfect games to stay in)

I agree about Torre sort of. He does seem to Yank young pitchers rather quickly, but I've always heard him defend those moves by saying he "doesn't want to kill the kids confidence" by making him stand out there and get pounded. It seemed to me as if he would just go on gut feelings and Yank just about any pitcher, no matter the age, if he thought they just didn't have it. Look at the video of him removing Clemens from game 7 against Boston in 2003, Clemens was stunned! But he was getting hit hard and it was game 7 so Torre couldn't wait and obviously made the right move.

Now, I do agree that after so much success over the past 10 years, Torre will not be the guy for any kind of rebuilding process. It's hard to say if Mattingly is the guy or not because we just don't know. I was in my late teens and early twenties when Mattingly was at his prime as a player and I don't ever recall anyone saying he was a very smart player. I do recall him being labeled as someone who worked extremely hard (too hard in fact as it led to the back problems that ruined his career). It's a tough call, but I could definitely live with Girardi, that would be fine. Plus, if Mattingly were to take over, he would eventually be fired (it would be bound to happen) and I'd hate to see that. He's one of my all time favorites and I think he'd walk away and never come back to the Yanks.

On an unrelated note, could anyone out there who is Catholic please light a candle or something for me so I pass this train wreck of an exam I'm bracing for tongiht? This winter meeting crap is killing my studying!!! How come all the good things in sports happen during finals? (The winter meetings and the NFL draft, and last spring the news leading up to the World Cup)?

Comparing The Yankees lineup vs Redsox

Yankees Lineup for 2007

.OBp Yankees Bench

Damon .359
Nieves
Jeter .417
Melky
Abreu .424
Backup infielder?
Arod .392
Phelps
Giambi .413

Matsui .393 , .372 on his career in .obp

Posada .374

Cano .365

Phillips .281

Yankees Bench -

Nieves

Melky - .360

Backup infielder

Phelps-

Redsox Lineup for 2007 -

.Obp
Lugo, SS .341

Crisp, CF .317

Ortiz, DH .413

Ramirez, LF .439

Drew, RF .393

Youkilis, 1B .381

Varitek, C . 325

Lowell, 3B .339

Pedroia, .258

Redsox Bench

Cora - .312

Hinske- .353

Pena - .349

Redsox have much better depth and bench overall right now than yanks.

Atticas ,Outside of the money why the hell do you want to be a lawyer ? 60-70 hr work weeks, right-brained life,I dated a lawyer for 3 yrs never saw her,maybe that was a good thing,in retrospect...Chip & Jim A. you folks have been great I've learned so much....I too have felt Girardi is a better managerial talent than Mattingly, Jim A.,I share your sentiments too ,Matty will get fired,you wouldn't want to put him thru that, possibly the same ramifications of the Berra firings(2)....

Jason:

The Sox have better depth right now because the Yankees haven't signed anyone. While the Sox roster is full the Yankees still have not picked up any one to fill their bench yet. Remember Green, Cairo, Fasano, Bernie are all free agents and none have been replaced yet.

The other thing to remember is that the Red Sox have major injury questions at catcher, right fielder, center fielder, starting pitcher and no pen. So while all that depth might look good on paper I don't think Sox fans will be happy on the days that Hinske and Pena are starting in Left and Right with Julian Tavarez making an emergency start.

http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/milb/news/top50/y2006_post.jsp?content=1

MLB.com just released their list of the top 50 prospects. Hughes is 4 and Tabata is 23

Why Homer's Bailey is rank Higher than Phil Hughes? Hughes is better than him.

....or is that left-brained ?..duh

Ruse - I'm a masochist.