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The Yankees introduced Joe Girardi as the new Yankee manager at a press conference at the Stadium yesterday afternoon and, later that evening, the Dodgers announced that they had signed Joe Torre to a three-year deal worth $13 million. Between the Yankees’ press conference, which provided opportunities the YES crew to interview Brian Cashman and Yankees COO Lonn Trost among others, and Mike and the Mad-Dog’s 20th anniversary show, which featured interviews with Girardi, Torre, and Derek Jeter (as well as Bernie Williams, Darryl Strawberry, and many more of the biggest New Yorks sports stars from the past 20 years), we have plenty of information to put the Yankees’ managerial saga to bed and shift our focus to the team’s pending player transactions, which will begin today with the decision on Bobby Abreu’s $16-million club option and continue with next week’s general manager meetings in Orlando, Florida.

The most important information to come out of the day was the identity of Girardi’s coaches. Pete Abraham, who’s been doing incredible work on this story, be it by simply posting the audio of the team’s various conference calls and press conferences over the past week, or by getting the tremendous Torre-to-L.A. story scoop, got the scoop on the coaching staff as well back on Tuesday. I updated the sidebar here accordingly, but have been reserving comment until the staff was officially announced. That didn’t happen today because some of those coaches still have to sign their contracts, but Brian Cashman did confirm that the staff Abraham posted is indeed the one he’s trying to assemble. Here’s the breakdown.

Bench Coach: Rob Thomson

Not to be confused with former Giants second baseman Robby Thompson, Rob Thomson was a catcher/third baseman in the Tigers system from 1985-1988. After playing just two games in 1988, he became a minor league coach for the Tigers at the tender age of 24. The Ontario-born Thomson has been in the Yankee organization since 1990. From 1990 to 1997 he was a minor league coach and manager, his one season as a manager coming at the helm of the Oneonta Yankees in the short-season New York-Penn League in 1995. Since 1998 he’s been a roving coach and instructor (officially a “Field Coordinator” or “Special Assignment Instructor”), which is technically a front-office position. Thomson was promoted to Director of Player Development in 2000 and again to Vice President of Minor League Development in 2003. He has been the hidden member of the major league coaching staff since 2004 as the Major League Field Instructor, most visibly filling in as a third base coach for Luis Sojo when Sojo was on bereavement leave in 2004.

Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi wanted Don Mattingly to stay on as the bench coach, but Mattingly, at least according to his public statements, didn’t think it would be fair to Girardi to have another managerial candidate in the dugout with him as it would prompt “Fire Joe, Hire Donnie” articles at the first sign of trouble. Girardi didn’t think that would be an issue. Mattingly, who is leaving the organization on good terms with both Cashman and Girardi, will most likely serve as Joe Torre’s bench coach in L.A. Thomson is an excellent second choice given his 18 years in the organization and 20 years of coaching and front office experience.

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Looking at the Yankee roster as the season drew to a close, I didn’t figure this to be a particularly active offseason. Sure, the Yankees needed to solve the Alex Rodriguez riddle, resign Posada, and Rivera, and hope Andy Pettitte would want to come back, but beyond that, first base and the bullpen were all Brian Cashman had to worry about. That was before the team half-assed a contract for Joe Torre and wound up having to change managers, told heir-apparent and favorite son Don Mattingly that he wouldn’t be getting the job after all, and then had Rodriguez bolt town before even beginning negotiations with the team on a contract extension (and, by the way, that’s a done deal, he’s officially filed for free agency). And the latest? Pete Abe broke the story last night that the Dodgers are planning to can Grady Little and hire Joe Torre, and that Mattingly is expected to tag along as Torre’s bench coach (remember that Donnie’s son Preston was drafted by the Dodgers last June). Tyler Kepner and Murray Chass have more in the Times. Throw in the Red Sox’s second championship in the last four years (which sounds like a bad punchline from Back to the Future II), and my head is spinning.

So now the Yankees have to rebuild their coaching staff (Ron Guidry and Joe Kerrigan are not expected to return, Larry Bowa still has an offer to coach third in Seattle, and who knows who else might want to follow Torre to L.A., by which I also mean Rivera and Rodriguez) and find not only a third baseman, but replace Alex Rodriguez’s production (which is actually impossible, but they could compensate with gains on the other side of the ball, which brings it back to the bullpen and the promise in the starting rotation). That likely means a trade is going to happen, and not a small one. Who’s expendable? Melky Cabrera? Ian Kennedy? Alan Horne? Austin Jackson? Perhaps. Who’s not? Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes for sure.

Oh, and Joe Girardi, the man the Yankees have decided to hire as their new manager? He still doesn’t have a deal. Jon Heyman (the man who broke the news about both Girardi’s hire and Rodriguez’s opting out) says the Yankees and Girardi are close to a three-year, $6 million deal, which is up from the $4.5 million/3-year deal initially rumored. Thing is, Girardi’s got the Yankees by the tail. Torre’s pissed, Mattingly issued a statement that reads like a concession speech, and both are likely headed for sunny L.A. The news is out that Girardi’s been offered the job, so unless the Yankees want to burn a third bridge by reopening their search, they pretty much have to pony up and pay the man.

The length of the deal obviously isn’t the issue here. The Yankees wouldn’t offer Joe Torre a second year because they were obviously tentative about moving forward with him, which isn’t an issue with Girardi, and there’s no need to hide that fact. The money is interesting, however. The initially rumored $4.5 million would have been just less for three years than the base salary offered Torre for a single year. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. That Girardi has them up to $6 million total, thus $2 million per year, already makes him one of the six-best paid managers in baseball (tied for fourth with Willie Randolph and Bruce Bochy behind Lou Piniella, Bobby Cox, and Jim Leyland). It will be interesting to see if Girardi can break that tie and if he can push the total value of his contract closer to the $7.5 million Torre earned in 2007 alone.

Of course, what he gets paid won’t affect Girardi’s ability to manage the team, but the fact that the zoo is overtaking the Bronx once more could. Girardi played for the Yankees during their period of greatest calm and stability. He won World Series in his first year in New York and two more before leaving as a free agent after the 1999 season. As a coach, he was here only for 2005, when Alex Rodriguez was an MVP and the Yankees squeaked past the Red Sox to win the AL East. He hasn’t seen the ugliness, but he did have some of his own down in Miami. Girardi claims to have learned from his negative experience with the Florida front office, but I still worry about how he’ll handle even something as simple as another slow start like the ones the team has had in two of the last three seasons. Not because Girardi can’t rally a team–he did a great job with the Marlins, who took time to coalesce like the Bad News Bears–but because of the heat he’ll get from all comers if the team doesn’t come out of the gate looking like the 1998 Yankees all over again. Under ideal conditions, I think Girardi would be the best man for the job, but right now the conditions are far from ideal. Here’s hoping Brian Cashman can help restore order by the time pitchers and catchers report in mid-February. That’s three and a half months and, contrary to what I expected, they’re going to be wild ones.

Joe Torre sat down with Bob Costas for the final segment on last night’s REAL Sports With Briant Gumbel on HBO and shed some more light on some of his comments from the end of last week.

One item from the interview that I found particularly interesting, but was somewhat obscured by the fact that it was communicated by Costas in a voice-over segue rather than via a direct quote from Torre, was the fact that Torre disagreed with the organizational mindset that considered anything short of a World Championship a failure. Torre, who made just one playoff appearance in his first 31 major league seasons as a player and manager, still believes (correctly, in my opinion) that simply making the playoffs should be considered, in the words used by Costas, “a significant success.” I can’t image that went over particularly well with the Tampa contingent, however.

Torre also admitted that he had already begun cleaning up his office at the Stadium, “early on [in the season] . . . when I had a bad feeling . . . that I wouldn’t be back.”

The primary revelation, however, was that the single-year term was the real deal-breaker for Torre, as he answered affirmatively when Costas asked him if he would have taken an identical deal–pay cut, incentives, and all–if it had been for two guaranteed years.

Torre’s meeting in Tampa never even got that far, however, as Torre was the first person to speak at the meeting and was met with silence when he was done making his points. Randy Levine broke the silence by pointing out that Torre would actually earn more under the new deal if the Yankees were to reach the 2008 World Series, but, as Torre told Costas, he wasn’t as upset about the cut in his base salary as by the implication that he needed incentives as motivation to succeed in the postseason, pointing out that his last contract already had a million-dollar bonus for a World Series win, anyway.

Going beyond his initial statements that he was “insulted” by the incentives and their implications, Torre told Costas he was hurt by the fact that the front office didn’t attempt to involve him in the decision regarding his return. That’s one reason why he flew to Tampa for a face-to-face meeting despite being told by Brian Cashman that the offer was likely non-negotiable. Torre attempted to involve himself in the decision in that meeting, but was met with silence and a hard-line stance on the contract he was offered, and that contributed to his decision to decline the deal. He felt he had been excluded from the team’s decision-making process.

The juiciest part of the interview came when Costas read Hank Steinbrenner’s remarks to him. One could see the fury in Torre’s face as Costas read Hank’s words (I swear his lip was twitching). Joe took a good swipe at Hank in response, but did it in his usual smooth, laid-back fashion. “For some reason he thought I was disrespectful because I was insulted,” Torre said of Hank, “but the insult came from the incentive-based situation, and unless you understand what sport is all about and how important winning is to you, I don’t think you understand the insult part of this thing.”

As for his refusal to talk about coming back to the Stadium for any ceremonial purposes, Joe continued to refuse to comment. One was able to discern from his dance around the issue, however, that he is upset and would like to tell the Yankees where to stick it, but, true to his reputation, is going to let himself cool off before he makes any public statement about when he might be willing to return. “I’m not saying there’s no anger there,” Torre admitted. “I’m sad. I’m sad.”

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For those who are on-line, I’m going to be on Yankee Fanclub Radio at around 6:20 this evening. Give a listen or watch their live videocast below:

Listen to the archived show here. I come in at the 21:00 mark.

“I would say that state of flux is a grand issue. I’m not saying that information and time can not resolve it. But it’s going to take time for us to know how these things are resolved. We’re talking about a long-term contract here, and to make that decision is difficult, knowing there are that many issues up in the air.” –Scott Boras

Alex Rodriguez’s agent, Scott Boras, is good at his job, and he’s seized upon the turmoil of the last few days to apply pressure to the Yankees not only to drive a dump truck full of money to Alex Rodriguez’s front door, but to hire a manager, convince Andy Pettitte to come back, and send trucks of money to Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada’s houses as well. Sez Boras, “Without Pettitte, Rivera and Posada, it’s not the same team.”

Rivera and Posada seem determined to test free agency, but Rodriguez’s deadline to opt out of his contract will arrive six days before free agents are allowed to sign with other teams (see sidebar), so something will have to give. That said, it seems a given that the Yankees will name a new skipper and pick up Bobby Abreu’s $16-million option comfortably in advance of Rodriguez’s opt-out date (for those doubting the Abreu move, Bobby hit .309/.396/.520 over the final four months of the season).

Meanwhile, Joe Torre has turned down an offer from FOX to join Joe Buck and Tim McCarver in the broadcast booth for this year’s World Series citing family commitments. I assume those are commitments he made after the Yankees were eliminated from the postseason.

The Record‘s Ian O’Connor, the reporter who obtained the now infamous George Steinbrenner interview during the ALDS defends himself in his column today:

Other writers in the market are closer to Steinbrenner than I am, and have a better understanding of how the organization functions than I do. But I got lucky. For one night, anyway, Jeffrey Maier reached over my outfield wall.

Mike Francesa and Chris Russo, the popular and powerful “Mike & the Mad Dog” hosts, couldn’t accept simple serendipity as a plausible explanation for the “get.” They went off to the races with a complete fabrication planted by someone positioning me as [Randy] Levine’s double-play partner in an attempt to take down Joe.

Never mind these annoying little facts: I have absolutely no relationship with Levine. I have ripped Levine for advocating Torre’s ouster. And I have repeatedly written that Torre should be/should’ve been retained.

On deck, the comical rumor — spread by another Yankee doodle dummy — that I did a Frank Caliendo-esque imitation of Reggie Jackson to get through to The Boss.

Francesa and Russo just had a bad source; I’ve had my share. Sometimes sources have hidden agendas. Sometimes they’re just plain wrong.

I’m willing to take O’Connor at his word, but just because it appeared to be serendipity to him doesn’t mean that there wasn’t someone behind the scenes pulling the strings. Mike Vaccaro extends that man-behind-the-curtain metaphor in unofficially annointing Levine the new Boss (same as the old Boss), while Bob Klapish anticipates a Yogi-Berra-like freeze-out of the Yankees by the spurned Torre.

Over at the paper of record, the graphic accompanying this Murray Chass article shows that Torre made more than the next two highest paid managers in baseball in 2007, and Tyler Kepner reminds us that Torre was willing to except a one-year extension back in spring training, but the since-ousted Steve Swindal told him to wait until after the season (and, by the way, said a pay cut would be mandatory). Of course, a one-year extension in spring training would have meant Torre was, in essence, working on a two-year contract, so his stance was actually consistent there, though it does bear a striking similarity to Gary Sheffield’s inability to play in the final year of a contract without insisting on an extension.

Kepner also quotes Brian Cashman as saying that he wasn’t the only one who wanted Torre back:

“Everybody in that room wanted him back; I have to disagree with him there,” Cashman said Friday night. “Joe knows I’m an ally because there’s a bond there. But I’ve got to speak for everybody else in the room, and they did want him back, too.”

As Steinbrenner cedes control to his sons, he is more intent on seeking consensus for major moves. Levine said all of the executives wanted Torre back.

“Every single one of us made that offer with the hope that he would return,” Levine said. “We were all disappointed that he did not accept it. Reasonable people can differ.”

Maybe they did want him back (I still have very strong doubts about Levine), but only on their terms. To me the most telling part of the entire affair is the team’s unwillingness to negotiate with Torre. That his meeting with them lasted only about 20 minutes is, to me, the most damning fact of all.

Finally, Cashman has confirmed that he has reached out to Don Mattingly, Joe Girardi, and Tony Peña in his search for Torre’s replacement. Peter Abraham spoke to Cashman directly:

Cashman said the process could be culminated swiftly. But he also warned that it could take until after the World Series. “I’ll expand the pool of candidates if that is what I need to do,” he said.

At the same time, he said, he will be negotiating with the in-house free agents. He does not yet know whether the departure of Joe Torre will make that more difficult.

“Nobody has told me that,” he said. “We’ll find that out.”

Joe Torre held a press conference at the Rye Town Hilton in Rye Brook, New York at 2pm today. At 4:30 he spoke by phone with Mike and the Mad-Dog on WFAN. From those two appearances as well as the Yankees’ official conference call on Thursday, I’ve been able to piece together the following sequence of events leading to Joe Torre’s departure from the team.

In both of his appearances, Torre stressed a need for trust and commitment from the organization and said on WFAN that he felt that trust and commitment begin to disappear following the Yankees’ 2004 ALCS loss to the Red Sox, saying, “from that time on, it started going downhill.”

Confirming the tone of his press conference after Game 4 of this year’s ALDS and the reports of the mood in the clubhouse that night, Torre said that he did indeed assumed that night that he had managed his final game for the Yankees. However, the lack of news from the team in the week that followed led him to believe there was a chance he could keep his job.

General Manager Brian Cashman contacted Torre a few days before the actual offer was made and told him there would indeed be an offer forthcoming, but that it would involve a pay cut.

On Wednesday evening, Cashman told Torre by phone what the actual offer was: one year, $5 million, with million-dollar incentives for making the postseason, the ALCS, and the World Series for a maximum total of $8 million.

Torre traveled to Tampa with Cashman the next morning with the intention of negotiating with the team (though Cashman did tell him that, in Torre’s words, “he felt that this offer was it, that there was no wiggle room in it”), or at the very least coming to a face-to-face understanding with the organization. Torre’s main goal was to get the team to look beyond this year’s playoff loss to his twelve-year record of success. Among the arguments he was determined to make were that none of the last five World Series Champions made the postseason the year after winning the title, something the Yankees did all four times they won the World Series under Torre, and that the Yankees were the only team to make the postseason in both 2006 and 2007.

In Tampa, where it is assumed he met with the same group who took part in the conference call (Cashman, team president Randy Levine, COO Lonn Trost, George Steinbrenner–who was not on the conference call–his sons Hank and Hal, and his son-in-law Felix Lopez), it was immediately made clear to him that the offer was indeed non-negotiable, at which point Torre officially declined it. Torre said that his arguments were “dismissed real quickly. At that point I realized that it was the offer or nothing, so at that point is when I said goodbye. . . . There really was no negotiation involved. I was hoping there would be, but there wasn’t.” The meeting lasted about 20 minutes, according to Torre.

Torre wanted a two-year deal that would have shown a commitment to keeping him as a manager rather than what he saw as a lame duck. “It’s not totally money. It’s commitment, and commitment is a two-way street. . . . I think players put undo pressure on themselves when they think they have to save the manager’s job. That’s the type of pressure I’ve tried to take out of the clubhouse. . . . Two years would have opened the door for further discussion, but it just never happened.”

He also “took exception” to the incentive clauses, which he “took as an insult,” and the suggestion that they were required as “motivation,” said he “resented” that he would have to accomplish certain things to get back the money taken away from his base salary, saw it as “a punishment.” “If someone is reducing your salary, it tells you they’re not satisfied with the job you’re doing. . . . I didn’t need to be reminded that getting to the World Series is what this organization is all [about]. And that this may make you try harder . . . that insulted me, there’s no question. . . . It was a generous offer, but it still wasn’t the type of commitment of trying to do something together instead of, ‘Let’s see what you can do for me.'”

It was widely assumed on Thursday that the Yankees’ offer was designed precisely so that Torre would reject it, allowing the organization to save face by framing Torre’s departure as his own decision. Most saw through that immediately, as did Torre, who would have preferred that the team told him flatly and immediately that they didn’t want him back. “I think that would have been a lot more honest,” he said on WFAN. Torre said he began Thursday’s meeting by asking if the team really wanted him back. They said yes, but he clearly didn’t believe them. “If someone wanted me to be managing here, I’d be managing here.”

Torre said he did believe that Brian Cashman wanted him back, but was unsure if anyone else did. He said he had a mutual respect with George Steinbrenner, but never had any direct dealings with Randy Levine.

One of the more telling moments in Torre’s press conference was when he indicated that he believed that George Steinbrenner’s statement during the ALDS and the fact that The Record‘s Ian O’Connor was able to reach him by phone was orchestrated by the organization. Francesa and Russo pointed their fingers squarely at team president Randy Levine as the man who orchestrated the Steinbrenner statement. Francesa, an unapologetic Yankee fan, was particularly virulent, painting Levine as an interloper from the business side of the organization who is attempting to thrust himself into the power vacuum in the Yankees’ front office. It was Levine who announced the offer and Torre’s decision in the conference call yesterday, and it is believed that it was Levine who led the movement to get rid of Torre. Francesa called for Levine to be fired, saying that Levine, who joined the team in 2000 after Torre had already won three World Series and was on his way to a fourth, is exploiting his role in the plans for the new stadium to insert himself into the baseball side of the organization despite a lack of knowledge about the game.

Finally, though Torre handled the himself with his usual class, dignity, honesty, emotional openness, and humor today, it’s telling that he refused to say that he’d be willing to come back for any ceremonial purposes. Pressed on that point by Francesa and Russo he said, “all of a sudden you just have the feeling that they don’t want you around, and the way it was done, it’s going to take some time.”

And so the Joe Torre era is over. There are two immediate responses to this. The first is to honor Torre and his twelve years as the Yankee skipper, the third most successful managerial term in Yankee history:

McCarthy, Stengel, and Huggins all made the Hall of Fame based on their success in pinstripes. Joe Torre, whose number 6 will join Stengel’s 37 in whatever version of Monument Park exists in the new Yankee Stadium, will join them in Cooperstown largely because of the last twelve years.

The second response is to ask what effect Torre’s departure will have on the 2008 New York Yankees. That’s a much more difficult question to answer, in part because it depends on both whom the Yankees chose to replace Torre as manager, and on how that choice impacts the contract decisions made by Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, and Alex Rodriguez. Only those four men know the answer to the latter. As for whom the Yankees might hire to replace Torre, here’s a look at a some likely (and far less likely) candidates.

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I’ll be kicking off a player-by-player analysis of the 2007 Yankees in the coming days, but before that, here’s a quick look at the team’s collective performance.

The 2007 Yankees stumbled out of the gate. With Chien-Ming Wang on the disabled list, Carl Pavano became the default Opening Day starter and blew an early lead. The Yankees would comeback to win that game, but went 2-3 on the homestand, then 3-3 on their first road trip as Pavano and Mike Mussina also hit the disabled list. They returned home to sweep the Indians behind a trio of rookie starters (Chase Wright, Kei Igawa, and Darrell Rasner), but then lost their next seven straight, including four to the Red Sox. That losing streak dropped them below .500, where they would remain until mid-June.

On May 30, the Yankees were in fourth place, 14.5 games behind Boston in the AL East. They won 14 of their next 17, including two of three in Boston and a 8-1 homestand against interleague opponents, but followed that up with a disastrous 1-7 road trip through Colorado, San Francisco, and Baltimore that ended with a rain-suspended game which the Yankees led, but wouldn’t officially win for another month.

On July 2, the Yankees were still a losing team. Though they had crept back up to second place in the East, they were 37-41 overall, 10.5 games behind Boston, and in sixth place in the Wild Card race, nine games behind Detroit. That night and the next, they beat the Twins by a combined score of 13-1 behind Roger Clemens and Chien-Ming Wang. Beginning with those two games, the Yankees went 56-27 over their final 83 games–good for a .675 winning percentage, the best in baseball over that stretch. By season’s end, the Yankees stood just two games behind the Red Sox and beat out the Tigers for the American League Wild Card to extend their franchise streak of consecutive postseason appearances to 13, one short of the Atlanta Braves’ record.

While the Yankees’ second-half schedule was littered with what I termed “cupcake” opponents, the distribution of their opponents was not that unbalanced. Forty-one of the Yankees first 79 games came against teams that finished with winning records, while 40 of their final 83 came against eventual winning teams. The Yankees went 17-24 in those first 41 games against winning teams and 26-14 in the final 40, which is evidence that the change in the Yankees’ fortune had more to do with how the team played than who their opponents were.

True, the weakest of those winning teams, the Toronto Blue Jays, accounted for 14 of their 40 games against winning teams in the second half and just four of their 41 games against winning teams in the first half, but even if you remove Toronto from the equation, the Yankees went 16-21 (.432) against the remaining winning teams they faced in the first half and 17-11 (.607) against non-Toronto winning teams in the second half.

Offense:

The Yankees had the best offense in baseball in 2007 as they scored nearly a half run more per game than their closest competitor, the NL East Champion Philadelphia Phillies. As a team, the Yankees hit .290/.366/.463 and posted a 123 OPS+, the later a dead match for Derek Jeter’s career figure. The Yankees were also fourth in the American League in stolen bases and had a higher success rate than two of the three teams ahead of them.

The offense’s splits were telling, however. The Yankees scored 5.40 runs in the first half, which ranked a close second to the Tigers. In the second half, however, they scored an incredible 6.63 runs, a 1074-run pace over a full season. That, more than anything else, was responsible for their second half surge.

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Some of you have noticed the changes I’ve made to the sidebar in the wake of the Yankees ALDS loss to Cleveland. For those who haven’t, I’ve separated the Yankees’ pending free agents from the remainder of the 40-man roster in the Players section at the bottom, and have put some of the key offseason dates in the Upcoming Schedule section.

The first date in the latter is November 11, which is the last possible date for Alex Rodriguez to opt out of his contract. His actual opt-out deadline is ten days after the end of the World Series. If the World Series goes a full seven games, that will be November 11. If it ends sooner, that date will move up accordingly.

The Yankees will make every effort to sign Rodriguez to a contract extension prior to his opt-out deadline, as well they should, but Brian Cashman is standing by his insistence that the Yankees will not pursue Rodriguez if he does opt out. The reason for that is that the Yankees are due more than $21 million from the Texas Rangers over the final three years of Rodriguez’s contract, but if Rodriguez voids his contract, the Yankees will not see a penny of that money, even if they resign Rodriguez as a free agent.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez’s agent, Scott Boras, is starting the public negotiations out at ridiculous heights. According to Peter Abraham, Boras is saying that Rodriguez, who turned 32 in July, “can play until he’s 45, hit 1,000 home runs and be worth up to $1 billion for a regional cable television network. He seems to be seeking at least a 10-year deal worth an average of $33 million a year.”

By way of comparison, only three baseball players made more than $20 million in 2007, all of them Yankees working on contracts signed in 2001 or 2002, when the market was at its peak.. Meanwhile, Carlos Beltran got seven years from the Mets and Vlad Guerrero got just five years from the Angels, both entering their age-28 seasons. The idea of a ten-year deal for a 32-year-old player with an average salary over $30 million is flatly insane. That said, if the Yankees can get Rodriguez to agree to an extension of, say, seven years or less for an annual salary in the twenties, they should probably do it. With the new stadium due to open in 2009, and the team payroll shrinking due to an increased contribution from young players not yet eligible for free agency and some of those big contracts (such as Giambi’s and Mussina’s) due to come off the books, they shouldn’t have any problem affording it. Rodriguez, meanwhile, has exceeded my expectations as a Yankee, winning (I believe it’s safe to assume) two MVP awards in his four seasons in the Bronx.

The Yankees’ first order of business, however, has to be naming a manager for the 2008 season. Though the team has made no announcements, George Steinbrenner’s statement earlier in the week, the tone of Joe Torre’s press conference, and reports of the wake-like atmosphere in the Yankee clubhouse after Monday night’s loss make it seem as though Joe Torre’s Yankee career is indeed over. If so, the Yankees should make it official and name his successor soon, as the team’s choice of manager is sure to influence not only Rodriguez, but also Andy Pettitte, who said he will either pick up his $16-million player option for next year or retire, and free agents Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera.

Among the top candidates are bench coach Don Mattingly, 2005 bench coach and 2006 NL Manager of the Year Joe Girardi, and Torre’s successor in St. Louis, Tony La Russa, who’s most recent three-year deal with the Cardinals has expired. I’m sure you could throw in base coaches Tony Peña and Larry Bowa as well (the Yankees will have to at least include Peña to satisfy the requirements of the league’s minority-hiring initiative). Those who want to waste time can also toss in Bobby Valentine, Davey Johnson (who took an advisory position in the Nationals’ front office this past season, but hasn’t managed since he skippered the Dodgers in 2000), and Torre’s predecessor in St. Louis, the soon-to-be 76-year-old Whitey Herzog.

Mattingly seems to be the heir apparent, but he has no managerial experience at any level. I’d like to see Girardi get the job. My only concern with Girardi, who did a great job with an extremely green Marlins team in 2006, is that he might be too much of a taskmaster for a veteran team full of stars who are used to Torre’s gentler style of management. Girardi may also be unable to endure the persistent slights from both the media and ownership that Torre shouldered with such dignity over the past dozen seasons. Mattingly, on the other hand, is both a gentle man and one who, as a player, endured those slights with a similar professionalism during the worst of the Steinbrenner years. My only real concern about Donnie is that, from what little I saw of his in-game management when Torre was ejected or suspended this season, he seems to have a tendency to over-manage a bit, putting on small-ball plays at inappropriate times. Perhaps that tendency will fade once the novelty wears off. I certainly hope so.

As for those free agents, Mariano Rivera told the Star-Ledger that, since the Yankees declined to sign him to an extension during the season, he’s going to test the market. Jorge Posada said similar things earlier in the year. It should be noted that the Yankees are a large part of that market, and that it is simply a good negotiating tactic for them to take that stance. I expect both to return, though Posada’s leverage increased some yesterday when the Tigers picked up Ivan Rodriguez’s $13-million option.

Finally, Ron Guidry has said that he would be willing to continue on as pitching coach under a different manager, and Kevin Long is considered a key to luring Rodriguez back to New York. Bullpen coach Joe Kerrigan (honestly, how many of you remembered he was on the staff?) may be on the way out, however. I wonder if triple-A pitching coach Dave Eiland, who has worked closely with most of the organization’s young arms, is being considered to fill that role. I also wonder if that would be a misuse of Eiland with so many more talented young hurlers still progressing through the system.

At any rate, the Yankees’ order of operations is to first name a manager and then sign Alex Rodriguez to an extension. Then, and only then, can the organization set about a strategy for building next year’s team.

Robinson Cano, Alex Rodriguez, and Bobby Abreu each hit late-inning home runs last night, but none of them came with men on base, and the three runs were not enough to dig the Yankees out of the early hole in which Chien-Ming Wang put them. Thus the Yankees’ plan of winning one game at a time to salvage their season came up two wins short, ending their thrilling season with the franchise’s third consecutive first-round playoff exit.

As much as I hate to see any one player take abuse for a team’s collective failings, Chein-Ming Wang has to be the goat of this series. After giving up eight runs in 4 2/3 innings and taking the loss in an ugly Game One, Wang put the Yankees in another early hole last night. Grady Sizemore homered on Wang’s third pitch to start things off, and singles by Travis Hafner and Jhonny Peralta made it 2-0 before the Yankees even got their first turn at bat. Still, Hafner’s single was a ground ball (albeit a hard hit one) that found a hole near third base with Alex Rodriguez playing the lefty slugger to pull, and the three outs Wang recorded in that inning also came on the ground, so it seemed as if he was settling down.

He wasn’t. The first two batters in the top of the second singled. Eric Wedge then signaled for Kelly Shoppach, his ninth-place hitter (and Paul Byrd’s personal catcher), to bunt, but Wang’s 1-0 pitch, which Jorge Posada wanted over the plate at the knee, sailed up and in sending Shoppach spinning to the ground. The ball appeared to ricochet of the barrel of Shoppach’s bat, but, after conferencing, the umpires agreed that it had grazed his right hand, thus loading the bases with no outs for Sizemore, who had already homered of Wang in this game.

Again operating with the quick hook with his team facing elimination, Joe Torre called original Game Four starter Mike Mussina out of the pen (the arguments and umpire conferencing over the hit-by-pitch gave Mussina enough extra time to get warm). Mussina did what Wang couldn’t by getting Sizemore to hit into a double play, trading a third Cleveland run for the two outs, but then gave up an RBI single to Asdrubal Cabrera and walked Hafner before getting out of the inning with the Yankees trailing 4-0.

The Yankees slow climb back into the game began in the bottom of the second when Derek Jeter beat out an infield single with the bases loaded and two outs to drive in the first Yankee run, but the Bombers would never reach the apex. Paul Byrd kept the Yanks off balance all night, stranding two men in the first, three in the second, and one each in the third, fourth, and fifth. Meanwhile, Mussina allowed two more runs in the fourth when Victor Martinez singled to plate Shoppach and Sizemore, who had started the inning with a ground-rule double and a walk. Before the night was over, every man in the Yankee lineup would leave at least one man on base, with each of the top eight hitters stranding at least two.

Robinson Cano’s home run, his second of the series, came leading off the sixth and drove Byrd from the game in favor of lefty Rafael Perez. After singles by pinch-hitter Shelley Duncan and Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter hit into his third double play in the last two games to end the inning.

Rodriguez’s homer came off Perez with one out and none on in the seventh (Rodriguez had singled in his previous at-bat and hit .267 on the series after going 4 for 9 in the final two games). Hideki Matsui would draw a two-out walk later in the inning only to be stranded by a Cano groundout.

Trailing by three, the Yankees went down 1-2-3 against Rafael Betancourt in the eighth. That set up Jeter, Abreu, and Rodriguez for the ninth against Joe Borowski. Jeter, who hit .176 on the series, popped out on a 1-1 pitch. Abreu homered into the upper deck in right to make it 6-4. Rodriguez flied out to the warning track in right on a 1-2 pitch up and away. Posada, who hit .133 on the series, struck out on three pitches: a called high strike, a would-be home run that curved just a few feet foul down the right field line, and a slider in the dirt that he flailed at hopelessly to end the Yankees’ season.

The end.

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It may seem strange, but I think the Yankees are in a better position having fallen behind 0-2 in this series then rallied to force a game four than if they had split in Cleveland then lost their home opener last night. In either case they’d be down 1-2, but I believe that, being on the verge of elimination and faced with the task of winning three straight to prolong their season, the team’s approach is different than it would have been otherwise. As I wrote in my pregame post yesterday, the Yankees have to do to the Indians what the Red Sox did to them in 2004: Take the field each day with the goal of winning only that day’s game.

That sentiment was echoed by Joe Torre and several of his players last night, including hitting stars Johnny Damon and Robinson Cano.

With that in mind, Joe Torre has decided to start Chien-Ming Wang tonight on short rest to take advantage of his extreme home/road splits. Wang has never started on three-days’ rest in the majors before, but his ERA at home during the regular season was more than two runs lower than his ERA on the road. Over his three years in the majors, the difference is smaller, but still in excess of a run and a half. Perhaps Wang’s just more comfortable on the Yankee Stadium mound. Perhaps it’s that his fielders, upon whom he’s very reliant, are more familiar with the bounces they’re likely to get, or the speed with which the ball moves through the infield grass in their home park. Maybe Wang doesn’t deal well with air travel or hotel stays. Whatever it is, it’s a meaningful difference, and one that likely cost the Yankees a win in Game One when they had C.C. Sabathia on the ropes only to watch Wang cough up three runs in the first and get bounced in the fifth as the Tribe put up a five spot.

More evidence of the split can be found in Wang’s performance down the stretch. He was actually fantastic, going 6-1 with a 2.67 ERA in eight starts, seven of them quality starts, but the one non-quality start (which was also the one loss) came on the road in Boston. Meanwhile, here’s what he did in his last three home starts combined (against Boston, Seattle, and Toronto):

21 1/3 IP, 12 H, 3 R (2 ER), 1 HR, 8 BB, 10 K, 0.94 WHIP, 0.84 ERA, 2-0

As for the theory that sinkerballers do better on short rest because being too fresh can often cause them to keep the ball up, negating the effects of their sinkers, there’s no evidence of that on Wang because he’s never pitched on three-days’ rest, but here are the splits for Kevin Brown, who despite being abhored by Yankee fans, was a borderline Hall of Fame sinkerballer (he also provides a reasonably large sample size):

3 Days: 2.98 ERA
4 Days: 3.17 ERA
5 Days: 3.20 ERA
6 Days+: 3.98 ERA

It’s a minuscule difference, but it’s there.

The Indians are sticking with their original plan by starting Paul Byrd tonight. Byrd has an interesting home/road split of his own, with an ERA two runs lower on the road. The Yankees beat him badly in August (2 IP, 7 R), but that was in Cleveland. Last year they faced him twice, once in Cleveland (another beating: 3 2/3 IP, 9 R) and once in the Bronx. In the latter he turned in a gem, holding the Yanks to one run over seven innings only to lose a 1-0 game to . . . wait for it . . . Chien-Ming Wang.

There’s one other relevant Paul Byrd start I wanted to mention, that came at Yankee Stadium in Game Three of the 2005 ALDS when Byrd was with the Angels. The Yanks got to Byrd but good then too (3 2/3 IP, 4 R), but Mike Scioscia worked a quick hook and Randy Johnson and Aaron Small gave it all back plus some and the Yankees lost 11-7.

So, really, anything could happen tonight, but, if the Yankees do pull out another win, they’ll have tied the series and will head back to Cleveland to play a double-elimination game with Andy Pettitte pitching on full rest against C.C. Sabathia. That’s Wednesday, though. The Yankees need only concern themselves with today.

Baseball’s other three division series ended before the Yankees came to bat last night, and, in the early going, it looked as though the Yankees would go down as meekly as the Cubs, Phillies, and Angels. Roger Clemens got two ground balls to start the game, but Derek Jeter threw the second past Jason Giambi for what was absurdly ruled an infield single by Asdrubal Cabrera. Clemens then fell behind Travis Hafner 3-0, eventually walking him, and, after a Victor Martinez fly out, gave up an RBI single to Ryan Garko.

Thus the Yankees came to bat already behind 1-0 in a game in which they faced elimination. Johnny Damon singled to start things off, but Jeter, fresh off his non-error, bunted foul then ground into a double play. The pattern repeated itself in the second when Trot Nixon, whom Eric Wedge devilishly started in right field against Clemens, homered to make it 2-0 Cleveland, and Jorge Posada ground into a double play to erase a leadoff single by Alex Rodriguez (yes, Alex Rodriguez, what of it?).

The key event of the second inning, however, came on the second pitch to Kenny Lofton, who was leading off the inning. Lofton bunted a ball foul down the third base line and, in breaking off the mound, Clemens felt his tender left hamstring grab on him. When Casey Blake ground out to second after Nixon’s homer, Clemens made a move to his left and the leg, in Clemens’ words, “locked up” on him. Following the inning, Clemens went back into the clubhouse to have the leg tightly wrapped, but he was unable to finish his pitches and started the third by walking Hafner again and going full on Martinez before getting him swinging on a lame 92-mile-per-hour fastball right over the plate. With that, Joe Torre and trainer Gene Monahan made their second visit to the mound of the inning and called on Phil Hughes. Roger Clemens, for the night, and possibly for his career, was done.

Hughes’ bounced his second pitch past Posada to move Hafner to second, then gave up a bloop double to right by Jhonny Peralta that ran the score to 3-0, but got out of the inning without allowing Peralta to score. Whatever damage Clemens’ leg was going to inflict on the Yankees’ hopes of keeping their season alive had been limited by Joe Torre’s quick hook.

In the bottom of the inning, Hideki Matsui led off by beating out a bouncing ball hit toward second base for an infield single and moved to second on a Robinson Cano groundout. Melky Cabrera then hit a ball straight into the dirt in front of home that rolled fair. Martinez pounced on the ball and threw to third as Matsui attempted to advance, but Matsui got to the bag just ahead of the throw, aided by an excellent hook slide to the outfield side of the bag. Despite having his knee drained a week ago, Matsui was running with the abandon of a man who refused to accept defeat. Johnny Damon followed by singling Matsui home for the first Yankee run of the series not scored on a home run. Jeter then hit into another double play to kill the rally, but the Yankees had life.

Things got even brighter when Hughes turned in a 1-2-3 fourth inning, striking out Nixon (fastball up and away, swinging) and Grady Sizemore (fastball at the knees, inside corner, looking) and pitched around a one-out single by Hafner in the fifth, striking out Garko (fastball inside, looking) to end that frame.

Jason Giambi struck out to start the bottom of the fifth, but Matsui again got things going by going the other way with a Westbrook pitch for a single to left. Robinson Cano followed suit, slicing a double into the left field corner to push Matsui to third, and Melky Cabrera did the same with an opposite-field single that plated Matsui to bring the Yankees within one. Johnny Damon then took a pitch in the dirt and another just low before launching the 2-0 pitch from Westbrook into the old Yankee bullpen in right for a game-changing three-run home run. It was like an instant replay of his back-breaking grand slam in the deciding game of the 2004 ALCS, except this time for the home team. It was a season-saving shot, and the Stadium absolutely exploded when it cleared the fence. Damon came out to take a full, Reggie-style curtain call and, though their lead was a slim two-runs, it suddenly felt like the Yankees were out of harm’s way.

After another scoreless frame by Hughes in the sixth, the Yankee bats piled on Westbrook and reliever Aaron Fultz for three more runs. The inning started with an infield single by Alex Rodriguez, which chased Westbrook. Posada then singled off Fultz. Doug Mientkiewicz hit for Giambi and bunted the runners over, prompting the Tribe to walk Matsui. Robinson Cano followed with a single to right that, delightfully, Trot Nixon failed to scoop, allowing it to roll to the wall as the bases emptied and Cano raced around to third.

Joba Chamberlain came on in the seventh to retire the top three batters in the Cleveland order on 16 pitches, striking out Sizemore on a wicked slider and Asdrubal Cabrera on three pitches, a 99-mile-per-hour fastball, a 79-mile-per-hour curve that dropped into the zone, and an 87-mile-per-hour slider that dive bombed out of it.

Joba stumbled a bit in his second inning of work. He got the first two outs on seven pitches when a Garko double play erased a leadoff single by Maritnez, but he then walked Peralta and gave up a single to Lofton and an RBI double to Nixon before getting Casey Blake to fly out a little too deep to right field for comfort’s sake. All totalled, he threw 38 pitches in his two innings, his major league high.

With a still-comfortable four-run lead, Mariano Rivera worked a ten-pitch ninth, striking out Cabrera (high heat swinging) and Hafner (fastball away looking) on a total of seven pitches to seal the Yankees’ 8-4 victory and send them to a now-necessary Game Four.

Chien-Ming Wang will be the Yankee starter in Game Four, starting on three-days rest for the first time in his major league career. That’s the right call. Wang is significantly better at home than on the road. What’s more, sinkerballers tend to suffer when they’re too strong, leaving the ball up. Being slightly less fresh usually works to their advantage as they get more natural sink on their pitch. Beyond that, with Hughes having been burned last night, starting Wang tonight allows the Yankees to reserve Mike Mussina for long relief duty, and would also allow Andy Pettitte to start a possible Game Five on normal rest. Not that anyone’s looking beyond tonight, of course.

Chamberlain, unlike Hughes, will be available tonight, though he did seem to tire in the eighth last night (the three hits he allowed in that inning, as well as the scary flyout by Blake, were all on fastballs up in the zone that were clocked in the mid-90s, rather than his usual high-90s). It could be that Joba will only be available for one inning, or even just a portion thereof if he’s needed to come in and kill a Cleveland rally, but Rivera, who threw just ten pitches last night, should be able to pick up the slack.

The Indians will stick with Paul Byrd as their starter tonght, perhaps hoping for a win that will allow them to reserve C.C. Sabathia for Game One of the ALDS. The Yankees aren’t looking ahead. They’ll stick with trying to win today.

It’s been a curious postseason thus far. Not one of the trailing teams in any of the four division series has won a game, while both NLDS ended in sweeps. In each series, the story has been the same, the losing team just isn’t hitting. Check these numbers:

Phillies: 2.67 runs per game, .172/.274/.366
Cubs: 2.00 runs per game, .194/.307/.255
Yankees: 2.00 runs per game, .121/.216/.273
Angels: 1.50 runs per game, .167/.236/.212

In the top three cases, the losing team was favored coming into the series, in part because of its explosive offense (the Yankees and Phillies were the top two offenses in the majors during the regular season, the Angels were sixth, curiously the Cubs were the third worst offense in baseball on the road).

By the time former Yankee Jake Westbrook uncorks his first pitch at Yankee Stadium tonight, the Yankees could be the last of those four teams standing, as Curt Schilling and the Red Sox take on Jered Weaver and the Angels at 3:00 EST. This is a particularly odd spot for the Yankees to be in, but here’s a curious fact: This is the Yankees’ 25th postseason series under Joe Torre. In the previous 24, they’ve only fallen behind 0-2 three times. In two of those series, they lost the first two at home then rallied to win the series (the 1996 World Series and the 2001 ALDS against the A’s–the latter remains the only time in major league history that a home team lost the first two games of a best-of-five series and came back to win the series). The third was the 2001 World Series, in which they lost the first two in Arizona, then won three straight at home, and later held a lead in the ninth inning of Game Seven.

The point is, this ain’t over. I still believe the Yankees can win this series, but they have to do to the Indians what the Red Sox did to them in 2004: Take the field each day with the goal of winning only that day’s game.

Roger Clemens isn’t a bad guy to have on the mound when you have a big game to win, and though the fact that he’s only made one start since September 3 due to a series of nagging injuries to his 45-year-old body and is pitching on 20-days’ rest could and should be a concern, I suspect that all that rest will actually benefit the old codger. Clemens has made three starts on ten or more days of rest this year (including his first, which was delayed by a “fatigued groin”) and has posted the following line in those starts:

18 IP, 17 H, 1 HR, 5 BB, 19 K, 1.22 WHIP, 2.50 ERA, 2-0

Included among those three starts was his last, which came in Boston on September 16 as the Yankees were fighting for the division. Clemens allowed just one unearned run on two hits and three walks in six innings in the Yankees’ 4-3 win. With Joba Chamberlain rested and debugged this evening, a similar performance should get the Yankees to Game Four tomorrow.

As for Westbrook, he’ll be making his postseason debut tonight, just as Fausto Carmona did in Game Two. Westbrook is a sinkerballer like Carmona, though he’s not as nasty. Still, he tends to throw strikes and get ground balls. He got ten of them against the Yankees on August 12, but also allowed four runs on nine hits and a pair of walks over seven innings while taking the loss. In his nine starts since then, he’s posted a 3.22 ERA, allowed just three home runs, and struck out 6.44 men per nine innings, an excellent rate for a ground-ball pitcher. That ERA is a bit skewed by a pair of gems in late August, however. Over his last seven starts, Westbrook’s ERA was a more pedestrian 4.12. Still, the lack of homers and solid K-rate persist.

Collectively, the ten Yankees most likely to start tonight (adding Jason Giambi to the nine who have started the first two games of this series) have hit .326 and slugged .553 in their careers against Westbrook, with Giambi, Posada, and Matsui leading the way, each with OPS figures over 1.200. Melky Cabrera has been the worst of the lot, going 1 for 11 against Westbrook in his career. It seems unlikely that Hideki Matsui’s knee would allow him to play the outfield, however, which makes Giambi at first-base the most likely change in the Yankee lineup tonight. Besides, Melky’s one hit off Westbrook was a home run.

If the Yankees win tonight, they’ll get to face Paul Byrd tomorrow, as Eric Wedge has already said he won’t bring back Sabathia on short rest. That’s tomorrow, though. The Yankees need only concern themselves with today.

Hey folks, I’ll have a full Game 3 preview up a bit later, but I wanted to put up a little reminder for you all to check out Alex’s coverage of the series over on Fungoes. Alex will be in the press box tonight, covering the game for SI.com, so look for something from him over there a few hours after the last pitch. Oh, and for those who missed it, I did the same for the just-completed Rockies-Phillies NLDS. If anyone cares to check it out, my Fungoes coverage is here (a new post should be up shortly), and my two game stories can be found here and here.

Oh, and two quick notes on the Steinbrenner interview:

1) Remember that Torre is not in danger of being fired. His contract is up. Rather, he’s in danger of not being rehired, and Torre hasn’t even said for sure whether or not he wants to continue managing (though given his affection for his players, you assume he does).

2) In expressing his outrage over the fact that Game Two wasn’t halted due to the bug infestation, Steinbrenner says that crew chief Bruce Froemming, “won’t umpire our games anymore.” Which is partially true, because Froemming is retiring, but also untrue because he’ll be umpiring in the Bronx tonight, which could hint at the effectiveness of Steinbrenner’s words in general now a days. Note that George says of Torre “I don’t think we‘d take him back.” Though Steinbrenner says he’s in full control, it could be it’s not his decision to make anymore.

The position-by-position comparison is a tired old trope, but it’s fun as hell, and it’s actually a decent way to compare two teams. Or it almost is. Rather than compare two teams by position on the field, I prefer to compare them by position in the lineup. This corrects for teams that have, for example, power-hitting shortstops that hit in the middle of the order and banjo hitting first basemen who hit at the bottom. Rather than compare the apples and oranges of, say Alex Rodriguez and Casey Blake, I’ll compare Rodriguez to the Indians cleanup hitter and Blake to Doug Mientkiewicz. I reserve the right to fudge the lineups just a smidge to produce better comparisons, though in this case I only need to swap Hideki Matsui back up to the fifth spot, where he hit often enough this year anyway. Also included below are comparisons of the pitching staffs. The Yankee lineup (save for the flop of Matsui and Posada in the order) and roster below reflect those announced by the team. The Indians have yet to announce their roster, so the below is my best guess.

This one is closer than the stats might have you believe. Johnny Damon struggled through the first half of the season with a variety of injuries, compounding his problems by resisting (and ultimately avoiding) his first ever trip to the disabled list. Looking like a very old 33, Damon lost the center field job to Melky Carbrera by June 1, and by July 20, he was hitting just .234/.338/.322. It was then that Joe Torre finally decided that starting Damon at DH wasn’t sufficient, that he needed full days off as well. Damon did not start the first game of the Yankees’ double-header against the Devil Rays on July 21 and, almost as if the lack of rest was wearing him down mentally as well as physically, Damon flipped the switch in the nightcap and hit .319/.369/.493 over the remainder of the season. Looking at his monthly splits, Damon has improved every month since June as he’s slowly healed up from his rough first half. I’ll still give the edge to Sizemore, who, at 24, is still making improvements in his game that are not health related (he drew nearly twice as many walks this year as he did in his rookie season in 2005, and is no longer a liability against lefty pitching), but with Damon back at full strength and performing like he in his first year as a Yankee, it’s very close, especially when you consider that, despite Damon’s early struggles, Sizemore struck out nearly twice as many times as Johnny this season.

This one is the mismatch the last appeared to be on first glance. Cabrerra didn’t become the Tribe’s starting second sacker until mid-August, when the team finally realized that they could no longer both fight for the division and wait for offseason acquisition Josh Barfield to break out. Cabrera, who was acquired from the Mariners last June for Eduardo Perez, spent most of the 2007 season playing shortstop for double-A Akron while posting a hitting line not unlike Jeter’s above. Of course that was at double-A, and Cabrera had never hit like that before in his life save for a short stint at A-ball in 2005. Nonetheless, the Indians figured anything was worth a try, and were pleasantly surprised when the 21-year-old Venezuelan thrived at second base, hitting .308/.361/.477 over his first month in the big leagues. He cooled off over the final two weeks, of course, so it’s anyone’s guess how he’ll perform in the postseason with just 159 major league at-bats under his belt, but it’s safe to say he’s unlikely to out-perform Jeter. The Yankee captain was hobbled in the second-half of the season, suffering from a nagging knee injury that sapped his power, but he rallied in September to hit .311/.363/.495 and finished the season with a 15-game hitting streak during which he hit .386/.397/.653. What’s more, Jeter’s poor success rate on the bases was largely a first-half phenomenon. Jeter was a mere 7 for 14 on the bases in the first half, but stole 8 of 9 successfully in the second half. Perhaps his sore knee forced him to steal with smarts rather than with speed.

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With Jorge Posada playing manager, the Yankees wrapped up their season with a 10-4 win over the Orioles, taking 2 of 3 in Baltimore and finishing the year with 94 wins and a wild card berth to the playoffs.

The game was a light-hearted affair, with Bobby Abreu getting his 100th RBI (he got two to finish at 101), Joba Chamberlain facing one batter (a groundout to end the seventh), and getting the starters out of the game before anyone got hurt being the primary concerns. All were accomplished in good order.

Sean Henn started and turned in three solid innings allowing just a Kevin Millar home run. Chase Wright followed with two frames and picked up the win. Ross Ohlendorf pitched the sixth and the seventh prior to Joba’s appearance, giving up a run on two hits and a walk and striking out one. Chris Britton pitched a perfect eighth. Kyle Farnsworth allowed a two-out homer to J.R. House in the ninth in a four-batter inning. I’ll take a solo homer with a seven run lead over a walk in the same situation any day. There was a moment of concern when Farnsworth knelt down after delivering a pitch having felt a twinge in his hip, but he turned out to be fine and finished the inning.

On offense, of the 12 Yankees who came to the plate, only Alberto Gonzalez failed to reach base. Wilson Betemit had a good day (2 for 5 with a double and 3 RBIs), which was important. Bronson Sardinha, who could make the postseason roster as a pinch-runner, singled and walked in two trips while playing third base in relief of Alex Rodriguez (Sardinha was drafted as a shortstop and was moved to third before finally settling in the outfield, where he has played all three positions, but most often right field). Rodriguez himself went 2 for 2 with a walk and an RBI to push his final line to .314-54-156. Doug Mientkiewicz went 2 for 4 with a double and a walk to keep his hot streak going. Jose Molina went 3 for 5.

The real action of the day, of course, took place in Queens, Philly, Milwaukee, and Denver.

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When playing out the string on the way to the playoffs, the last thing you want is to have a hapless team rally from a multi-run deficit against your closer to force extra innings, then go on to win. You want to coast in. Lose a low scoring game because you’re resting your big bats. Lose a high scoring game because you gave a spot start to a rookie or a retread. Lose a blowout for both reasons, but you don’t want to go extra innings, and you never want to see your closer melt down against a 90-loss team.

The game was never pretty last night. Neither starter pitched well and the Yankees, who had leads of 4-1 and 7-2, were clinging to a slim 7-6 lead after five, all of those runs being charged to Jon Leicester and Mike Mussina, respectively. The Yanks padded their lead to 9-6 against Victor Zambrano and Rob Bell while getting a scoreless inning of relief each from Ross Ohlendorf, Kyle Farnsworth, and Luis Vizcaino.

Then came the bottom of the ninth. With the crowd at Fenway Park, where the Red Sox had defeated the Twins 5-2 behind an outstanding outing by Daisuke Matsuzaka, watching on the scoreboard, Mariano Rivera took the mound with a three-run lead.

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Look, the Yanks have clinched. The O’s have given up. There’s no point to breaking down a terrible team that I’ve already analyzed five times this season, and that the Yankees just played last week. The O’s roster hasn’t changed since last week. There’s nothing to see here.

That said, the division is still in play. If the Yanks sweep and the Red Sox, who lost to the Twins last night, only win one of their remaining three against Minnesota, the Yanks will win the East via the tiebreaker of having won the season series against Boston. That said, neither team is going to fight for it. The Yanks are going to rest their regulars (though Melky’s the only regular who will rest tonight), continue the bullpen tryouts, limit Andy Pettitte to 60 pitches tomorrow, and go with a spot-starter in the season finale on Sunday.

Tonight they’ll let Mike Mussina throw his usual 100-or-so pitches. In three starts since returning to the rotation, Moose has gone 3-0 with a 1.37 ERA and has not allowed a home run. Two starts ago he faced the O’s in the Bronx and turned in his best start of the year. Sure, he’s faced Baltimore once and the depleted Toronto lineup twice, but the prospect of Mussina as the fourth playoff starter (or even the third if Clemens can’t answer the bell) is not as scary as it was just a few weeks ago.

The O’s send Jon Leicester, who has alternated good and bad starts since joining the rotation at the beginning of the month. The Yanks caught him two starts ago and rocked him for six runs in four innings. Tonight would be bad-start night for Leicester if he continues the pattern.

Offense: Twenty-one runs in three games, and it might have been more if they hadn’t clinched in the middle game allowing Joe Torre to rest Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu, and Jorge Posada in the finale.

Studs:

Johnny Damon 10 for 15, 2 2B, RBI, 4 R, 3 SB, 2 K
Derek Jeter 5 for 10, 2 2B, HR, 3 RBI, 3 R, 3 K
Robinson Cano 6 for 13, 2B, HR, 5 RBI, 2 R, BB, 3 K, GIDP, CS
Doug Mientkiewicz 4 for 7, 2 2B, RBI, R, BB, 2 K
Jorge Posada 4 for 10, 2B, 3 RBI, R, GIDP

Duds:

Melky Cabrera 0 for 8, RBI, BB, 3 K, GIDP
Hideki Matsui 0 for 7, 2 BB, 3 K
Wilson Betemit 0 for 5, 3 K
Jason Giambi 1 for 6, 3 K
Bobby Abreu 1 for 8, RBI, 4 R, 3 BB

Bronson Sardinha and Alberto Gonzalez both picked up their first major league hits, both singles, in the finale, which also saw them make their first major league starts (in right field and short stop respectively). Sardinha’s came in his first at-bat, but he went 0 for 2 the rest of the night and saw just eight pitches in his three trips. Gonzalez singled in his second at-bat and was plated by a Johnny Damon double. His last time up he walked and was promptly caught stealing.

Rotation: Even with Kei Igawa subbing for Roger Clemens and his hamstring, the three starters did great, allowing just three runs in 18 innings combined. Igawa pitched around five walks and a pair of singles for five scoreless frames. Chien-Ming Wang wasn’t at his best, but he struck out six in six innings while allowing just two runs. Finally, Phil Hughes had his best start since out-dueling Fausto Carmona in Cleveland in early August, allowing just one run on the requisite Carlos Peña home run (one of Wang’s two runs allowed was also a Peña homer) over seven strong, allowing just seven baserunners (Peña, three singles, two walks, and a hit-batsman). Of course, the Yankees are still hoping Roger Clemens can start the third game of the ALDS, so his absence from this series is of significant concern. Meanwhile, the only man here who is likely to start in the postseason is Wang, who was good, but not great.

Bullpen: Joe Torre’s postseason auditions led directly to a loss in the opener. That’s not a cause for concern, however, as the Yankees didn’t need to win that game, and the whole point was to figure out who could be trusted in October. Here are the results:

The Good:

Mariano Rivera and Joba Chamberlain, of course. Mo picked up a ten-pitch save in the clincher. Joba pitched on back-to-back days for the first time in his life and turned in a pair of scoreless innings striking out three. That said, he got help from a ridiculous wall-crashing catch in center by Melky Cabrera in his first game, which he followed by giving up a single to rookie Justin Ruggiano and uncorking a wild pitch, and gave up a double to Raul Casanova in his second. True, that shot to center was off the bat of that man Carlos Peña, but ace relievers have to get everyone out. That said, Joba lowered his ERA to 0.38, so who am I kidding? Jose Veras pitched two shutout innings, working around a single and getting three ground ball outs to earn the save in the finale. Kyle Farnsworth, working from the windup, pitched a perfect eighth in the opener, striking out two and throwing ten of 13 pitches for strikes. Ron Villone got Peña to groundout to stop the bleeding in the sixth inning of the opener, then retired two of three batters in the seventh also on groundouts (the other walked). Chris Britton struck out Jonny Gomes to end that inning.

The Bad:

Edwar Ramirez and Brian Bruney each faced four men in the sixth inning of the oppener. Six of the eight scored. Staked to a 5-0 lead, Edwar walked the leadoff man, gave up a one-out double to plate that walk, then issued another walk. On came Bruney, who walked his first man to load the bases, struck out the next, then walked a run in and gave up a grand slam to 32-year-old minor league journeyman Jorge Velandia. It was Velandia’s first major league home run. Jeff Karstens gave up a game-winning home run to the only batter he faced in the tenth inning of that game. Luis Vizcaino gave up a double and a home run to the first two batters he faced in the eighth inning of the middle game, then gave up two more singles before finally getting out of the inning.

Conclusion: Farnsworth, Villone, and Veras look to be on their way to the postseason. Edwar, whom Torre said had a spot on the postseason roster, may have pitched his way off of it. That makes Vizcaino’s 11.57 ERA in September even more troubling. Torre’s doing the right thing in resting his regulars (Melky sat last night as well) and getting more at-bats for Giambi, Duncan, and Betemit. The rotation is what it is. Moose will start tonight. Pettitte will go tomorrow, but with a limit of 50 to 60 pitches. If the Yankees’ ALDS series opens on Wednesday, that would mean Pettitte would be on three days rest, but coming off a short outing, suggesting Wang as the Game One starter. If they wind up in the series that opens on Thursday, Pettitte would be on regular rest while Wang would have had seven days off. The biggest concerns heading into the post season, however, are Vizcaino and Clemens, and we’re unlikely to learn much about them from the season-ending three-game set that opens tonight in Baltimore.