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Major League Baseball’s new Basic Agreement, now in effect, mercifully stripped a lot of red tape out of the free agent process. Arbitration offers are still a part of the process, however, and midnight tonight is the deadline for teams to offer salary arbitration to their declared free agents. This deadline is far less significant than it used to be, however, since players not offered arbitration will still be able to resign with their former teams (under the previous Agreement they couldn’t do so until May 1 of the following season).

There are really just two remaining factors for teams to consider when deciding whether or not to offer arbitration. The first is that teams are only eligible to receive compensation for departed free agents to whom they did offer arbitration. Of course, with the elimination of compensation for Type C free agents and the reclassification of Type A and Type B players to the top 40 percent of the field (was the top 50 percent), this applies to a much smaller group of players. For example, the only Yankee free agent who falls within that top 40 percent is Ron Villone, who is a Type B (Mike Mussina was a Type A, but having resigned, that’s moot). For those players, however, the old catch remains. If you offer a player arbitration in the hope that he’ll sign with another team and bring you a compensation draft pick, you run the risk of that player accepting salary arbitration, which guarantees him a contract with your team for the following season.

Take the case of Villone, an undistinguished aging middle reliever who pitched way over his head for the first half of 2006 before bottoming out so severely that he ended up with an ERA below his already below league average career mark (how Elias subsequently placed him in the top 40 percent of all eligible free agents remains a mystery to me, though I believe playing time is a factor, and Villone did pitch in 70 games last year). Recent rumors have had Villone close to a contract with the Cleveland Indians, which suggest the Yankees may want to offer him arbitration in order to land a supplemental round pick in next June’s amateur draft. Then again, Villone is also a New Jersey native who grew up a Yankee fan and is thus a prime candidate to accept the Yankees’ arbitration offer, thus requiring them to pay for his age-37 season. In the David Parrish and Drew Henson era, the risk of Villone accepting arbitration wouldn’t be worth the shot at a draft pick, but now that the Yankees are making the most of their draft picks, the shot at an extra pick is awfully tempting.

According to Peter Abraham, there are a few free agent deals on the table that are just waiting for tonight’s deadline to pass in order to find out if compensation will be part of the cost. Those deals must be for Type A players, as the picks given in compensation for Type B free agents are supplemental round picks only, meaning they are not picks taken away from the signing team, but additional picks added to the draft specifically for compensation purposes. Remarkably, nine Type A free agents have already been signed, guaranteeing that their old teams will offer arbitration in order to receive that compensatory pick.

A quick housekeeping note. Some of you may have noticed that we’ve reordered the sections on the sidebar. Although you’ll have to scroll down a bit further to find the pitching probables during the season, we think the new order is more intuitive. I’m currently in the process of streamlining and organizing some of the more unwieldy sections, so you’ll likely notice further changes in the coming weeks. As always, the links on the sidebar are there for the benefit of our readers and we welcome feedback, either in comments or via email, regarding what is or isn’t there, or how we can make the sidebar more user friendly.

See also the Outfielders and Starting Pitchers.

C – Jorge Posada .277/.374/.492 (.305 EQA)

At an age when the bottom drops out on most catchers, Jorge Posada had one of the three or four best seasons of his career. He ranked fourth among all major league catchers in VORP, behind a trio of youngsters (Mauer, McCann and Martinez). Best of all, Posada had what was undoubtedly his best defensive season. Whereas Joe Girardi at long last taught Posada how to block the plate in 2005, Tony Pena taught him how to set his feet to throw resulting in the best caught stealing percentage of his career this past season. At age 35, Jorge Posada is still improving his defense and hitting better than most catchers do in their prime.

A

1B – Jason Giambi .253/.413/.558 (.334)

Although Giambi’s generally been regarded as a DH for years, 2006 was the first season in his career in which he played more games as a DH than he did in the field. Troublingly, despite the prolonged exposure to the non-position, his alarmingly consistent positional splits persisted. Giambi the DH hit a solid .224/.373/.531 (.301 GPA), but Giambi the first baseman hit a resounding .289/.459/.592 (.355 GPA). Unfortunately, Giambi’s defense continued to decline this past season to the point at which the idea of Giambi playing the field more than once or twice a week is untenable.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that Giambi, despite the DH-related decrease in batting average, remains one of the most productive hitters in baseball (he had the fifth best EQA in the AL in 2006 and was tied with Chipper Jones for the eleventh best mark in the majors). It seemed unthinkable in the offseason following Giambi’s scandal, injury, and illness-riddled 2004 season, but Ga-bombi’s 2005 and 2006 seasons, in which he’s hit a combined .262/.426/.547 with 69 homers and 200 RBIs, rank with his best. By both EQA and OPS+, Giambi’s best seasons, in order, are his final season with the A’s in 2001, when he wrongly lost the MVP to Ichiro Suzuki by a mere eight points, the previous year, when he properly won the award, his underappreciated first season with the Yankees in 2002, 2005 and 2006. In chart form that looks like this:

Yes, three of Jason Giambi’s five best seasons have come in pinstripes.

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It’s just been announced that the Yankees have won the right to negotiate with Japanese pitcher Kei Igawa, who was posted by the Hanshin Tigers of the Japanese Central League. The winning bid, alternately reported as $25 and $26 million, was actually $26,000,194 (the 194 being Igawa’s 2006 strikeout total). The losing bids are not announced, though word has leaked out that the Mets had bid $15 or $16 million and the Padres had also placed an eight-figure bid. The Mariners, Orioles, Giants, and World Champion Cardinals were among the other teams believed to have been interested in Igawa. The Yankees will have until midnight on December 28 to sign Igawa. Should they fail to do so, they will not have to pay the bid amount.

So who the hell is Kei Igawa? He’s a 27-year-old left-handed starting pitcher. His best pitch is said to be his curve ball, though some reports say that the pitch is actually a change-up that drops like a curve. He also has a slider in the low 80s and a 90-mile-per-hour fastball. With that repertoire he has lead the Central League in strikeouts in three of the last five years, won the Central League MVP award in 2003 (20-5, 2.80 ERA), and lead the Tigers to two Central League pennants (though Hanshin lost in the Japan Series both times). As is often the case with curveballers, however, he’s quite susceptible to the longball, surrendering a whopping 52 over the 2004 and 2005 seasons combined–this in the Central League’s short 146-game season.

According to this scouting report, however, Igawa made a major adjustment in 2006 that helped to reduce his susceptibility to the home run. Here’s the relevant passage:

He’s finally figured out that the [straight, 88-90 MPH] fastball is a gopher pitch when centered and overexposed so he’ll go to it less often (will throw it down the middle when he’s confident the hitter is unbalanced) and try to spot on the corners or miss out of the zone with it when he isn’t sure if the hitter is sitting on it. This adjustment is HUGE, as he has finally learned to pitch backwards and mix his pitches better (which he MUST do in America) in 2006 and its making him a far better bet to succeed in the transition to MLB. If Igawa were to pitch the way he pitched pre-2006 in the big leagues (aggressively with his straight 89 mph fastball), he wouldn’t have been very successful despite the great K/BB ratios. Preseason Igawa wasn’t as attractive of an option, but 2006 answered a lot of questions.

Indeed, his 2006 statistics support that analysis. In 2004 and 2005 combined, Igawa surrendered 1.26 homers per nine innings. In 2006, he allowed just 0.73 homers per nine innings. He also walked a career low 2.11 men per nine innings in 2006, which is an important sign as another knock on Igawa is that he has the sort of controlled wildness that could lead to a spike in his walk rate stateside. As for that “great K/BB ratio,” his career mark is 2.97 K/BB, which is excellent, but not quite “great” (Mike Mussina’s 3.58 career K/BB is a better example of “great”).

With those caveats, Igawa compares quite favorably to his infinitely more celebrated countryman, Daisuke Matsuzaka, as this quick tale of the tape shows:

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For the uni-curious, check out a contribution of sorts I made to one of my essential daily reads, Paul Lukas’s Uni Watch Blog, but be sure to clear some time as the web site I brought to Paul’s attention could make the next few hours disappear very quickly.

While we await the results of the AL MVP voting, allow me to share an idea that popped into my head while looking over yesterday’s MLB transactions, specifically these two headlines:

• Yankees, Mussina agree on two-year, $23M deal
• Mets complete deal with Alou, decline option on Glavine

First of all, no, Moose’s deal still isn’t final, though pending a physical today it will be done by tomorrow. And, yes, he seems to have picked up an extra half-mil along the way.

Second, in this wild offseason that has already seen the Cubs go crazy on Alfonso Soriano ($136 million/8yrs) and the Red Sox bid $51,111,111.11 just to negotiate with Japanese import Daisuke Matsuzaka, the following deals all look mighty reasonable:

• Moises Alou: $8.5 million/1yr + $7.5/$1 mil club option for 2008
• Frank Thomas: $18 million/2yrs + vesting 2009 option
• Craig Biggio: $5.15 million/1yr
• Mike Mussina: $23 million/2yrs (+ $1.5 buyout for 2007)
• Jamie Moyer: $10.5 million/2yrs + $3.5 million in incentives
• Orlando Hernandez: $12 million/2yrs

All relatively low-risk, short-term contracts that, despite the marquee names involved, are actually commensurate with the player’s level of production. What’s the common thread? The players involved range in age from Mike Mussina, who will be 38 in just a few weeks, to Jamie Moyer, who just turned 44.

There are two things I draw from this. First, the Yankees’ decision to take Mussina’s hometown discount rather than make an expensive long-term commitment to a younger league-average-at-best starter such as recent conversation pieces Ted Lilly or the execrable Gil Meche was not only wise, but has thus far been underappreciated. Second, Brian Cashman should follow his own example and go after the now-available Tom Glavine.

Glavine, who will be 41 in March, earned $7.5 million in 2006 with an additional $5.25 million deferred (restructured in May from an original $10.5 million). He also just picked up a cool $3 million via his buyout from the Mets. All of which suggests that he could easily be had for less than Mussina, say $18 to $20 million over two years, possibly with money deferred. Consider the pros to such a deal:

• Glavine has played in New York for the last four years, the last two of them for one of Joe Torre’s managerial protégés. There would be no adjustment required for him to move up to the Bronx, personally or professionally. He might even be willing to offer the Yankees a hometown discount of sorts. Glavine has reportedly narrowed his options to New York and Atlanta and is simply trying to make up his mind where he wants to play. Indeed, one of the reasons these veterans are so reasonably priced is that, by time they’ve reached this late stage of their careers, location and winning are more important to them than that last couple million or the long-term security their All-Star careers has already given them.
• With the exception of the strike-shortened seasons of 1995 and 1995, Glavine has made a minimum of 32 starts every year since 1990.
• Glavine has had an ERA below league average just once since 1991, that coming four years ago
• Glavine’s strike-out rate has actually trended upwards in recent years and his K/BB ratio has improved in each of the last three seasons, each of which have seen him post peripherals similar to his averages for his Hall of Fame career.
• Glavine’s list of comparable pitchers according to Baseball-Reference and Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA cards include names such as Warren Spahn, Don Sutton, Tommy John, Jerry Koosman, David Wells, Jamie Moyer, and Kenny Rogers, all pitchers who were still league-average starters or better at the age of 41 and, in some cases, beyond.
• Glavine is a groundball pitcher, thus unlikely to become homer prone like recent NL imports Javy Vazquez, Carl Pavano and Randy Johnson
• The Yankees have a growing supply of young pitching prospects, some of whom should break through to the majors for good in 2007. That makes now an ideal time to have a pair of veteran pitchers’ pitchers such as Mussina and Glavine around to serve as mentors to Philip Hughes and organization’s other up-and-coming young hurlers.
• On the business side, Glavine is ten wins short of 300. That’s a sure-fire mid-season attendance bump as he approaches that milestone.

Now, it’s very possible that Glavine doesn’t want to leave the National League, so all of the above may be moot, but it’s certainly something that Brian Cashman should be exploring.

Meanwhile, the MVP announcement should come around 2pm EST. I don’t expect we’ll be disappointed.

You can find the outfielders here.

Chien-Ming Wang 3.63 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 1.46 K/BB, 33 GS

Although Mike Mussina actually pitched better over the course of the full season, Chien-Ming Wang emerged as the Yankees default ace in 2006, winning 19 games, and fulfilling all of the promise of his strong rookie season. Looking at Wang’s monthly splits, he decreased his ERA in each of the first four months of the season, topping out with a 3.03 mark in his five July starts and following that up with eight scoreless innings against the Blue Jays on August 2.

That August 2 start was the later part of a run of 19 consecutive scoreless innings, a streak that was broken when the White Sox scored in Wang’s 158th inning of the season. Though somewhat coincidental, that number is not insignificant. In 2005, Chien-MingWang set a career high by throwing 157 innings between triple-A, the majors, and the postseason. Over his first 157 innings of 2006, Wang posted a 3.55 ERA and allowed exactly one base hit per inning and a 1.25 WHIP. Over the remainder of his season and the postseason, Wang posted a 3.80 ERA and allowed 1.24 hits per inning and a 1.44 WHIP.

Curiously, Wang also increased his strike out rate by more than a K per game and dropped his walk rate below 2 per 9 innings after that 157th inning. But then Chien-Ming Wang’s strikeout rate is one of the more perplexing statistics in baseball at the moment. For all of his success in 2006, Wang actually experienced a decrease in his already alarmingly low strikeout rate from the year before. In fact, Wang’s rate of 3.18 K/9 was the lowest by a 19-game winner since 1980.

That year two men, the A’s Rick Langford and another Yankee sinkerballer you may have heard of named Tommy John, won 19 games while striking out 3.17 and 2.65 men per nine innings respectively. Each of these men resembles Wang differently. John was a Yankee hurler adept at inducing groundballs, getting 2.36* grounders for every fly in 1980. Langford, though also a sinkerballer, was less adept at the grounder, getting just 1.11* grounders for every fly that season and an only slightly higher ratio of ground balls in the surrounding seasons. Instead, Langford’s success in 1980 had more to do with his good fortune on balls in play (.259 BABIP).

As far as the reasons for his success, Wang is more John than Langford, as he had a fairly typical .293 BABIP in 2006, but boasted the major league’s third most extreme groundball rate (3.06 GB/FB). Rather, where Langford resembled Wang was in his relative youth (Langford was 28 in 1980, John was 37) and the sharp increase in the innings he pitched that season. In his first season as A’s manager, former Yankee skipper Billy Martin allowed Langford to throw 290 innings in 1980, an increase of nearly a third over his previous career high of 218 2/3 from the year before. Wang’s increase in 2006 was even greater, a whopping 43 percent more innings than he’d ever thrown before in a single season (including the postseason, Wang pitched 224 2/3 innings in 2006).

Langford managed to replicate his success in the strike-shortened 1981 season and suffered only a modest drop off in 1982. But despite the strike and his own less-stellar pitching saving him from cracking the 240 innings mark yet again, Langford’s elbow went under the knife after the 1982 season and he never again pitched a full season. While some might be tempted to use Wang’s extreme efficiency (only Greg Maddux and Roy Halladay threw fewer pitches per inning in 2006) to quell concerns over his workload, it won’t work. Wang was as even more efficient in 2005. Given Wang’s history of shoulder problems (labrum surgery in 2001 and his DL scare late last season), the Yankees should have been more cautious with his workload this past year.

If Wang’s shoulder remains intact in 2007, what should the Yankees expect from their young star? Consider the three other pitchers who induced more than three times as many ground balls as flies in 2006:

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The Yankees have to decide today if they will pick up Jaret Wright’s option for 2007. Given the state of the Yankees’ rotation at the moment (the old and injured, the young and unproven, and Chien-Ming Wang), it seems well worth the extra $3 million to keep Wright around as insurance (the buyout on his $7 million option is $4 million). But the latest rumor is that the Yankees will do with Wright what they did with Gary Sheffield, pick up his option then flip him for prospects.

The rumored destination for Wright has been Baltimore, where he’d be reunited with Leo Mazzone much like Sheffield was reunited with Jim Leyland in Detroit. I wasn’t aware that Baltimore had any prospects (other than Nick Markakis, and the Yanks ain’t gettin’ him), but this is Jaret Wright we’re talking about after all. Credit Brian Cashman for a fantastic strategy here. With Sheffield he turned a player they were likely going to let walk away for nothing into three impressive young arms. If they do deal Wright, they’ll either have taken his $4 million buyout off the books and gotten live bodies in return for the favor, or, if they wind up sending cash with Wright, will likely wind up turning an oft-injured 30-year-old pitcher with a bad contract who averaged just a hair more than five innings per start in the third best season of his career last year into some young talent for no more than the $4 million that as of the moment is essentially a sunk cost.

In other news, the deadline for eligible players to file for free agency was yesterday, which means those players who have filed are free to negotiate with all thirty teams starting today. The Yankees who have filed are Miguel Cairo, Octavio Dotel, Tanyon Sturtze, Ron Villone, Bernie Williams, and Craig Wilson, as well as Wright and Mike Mussina, who’s $17 million option the Yankees will likely buyout for $1.5 million by Wednesday’s deadline. In addition to that group, Nick Green and Sal Fasano both elected to become free agents after being outrighted to triple-A last month. The Yankees also have a long list of six-year minor league free agents. You can find that list on the side-bar under “players.” Among the players listed are Aaron Small, Terrence Long, Ramiro Mendoza, Kris Wilson, Jorge DePaula, Ben Davis, Russ Johnson, Felix Escalona, Jesus Colome and Frank Menechino. Bubba Crosby, who was also on that list, signed a one-year major league deal with the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday. Several other sites have included Wil Nieves on that list as well, but as far as I can tell he’s still on the Yankees’ 40-man roster, and is thus ineligible for six-year minor league free agency.

Meanwhile, despite the rumors that circulated on Thursday that either the Rangers or Red Sox had come in with the top bid on Daisuke Matsuzaka, the actual results remain unannounced, as the Seibu Lions have until Tuesday to make their decision. (I feel like I should post that sentence on the sidebar until the decision is final.)

Steve Swindal, Randy Levine, and Brian Cashman made a promotional appearance in Staten Island yesterday to announce the fact that the Yankees have bought their New York Penn League affiliate. As part of the deal, the Staten Island Yankees will host a Yankees Old Timers Game next summer and SI Yankees season ticket holders will have special access to both regular and postseason tickets in the Bronx. I’d be all over that if it weren’t for the fact that I just can’t get hyped over players in short season A-ball, no matter what their prospect status.

At any rate, the event gave reporters a chance to pepper the Yankee GM with questions, which is why you’ll read the same quotes from him in all of the papers this morning, or you could just cut to the chase and check out Peter Abraham’s handy summary.

Cashman didn’t say anything groundbreaking, though he did say that he considers Jason Giambi the team’s designated hitter and is in the market for a right-handed-hitting first baseman (the unspoken part of that being that Andy Phillips had his chance and blew it).

In the meantime, we can all continue to wear out the refresh buttons on our browsers waiting for news on Daisuke Matsuzaka or word of a Sheffield trade. Speaking of the latter, J.D. Drew just opted out of the remainder of his contract with the Dodgers, leaving L.A. with Andre Ethier as their best under-contract outfielder. Sheff tends to burn his bridges, but the Dodgers had a different manager, GM, and owner when he was last there. I’m not saying Sheffield is likely to head back to L.A., but the Dodgers could enter the discussion, further driving up his price. Which, of course, means we’ll have longer to wait before having any actual news on the Yankees’ most recent right-handed first baseman.

The next bit of news we’re likely to get will be the Yankees’ decision on Jaret Wright’s option, which must come no later than Sunday. Cashman didn’t tip his hand yesterday, but I’m in favor of the Yankees hanging on to Wright, largely because of the size of his buyout. Wright’s option is for $7 million, but the Yankees will have to pay $4 million of that to make him go away. That $4 million is a sunk cost, which means that keeping Wright really only costs the Yankees $3 million, which is a perfectly fair price for the sort of performance he turned in last year (27 starts, a roughly league-average ERA). Rodrigo Lopez, Bruce Chen, Cory Lidle, Jason Johnson, Gil Meche, and Carlos Silva are just a few of the pitchers who earned similar, but larger amounts in 2006, none of whom posted a higher ERA+ than Wright.

If you rank the pitchers the Yankees have under contract for next year by career major league starts, the fourth name on the list–after Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, and Chien-Ming Wang–is Kyle Farnsworth. Rank them by major league starts in 2006 and the list is Johnson, Wang, then Jeffrey Karstens with six. And Johnson just had back surgery. Yes, Mike Mussina is likely to join that group shortly, and with Karstens, Darrell Rasner, Philip Hughes, Tyler Clippard, and, heck, even Sean Henn in the queue the Yankees have a handful of rookies who could outperform Wright in 2007. But for $3 million it seems silly not to hold on to a live arm that, if nothing else, could hold a spot for Johnson’s rehab or a few warm up starts for Hughes in Scranton during April and May, then bringing a useful bench player or reliever in a trade. Heck, if the Matsuzaka deal pans out, Cashman just might get more for Sheff and Wright than Pat Gillick did for Abreu and Lidle, despite the fact that Gillick was dealing better players with more leverage.

Now that Joe Torre has (in an absurd bit of media-fueled theater) been officially not fired, the Tigers and Kenny Rogers have done to the A’s (and in the latter case the Cardinals) what they did to the Yankees in the Division Series, and Yankee senior vice president of media relations Rick Cerrone has been fired as a low-impact mia culpa to Alex Rodriguez over Tom Verducci’s now infamous Sports Illustrated article, the Queens of Hearts and Chicken Littles have finally quieted to the point that we can look back at the 2006 New York Yankees without having to shout above the din. As I did last year, I’ll take a player-by-player look at the 2006 Yankees over the course of my next several posts, but before I do, let’s kick things off with a quick look at how the team performed as a whole:

The 2006 New York Yankees finished the season with the American League’s best record (97-65, a game better than the surging Twins) and tied with the eventual pennant-winning Tigers for the league’s best Pythagorean record (95-67, two games better than the Twins). The primary reason for this success was that the Yankees boasted the major league’s best offense. The Bronx Bombers led majors in runs scored (930 total, 5.74 per game) thanks to a balanced attack that saw them finish second in the American League in both home runs (to the defending champion White Sox), and stolen bases (to the Angels, whose 72 percent success rate paled next to the Bombers’ 80 percent), while drawing just one less walk than the second-best A’s (Boston lead the league). In a season in which the average American Leaguer hit just .275/.339/.437, the Yankees as a team posted a .285/.363/.461 line, their team on-base percentage of .363 outdistancing the Red Sox’s second-best mark by twelve points.

On the other side of the ball, the Yankees finished second in the league (to the Tigers) in defensive efficiency, a huge turn around from last year’s tenth-place performance and one that surely had a great deal to do with their completely revamped (unintended though it might have been) outfield. Such an efficient defense also helps put into context the league average performance of their pitching staff (4.73 runs allowed per game and a 4.41 team ERA, which works out to a team ERA+ of 99). In front of an average defense (or worse yet, the iron-gloved 2005 Yankees), that lukewarm pitching performance just might have turned the blood cold. But with the everyday players contributing at an elite level on both sides of the ball, the Yankee pitching didn’t need to be better than average during the regular season. When the bats were cooled by the majors’ best pitching staff in October, however, the team’s shortcomings on the mound were thrown into sharp relief, resulting in a quick first-round exit at the hands of the eventual pennant-winning Tigers.

Still, the 2006 Yankees were a good team that avoided prolonged slumps (their longest losing streak was four games and their worst month was a .538 June) and only got better as the season progressed (first half-winning percentage: .581, August: .600, September .621). Of course, they were also the oldest and most expensive team in the major leagues, but bubbling up below the surface are a couple of young hurlers who could improve the team in their three trouble areas: age, price, and pitching. I’ll take a look at what the future could (and perhaps should) hold for the home nine in the coming weeks, but for now, let’s look back at the 2006 club. I’ll start today with the outfielders, as major injuries to the team’s starting corner outfielders and middle-of-the-order sluggers were central to the progression of the Yankees’ 2006 season.

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The Yankees have until midnight on Sunday to make a decision on Gary Sheffield’s $13 million option for 2007. As Alex previously reported, Brian Cashman’s plan has been to pick up Sheffield’s option, but only after finding a team willing to trade for Sheffield and assume his entire salary. Sheffield caught wind of this plan last week and was predictably upset (if there’s one thing Gary won’t stand for it’s the lack of a long-term contract).

Sheffield’s public outburst, in which he said “there’s going to be a problem” if the Yankees pick up his option and then trade him, appeared to endanger Cashman’s plans. But, as the final paragraph of this extended version of the AP story above indicates, the possibility of obtaining Gary Sheffield at one year/$13 million in lieu of shelling out a Beltran-like nine figures over seven years for an over-30 Alfonso Soriano has generated a great deal of interest around the league. According to today’s Newsday, a trade is still the most likely scenario to result from Sunday’s deadline. That Newsday story cited an unnamed AL official as saying that Cashman is looking for “a package of prospects, bullpen help or a starting pitcher” in return for the surly 38-year-old right fielder who is coming off a soft tissue injury to the left wrist which generates a great deal of the power in his swing.

Here’s hoping it works out. The Yankees already have outfielders Bobby Abreu, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, Melky Cabrera, and the major league-ready Kevin Thompson and Kevin Reese under contract for 2007. What’s more, they will likely need that $13 million to help improve their starting pitching. They have no need for Sheffield, who in addition to his age, injury and attitude, proved to be an awful defensive first baseman (though his transition did occur under far from optimal conditions). Despite all of that, Sheffield remains a valuable asset. Cashman’s plan, if successful, will turn Sheffield’s redundant value into more beneficial assets for the ballclub, yet another sign that the Yankees’ decision making is headed in the right direction.

As for the other two option decisions the Yankees have to make, they’ll have until a week from Sunday (Nov. 12) to decide whether or not it’s worth an extra $3 million to keep Jaret Wright around (his buyout is a whopping $4 million). The deadline on Mike Mussina’s $17 million option is the following Wednesday (Nov. 15). I assume the Yanks will opt to buyout Mussina for $1.5 million. The only suspense there is whether or not they’ll work out a new, less expensive two-year deal with Moose by that deadline, or if they’ll wait and bid on him along with the other 29 teams as the offseason progresses. My guess is the former, given their failure to retain Jon Leiber under similar circumstances two years ago. That is, of course, if Moose is amenable to their offer.

It looks like they’re going to get the game in tonight. The pitching match up is Jeff Suppan against Michael J. Fo . . . er Jeremy Bonderman.

Desperate to get his offense going down 2-1 in the Series, Jim Leyland has dropped ALCS MVP Placido Polanco to the seventh spot in the order, moved Carlos Guillen into the vacated third spot and Sean Casey into Guillen’s fifth spot. Curtis Granderson and Ivan Rodriguez, who, like Polanco, are 0 for the World Series, remain batting first and sixth, however. Good luck with that, Jimbo.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and Players Association Executive Director Donald Fehr have been vilified for a laundry list of reasons over the last two decades, often for good reason. But when the first post-strike Basic Agreement expired in late 2002, the players and owners averted a work stoppage for the first time since 1970, reaching an agreement right at the August 31 deadline. Last night, Selig and Fehr appeared at Busch Stadium in St. Louis just before Game 3 of the World Series to announce that, with the 2002 agreement set to expire in December 19, they’ve not only avoided a work stoppage yet again, but they’ve beaten the deadline by nearly two months.

More impressively, despite last night’s game being something of a snoozer (a 5-0 Cardinals win behind a dominant outing from Chris Carpenter), the news of the new agreement appears to have been something of an afterthought to the mainstream media this morning. As well it should be. A dozen years after the World Series was cancelled as a result of what was then the longest work stoppage in professional sports history (thanks NHL!), order has finally been restored with the game on the field stealing the headlines from what, given the history* of labor strife in the sport, is actually a far more remarkable event. While it’s clear that timing of this announcement was in no way coincidental (Selig’s has had the specter of the 1994 World Series hanging over his head throughout his commissionership and is clearly still desperate to exorcise it), it remains apt. Though it is somewhat contradictory to do so, I think Selig and Fehr deserve to be celebrated for conducting this round of labor negotiations outside of the media spotlight, and for allowing the new agreement to be brushed aside by the media as a boring business story secondary to the game itself.

That said, a new labor agreement is big news, regardless of the temperature of the fire in which it was forged. The full agreement hasn’t been posted yet (though once it is, it will likely appear here), but here are a few highlights as cribbed from the official press release.

• The new agreement will last through the 2011 season, expiring on December 11, 2011. The five-year agreement is the longest in baseball’s labor history*.
• The deadlines for teams to resign departing free agents who have not been offered or have rejected salary arbitration have been eliminated, allowing all 30 teams to negotiate with free agents on equal terms.
• Free agent compensation has been rolled back. Teams will have to surrender compensatory draft picks for Type A free agents only, with Type A being redefined at the top 20 percent of the free agent pool (was the top 30 percent). Teams losing Type B free agents (correspondingly redefined as players from 21-40 percent–was 31-50) will be compensated with supplemental round picks only. There is no longer any compensation for teams losing Type C free agents.
• Players traded in the middle of multi-year contracts are no longer allowed to demand a trade from their new team. (Existing multi-year contracts are grandfathered, allowing a player already under a multi-year contract to demand a trade only if dealt during the term of his current contract.)
• All amateur draft picks (with the exception of college seniors) must be signed by August 15. Teams that are unable to sign first or second round picks by that deadline will get the identical pick the next year as compensation. Teams unable to sign third round picks will get supplemental round picks between the third and fourth rounds the following year.
• Minor leaguers are bound to their organizations for an extra year before becoming eligible for the Rule 5 draft.
• No teams will be contracted during the term of the agreement.

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It’s a beautiful thing. Writers from both sides of tonight’s Game 7 match-up have typed words today that baseball fans of all stripes (pin and otherwise) would do well to take to heart.

From CardNilly:

The beautiful and the terrible thing about baseball is that good teams will lose a third of the time, and bad teams will win a third of the time. The only thing the players can really control is the amount and intensity of effort they pour into the game. So long as the effort is genuine, we Cardinal fans (and I think most fans everywhere) are willing to accept the result for what it is. Someone has to win, someone has to lose — all we as fans can reasonably ask for is that everyone competes as hard as he can. (Thanks to Viva El Birdos for the link)

From Deadspin‘s Will Leitch in a New York Times Op-Ed:

The frustrating beauty of baseball is that you can never trust what you’re watching. Any hitter can have a 4-for-4 day if everything breaks right; you have to build a team that ignores the daily randomness and simply compiles the raw numbers that lead to bulk wins over the course of the season. General manager Billy Beane of the Oakland A’s, innovator of the famously subversive “moneyball” method of building a roster, lamented that his approach “doesn’t work in the playoffs.” He was right, but not in the way most people understood him. It’s not that his approach in particular didn’t work; it’s that nobody’s does. It’s almost entirely luck.

Much is written by statistical analysts about “sample size” in baseball, and the playoffs are the most extreme example. If the Royals, one of the worst teams in baseball, played the American League champion Detroit Tigers in a 10-game postseason series, they’d win at least 3–probably more. A bad team beating a good team is not particularly difficult, or unusual. Yankees fans can take some solace in this. The Yankees were an outstanding team this year. In the playoffs, though, they ran into three Tigers pitchers who pitched dominant games those particular days. The Yankees didn’t lose because A-Rod wasn’t “clutch” or because Joe Torre forgot how to manage a baseball team or because the Tigers had more “heart.” They lost because the Tigers happened to win three games in a row.

It happens all the time during the regular season. We just don’t notice. Sportswriters say the Tigers “got hot at the right time,” but they weren’t saying that one week earlier, when they lost three at home to the Royals to end the season. Did the Royals just have more heart?

And finally from Alex Nelson at Mets Geek:

I know better now. One game is impossible to predict. Trends are just trends, streaks can be broken, and the mighty humbled. It’s going to come down to a coin toss.

And because of that, in my own twisted mind, it’s going to come down to everything. The umpiring. The winds at Shea. What I eat for breakfast. It may come down to the number of comments we get during the game. It could come down to Eric Simon’s Endy shirt. Or my lucky Mets cap that I started wearing on September 28th in an effort to change the team’s mojo and have worn ever since, despite ripping it off my head after Game 2 and stomping all over it.

It could come down to karma. Last week, I was sure it would, and I don’t even believe in the stuff. Heck, I don’t even really know what it is or how it works. There’s nothing like an uncontrollable situation to turn a rational being into a superstitious mess.

And here we are at Game 7. Another coin flip. Or maybe one last series of coin flips. I’m hoping for lots of “heads.”

The Cardinals broke serve in the NLCS on Tuesday night by defeating Mets ace Tom Glavine. Last night, the Mets broke back with a 4-2 win over defending NL Cy Young Award winner Chris Carpenter.

John Maine was inefficient, but effective, escaping a bases loaded jam in the first and stranding men on the corners in the third. Though he walked four, one was an intentional pass to Albert Pujols (2 for 3 with the walk, but neither a run scored nor driven in). Meanwhile, he struck out five in 5 1/3 innings and allowed just two first-inning hits.

On the other side of the ledger, Jose Reyes set the tone by following Maine’s first-inning Houdini act with a home run on Carpenter’s third pitch of the night. Reyes would go 3 for 4 with that homer, a pair of steals and a second run scored later in the game. Singles by Carlos Beltran, David Wright and Shawn Green increased the Mets’ lead to 2-0 in the fourth after which I, sitting high up in the stands over first base, felt the Shea Stadium upper deck sway for the first time.

I’d feel that sway again in the seventh after Paul Lo Duca followed two-out singles and stolen bases by pinch-hitter Michael Tucker and Reyes with a two-RBI single off former Met closer Braden Looper. Those two insurance runs proved to be the difference as Billy Wagner–following 2 1/3 scoreless innings from Chad Bradford, Guillermo Mota and Aaron Heilman–coughed up the only two St. Louis runs of the night in the ninth on a Juan Encarnacion single, a Scott Rolen double, and a two-out, two-RBI pinch-hit double by So Taguchi before finally getting David Eckstein to ground out to send the series to a decisive seventh game to be played in Flushing tonight.

After the Mets tied the series at 2-2, I posted a comment stating that I expected the series to go seven games, but that it looked to me like the Cardinals would ultimately prevail. My reasoning was the Mets’ lack of a viable Game 7 starter. I’m more optimistic now that the seventh game is a reality. Not having to use Darren Oliver since he threw six scoreless innings in relief of soon-to-be ex-Met Steve Trachsel in Game 3 will allow Willie Randolph to have an extra-quick hook with announced Game 7 starter Oliver Perez. Perez didn’t actually pitch all that well in Game 4, but kept the game close long enough for the Mets offense to start raking for what remains the only time this series. Should Perez start to falter tonight, Randolph should have no qualms about going to Oliver early, after which, it will be all-in. Only Wagner threw more than 14 pitches last night, only Bradford and Mota threw in each of the last two games, and of those two Bradford has thrown most combined pitches with a mere 21.

Of course that optimism is all dependent on the Mets breaking through against Jeff Suppan, who held them scoreless on three hits over eight innings in Game 3. But this is Jeff Suppan after all. The Mets had no problem with him back in May, the only other time they faced him this year.

A couple of other notes on attending the game last night:

Maybe I’m just bitter, but there doesn’t seem to be nearly as much negativity among Mets fans as there are among their cross-town counterparts. Even when Billy Wagner pulled his John Wetteland act in the ninth, the stadium got quiet, but no one was ranting or raving about how terrible he was or predicting the imminent demise of their team’s season. Maybe its the difference between the upper deck crowd and the bleacher creacher crowd I’m used to in the Bronx, but I can’t get through a regular season game without hearing countless predictions of failure from the Yankee “faithful” (“their gonna strand these runners” “he’s gonna hit into a double play” “why’d Torre bring him in, he’s gonna blow the lead” “here we go . . .”). Meanwhile, in the Mets first NLCS appearance in six years, down a game and facing elimination, I didn’t hear a single fan get down on the home team. You gotta believe indeed.

That said, when the Mets increased their lead to 4-0 in the bottom of the seventh, a good number of fans headed for the exits. These people should be banned from Shea for life. How can you leave Game 6 of the LCS (never mind that its the first one your team has been in in six years) after seven innings with a mere four-run lead and the top of the opposition’s line-up due up in the top of the eighth? That’s mind boggling to me. Another exodus started after Heilman cleared the one-through-four hitters in the Cardinal order in the top of the eighth. I’m sorry, if you’re at Game 6 of the LCS with your team fighting for it’s postseason life, you don’t leave until the last out, never mind the score, but especially when a grand slam could still alter the outcome.

Finally, I’m convinced that the Mets are benefiting from positive sartorial mojo. They’ve worn their alternate black uniform tops just once this postseason, that being in their ugly Game 3 loss in which Trachsel failed to get out of the second inning and the offense was shut out by Suppan and Josh Kinney. Otherwise they’ve stuck to their proper home whites and road greys. Down two games to three with their backs against the wall, what did they wear for Game 6? Pinstripes and all-blue caps, just like it oughta be. They even ditched their two-tone batting helmets for solid blue, and though it was hard to find proof, stuck with blue for their undershirts and socks as well. Kudos to the Metropolitans for that one. Now if only they’d ditch the black drop shadow and those nasty two-tone helmets and alternate unis altogether for 2007. Meanwhile, I’m hoping for those pretty blue caps and pinstripes again tonight, as well as a ballgame that lives up to the tight, well-played contests of the last two nights, regardless of the outcome.

I really don’t have much to say about the Blue Jays. As the season winds to a close it looks as though their splashy offseason will have netted them an extra six wins. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but 86 wins just isn’t going to cut it in the American League.

What’s most compelling about the series that begins in Toronto tonight is that a) the Yankees could make like 1995 and clinch in Canada and b) because the rest of the rotation was scrunched into two days over the weekend and Cory Lidle is out with tendonitis in his pitching hand, the Yankees are running out a trio of rookie starters. This spring I did a lot of blabbing about the trio of 25-year-old pitchers in Columbus which I thought could produce this year’s Chien-Ming Wang for the Yankees. Things didn’t work out that way. Sean Henn and Darrell Rasner spent large chunks of the season on the DL and Matt DeSalvo was so awful that he was exiled to Trenton where he continued to walk more than he struck out. Henn inspired little confidence when healthy and was eventually converted to relief, though he’ll return to the rotation in Lidle’s stead on Wednesday.

Of the three, only Rasner, who starts tonight against the Jay’s offseason poster boy A.J. Burnett, has displayed the sort of potential I had trumpeted in the spring. Rasner has been uniformly excellent for the Yankees in his limited opportunities this year. He posted a 2.89 ERA in the minors with a stellar 3.93 K/BB ratio–which includes a few rehab starts following his three-month DL stay due to shoulder soreness–and has allowed just one run in 11 2/3 major league innings (0.77 ERA), striking out eight and walking none. In his only previous start for the Yankees, Rasner held the Twins to a run on four hits over six full. Most recently he pitched in relief of tomorrow’s starter Jeff Karstens and threw four one-hit shutout innings against the Devil Rays, striking out five and throwing a staggering 80 percent of just 45 pitches for strikes. That outing came on Thursday, which means Rasner is pitching on three-days rest, albeit from what amounts to half a start. I continue to hold out hope that Rasner will be a part of the discussion for next year’s rotation. While I don’t think he’ll be able to work his way into the fourth spot in the playoff rotation, a good outing tonight could clinch his spot on the postseason roster as he could do for the Yankees what Ervin Santana did against them in Game 5 of the ALDS last year.

As for Burnett, he has been dominant over his last three starts–24 IP, 16 H, 4 R, 1 HR, 5 BB, 22 K–but it’s too little, too late. In his last start against the Yankees, Burnett was bounced after giving up four runs in four innings and throwing 86 pitches. That start came in the Bronx. At home against the Yankees in late June, Burnett turned in 7 1/3 strong innings to earn just his second win of the year. He’ll have to face a full set of Yankee starters tonight, though I expect to see Torre start resting guys again tomorrow as the Yankees play their second of three games on the Rogers Centre turf.

Hmmm, Rasner plus a full-strength Yankee line-up. I could get used to this.

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If the Yankees won the Saturday’s night cap despite the performance of their starting pitcher, they were inversely swept in Sunday’s split-double header despite the fine performances of their starters. Jaret Wright and Mike Mussina combined to hold the Red Sox to four runs on eleven hits over twelve innings, walking four and striking out nine. The bulk of the hits and strikeouts were Mussina’s, the bulk of the walks were Wrights, the runs and innings they split evenly.

In both cases the Yankees came up short due to shoddy relief pitching and Joe Torre’s ultimately wise decision to play these games as if the division had already been clinched. Torre did not run out his full starting line up in any of the four games this weekend, resting Posada in Saturday’s day game, Damon, Matsui and Cano in Saturday’s nightcap, Abreu, Giambi, Jeter and Posada in yesterday’s opener, and Damon, Rodriguez, and Matsui in the finale. As a result, the Yankee offense scuffled despite facing the likes of Kyle Snyder and Kevin Jarvis.

In yesterday’s day game, Nick Green and Sal Fasano went a combined 0 for 6 with three strikeouts. Indeed, it was Green and Fasano who made the first two outs of the fourth inning after Hideki Matsui, Aaron Guiel and Chris Wilson had loaded the bases to start the inning. That, plus a Johnny Damon strikeout for the third out, killed that rally and ultimately cost the Yankees the game. It also helps explain how Kyle Snyder was able to hold the Yankees to two runs over five innings while striking out seven.

Game one was tied 2-2 after six, when Joe Torre turned to Ron Villone. Things started innocently enough. Eric Hinske flied out on Villone’s first pitch. Villone then walked Doug Mirabelli on five pitches, but rallied to strike out Alex Gonzales for the second out, keeping pinch-runner Coco Crisp at first base. With Mark Loretta at the plate, hitting for rookie David Murphy, Villone appeared to pick Crisp off first base. Crisp, fooled by Villone’s move, took two quick steps toward second and Craig Wilson received the throw at first. Crisp then froze and, as Wilson charged down the baseline toward him, Crisp danced around him to the outfield side of the baseline and jogged back to the bag untagged. Wilson and Joe Torre argued that Crisp should have been called out for running out of the baseline, but rookie first base umpire Mike Estabrook and veteran crew chief Jerry Crawford, who was umpiring second, ruled Crisp safe and the inning continued.

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On the morning of June 30, the Boston Red Sox had won their last twelve games and held a four-game lead in the American League East. A month later their lead in the East had shrunk to 1 1/2 games. From there they went into a free fall, winning just nine of their next 31 games. The Sox are now 11 1/2 games behind the first-place Yankees and could be eliminated this weekend should they fail to at least split the four games they’ll play in the Bronx.

So what happened? Simple really, their pitching completely imploded. No team gave up more runs in August than the Red Sox, who allowed a major league worst 5.97 runs per game as their opponents posted a .314 batting average against them.

Why? Look no further than this weekend’s probables. Josh Beckett has been an utter disappointment, mixing a 6.38 August ERA with his 33 home runs allowed in 184 innings (1.61 per 9 IP). Curt Schilling, who came out of the gate looking like the ace of old, posted a 5.22 ERA in August and has missed his last three starts due to a strained back. The Sox had hoped he’d return to pitch on Saturday afternoon, but instead they’ll have to give a fourth start to Julian Tavarez, who was moved out of the bullpen into the rotation in Schilling’s stead in part because he was so ineffective out of the pen that the team figured it couldn’t hurt to try it. The second game of Saturday’s double header will see Kyle Snyder take the mound for the Sox. Snyder has a 7.02 ERA as a starter this season, but the Sox rotation is so depleted that they keep running him back out there. Saturday’s nightcap will be his tenth start for Boston. Worse yet, Snyder isn’t their most desperate attempt to find a starter. Things have gotten so bad that the Red Sox are carrying 37-year-old Kevin Jarvis, he of the career 6.05 ERA. I mean, seriously, look at these numbers! Finally, Monday’s starter will be rookie Kason Gabbard. Who? Exactly.

It’s telling that Tavarez and Gabbard have actually improved the Boston rotation as they’ve replaced the since-released Jason Johnson (7.36 ERA in six starts for the Sox) and highly-touted rookie Jon Lester, who has alarmingly been diagnosed with lymphoma, but nonetheless posted a 7.66 ERA in five August starts before landing on the disabled list. With Tavarez and Gabbard in the rotation, the Sox have split their last dozen games. That counts as progress in Beantown these days.

How did things get so bad? Let’s take a look at the Red Sox opening day rotation:

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Last night the Yankees returned home from the road, dropped a nine-spot on the D-Rays in the bottom of the first that featured 6 RBIs from deadline pick-up and emerging fan favorite Bobby Abreu, got 6 1/3 scoreless innings from recently activated rotation vet Mike Mussina, and saw Hideki Matsui return from four months on the DL to a tremendous ovation followed by a four-for-four performance in which he reached base in all five trips to the plate. That’s a tough act to follow, especially with Cory Lidle, who has been exactly what the Yankees needed in the fifth spot in the rotation, even if that does mean he’s been pitching like a fifth starter.

Lidle’s last four starts have alternated twelve scoreless innings with a pair of disaster outings in which he gave up a combined 11 runs in 5 1/3 innings, inflating his Yankee ERA to 4.81. His opponent tonight will be 24-year-old rookie Jason Hammel. Hammel, a tall slender righty, has made five career big league starts, two back in April and three in a row leading up to tonight. His last, which came at home against the Twins, was the best: 6 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 4 K. Hammel has progressed steadily through the Devil Rays organization and has solid hit, walk and strikeout rates in the minors, so there’s reason to believe tonight will be the first of many times the Yankees face him over the next several years as he projects as a mid-rotation mainstay for the Rays.

The Yankees blew out the Devil Rays in the first inning last night, driving Tampa starter Tim Corcoran from the game before he had recorded the inning’s second out, then touching up his replacement Brian Stokes for a four-spot. The first time through the Yankee order, only Jason Giambi, who made his first start in four games at first base, made an out, flying to left. The rest of the inning went like this: single, steal, walk, homer, walk, steal, fly out, double, single, single, pitching change, single, K, walk, double, K. Two of the three extra base hits came off the bat of Bobby Abreu, who came to the plate with five men on base during the inning and drove all of them home along with himself on a three-run homer in his first at-bat and a bases-loaded double in his second trip. All totaled, the Yankees sent 13 men to the plate, ten of whom reached base, nine of whom scored.

From there, the story of the game became Hideki Matsui, who picked up an RBI single on a bloop to center in his first at-bat since May 10, then proceeded to pick up three more singles and a walk, while scoring two runs, finally leaving for a pinch runner in the eighth having yet to make an out. Matsui looked great at the plate, keeping his weight back and powering through the ball, hitting mid-90s fastballs with authority and hooking a foul home run into the upper deck in right.

While the offense was feasting–they’d score three more in the third while Bobby Abreu came just a few feet short of a grand slam, flying out with the bases loaded to end the fourth–Mike Mussina kept the Devil Rays fasting, setting down the first ten Rays in order and leaving after 6 1/3 scoreless innings having allowed just five hits. Moose threw 70 percent of 87 pitches for strikes, striking out five and walking no one.

T.J Beam kept Tampa off the bases in relief of Mussina in the seventh and eighth while Torre turned to his bench, resulting in an eighth-inning defensive alignment that included only Melky Cabrera from the starting line-up.

The only blight on the game as far as the Yankees are concerned was Octavio Dotel’s performance in the ninth. In to get the final three outs with a 12-0 lead, Dotel had nothing, surrendering four runs on a walk to pinch-hitter Shawn Riggins in just his second major league plate appearance, singles by rookies Dioner Navarro and Ben Zobrist, and doubles by Ty Wigginton and Jorge Cantu. Final score: Yankees 12, Devil Rays 4.

On the YES broadcast, Jim Kaat speculated that Dotel, who had thrown just 5 1/3 innings over eight appearances prior to last night, is in the typical dead-arm period that most pitchers experience during spring training. Given that Dotel went through a sequence in that inning in which he threw five straight pitches into the dirt in the left-handed batters box, I’d have to agree. Certainly one hopes that’s what’s going on with Dotel, as it provides hope that Dotel still might come around before Joe Torre has to decide his playoff roster. Whatever the cause, Dotel has really struggled with his control since being activated, and has now walked seven men in his 6 1/3 innings, one more than he’s struck out.

In other news, Gary Sheffield did indeed take live batting practice before the game, taking 32 swings. He’s also continuing to work out at first base, and he and Torre are now saying that Sheff could be activated during this homestand.

Finally, Philip Hughes, Tyler Clippard and J. Brent Cox, the three double-A pitchers who many hope will form the core of the Yankee pitching staff of the future along with Chien-Ming Wang, were in uniform in the Bronx for last night’s game. The three will not be added to the active roster (only Hughes is on the Yankees’ 40-man), but the Yankees wanted to give them all a taste of the big leagues as Hughes and Cox especially could find themselves a part of the big league roster next year.