C’mon …. read this …. you know you want to …

• LoHud’s Pete Abraham is taking a well-deserved vacation, but before doing so, lets us know he is now firmly in the “Mussina is a Hall of Famer” camp.

I was on the borderline until a few months ago until a conversation with Johnny Damon convinced me. Johnny brought up the point that Mussina spent his entire career in the American League East and faced eight teams that won the World Series (Blue Jays 1992-93, Yankees ‘96, 1998-2000, Red Sox 2004, ‘07).

“It’s different for a pitcher pitching in this division,” Damon said. “The schedule isn’t balanced. A guy like Moose, he was facing a great offensive team every other time he pitched.”

I also looked at Baseball Reference.com, which has a good Hall of Fame gauge for every player based on some Bill James research.

The “Gray Ink” test gives a player points on based on where he finishes in the top 10 in his league in ERA, wins, strikeouts, innings pitched, win-loss percentage, saves, complete games, walks per nine innings and hits per nine innings.

Moose has 244 such points. The average Hall of Fame pitcher has 185. Based on his career statistics, Mussina compares favorably to guys like Juan Marichal, Jim Palmer, Curt Schilling and Carl Hubbell.

• The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rogers poses a question …. what if none of the pitching trinity of Lowe, Burnett and Sabathia end up wearing pinstripes in 2009?:

That would be the ultimate low blow to the Yankees’ self-esteem and would leave manager Joe Girardi wondering how he’s going to fill the 200 innings he got from Mike Mussina …  It might force general manager Brian Cashman to stop trying to get Andy Pettitte to take a pay cut. And it could happen.

It’s easy to think of players as the ultimate mercenaries, but the highest offer doesn’t guarantee a deal. Remember when the late Syd Thrift said he felt like he was offering “Confederate money” when free agents wouldn’t come to Baltimore under any terms?

No one is suggesting the Yankees have slipped as badly as the Orioles under Peter Angelos, but it’s not a slam dunk that they are going to be able to money-whip Sabathia, Burnett or Lowe.

• The Post’s George King sort of answers Rogers’ question … the Yanks will just try and outscore everyone again:

If the Yankees don’t bag two of the top three free agent pitchers, they aren’t going to deposit the money back into the Steinbrenner family vault or throw a financial lifeline to America’s mismanaged auto industry.

They will attempt to add muscle to a lineup that is expected to lose Bobby Abreu and Jason Giambi and hope to slug their way back into the postseason.

According to a person familiar with the club’s thinking, if only one of the pitchers from the free agent pool of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe sign with the Yanks, they are set to be aggressive with switch-hitting free agent first baseman Mark Teixeira.

• Commercial break! Five …. five season … five season too loooong: Anthony McCarron of the News reports that the A.J. Burnett probably won’t find the Yankees willing to go five years:

The Yankees are on an all-out pitching blitz, but A.J. Burnett’s desire for a five-year contract has bogged down the Bombers’ pursuit of the righthander, according to a baseball executive familiar with the team’s thinking.

The Yankees, who made a six-year, $140 million offer to CC Sabathia last week and planned to make an offer to Burnett shortly thereafter, have not made a formal proposal to the pitcher and likely won’t as long as he insists on a five-year pact.

The Yanks and Burnett’s agent, Darek Braunecker, are “talking parameters,” according to the executive. “But right now they are saying five-year offers. The Yankees are not ready to go to five years.”

• McCarron also notes there has been no contact between the Bombers and Bobby Abreu.  It appears to be the end of Abreu’s time in pinstripes, unless he accepts arbitration.

(more…)

Marvin Blain used to get weekends off.

“That was back when times were good,” he explained. “The money flowed and some of it trickled down to me. Now there isn’t much left.”

Blain shines shoes so it has always come in singles anyway.

“I’ve got a regular spot downtown,” he said. “I get a lot of Wall Street types on the way to big meetings. They’re probably the same people who spent all the money and left the rest of us with the bills.”

Blain laughed and then continued:

“They used to be big tippers, but most of them have turned into tightwads. I had a guy try to give me a fifty dollar bill after a shine a few weeks ago. I told him I couldn’t change that and he said, ‘I’ll pay you tomorrow.’ I’m still waiting for it.”

So Blain rides the 2 train from the Bronx into Manhattan on Saturdays and sometimes even on Sundays looking for a little extra cash.

“I work the tourists checking out the Stock Exchange,” Blain said. “I shine for a buck, pop my rag and really give ‘em a show. I’m as smooth as Derek Jeter.”

Blain smiled and tugged on the bill of his Yankees cap.

“That’s a guy whose shoes I’d shine for free,” Blain said. “I’d have Derek’s spikes looking better than new. I’d come to the Stadium and clean ‘em up every day. Then they might let me stay and watch the game without a ticket. That would help until the big tippers come back.”

Hal Steinbrenner told me to warn you there is a deadline to read this news …

• MLB.com’s Barry Bloom has an update on construction at the new stadium:

The sod is now in waiting, completely planted in October. This week, a bulldozer turned over the infield dirt and a landscaper trimmed the infield grass with an old-fashioned power mower.

Overall, construction is about 90 percent complete, down now to the trim and the finishes. Almost all of the dark blue seats have been installed, save for the lower-deck club seats and the Legend boxes located down the foul lines.

• Bryan Hoch of MLB.com has some quotes from Mussina and Cashman on Moose’s chances for the Hall:

“I think that’s an argument that people are going to have opinions on both sides,” Mussina said. “There’s some nice things that I’ve been able to do. There’s both sides to the argument. My numbers match up well with guys that are in the Hall of Fame, and of course there are guys that have better numbers than mine.

“I think I’ve done as much as I’m capable of doing at the level I want to do it at. If it creates a good argument, then that’s all the better.”

“There’s no question in my mind he’s a Hall of Famer,” Cashman said. “What he’s done in the period of the steroid era, unfortunately, in the American League East — I don’t care what that record is. Some people say 300 wins is an automatic plateau.

“What he did to get 270 total wins, with all those things combined — in a division where the Red Sox and Yankees have been slugging it out … [in] the toughest division in baseball for at least a decade — I just think it has been spectacular for the length and consistency. He’s one of the all-timers.”

• Some thoughts on the formal passing of the torch from Boss George to Hal:
  • A mixed bag of sentiment from Mike Vaccaro of the Post and Wallace Matthews of Newsday
  • The Post also offers up a timeline of important Boss George events
  • You may need a flame-resistant suit to read Steve Jacobson’s article, entitled “Steinbrenner was a bully with a fat wallet“
• Some amazing Boss George era numbers generated on the blog of Jayson Stark at the ESPN Insider site:

“I wonder how much money this man has spent over the years in the name of winning? And here’s the answer: More than $2.3 billion. That’s how much the Boss has plowed into his payroll in his 36 seasons of running this show. Yep, that number was $2.3 billion …  Unfortunately, I couldn’t calculate the exact amount, since payroll information isn’t readily available before the dawn of the free-agent era in 1976. But since ’76, the Yankees’ payrolls have totaled $2,323,246,829. And since payrolls before ’76 rarely got much higher than $1 million, it’s safe to assume the final total for The Boss Years will check in somewhere around $2.326 billion.  … The Yankees have had the highest payroll in baseball for 10 straight seasons, 12 of the last 13, 17 of the last 25 and, in all, 21 of the 33 seasons in the free-agent era. Only twice in those 33 seasons have the Yankees not ranked in the top five payrolls in the sport — in 1991 (eighth) and ’92 (sixth). Other than those two seasons, there were only three years they ranked lower than second — 1976 (fouth), 1990 (fifth) and 1993 (third). Since the last time the Yankees won a World Series, in 2000, they’ve pumped more than $1.5 billion ($1,529,599,822) into their payrolls in a quest to win again.”

• Congrats to Tim Raines on being named manager of the Newark Bears of the independent Atlantic League, as per ESPN.
• Happy 35th birthday to Ricky Ledee, who managed to amass more than 2,000 ABs despite hitting .243/.325/.412.  That may explain why he played for seven different teams (including both NY squads).  His best day for the Yankees may have been June 29, 2000, when he was included in a trade for David Justice.

(more…)

Earlier this week, the minor league Syracuse Chiefs announced that Tim Foli would serve as the team’s manager in 2009. Foli has been the Nationals’ Triple-A manager for three of the last four seasons, but this will be his first go-round here in central New York, with Syracuse now acting as the home of Washington’s top affiliate.

If you remember Tim Foli as a Yankee, give yourself a pat on the back; you are a true Yankee diehard. Considering that Foli spent all of one undistinguished summer in pinstripes, and that his one season here coincided with a down time in franchise history, your memory of Foli shows your sharpness when it comes to all things Yankees.

During the 1983 winter meetings, the Yankees announced that they had acquired Foli from the California Angels at the expense of a minor league reliever named Curt Kaufman and some cash. Foli was coming off an unspectacular season in which he had hit .252 with two home runs. The move made little sense, considering the crowd that the Yankees had already assembled at shortstop: veteran Roy Smalley, top prospect Bobby Meacham, and former top prospect Andre Robertson. I’m not sure why the Yankees thought Foli was better than any of the present alternatives. He couldn’t hit nearly as well as Smalley, didn’t have the range or speed of Meacham, and lacked Robertson’s defensive reputation.

(more…)

Eddie and I have been friends for about two years. He’s had several jobs in that time, but none have been enough to get him off the streets. So he moves around the neighborhood and sleeps, eats and works where he can.

Whenever I run into him we talk about baseball because he knows that’s what I like. And I buy pastrami sandwiches with extra mustard because I know that’s what he likes.

But last night Eddie wanted to tell me a story first. It was about a real estate deal he had just closed.

“I figured there would be an opportunity when I saw the scaffolding go up,” he explained. “This is perfect because it’s around a church. The super won’t run me off because he wants God to like him.”

Eddie ended up with a spot along the south side of the building. The break between a stairway and a garbage area gave him privacy and the scaffolding gave him some shelter.

“I’ve finally got a roof over my head,” he said. “That will be good for the winter.”

A thick cut of old carpet keeps him off the sidewalk and several blankets keep him warm.

“It’s downright cozy,” Eddie said. “What more could I ask for?”

“What about a pastrami sandwich with extra mustard?” I offered.

“That sounds great,” Eddie said. “So what do you think of the Yankees’ chances next year?”

“I like ‘em.”

We would never ask each other for anything because that’s just not our way. This relationship passes for a friendship about as well as Eddie’s new place passes for a home.

They’ll both have to do for now.

Only 33 shopping days till Christmas … order your free agents early to avoid the rush!

Here is the news:

• Hal Steinbrenner would like C.C. Sabathia to know that the Yanks offer does have a deadline, according to ESPN.

“We’ve made him an offer. It’s not going to be there forever.”

• MLB.com reports that Bud Selig had former Reserve chairman Paul Volcker address a baseball owner’s meeting yesterday, to give a little history lesson on the country’s current economic woes.  The thinking around baseball is that while the signing of the elite free agents to mammoth deals might still go forward, lower echelon free agents may not find as much money being thrown their way.
• Mark Teixeira’s fondness for Baltimore is well-known.  It was long thought that he might want to play for the Orioles when he hit free agency.  Now it turns out that the O’s neighbors, the Nationals, might be a mutally-agreeable spot for him, according to MLB.com.
• Over at LoHud, Pete Abe gives us a promising update on Phil Hughes as he toils in the AFL.  Pete also has a strong opinion on whether Hughes should remain a Yankee:

The Yankees would be flat crazy to trade Hughes. His injuries have all been freak things and he obviously has great ability. Signing big-time guys is fine and it makes sense when there is a need. But the key to putting together a consistent championship contender is developing your own pitching. You need to pay for what a guy will do, not for what he has done for somebody else.

• In a matter of administrative formality, Major League Baseball announced Hal Steinbrenner as the new control person of the Yankees.  Hal will be the liaison between the Commissioner’s Office and the team. George will still be the Chairman of the organization.
• Mike Cameron might still end up in pinstripes, reports The Star-Ledger.  The Brewers are waiting to see if they somehow hold onto Sabathia before dealing their center fielder.
• Was it just a coincidence that yesterday, when most papers were reporting noted baseball-throwing cruciverbalist Mike Mussina’s retirement plans, there was the following clue in the Times crossword puzzle:   47. Pitcher Hideki _____

(more…)

If you’ve ever tried to solve a crossword puzzle, you know that there are many ways to attack it.

Some folks dive right in and look for the clues directly tied to the longest words.  Maybe they’ll get lucky and connect the title of the puzzle with those answers.  Some seek out the “fill in the blank” clues first, as they have a finite number of possible responses.  Others go for the 3-letter words first, as they are used repeatedly in puzzles.

You start working through the puzzle, and you inevitably hit some rough patches.  You notice if the clue ends in -ED or -ING or -S, and then figure that the answer will most likely do the same.  You take note of circumstances of too many vowels or consonants in a row in one of your answers.  You keep your mind open to the possibility of puns and alternate definitions being used.  In other words, you realize you have to find some other ways of getting the answers.

Pitching is like that too … its all about adjustments on the fly.  Maybe that’s why Mike Mussina liked to solve crossword puzzles when he wasn’t solving the riddles of pitching.   With a degree in economics from Stanford, one can understand that Mussina would always look for a new challenge … a new puzzle to solve.  To him, reading the title of the puzzle is akin to going over the scouting report with his catcher.  What are we gonna face today … what sort of things are gonna be tried against me?  Figuring out how to get the opposing batters out the second time through the lineup is like unlocking a tricky corner of a crossword grid.

For the most part, they are solitary pursuits, pitching and crossword puzzles.  Yes, you do have a catcher calling the pitches for you and fielders to back you up, but you have a plan of attack based upon the clues the batter has given you, and you have to execute the pitches.  When that moment arrives when you’ve frozen the batter with a 3-2 changeup when you figured he was sitting “dead red”, its not unlike when you’ve finally come upon the theme of that enigmatic crossword puzzle, and filled in all the blanks.

(more…)

Yesterday I looked at the state of the Yankee rotation and of the organizational starting pitching depth as it stands right now. Today, I want to try to figure out which free agents best fit into the Yankees plans for 2009 and beyond and how.

To begin with, I want to rerun my chart of the returning 2008 starters, but I’m going to add one name to it. With Mike Mussina’s retirement confirmed (though not yet official), the Yankees are all but guaranteed to bring Andy Pettitte back on a one-year deal. Though Pettitte had a poor year in 2008, I support this move for two reasons. The first is that a one-year deal essentially serves as a stop-gap as the Yankees’ pitching prospects continue to mature. Joba Chamberlain is ready to start the 2009 season in the Yankee rotation, but though the Yankees have nine intriguing starting prospects in their system, none of the other eight is fully ready just yet. Even Phil Hughes would benefit from starting the season at Triple-A. A one-year deal for Pettitte gives Hughes (or Kennedy, or even George Kontos) time to refine his skills, then gets Pettitte out of the way for that pitcher to join the rotation in 2010.

Second, Pettitte’s poor 2008 season wasn’t all that poor and was weighed down by an ugly second half that Pettitte blamed on his failure to follow his usual offseason conditioning program due to a desire to stay out of sight in the wake of the Mitchell Report’s December 2007 release. Even still, Pettitte threw 204 innings, won 14 games, and posted an ERA just a tick below league average. After 22 starts, Pettitte was 12-7 with a 3.76 ERA. He then went 2-7 with a 6.23 the rest of the way. Over his entire career, Pettitte’s second-half ERA has been nearly a half run lower than his first-half mark. I’m willing to give Pettitte the benefit of the doubt given both his durability (four straight seasons of 200-plus innings) and the roster flexibility his one-year deal would provide following the 2009 season.

And so, our starting point for this discussion is this:

*on Opening Day 2009

Given the above list of “in-house” pitchers (pending Pettitte’s signing, of course), if the Yankees were to land CC Sabathia, which would be a no-brainer addition should Sabathia accept the team’s offer, the 2009 rotation would look like this:

I’d be content to stop there, with Aceves available to start the season in Hughes’ place and to compensate for Chamberlain’s 150-innings limit once Hughes (or Kennedy, etc.) arrives to take over the fifth spot. But what if Sabathia decides that returning to his home state and getting the opportunity to become one of the game’s best-hitting pitchers is more valuable to him than Yankee dollars? And is there a way for the Yankees to provide some more insurance in that fifth spot that might allow them to leave Hughes in Scranton for a larger portion of the season and hold Aceves in reserve in case of an injury to one of the top four?

There are roughly 50 major league starting pitchers on the free agent market right now, with only Ryan Dempster having signed, re-upping with the Cubs for $52 million over four years. I won’t bother you with all 50, as at least half of them are sub-Ponson level dreck (i.e. Horatio Ramirez and Jason Johnson, both of whom pitched primarily in relief last year), perpetually injured (Mark Prior, Matt Clement), or as in the case of future Hall of Famers Mussina and Greg Maddux, retired. Tom Glavine and John Smoltz will only pitch for the Braves if they return, and are also both 40-somethings coming off injury. Randy Johnson is another 40-something who, despite having a solid 2008 season, simply will not return to New York. Curt Schilling, yet another 40-something coming off injury and like Glavine and Smoltz a retirement candidate, has said he would not follow Johnny Damon’s lead by turning traitor on the Red Sox. Carving all of those pitchers out of the list and stopping before we get down to Ponson and his ilk, we get this list (all stats from 2008):

*as of Opening Day 2009

(more…)

Everyone on the 2 train had heard it a million times.

“I’m very sorry to bother all of you good people this morning,” said a man standing in the middle of the car. “But I’m down on my luck and could use some help. If anyone can spare a little something – food, change, an extra pair of winter gloves – it would really be appreciated.”

People dug out several dollars and one woman gave him a banana.

“Thank you,” the man said. “I hope everyone has a nice day.”

The man hasn’t had a nice day in a long time.

“I’ve been out of work for almost a year,” the man explained. “I wasn’t worried at the beginning, but jobs have gotten tougher to find and I haven’t been able to land anything steady.”

So he asks for help on the 2 train.

“I know these people hate me,” the man said. “Even those who give probably just want me to go away. They think I’m a lazy bum. But my name is Mark James and I used to ride this train to work just like them.

“I had a life back then,” he continued. “I had an apartment and an iPod and I owned a fantasy baseball team. I drafted Jeter and Mo and did pretty well in the league.”

Mark James – who used to ride the 2 train to his job and had the good sense to draft Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera for his fantasy baseball team – forced a smile and said:

“Maybe things will get better and I’ll have all that again. I guess anything can happen in fantasy baseball.”

Oh my goodness, its been six days and the Yankees haven’t signed a free agent yet!

Here now the news:

• As you probably already know (and we’ve all been expecting), Mike Mussina will be announcing his retirement (as per ESPN).  Alex has a wonderful post on this, and I’ll chime in on it later today.
• The Times‘ Tyler Kepner has a quote on Mussina’s retirement from Jim Palmer:

“To be as good as Mike Mussina, you’ve got to be a little bit selfish,” Palmer, the Hall of Fame pitcher, said this week. “A lot of times, you have to put your career ahead of what’s good for your family. For him, he said: ‘I don’t want to miss this time. You can’t ever make it up.’ He proved he could still do it, but he didn’t have to do it anymore, and he could prioritize what’s important in his life.”

• The News has a nice photo retrospective on Moose’s time in pinstripes.
• Mike Lupica of the News pays tribute to Mussina:

The MVP of the Yankee season was not Alex Rodriguez, not Mo Rivera or Bobby Abreu or Johnny Damon. It was Mussina, who was pushing 40, who had finished the season before with a 5.15 earned-run average, who was reduced to getting pitching advice from Hank Steinbrenner when he started out the way he did in April of 2008. All Mussina did after that was remind you why he is going to have a full Hall of Fame shot in five years, even if he does walk away from baseball 30 wins shy of 300.

(more…)

Ryan Dempster signed a four-year, $52 million deal to remain a Cub, while rumor has it the Yankees plan to offer A.J. Burnett $80 million for five years (fortunately one Yankee official has already dismissed those figures as “nonsense”). I’ll take a closer look at the Yankees’ options for outside pitching help tomorrow. Today, I want to look at the Yankees in-house options and prospects in an attempt to give some perspective to the proceedings.

2008 Yankee Starting Pitchers

• More from O’Brien on Swisher: “Swisher said the season had humbled him and that he is working hard this offseason to turn things around. While Swisher did not make excuses for his poor performance, he did say he had not adjusted well to some new challenges. He began the 2008 season batting leadoff and playing centerfield, neither of which are his natural spots.”

• Ben Shpigel of the Times states that Swisher has “already received encouragement from Kevin Long, the Yankees’ hitting coach, and from Alex Rodriguez”.

• Tyler Kepner has a nice piece on Mike Mussina’s decision for 2009 and his thoughts about the Hall, over at the Times.  Here’s an excerpt:

… A graduate of Stanford, he has always brought an intellectual’s sensibility to his craft and his career.

In an interview in August, Mussina spoke at length about his personal standards for Cooperstown. To him, a Hall of Fame career should be defined by excellent seasons, not lackluster ones that serve only to compile statistics.

“I don’t agree that when evaluating a career you should look at the total numbers, because the last two or three years, the guy might just be hanging around to add up numbers,” Mussina said.

“Five one year, seven the next year, five the next year. O.K., you just won 17 games, but he was 5-10 and 7-12 and 5-13,” Mussina said. “Those are terrible years. They’re not Hall of Fame years. But someone looks at the total and says, ‘Well, how many did he win?’ ”

(more…)

*adjusted for position

Organizational Depth Chart

*on May 1, 2009

Having bought out Jason Giambi’s $22 million option for $5 million, thus ending Giambi’s seven years with the team, the Yankees had a gaping hole at first base until last week’s acquisition of Nick Swisher, which I covered in full here. Swisher is coming off his worst major league season, but there’s plenty of reason to expect a return to form in 2009. Still, Swisher’s career rates of .244/.354/.451 are actually a bit shy of the .272/.353/.464 line of the average major league first baseman in 2008, and almost an exact match for the production the Yankees got out of the position last year. Swisher’s real value lies in his ability to hit like a typical first baseman while providing flexibility by bouncing between first and the outfield corners and spotting in center field when needed. As a full-time first baseman, he’s a stop-gap, but there’s no gap for the Yankees to plug. The best opportunity they’ll have to field a superior first baseman exists in this year’s free agent market.

Looking down the depth chart, the Yankees don’t have anything resembling a first-base prospect unless you count catcher Jesus Montero, who is the best hitting prospect in the system. The Venezuelan Montero, who made his full-season debut this year at age 18, could prove to be a poor fit for his current position, and is thus likely to shift to first base as he progresses through the system. Still, he has yet to play a single game at first base as a pro and would be just as good a fit at designated hitter. At low-A Charleston this year, Montero hit .293/.333/.440 as a catcher and .356/.417/.548 as a DH in a similar number of plate appearances. What’s more, the Yankees would be well advised to make every attempt to keep Montero behind the plate given the tremendous competitive advantage that a productive offensive catcher can provide.

Given all of that, there’s no good reason for the Yankees not to make every attempt to sign Mark Teixeira to a huge contract. (more…)

Darrell Rasner made a real-life decision about baseball the other day. The 27-year-old pitcher asked the New York Yankees to sell his contractual rights to the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of Japan’s Pacific League.

It’s a sound financial move for Rasner, who is coming off his best Major League season. A two-year deal with the Golden Eagles will pay him far more than he could make with the Yankees – a reported $1.2 million guaranteed with the chance to earn $3.5 million – and there won’t be any worries about going down to Scranton.

“I just have to hope and pray that this is good for me and my family,” Rasner told Tyler Kepner of The New York Times. “Having another kid, that kind of changes everything. I just think now’s the time to try to do something and try to get the stability that I need for those guys. This is what I’m doing it for, anyway. My family is everything to me.”

Baseball collides with real life all the time, but players are conditioned to ignore it. They dream of the Major Leagues from the time they are old enough to throw a ball and swing a bat. It’s an all-consuming obsession until one day they realize that big-league dreams don’t pay the bills.

Rasner woke up to that reality last week.

A pitcher named Shannon Withem got the same wake-up call 10 years ago.

Withem went 17-5 with a 3.27 ERA for the Syracuse Chiefs in 1998. That AAA performance earned him a September promotion to Toronto where he pitched once in relief: Three innings, one run, two strikeouts. There was talk that he could earn a spot in the Blue Jays’ bullpen with a strong spring in 1999, but he chose to sign a two-year contract with the Nippon Ham Fighters of Japan’s Pacific League.

“It’s tough to give up when I’m so close to my dreams,” said Withem, who had just turned 26. “But I’ve played pro ball for seven years and never made a whole lot of money. This is a chance to help my family and I just can’t pass that up.”

Withem never made it back to the Major Leagues and there is a chance that Rasner won’t either.

Pitchers are taught to be fearless. They learn to locate their fastball and throw curves and sliders and cutters and splitters. They pitch until their shoulders ache and their elbows burn, but the hardest lesson is the one that Rasner and Withem had to figure out on their own: That big-league dreams don’t pay the bills.

No truth to the rumor that Cashman has been canned for not signing “all the pitchers” yet. 🙂

Here now the news …

• Anthony McCarron of the News notes the elephant in the C.C. Sabathia free agent bargaining room … pressure from the union:

Whether it is suspicion or reality, some in the baseball industry believe Sabathia has a responsibility to other players and the Players Association to accept the biggest offer, which perhaps would lead to bigger contracts for other top free-agent pitchers. If he accepts a lower deal to stay in Milwaukee or go to the West Coast, where he’s from, he might fix the pitching market at a lower price.

• McCarron’s article also has a link to a nice Yankee Stadium photo gallery, tracing the history-making events there.
• Over at LoHud, Pete Abraham lists the following five free agents the Yanks should have reservations about signing: Abreu, A.J. Burnett, Oliver Perez, Pettitte and Manny Ramirez.  Pete also has some interesting notes for those that like career projections:

As always, there were some interesting findings in the Bill James Handbook. Derek Jeter has a 93 percent chance to get to 3,000 hits but Alex Rodriguez has only a 49 percent chance at a record 762 home runs. James also sees Mike Mussina having a 47 percent shot at 300 wins. Of course that will fall to zero percent if he retires this week, as many expect he will.

• BP.com’s John Perrotto believes that “the focus on pitching, coupled with the recent acquisition of Nick Swisher from the White Sox, means that first baseman Mark Teixeira will most likely either return to the Angels or sign with the Red Sox, though the Nationals and Giants are both wild cards in that sweepstakes.”
• Also at BP.com, Joe Sheehan applauds the Swisher deal:

Now the Yankees have acquired Nick Swisher while giving up nothing that they’ll miss: Jeff Marquez, a 24-year-old finesse pitcher who has yet to succeed at Triple-A; Wilson Betemit, a longtime stathead favorite with a .260/.325/.437 career line and a 314/98 K/BB ratio; and Jhonny Nunez, a 22-year-old right-hander who could eventually end up as a high-leverage reliever. Then again, Nunez was traded for Alberto Gonzalez—no, the other one—about 15 minutes ago, which speaks against the idea that he’s about to go all Carlos Marmol on the world. The package, in toto, is nothing; you can make a case for each of the players individually, but you can’t make the three of them add up to a switch-hitter with plate discipline, power, and his peak in front of him.

Swisher may not be the perfect solution to the Yankees’ offensive woes, but he brings upside, a plate approach that they missed last year, and positional flexibility that leaves a range of off-season options open to them. His lost 2008 season—.219/.332/.410, a career-low .259 EqA—was largely the product of a down year on balls in play. He hit .249 on them, after marks of .301 in 2007 and .283 in 2006. There was a slight uptick in his strikeout rate, but nothing alarming. What’s missing from his season are 15 singles and 15 doubles, and there’s not much reason to believe those won’t come back in 2009. When they do, his contract, which pays him $21 million through 2011 with a $10 million option for ’12, is going to look like an absolute bargain.

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Freddy Rodriguez retrieves his T-shirt cart from a basement on West 118th Street near Lenox Avenue every morning. He hauls it down the subway stairs and takes the 2 train from 116th Street to Chambers Street and switches to the 1 train that carries him to South Ferry where he pulls the cart up more stairs.

“Then I get my T-shirts ready for the tourists in Battery Park,” Rodriguez explained. “I carry all the staples: Jeter, A-Rod, Mariano, Posada, Joba and the Statue of Liberty. I’ve got lots of hats and some sweatshirts now that it’s getting colder.”

Rodriguez smiled as he showed off his newest item.

“This Yankee Stadium water globe is going to be a big seller,” he said. “I’ve also got a connection that can guarantee me number 52 CC Yankees shirts the day after he signs.

“That will be great for business,” Rodriguez continued. “Nothing has ever gone my way, but that’s starting to change. When CC gets here I’ll officially be on Easy Street.”

Separating truth from rumor during the baseball season is difficult enough, but during the hot stove season, it’s easy to get burned if you don’t view everything you read with a skeptical eye. We know the deal: the rumor-mongering is intended to sell papers, conjure arguments on talk radio, and stir conversation and commentary on blogs like this to keep baseball relevant in a town where both NFL teams are in first place and the Knicks look like an actual professional basketball team for the first time in six years.

Speaking of rumors, we knew the Yankees, with their financial clout and now $32 million to work with (I like Cliff Corcoran’s conservative accounting), would be big players in this winter’s free agent market. The past 30 hours or so have seen one constant in the CC Sabathia Sweepstakes: the Yankees are the highest — and only — bidder to date.

Not long after our Diane Firstman gave the skinny on the landscape’s analysis of the record offer made to the 6-foot-7, 290-pound southpaw, which included a quote from a Yankees official who welcomed the Mets’ inclusion in the mix, Newsday’s David Lennon reported that the Mets put the XX on CC. Joel Sherman wasn’t as definitive in this blog post, but he did not discount the Mets as a player, if for no other reason than to jack up the price for the Yankees.

What no one needs to see as it relates to CC Sabathia are stories like this. LeBron James is a Yankee fan. He’s friends with Sabathia, who until mid-summer spent his entire career in Cleveland. But do we, and should we, care what James has to say on this issue? In James’ defense, I believe this is more of an indictment of the Cleveland reporter who felt compelled to ask the question more than it is on James, who could face a similar free-agent dilemma next summer. James could opt out of the remaining two years of his contract in July and go to the highest bidder, which according to the aforementioned report, is expected to be either the Knicks or the New Jersey Nets. But if you’re the Cleveland scribe, why create a mess now? Haven’t those fans suffered for long enough? As a former reporter, I’m embarrassed. Maybe I’d have used that question as an icebreaker for an off-the-record situation, but that’s it. No way do you go to press with that.

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