Powered by the treif that is the “Bacon Explosion“, here’s the news:

• Tyler Kepner offers up more tidbits from the book, including this gem:

The Yankees should have talked to Tim Raines before signing Carl Pavano. Raines, the former Yankee who was coaching with the White Sox when Pavano signed, had played with Pavano in Montreal. During Pavano’s first Yankees season, Raines told Borzello: “He didn’t want to pitch except for the one year he was pitching for a contract. I’m telling you, he’s not going to pitch for you.”

Of course, by then, the Yankees already had a bad feeling about Pavano — team officials were startled to see him rudely rebuke his mother in April, using a mild curse word. Why? He was angry at his mother for wearing a Yankees’ NY in face paint on her cheek to the game.

• Newsday’s Wallace Matthews has news of a potential “confidentiality agreement” that might be introduced into future Yankee contracts:

The Yankees are considering including a “non-disparagement clause” in future player and managerial contracts in order to prevent any more tell-all books such as “The Yankee Years,” co-written by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a Yankee official said yesterday that some members of the front office staff already are required to sign a confidentiality agreement in order to protect “proprietary knowledge of our business model.” The proposed clause is intended to ensure that future books about the Yankees are “positive in tone,” and “do not breach the sanctity of our clubhouse.” …

The Mets are believed to have included similar clauses in their contracts with former manager Willie Randolph and former pitching coach Rick Peterson. Up to now, the Yankees never have included them in the contract of a player or manager.

• Matthews also has some of the fallout from the book, from Yankee insiders:

But the fact that he chose to tell it at all, and in a way that Yankees insiders say is, well, unfaithful to the facts (a pack of lies,” one Yankee said) is why the Bronx is burning today.

“I think his ego’s gotten so big that he thinks he can do no wrong,” a Yankees source said. “And the Dodgers winning the division was the last straw. I think he truly believed he had the Midas touch, that he could do no wrong.”

Instead, Torre may have committed the one sin the Yankees find virtually impossible to forgive.

“The same thing he was so upset with Wells and Jose Canseco about, he did himself,” the source said. “He violated the sanctity of the organization, the sanctity of the clubhouse. He broke the trust we had in him.”

• Tyler Kepner was also at Sacred Heart University on Tuesday night to hear Joba Chamberlain and the Sox Jon Lester address a group of students.  Chamberlain responded to a question about his DUI arrest as follows:

“It ain’t hard to make a phone call,” Chamberlain said. “It ain’t hard to give someone else the keys. As a man, you have to fess up when you do something wrong. A lot of people would run from it, and I would never, ever run from it.”

(more…)

I write the posts that make the Banter sing
I write the posts of news and links to things
I write the posts that make the hot stoves fry
I write the posts, I write the posts

(yes, I’m a bit delirious … I blame it on Torre and Verducci)

Anyway … here’s the news:

• The Times’ Jack Curry has some quotes from Torre on the initial reaction to the book:

“Knowing that my name is on it, I know I’m going to have to answer for it,” Torre said of the book’s contents.

Although Torre feels that betrayal is an inappropriate word to use to describe his feelings toward Cashman, there is no question that “The Yankee Years” leaves the impression that Torre was disappointed that Cashman was not a vocal supporter during the fateful “take-it-or-leave-it” contract meeting that Torre had with the Yankees after the 2007 postseason. …

… (But) Torre clearly felt Cashman could have done more. “There’s stuff in there where, from my angle, I looked at it one way and I’m sure, from his angle, he probably looked at it a different way,” Torre said in the telephone interview.

• Over at ESPN, Buster Olney takes Torre to task for the quagmire of authorship of the book:

… Those passages were based on Verducci’s reporting. They were written by Verducci. But it’s Torre’s book. And within the pages of this book with Torre’s name on it, some former colleagues are demeaned, and that was his choice. Verducci said in a radio interview on WFAN on Monday that all this is not really new, that everybody has known for years that Rodriguez has had difficulty assimilating with the Yankees’ veterans.

Here’s what’s new about it: The stories are in a book authored by Joe Torre. This is hardly a new concept. The fact that former first lady Nancy Reagan could be difficult was hardly a new concept, but when Ronald Reagan’s former chief of staff, Don Regan, published a book detailing that, well, it became a very big deal. The suggestion that the run-up to the Iraq war included misinformation was something posed by many reporters — but it became something very different when posited in a book by former White House spokesman Scott McClellan. The book is in Torre’s name. Says right there on the cover. By Joe Torre and Tom Verducci.

• The News has some second-hand A-Rod reactions to the book:

A-Rod also told people that nothing Torre could say would be more revealing of how he felt about his player than the act of batting him eighth in the lineup in Game 4 of the 2006 playoff series with the Tigers.

“Alex was really hurt by that,” one friend of A-Rod’s said Monday. “He believed that Torre did that to embarrass him and he knew then what Torre thought of him.

“So anything that comes out now wouldn’t compare to that. He’s just surprised that Torre would talk about these kinds of things because he always told the players the clubhouse and the bond with teammates was sacred, and not to be broken this way.”

(more…)

It sure took them long enough, but the Yankees finally came to terms with Andy Pettitte yesterday, re-signing the veteran lefty to a one-year deal with a base salary of $5.5 million and incentives that could make the deal worth as much as $12 million. With that, the Yankees have the final piece of their 2009 rotation in place. Here’s a quick look at the Yankees’ projected starting five along with my thoroughly un-scientific innings and ERA projections for each pitcher:

Quibble with those projections however you want, but consider what they add up to: 975 innings of a 3.73 ERA. Last year the collected Yankee starters–that is every pitcher who started for the team all year, not just the top five–combined for just 898 1/3 innings and a 4.58 ERA. Meanwhile, team that got the best performance out of it’s starting pitchers in 2008 was the Toronto Blue Jays, whose starters combined for 1,012 2/3 innings of a 3.72 ERA. Given that, the Yankees could have the best rotation in baseball even with that underwhelming performance from A.J. Burnett, average performances from Pettitte and Wang, and the limit placed on Chamberlain’s innings total. The catch is that their two top rivals for baseball’s best rotation are the Rays (with David Price taking over for Edwin Jackson) and Red Sox.

Note that I expect Chamberlain, not Pettitte, to be the Yankees’ fifth starter because of the limit the Yankees will need to place on his innings. Chamberlain threw 100 1/3 innings last year. Tom Verducci’s Rule of 30 would suggest a cap of 130 innings this year, but I expect the Yankees’ cap to be around 150 frames, and for Chamberlain to surpass that slighly due to a solid performance. The one remaining flaw in Chamberlain’s game is an inefficiency stemming from his being both a strikeout pitcher and one who walked 3.5 men per nine innings last year. That inneficiency will likely limit him to an average of six innings per start (which is exactly what he averaged in the nine starts prior to his shoulder injury last year). At that rate, he could make 26 starts this year and still have thrown just 156 innings. If the Yankees keep him in the fifth spot and use the odd off-day to skip his turn, he should come in right on target.

Meanwhile, with Pettitte having now rounded out the rotation, Phil Hughes and Alfredo Aceves become replacement starters rather than potential fifth-starters. That’s good news for the Yankees as there’s a decent chance that at least one of the pitchers in the chart above will wind up throwing as many as 100 innings less than I’ve projected for him due to injury. Aceves is a classic sixth starter, a crafty, junkballing righty who relies heavily on his defense and staying one pitch ahead of the hitter. In scout speak, Aceves has great pitchability, but not much stuff. He’s not far removed from the pitcher he’s replacing in the organization, Darrell Rasner, and is thus better suited as a replacement than one of the organization’s top five starters.

Hughes, of course, is still a top prospect, but even before Pettitte signed, I felt that Hughes needed to start the year in Triple-A and spend a couple of months just getting his legs under him and his confidence up so that he could return to the majors with some momentum rather than start the year trying once again to prove he deserved to break camp with the big club. Remember, Hughes has made just two major league starts since last April, and while he was excellent in the second of those two, essentially beating A.J. Burnett head-to-head (though Jose Veras wound up with the win), it came in late September against a long-since eliminated Blue Jays team. Hughes developed a strong cut fastball while rehabbing his broken rib last year and pitched well, if inconsistently, in the Arizona Fall League. With Pettitte in place, Phil can now build on those two developments at Triple-A in the hope of becoming a mid-season injury replacement (I didn’t write “for Burnett,” but I thought it) and forcing Joe Girardi to make a tough decision in the second half. Remember, Hughes won’t be 23 until last June. He still has plenty of time to make the transition from Triple-A to the majors.

While I’m on the topic, I might as well address Ian Kennedy. I don’t think Kennedy, who is a year and a half Hughes’ senior, was ever going to be in the picture for the big league rotation this spring. He did enough to discourage Girardi and the team last year that he wasn’t even brought back as a September call-up. Kennedy needs to spend the year at Scranton letting his pitching do the talking and hoping for a chance to make his case for the 2010 rotation in September. The good news on Kennedy is that he supposedly found a new way to throw his curve after working with Scranton pitching coach Rafael Chaves last year and dominated the Puerto Rican winter league with the pitch. Kennedy’s big problem last year was his refusal/inability to use his curve in his major league stints, making him a very hittable two-pitch fastball/changeup pitcher without much heat on his heater and a resulting tendency to shy away from contact. If the improvement in his curve proves sustainable, he may well revive his prospect status, making the A.J. Burnett contract all the more regrettable for expensively clogging up the rotation.

Still, taking the short-term view, it’s hard to complain about the Yankees’ top five starters entering the season. The Yankees haven’t had an Opening Day rotation this strong since they were making annual trips to the World Series. They’ve paid a lot for the priviledge, but it just might pay off.

To paraphrase a good song, “Ghost writers . . . in . . . the . . . skyyyyy!”

To quote another good song …

May I have your attention please?
May I have your attention please?
Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?
I repeat, will the real Slim Shady please stand up?
We’re gonna have a problem here.

Here’s the news, linked/reported entirely by me, in the first person:

• It looks like the Yanks won’t have to resort to Jason Johnson or Freddy Garcia as a possible fifth starter … Pettitte is a Yankee again:

Andy Pettitte and the New York Yankees agreed Monday to a $5.5 million, one-year contract that brings the left-hander back to New York.

Pettitte can make an additional $6.5 million on performance bonuses and bonuses based on time on the active roster.

“There was never another team brought up,” Pettitte said during a conference call. “I wanted to come back to the Yankees.”

[My take: If Andy has recovered from his physical ailments of late ’08, the Yanks rotation could be the best in the AL East.  Welcome back Andy … you put us through a lot these past few weeks, but we’ll see you soon!]

• Here is MLB.com’s coverage of the Pettitte agreement.
• PeteAbe of LoHud steps us to the plate with his assessment of the Torre/Verducci (or is it Verducci/Torre?)  book:

Now we have Torre, the man who restored the luster to a faded powerhouse, prostituting himself for the sake of a book and another few million.

… Torre clearly traded some secrets for money. Nobody wanted to read another warm tale about his brother in surgery or Don Zimmer cracking jokes, so Joe and Tom Verducci threw a few players and team executives into the fire. Verducci is an elegant writer and a terrific reporter. The book will be compelling and 100 percent true.

But that’s not really the point. We wanted Bernie Williams Day at the old Stadium. You’d like to see that old warhorse Clemens in Tampa teaching Phil Hughes how to bust somebody inside. And many Yankee fans would weep at the sight of Torre getting his number retired, fat tears running down his face again as Mo, Jorgie, Tino, Paulie and the Captain gather around. …

It just never ends well. Maybe it’s the money that saps them of their dignity. For others it’s the attention or the lifestyle. But our heroes so rarely walk away at the right time. They kick and scream and claw.

[My take: Verducci states its a third person account not just of Joe Torre but of the entire organization during the Torre years.  If so, why have Torre on the cover and give him top billing (or any billing for that matter).  If much of the meat of the book comes from Torre’s recollections, then how it can it NOT be a Torre “expose”?  Why title a book something as non-descript and generic as “The Yankee Years” unless it dealt specifically with one particular person’s “Years”.   If Torre is indeed the “mass” around which the Yankee universe “spun” for a 12-year period, why not call it “The Torre Years in Yankeeland” or something more descriptive and … dare I say it … truthful.

Further clouding those questions is the fact that it is Torre, not Verducci, doing the book tour (at least per the publisher’s website).

Also, why would a seemingly classy guy like Torre consent to writing (or merely contributing to?) this book while he is still managing in the Majors?  I know the Yanks won’t be facing the Dodgers this year (unless its 1978 World Series deja vu), but why talk about active players, coaches, management, etc. of a former employer while you still interact with them to some extent?  This isn’t like an autobiographical  “come with me as I recount the great season we had last year” book.  Nor is it a sportswriter penning a “a season of  team X’s complete and utter failure” book.

Something just doesn’t seem right about the “need” for this book at this particular time.  Maybe it IS all about the Benjamins.]

• Richard Sandomir of the Times does an excellent job examining the morass of the “Verducci/Torre” book paradox, as follows:

Torre is cast as the leading character in Tom Verducci’s narrative — not as “I or me,” but in the third person as “Torre.” This isn’t Norman Mailer playing with alter egos like “Aquarius,” but a device that lets Torre recede now and then …

If the structure is not confusing (Torre’s quotations are all over the place), readers may occasionally wonder: what did Torre say that does not appear in quotation marks? When, if ever, did Torre (or Verducci) mute the manager’s strongest views to let other characters voice them? When Verducci asserts that some Yankees called Alex Rodriguez “A-Fraud” (which you don’t doubt because of Verducci’s great reputation), is Torre’s concurrence implicit in more tempered assessments?

(more…)

Everyday I write the book (and I’m NOT Joe Torre) … here’s the news:

• Joe Torre has been a busy man, apparently.  As you’ve read this past weekend, he’s got a tell-all book about his 12 seasons with the Yanks coming out next week.
• ESPN reports that though Torre supposedly has some unkind things to say about Brian Cashman, Cashman seems to be alright:

When reached by ESPN The Magazine’s Buster Olney on Sunday, Cashman said that he had spoken to Torre by phone. He said that the manager told him to wait for the book to come out, that they are friends and will always be friends.

“Joe was a great manager for us,” Cashman said. “I’m glad he called me. I’m very comfortable with my relationship with him.”

• Michael Schmidt of the Times covers the release of the book, and it seems that A-Rod is going to have the spotlight shone on him again come Spring Training:

The book quotes Mike Borzello, a former Yankees bullpen catcher who is described as a “close friend” of Rodriguez’s, and says that Borzello was constantly having to boost Rodriguez’s ego because he felt that he was competing with Derek Jeter for attention.

“It doesn’t help,” Borzello said, referring to Rodriguez’s awkward relationship with Jeter. “You would rather that the stars are in the same place, pulling together, but I don’t think it affected the other players. It just affected the feel in the clubhouse.”

Borzello added that he used to tell Rodriguez all the time that Rodriguez was coming to the stadium and trying to get everyone to look at him, but that they were already looking at him: “You’re Alex Rodriguez. I don’t understand that.”

• Torre is going to be in the metro area touting the book.
• The Times has an article on Tim Raines, who will be the new manager of the Newark Bears, and on the state of the team and league it plays in:

Raines …  adds a splash of celebrity to the Bears, but he has been given a mandate to assemble a winning team.

If the Bears win, Wankmiller contends, they will draw more fans. By his reckoning, the refurbished corporate suites, virtually empty last year, will become more popular for entertaining, and the Bears could sell more advertising.

But there is a long way to go. According to the league, the Bears drew only 181,240 fans last season, seventh in the league. Their average crowd of 2,746 was about half the size of the average at Somerset Patriots games in Bridgewater. (The Patriots, the league champs last season, are managed by another ex-Yankee, Sparky Lyle.)

“We think baseball can work here,” said Joe Klein, a former big-league general manager and the executive director of the Atlantic League, whose offices are in Camden. “We’re confident people will come to games. Maybe people at first will come to games because of Tim Raines, but that’s O.K.”

• Also in the Times, Harvey Araton laments the lengthy timetable for the demolition of the old Stadium, which puts the neighborhood’s needs on the back burner:

“That’s going take at least two years because the city’s priority is the Yankees, not the neighborhood,” said Joyce Hogi, a member of the Community Board 4 parks committee.

She and her colleagues fought a long, losing battle of preservation best evidenced by two stadiums at the expense of cherished parkland, to be replaced here and there and on terms mostly beneficial to a private enterprise already worth in excess of $1 billion. All while the old and the new stand side by side, towering over what is commonly called the nation’s poorest Congressional district like some supersize baseball mall.

(more…)

The heralded off season acquisitions of Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, and A.J. Burnett have answered most of the Yankees’ questions surrounding first base and starting pitching, but at least one rotation place remains available for the taking. The identity of the No. 5 starter is still unknown, pending the re-signing of Andy Pettitte or the importing of one of Milwaukee’s Best (Ben Sheets) or a Fallen Angel (Jon Garland). So what should the Yankees’ best course of action be, a proven free agent commodity, or a four-way battle of young arms Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, Alfredo Aceves, and lefty Phil Coke?

When it comes to pitching, I tend to believe in the theory of excess, especially in light of the twin avalanches of injuries that have assaulted the Bronx the past two summers. I’d like to see Sheets signed to a two-year deal, or Pettitte to a one-year deal, with Garland a less expensive backup plan should those offers fall short. Signing one of those three would allow the Yankees to use Aceves as a long man in the bullpen while having Hughes and Kennedy in reserve at Scranton-Wilkes Barre. The days of getting through a season with five starters are long gone; you’d better have at least seven to eight pitchers capable of giving you a substantial number of starts and innings from April to October…

***

The YES Network’s Steven Goldman, often an astute observer of Yankeeland, was a thousand per cent correct this week in offering his assessment of the tenuous state of the Yankees’ catching situation. If the Yanks are not careful, they may end up with Jose Molina again doing the majority of the catching, an untenable prospect given Molina’s overall futility at the plate. (With Brett Gardner or Melky Cabrera set to play center field, the Yankees cannot afford to give away two lineup slots to defense-first players.) In the event that Jorge Posada’s surgically repaired shoulder allows him to catch no more than 80-90 games this summer, the Yankees need another catcher to share the burden. They won’t necessarily require a No. 1 catcher to fill the void, but they would need someone who is capable of splitting the load with Molina in some kind of a platoon arrangement.

Let me advocate two possibilities, one a free agent and the other on the trade market. The free agent is switch-hitting ex-Red Javier Valentin, who is decent enough with the bat to serve as a platoon partner and “designated” pinch-hitter for Molina. It isn’t that Valentin is a great offensive player, but he happens to be a much better hitter than Molina, with a career on-base percentage that’s 35 points higher. At 33 years of age, he’d be happy with a one-year deal, making him a far cheaper alternative to Jason Varitek. (That would also spare us the inevitable Varitek-Alex Rodriguez soap opera.) The other possibility is Chris Coste, now relegated to third-string catching status with the world champion Phillies, behind Carlos Ruiz and the newly acquired Ronny Paulino. Even at the age of 35, Coste has acceptable on-base skills and enough versatility to play the infield corners in the pinch. He shouldn’t cost too much in a trade either, maybe something at the level of a Chase Wright or an Alan Horne…

***

Last week’s election of ex-Yankee Rickey Henderson and Boston’s Big Jim Rice to the Hall of Fame figures to give the village of Cooperstown a much-needed boost in tourism this summer, especially when compared with the meager turnout for the 2008 induction. Fewer than 10,000 fans visited Cooperstown for the induction of Goose Gossage and Dick Williams, despite Gossage’s obvious connection to the Yankees from 1978 to 1983. (Perhaps Goose didn’t pitch long enough for the Yankees, or maybe he simply played too long ago, but his induction brought surprisingly few fans north from the Bronx.) This year’s induction attendance could double last year’s total of about 8,000 visitors—but not because of Henderson’s superstar presence. Henderson played only four and a half seasons with the Yankees, preventing him from developing the cult following of someone like Don Mattingly or Paul O’Neill or Bernie Williams. Given the distance between Cooperstown and Oakland, the team with which Rickey is most associated, it’s likely that few A’s fans will make the cross-country trek to Cooperstown.

So where will the attendance boost come from? There will be a large contingent of Red Sox faithful in town for the long-awaited induction of Rice, who played his entire career in Beantown. Boston is a mere four hours away from Cooperstown; the Hall of Fame is already a convenient destination for members of the dreaded Red Sox Nation, and that will only intensify during what figures to be the Summer of Rice…

***

Speaking of Henderson, I’d love to see the “Man of Steal” carry through with his wish of playing one final season in the major leagues. Even at 50, he’s still in prime physical condition and probably capable of filling a role as a pinch-runner and fifth outfielder. He’s also a far smarter player than most give him credit for, a student of both pitchers’ repertoires and their moves to first base. If the Yankees find themselves in a pennant race come September, why not sign Henderson as an extra body for the 40-man roster? I’d enjoy the theater of watching him enter a tie game as a pinch-runner, pawing his way off first base against a pitcher 20 years his junior. If nothing else, it would beat watching Angel Berroa under similar circumstances.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for MLBlogs at MLB.com.

Lights … camera … links! Here’s the news:

• Mooooving Day at the Stadium: MLB.com has all the details on the Yanks moving their offices into the new Stadium.  They’ve got a photo gallery and a video report.
• LoHud’s PeteAbe has some photos from the move.
• RiverAveBlues offers up a nifty virtual tour of the new park.
• Jon Lane of YES Network provides a pro/con analysis of the contenders for the fifth spot in the rotation.
• The Post reports that Astros’ owner Drayton McLane believes that Andy Pettitte probably won’t be pitching for them in ’09.
• Bernie Williams will be back in New York … this Sunday night.  He’ll be an honoree, and a performer at the annual BBWAA dinner at the Hilton (YES Network).
• If you have at least $33,275 to spare, you can bid on a signed team photo of the 1927 Yankees.
• Heard of Arodys Vizcaino?  Keith Law thinks he’ll be the Yankee prospect to make the jump into his Top 100 prospects next year.
• Over at the Post, Kevin Kernan summarizes the off-season to date for the Mets and Yanks.
• 2-tour Yankee Neil Allen turns 51 today.  He was purchased from the Cards in July of ’85, traded to the ChiSox in ’86, released by them in August of ’87, and picked up by the Bombers again for the last month of ’87.
• Tim Stoddard, a teammate of Allen’s in ’87, turns 56.  Stoddard was acquired from the Padres in exchange for the failed free agent experiment known as Ed Whitson.
• On this date in 2000, Yankee prospect D’Angelo Jimenez suffers a broken neck when a car he is driving collides with a bus. Jimenez is not paralyzed but will miss the 2000 season.

See you Monday!

News of  the Day, chronicling the Yanks since …. late October 2008!

Here is what’s going on:

• At Newsday, Ken Davidoff opines on Ken Rosenthal’s notion that the Yanks should sign Ben Sheets and Juan Cruz:

Should they, though? Say, at the prices that Rosenthal suggests – a one-year, $7-million deal for Sheets with incentives that could push it past $14 million, and a two-year, $10-million package for Cruz?

Definitely not for Cruz, I’d say. Brian Cashman’s best work, since gaining full control of the team in late 2005, has been on the Yankees’ bullpen. They should be good to go with what they have.

For Sheets? You’d have to strongly consider that one. The Yankees passed on Sheets in December because they felt like they already had their “high-risk, high-reward” guy in A.J. Burnett, and because they preferred Andy Pettitte’s durability and familarity with New York. But with Pettitte and the Yankees still at odds, and with Sheets possibly down to a year, that certainly changes the equation.

• John Walsh (The Hardball Times) has an analysis of outfielder’s arms for the 2008 season, and … no great surprise here … the Yankee contingent left a little bit to be desired (Damon awful, Abreu slipped a lot, Cabrera and Nady were decent).
• MLB.com has a status update on the Yanks payroll for 2009.  As of right now it stands at $186 million for 16 players.
• Keith Law is out with his Top 100 prospects for 2009, over at ESPN.  The highest-ranked Yankee?  Austin Jackson, at #46 (down from #24 last year).  Here is part of Law’s write-up on Austin’s City Limits:

Jackson’s star has dimmed over the past year or so, as an expected breakout hasn’t come. He’s shown that he takes a while to adjust to each new level or challenge. He’s still a great athlete, but it’s not translating into baseball skills as quickly as hoped.

Jackson’s tools grade out as more or less average across the board, with nothing standing out as plus except for the possibility that he’ll become an above-average hitter (for average, that is). He had good speed but is, at best, a 55 runner now, although he has good instincts on the bases. He has gap power and can jerk a ball over the fence to left, but doesn’t project as more than a 15-20 homer guy unless he fills out substantially. He’s solid in center field with a good arm, but probably isn’t a Gold Glove candidate.

• Dellin Betances just missed Law’s Top 100 list.
• In a separate piece, Law hands out a list of each organization’s top prospects.  Here’s the Yanks  (btw …. “prospect” is being defined as still eligible for ROTY consideration):

1. Austin Jackson, CF
2. Jesus Montero, C
3. Andrew Brackman, RHP
4. Dellin Betances, RHP
5. Zach McAllister, RHP

• PeteAbe at LoHud reports that the Yanks offices are moving to the new Stadium tomorrow.

(more…)

Powered by the knowledge that there will be one less drunken person in a major league ballpark next season (and he’s a mascot, no less!), here’s the news:

• Fox Sports.com’s Ken Rosenthal thinks the Yanks shouldn’t sit on their off-season laurels at this point, and go after Ben Sheets and Juan Cruz:

Both Sheets and Cruz are Type A free agents who were offered salary arbitration, but they would cost the Yankees only fourth- and fifth-round draft picks. The Yankees already have signed three higher-ranking free agents — Mark Teixeira, Sabathia and Burnett.

Sheets, while a physical risk, could be the Yankees’ answer to Brad Penny and John Smoltz, both of whom signed with the Red Sox for relatively low base salaries with the chance to earn significantly more through incentives.

Cruz, on the other hand, makes more sense for the Yankees than he does for any other club. Teams are reluctant to forfeit a first-round pick for a setup reliever. But an aggressive spender such as the Yankees, because of a flaw in the compensation system, gives up a lower-round draft pick with each Type A free agent that it signs.

[My take: You must know by now that I’m a big Ben Sheets fan.  But since he ended last season with some arm issues, I’m going to want to see what he looks like in Spring Training before making a big push for him.  But really, the Yanks still need a back-up (or starting?) catcher more than a #5 starter.]

• MLB.com reports that hitting coach Kevin Long is feeling good about the off-season work done by some of his students.  An excerpt:

Robinson Cano met with Long in November, working out in the Dominican Republic and continuing the adjustments that the hitting coach suggested late in the season. Cano had hit rock bottom in terms of frustration, and only a September surge helped him raise his average to .271.

With Long’s help, Cano has reduced movement at the plate, tweaks that remain constant in the overhauled stance that will be on display next month. But Long said he was blown away by other changes Cano has made, hiring a personal trainer to help reduce his body fat and add muscle for the year ahead.

“The trip to the Dominican went above and beyond what I expected,” Long said. “Really, I just expected to go out there and see where he was from an offensive standpoint and mechanically, and mentally talk to him about his game plan for winter ball.

“To go out there and see what kind of shape he was in was a pleasant surprise, to say the least. He’s worked hard to get himself in shape and get himself looking like a top-notch ballplayer.”

(more…)

Powered by this salute to the Presidents (at least through Clinton).

• LoHud’s Pete Abe reports that Melky Cabrera and the Yanks have settled on a contract for ’09, avoiding further arbitration-wrangling.  Pete also has the details on Brian Bruney’s path to a contract.
• Also at LoHud, Pete notes that Xavier Nady nearly doubled his ’08 salary by signing a one-year deal for $6.55 million.

[My take: Yes he had a nice year, and figured to get a bit of a raise, but a $6.5 million salary may reduce his ability to be traded.  Maybe the Pirates want him back?]

• MLB.com covers the Yankee signings.
• Padres’ front office assistant Paul DePodesta has his own blog, and has a post which details the ins and outs of the arbitration process.
• ESPN’s Buster Olney runs down five key injury situations, and (no surprise) … Jorge Posada makes the list.
• Also at ESPN, Rob Neyer responds to Steven Goldman’s analysis of the Yanks’ catching quandary for 2009:

The Yankees’ biggest limit is not their “budget” or the disapproval of owners in Milwaukee and Miami. Their biggest limit is their 25-player roster limit. … But backup catcher? That’s one roster spot that should be completely available. And if you’ve got the Yankees’ “budget,” why not fill every roster spot with a useful player?

What’s more, while Goldman argues the Yankees need a “co-catcher,” there’s also the distinct possibility that they’ll need a catcher, period. If not this year, then next. And next winter the only free-agent catcher worth signing — if he doesn’t re-up with the Indians in the interim — will be Victor Martinez, and it’s not completely clear that he’ll be a catcher for much longer, himself.

[My take: Yes it would be great for the Yanks to have a back-up catcher of some skill on both sides of the equation, but there aren’t that many to be had in the free agent market.  A few weeks ago, I broached the topic of going after Martinez after ’09, and you guys (correctly) pointed out that the Indians would be fools not to invoke their $7 million club option for ’10.  Robinson Cano and Nady for Russell Martin and a pitching prospect, then ink Orlando Hudson for 2 years, anyone?]

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Let us wish our new President the resolve and ability to steer this country through these challenging times ….

Here’s the news:

• Over at the YES Network, Steven Goldman has some concerns over the state of the Yanks’ catching:

At this writing, the one thing that seems certain is that the days when the Yankees could count on Posada for 140 or more games are gone. That presents a problem, a familiar one. The only other catchers on the 40-man roster are Jose Molina and Francisco Cervelli. The Yankees have also invited five non-roster backstops to camp. Kevin Cash is the only member of that quintet who possesses major league experience, though most of that experience is comprised of making outs. The same thing goes for Molina, and is also indicated in any reasonable forecast for Cervelli, who, thanks to that pointless spring training collision, has yet to play in any meaningful way above High-A. Given his offensive shortcomings, which include the complete absence of power (he even slugged a lowly .350 in the Venezuelan Winter League), the Yankees would be wise to ticket him to Double-A and let him play his way upward, proving that his one solid hitting tool, his batting eye, stays with him as he climbs.

• The News notes that Don Zimmer has stated he has recovered from the minor stroke he suffered last month:

“I lost my speech capacity for about a week,” Zimmer said in a brief telephone interview Sunday. “But it’s come back now and I just got done with a whole bunch of tests, including a stress test on Friday, and I’ll get the results on them later this week.

“I’m fine,” he added. “For a while, I had a little trouble getting around, but I’m getting better at that every day, too. I’ve got just about everything back, all of my speech.”

• At LoHud, Pete Abe gives us the rundown on the Yankees appearing in the upcoming WBC, and wonders if Robinson Cano will be well-served by playing in it.
• MLB.com also has an article on the WBC Yankees.
• Derek Carty of The Hardball Times has an evaluation of Robinson Cano’s #s from a fantasy perspective.
• Happy 31st birthday to 2009 NRI John Rodriguez.  Rodriguez actually signed with the Yanks as an amateur free agent in 1996.
• Kevin Maas turns 44 today.  You’ll remember that Maas set a ML record for the fewest games needed to reach ten career HRs when he came up in 1990, and banged out 21 HRs in 79 games that year.  But the pitchers caught up to him the following year, and he was out of baseball by 1996.
• On this date in 1977, the Yankees obtain outfielder Paul Blair from Baltimore for Elliott Maddox and Rich Bladt.

This has been a miserable week for baseball. Here at Bronx Banter we lost a talented young wordsmith in Todd Drew, who passed away after a short but intense battle with cancer at the age of 42. From the ranks of major league baseball, former manager Preston Gomez never recovered from injuries suffered in a terrible car accident last spring and died at age 85. And former big league reliever Frank Williams, who had fallen into an existence as a homeless alcoholic, died from a heart attack at the age of 50.

For three years in the late 1980s, Williams was virtually unhittable as a side-arming reliever with the Giants and Reds. But then came arm problems, along with a host of personal problems after his playing career ended. Williams’ death reminds me too much of the story of another former major leaguer who had lapsed into a life of homelessness. Five years ago, this noted ex-outfielder spent his final days in the streets of Los Angeles. As with Frank Williams, few in the mainstream media seemed to take notice.

Ever colorful, Leon Wagner (seen here in his final Topps card from 1969) was an enormously popular player with both the Los Angeles Angels and the Cleveland Indians. Nicknamed “Daddy Wags,” a self-imposed nickname that tied into the clothing store he owned, he began his big league career with the Giants and Cardinals before finding a niche in Southern California. In 1962, Wagner hit 37 home runs with 107 RBIs for the Angels, earning him a fourth-place finish in the American League MVP sweepstakes. After hitting 26 home runs in 1963, the Angels traded him to the Indians for slugging first baseman Joe Adcock and pitcher Barry Latman. Wagner played four seasons for the Tribe before wrapping up his career with the Giants and White Sox in 1968. In 12 major league seasons, Wagner hit 211 home runs, batted .272, and compiled 669 RBIs. Off the field, the well-dressed Wagner concentrated his efforts on operating a clothing store that bore the colorful slogan, “Get Your Rags at Daddy Wags.”

After his playing days, Wagner found day-to-day life to be a struggle, partly because he had made little money in baseball’s pre-free agent era and partly because he lacked a college degree. With movie producers intrigued by his high cheekbones and general good looks, Wagner dabbled in acting, appearing in an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E, and in two feature films, including the controversial Negro Leagues picture, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings. Yet, he did not enjoy long-term success in Hollywood. Wagner later became severely addicted to drugs, which cost him most of his money and left him in debt to others. Stricken with poverty and left without a home, Wagner ended up living in an old car and then a small electrical shed—located next to a dumpster—where his lifeless body was found in January of 2004. Alone at the end, he was 69 years old.

I didn’t realize how good a player Wagner was until I looked at his career statistics in the days after his death. Having always heard stories about Wagner’s fielding faux pas in the outfield and his flaky personality, I had regarded him as sort of a clownish journeyman—and nothing more. Boy, was I wrong. In 1961 and ’62, he slugged .500 or better, making him one of the few bright spots on the expansion Angels. From 1961 to 1963, Wagner averaged 31 home runs and 99 RBIs, at a time when those figures still meant something. Four times in his career, he received votes for the MVP Award. Simply put, he was one of the American League’s best left-handed power hitters during the early sixties, strong enough to hit home runs in any of the league’s spacious ballparks. If only he had received a chance to play regularly before his 26th birthday, Wagner might have put up some numbers that would have made him a borderline candidate for the Hall of Fame.

Off the field, Daddy Wags was much more than a clown; loved by teammates and fans alike, he sincerely enjoyed talking to people, even if he did brag a little bit too often about his batting prowess. He loved to hit, he found joy in playing the game, and he always seemed willing to give something back to his fans. It was no wonder that he was given the nickname, “The Good Humor Man,” during his tenure with the Angels.

As with Frank Williams, I only wish that good fortune had accompanied “Daddy Wags” more often during his days after baseball.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for MLBlogs at MLB.com.

Powered by the moving memorial service for Todd, here’s the news:

• Mike Lupica tries to give us the straight dope on the Stadium financing deal.  He includes some pointed remarks from State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky:

“… Even NYC officials now admit the truth of what we’ve been saying, that taxpayer dollars are tearing down The House That Ruth Built, and replacing it with The House That You Built.”

“Here’s how they do it. The city sends the Yankees a property tax bill like everyone else gets. The Yankees write a check (about $70 million a year) to the city for that amount, just like everyone else. But next, unlike you or I, the city winks and sends that check to the Yankees’ bankers to pay off the $1.4 billion mortgage, plus the $1.4 billion in interest on the new Stadium. You or I can’t get that deal, but the Yankees did.

“And they got a lot more. The got an additional $575 million directly to build parking garages and sewers and other stuff for the new Stadium. They don’t have to pay sales tax and mortgage recording taxes that every other taxpayer pays, and they get interest rate subsidies. That’s an additional taxpayer subsidy of about $350 million.

• The AP reports that CC Sabathia believes he’ll be able to handle the pressures of pitching in New York:

‘If you ask anybody in my family or anybody that knows me, I don’t think there’s any outside pressure that could be put on me that I don’t put on myself,’ Sabathia said Saturday night before being honored with the Warren Spahn Award. ‘I put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to go out there and perform and expect to win every game, expect to pitch well in every game.

‘I think having the guys in New York _ the A-Rods and the Jeters and these great players, and Tex _ I think it will help me be a better player.’

‘To have that bullpen and have just the support of that team, that team is unbelievable,’ Sabathia said. ‘To add me and A.J and put Tex in that lineup, I think it’s going to be an unbelievable team. Hopefully we have a special year.’

‘That’s what I’m looking for. That’s a thing that I’m big on is having great team chemistry, and hopefully we can get that in New York,’ Sabathia said.

• New HOFer Jim Rice vents his frustration over having to compete against the free-spending Yanks during his playing days, as per Newsday:

“During that time, Steinbrenner spent more money than the Red Sox,” Rice said. “He had more free agents. So when you get the best free agents, and you get the superstars from other ballclubs, that’s what made you have a better team. The more money you can spend, the better you should get.” …

Even now, Rice remains annoyed by the Yankees’ habit of throwing money at their problems. Not surprisingly, he lauds Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein for doing things the right way. “If you look at the Red Sox now, you see them bringing guys up in the organization,” he said. “That’s why Theo has been the person he’s been over the last couple of years. He’ll bring young kids up and stay within the organization.

“The Yankees haven’t won in the last eight years. What do they do? They go out and buy high-priced players in the hope to get back the winning percentage they had 10 years ago.”

[My take: Would Rice be so upset if that ball hadn’t gone through Buckner’s legs, and the Sox had won a Series during his career?]

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Here’s the goods:

• What the Yankees want, the Yankees get.  The News reports that the IDA approved the issuance of $370 million in additional tax-exempt funding for the new Stadium.  (The Mets got the $ they wanted also.)
• The Times clarifies the new funding: $259M is tax-exempt bonds, $111M is taxable bonds.
• Richard Sandomir of the Times has the wrap-up on the day’s proceedings at the IDA.
• Tyler Kepner of the Times reports that the Yanks have been in talks with numerous teams regarding Xavier Nady and Nick Swisher:

Swisher, a 28-year-old switch-hitter, is two years younger than Nady and is signed for three more seasons at roughly $21 million. Nady, 30, is a right-handed hitter who is eligible for free agency after the season. He is represented by Scott Boras, who rarely agrees to a long-term deal before a player explores the open market.

Nady had a better season than Swisher last year, batting .305 with 25 home runs and 97 runs batted in — all career highs. Swisher had the worst of his five seasons, hitting just .219 with 24 homers and 69 R.B.I. But Swisher’s on-base percentage, .332, was actually better than Nady’s .320 figure over two months with the Yankees.

In that way, Swisher profiles better as the kind of player the Yankees seek for their lineup. He saw an average of 4.53 pitches per plate appearance last season, leading the major leagues in that category. Nady averaged 3.65 pitches per plate appearance. Among Yankees, only Robinson Canó (3.35 pitches) was worse.

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This one is for you Todd … thanks for the vivid pictures you painted with the keyboard, and thank you for the “real” work you did at the ACLU.  The blogosphere is mourning your passing …. from Curt Schilling to PeteAbe to Tyler Kepner.  Even the guys at Deadspin noted it.

Here’s the news:

• The Times has an editorial in their “Opinion” section on the Stadium funding issue:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the development agency should renegotiate this latest round of what has always been an incredibly generous deal for one of the richest teams in the country. At a very minimum, they should insist that the Yankees pick up more of the city’s share of the project, which now amounts to $362 million.

About $326 million of that money will pay for demolishing the old stadium, building new infrastructure and replacing 22 acres of city parkland that was lost to the new stadium.

Yankee officials like to say that they are the ones paying to build this stadium, not the city’s taxpayers. That is only partly true. The public has subsidized the project in many ways — providing generous tax-exempt financing and a variety of other assistance like rent abatements.

Meanwhile, the total $362 million price tag to the city has almost doubled since the project was announced in 2006.

• The wonderful Neil DeMause of Field of Schemes.com has been doing yeoman work on tracking the costs associated with the Yanks and Mets new stadia.  He also covered Day 2 of the Industrial Development Agency’s hearings, for the Village Voice.
• John Harper of the News writes that the end of the NY football season brings the baseball teams to the forefront sooner.  And here’s his thoughts on the Yanks:

In Cashman’s case you can debate the excessive spending but you can’t say he hasn’t signed the right guys, especially in the case of CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira. He filled glaring needs with elite players in their prime, and in keeping with his goal of recent years, made the Yankees younger in the process.

It doesn’t mean he was right to pass on the trade for Johan Santana last winter, but if his long-term plan was indeed to get a pitcher such as Sabathia while holding onto all of his young pitching, you can understand his thinking. Of course, it would help if Phil Hughes or Ian Kennedy blossomed as Mike Pelfrey did for the Mets last season, and Sabathia needs to deliver the way Santana did.

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Perhaps no other sport can elicit the level of debate among fans and pundits alike as baseball can. I believe this has everything to do with the numbers that drive the sport. Like golf, in the end, the numbers are your most tangible results. And few players in the history of the game posted numbers as gaudy as Rickey Henderson.

Henderson, the second straight ex-Yankee to be inducted, may arguably be the most obvious first-ballot choice of this era. (Congratulations also to Joe Gordon, the Yankees¢ second baseman on the 1930s dynasty and one of the best offensive players at that position of all-time. His induction, even by the Veterans Committee, was long overdue.)  The mainstream local media have treated him well, particularly with the retrospectives from former teammates Willie Randolph and Don Mattingly. And they will laud him again — maybe with similar profiles and features — at the end of July. His speech may be the most fun and accidentally eloquent we’ve ever seen. I put the over/under on 50 third-person references.

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There will be a clear-cut Yankee-Red Sox flair to the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies taking place on July 26 here in Cooperstown. Veterans Committee selection Joe Gordon played a large chunk of his career with the Yankees, Jim Rice spent all of his major league days with the Red Sox, and Rickey Henderson played for both the Sox and the Bombers. I have to confess that I’d forgotten about Rickey’s tenure with Boston, but he did play there for 72 games in 2002. Like Goose Gossage, Rickey put in cameos for just about everyone.

Unlike Rice, there’s really no argument over Henderson’s worthiness as a Hall of Famer, not when you’re the all-time leader in runs scored and stolen bases, and second on the all-time walks list. The 28 writers who left Henderson’s name off the ballot really should step up and explain themselves. (Up till now, only one has, a man named Corky Simpson, who said Henderson wasn’t his kind of player.) If they left him off as a protest against Rickey’s occasional tendency to lollygag, I can somewhat understand their point; Henderson did his reputation no favors when he tanked his performance with both the Yankees (in 1989) and Mets (in 2000). If they left him off because they don’t vote for first-year eligibles, or because they don’t want to see a unanimous selection, they really need to lose those antiquated ideas. Those simply aren’t legitimate reasons to keep someone’s name off the ballot. It would be nice for the Baseball Writers to come up with a system that demands accountability. Perhaps the voting for the Hall should no longer be done with secret ballots; let’s make each writer publicly list his or her choices. Maybe that will eliminate some of the silliness.

What about Rickey as a Yankee? I’ll always have mixed feelings about Henderson’s days in the Bronx. At his worst, he pulled a Manny Ramirez-like stunt in 1989, jogging after balls hit to left field, running the bases at three-quarter speed, all because of his unhappiness over his contract and his displeasure with management. But at his best, Henderson was THE Best. From 1985 to 1988, he performed at a level never matched by any other Yankee leadoff man in history. He also had his best power seasons while playing for the Yankees, 24 home runs in 1985 and 28 in 1986. For his career, he nearly reached the 300 milestone, an amazing accomplishment given the lack of power he had displayed throughout the minor leagues. Except for one minor league season, Henderson hit with no power at all. Over his first 942 major league at-bats with Oakland, basically the equivalent of two seasons, he hit a grand total of ten home runs. But then he turned his muscular build into legitimate power, making him the ultimate three dimensional leadoff threat. His 1990 performance highlighted his power at its peak, when he slugged an amazing .577 for the A’s. If Henderson had wanted to, if he had changed his plan from slash-and-dash to a muscle approach, he could have hit 500 home runs, though it likely would have hurt his all-round game. The “Man of Steal” had that kind of talent. He was Ty Cobb with a power stroke.

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Powered by ’80s New Wave music, here’s the news:

• Over at LoHud, Pete Abe wonders “at what point is rotation depth a concern”:

It’s not acceptable for a contending team to go into the season with four good starters and hold a contest for the fifth spot. You need to have a good No. 5 and decent options beyond that. Or do you believe that Sabathia, Burnett, Wang and Chamberlain will all stay healthy for six months?

Sign Andy Pettitte and the problem is solved. We wrote last week that one side had to blink. But so far nobody has. If not Pettitte, then somebody else.

[My take: I know I’m gonna sound like a broken record, but why not take a stab at Ben Sheets?]

• At the Times, Jim Dwyer opines on the Stadium funding fiasco and the political machinations thereof:

Without a doubt, politics is part of the invisible cost benefit analysis of the Yankees and Mets stadium deals — not only for those who now criticize them, like the comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., who approved them in 2006, but also for those few who champion them, like Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

Such political values may not turn up on any public balance sheet, but it would be unwise to ignore them simply because they are invisible.

Suppose you are Mr. Bloomberg, your hopes of becoming president or vice president all but vanished. You have to step down as mayor in 2009 because a law that you unequivocally supported says you only get two terms.

How handy, then, to have powerful allies, like the developer, Jerry I. Speyer and the lobbyist, Howard Rubenstein, to convince other influential people that term limits will deprive the city of an essential leader during an era of financial crisis.

[My take: I think every member of the City Council, the NY State Assembly, and the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget should be forced to read THIS book, especially Chapter 6 – The Stadium Issue].

• In a separate Times article, is it noted that the Stadium financing issue may be an albatross for Bloomberg’s re-election hopes.

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My latest for SI.com looks at the Braves’ new rotation in the wake of the Derek Lowe and Kenshin Kawakami signings, including a scouting report on the 33-year-old Japanese import. Toward the end, I summarize the remaining free agent market for starting pitchers in two paragraphs:

After [Oliver] Perez and [Ben] Sheets, there’s only a handful of veterans that could be considered remotely reliable signings. That group includes Andy Pettitte, who continues to play chicken with the Yankees over a one-year deal, Paul Byrd, Randy Wolf, whose name frequently surfaces as a back-up option, Braden Looper and Jon Garland. Of those five, however, only Looper posted an ERA better than league average last year.

Beyond that group there’s a series of bad bets, be it on aging stars who’d be better off retiring (Tom Glavine, Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, Kenny Rogers, Orlando Hernandez), the perpetually injured (Jason Jennings, Mark Mulder, Bartolo Colon), roster fillers (Livan Hernandez, Sidney Ponson, Josh Fogg, Josh Towers) or assorted castoffs who will be lucky to land a non-roster invitation to camp (Steve Trachsel, Jeff Weaver, Kip Wells, Mark Redman, Matt Belisle, Esteban Loaiza, Kris Benson).

I realize now I left Odalis Perez and Jon Lieber out of the list of roster fillers and failed to find a place for Freddy Garcia. Nonetheless, that’s about it. In fact, you can cross Prior off the list, as he’s landed back with the Padres on a minor league deal. So, do you think the dearth of alternatives gives Pettitte any leverage over the Yanks? Should they peel off and sign Ben Sheets or Braden Looper before they’re forced to overpay for one of the next five or turn to one of the bad bets? Or should they walk away now and let Alfredo Aceves, Phil Hughes, and company fight it out over the fifth spot in the rotation?

Powered by the thought that the Mets would have been better off wearing a Nicorette patch on their 2009 uniforms rather than this, here’s the news:

• Harvey Araton of the Times has a nice piece on Willie Randolph’s appreciation of the talents of Rickey Henderson:

“I had the good fortune of playing in three decades, and when you play that long, you’re going to see some unbelievable players,” Randolph said Tuesday. “But for me, pound for pound, for the things that Rickey could do with his legs alone, I’ve never seen anyone change the complexion of a game like him.” …

“If you looked at his legs and whole body, you’d think he was one of those guys who was in the gym all the time, but he wasn’t,” Randolph said. “He was like Bo Jackson or LeBron James — built like a man when he was a kid.”

Hitting behind Henderson, Randolph said, was natural for him, being a patient right-handed hitter with good peripheral vision, the ability to wait on his swing until he saw Henderson take off and hit the ball to the opposite field.

On earlier Yankee teams, he hit behind a rabbit of lesser renown, Mickey Rivers, a character in his own right. “With Mickey, we would communicate because he didn’t know the signs and I had to let him know when the hit-and-run was on,” Randolph said. “With Rickey, nothing, really, other than sometimes in the on-deck circle he’d say about a pitcher, usually a left-hander, ‘I have trouble picking up this guy.’ So I knew he might not run and I could swing earlier in the count.” …

He and Henderson will forever be linked by friendship and their pairing in the Yankees’ batting order. “It was a pleasure hitting behind him, and a privilege to watch him,” Randolph said.

• The Times’ Jack Curry gives us the ever-quotable Henderson on his big day:

When Henderson was asked what his salary would be if he were in his prime in 2009, he boosted himself into Alex Rodriguez’s financial territory.

“I don’t think they could pay me what I’d probably be worth,” Henderson said. “Or I’d probably be one of the highest-paid players out there, as far as what I brought to the game because I brought so many different weapons to the game.”

• Curry also has an article on Tony LaRussa’s appreciation of Rickey:

“For the period of time that I’ve been around, I think the most dangerous player is Rickey,” La Russa said. “In our time, Rickey worried you in more ways than anyone.”

So step aside, Barry Bonds. Sit down, Albert Pujols. They are dominating players, but La Russa stressed how Henderson’s combination of patience, speed, power and instincts made him “the guy that you felt was the most dangerous as far as taking that thing away from you.” That thing was the lead and the game. …

“One thing you’d try to avoid, if you’re trying to get an out, is distractions,” La Russa said. “Rickey just made it impossible not to be distracted by him.” …

“Everybody tried to stop Rickey,” La Russa said. “The feeling was, you stop Rickey and you stop the other club. He never had an easy at-bat, and he still put together a Hall of Fame career. He was amazing.”

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