Welcome to my seventh annual spring training liveblog. This year we’re firing this thing up for the third game of the exhibition season. The Yankees enter today’s game against the Rays having beaten the Pirates on a three-run walkoff homer by Colin Curtis and lost to the Phillies on a walk-off infield hit by Wilson Valdez.

Here are today’s starting lineups:

Rays:

R – Jason Bartlett (SS)
R – Sean Rodriguez (LF)
R – Evan Longoria (3B)
S – Ben Zobrist (2B)
R – B.J. Upton (CF)
S – Dioner Navarro (C)
S – Elliot Dan Johnson (DH)
R – Justin Ruggiano (RF)
L – Chris Richard (1B)

LHP – David Price

Yankees:

R – Derek Jeter (SS)
L – Curtis Granderson (CF)
R – Mark Teixeira (1B)
R – Alex Rodriguez (3B)
S – Jorge Posada (C)
R – Marcus Thames (LF)
R – Robinson Cano (2B)
S – Nick Swisher (RF)
R – Francisco Cervelli (C)

RHP – Phil Hughes

Joba Chamberlain will follow Hughes on the mound for the Yankees, and we’re supposed to get a look at Jesus Montero behind the plate today. Nick Johnson is out with what is supposedly very minor lower back stiffness. Granderson has hit second in both of his starts this spring, but has yet to appear in a starting lineup with Johnson.

Outfielder Desmond Jennings, the Rays’ top prospect, did not make the trip for this game, much to my disappointment. Elliot Johnson, who slammed into Francisco Cervelli and broke is arm in a spring training game two years ago, did and is starting.

Pregame:

Thanks to my mom for watching Amelia this afternoon so that I can bring you all this liveblog. She’s a big Yankee fan as well, but a bigger fan of her granddaughter (as am I).

Tino Martinez is making his YES debut with this game. He always sounds like he has a stuffy nose. The announcers are in shirtsleeves rather than the pull overs they wore on Wednesday. So it’s clearly a bit warmer in Tampa, but it’s still quite windy.

Top 1st:

Fastball high and in from Hughes to Bartlett gets things going. The next pitch is a belt-high fastball on the inside corner and Bartlett hits it just foul over the left-field wall. He then rips another fastball to short, but Jeter makes a nice back-handed play to get him out. Hard contact from Bartlett who hit .320/.389/.490 last year out of nowhere.

Hughes’s first curve is the 0-1 pitch to Sean Rodriguez, well outside and low. Rodriguez is a second baseman who came over in the Scott Kazmir deal. He can hit, but the Rays have Ben Zobrist at second and are trying to make Rodriguez a utility man (he’s in left field today).

Another curve to Rodriguez is also low and outside. Hughes’ fastball is topping out at 91 mph. Rodriguez reaches out for a fastball out and over the plate. The wind lifts it to the center field wall and it hits on top for a homer. 1-0 Rays. Granderson was struggling to track that ball due to the wind. That’s more hard contact off Hughes.

Top 1st cont.

Rodriguez’s homer was on a 3-2 count.

Evan Longoria hits a hanging curve to deep left, right where Thames is playing. Two outs.

Hughes gets a nice swing-and-a-miss from Zobrist on an 82 mph changeup to even the count 2-2, then missed with another outside. Zobrists grounds out to Teixeira (unassisted, as usual) to end the inning.

1-0 Rays

Bot 1st:

The Rays’ BP caps are dark blue with sky-blue piping in all the standard places.

Yankees are in their blue BP tops and pinstriped pants. Rays in blue BP tops that say “Rays” across the chest and grey pants with dark blue piping down the leg.

Jeter singles to right on the first pitch from David Price. Michael Kay breaks out “Jeterian.” I gag on my sandwich.

Price is throwing easy gas around 95-96 mph. Granderson works the lefty for a full count, but flies out to left on a 96 mph fastball.

Bot 1st cont.

Price hits 97 against Teixeira, then comes back with a 78 mph curve. Tex fouls both off. That’s impressive on both counts. Less impressive, Teixeira swings at a fastball around his ankles and hits a would-be double-play ball, but Zobrist bobbles the transfer. Fielder’s “choice.”

I can’t tell if Tino’s any good in the booth because my Sun chips are too loud, though they also drown out Michael Kay, so I might keep eating all game.

Price paints the outside corner with a 96 mph fastball to set Alex Rodriguez down looking.

1-0 Rays

Top 2nd:

Hughes starts the second with another curve low and outside.

B.J. Upton, who is still just 25, grounds to Mark “Unassisted” Teixeira.

Hughes just doesn’t look sharp today. His fastball is slow (now upper 80s) and he’s missing with his off-speed stuff. Save for that one changeup in the first, I haven’t seen much that has impressed me.

He walks Dioner Navarro on five pitches, the last an 89 mph fastball that floated high and wide.

Lineup correction, that’s Dan Johnson, not Elliot who is the starting DH. Dan is the former A’s first baseman who spent 2009 in Japan. That makes more sense.

Johnson pops out to shallow second, where Robinson Cano makes an impressive over-his-shoulder catch running away from the infield.

Justin Ruggiano flies out to center to end the inning.

Hughes only gave up one hit, a wind-blown homer by Sean Rodriguez, but his stuff wasn’t nearly as good as his results.

1-0 Rays

Bot 2nd:

Jorge Posada hits a 94 mph fastball just foul over the right field wall, then strikes out on an 86 mph changeup.

David Price then starts of Thames with a 77 mph curve ball for a strike. He is good at pitching.

YES shows footage of Marcus Thames’ home run off Randy Johnson in his first major league at-bat. We’ll see that eleventeen million more times if he makes the team.

Thames taps out to shortstop.

Robinson Cano singles directly at the center field camera causing Price to flinch and making the ball appear to levitate in mid-air before curving a bit toward right field.

Cano moves up on a passed ball down and in to Nick Swisher (it’s ruled a wild pitch, but the ball was nearly a strike . . . it’s spring training for the official scorer as well).

Swisher works a walk and Price leaves having reached his limit an out short of two full innings.

(more…)

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• Nine facts you may not know about Mo, including:

1. Of the 39 relievers with 200 or more saves, only Mariano Rivera has pitched for one team.

4. For the third straight season, Rivera threw only one wild pitch (this follows four straight seasons of no wild pitches). He has thrown only 12 in his career. Last season, his Yankees teammate A.J. Burnett and the Mariners’ Felix Hernandez each threw 17 to the backstop.

6. For the third straight season, Rivera threw three four-pitch walks (one intentional) to bring his lifetime total of four-pitch walks up to 50, which includes 31 intentional walks.

• Derek Jeter, future part-owner of Yanks?:

The Yankees need to find a way to make Derek Jeter a Yankee for Life. There’s really only one way. At some point the Steinbrenner family would have to take him into the ownership group.

. . . Jeter, of course, is in the final year of his 10-year, $189 million contract. The Yankees and Jeter will come together on a new deal at some point, but Jeter needs to be a Yankee for Life and there is a way to make him one. The Yankees need to work out a deal with Jeter where they allow him to become part of Yankees ownership after his playing days are complete. Players cannot be part of ownership, so this would have to be a separate deal.

. . . Jeter is set on being an owner when his playing days are done. Without specifically talking about the Yankees, Jeter told The Post yesterday that being an owner is “definitely a goal of mine.”

(more…)

There’s not a lot of intrigue in Yankee camp this year. The team arrives as defending champions and, as I wrote in my campers post, the 25-man roster is fairly predictable given the players in camp. Joe Girardi does have to work out how he’s going to distribute playing time in left and center field and decide on a basic batting order, but the roles of the players involved aren’t likely to change much no matter what he decides. The only significant suspense March holds for Yankee fans, save wondering if Nick Johnson can survive the month with all of his bones and ligaments intact, is in the battle for the fifth spot in the rotation. Fifth-starter battles are typically slap fights among assorted marginal minor leaguers and veteran retreads, but the battle in Yankee camp this spring pits the organization’s top two young arms against one another in a four-week competition that could have significant repercussions for the futures of both pitchers.

That would be a lot more exciting if there wasn’t as much fan fatigue over Joba Chamberlain’s pitching role as there is over Brett Farve’s flirtations with retirement, but it’s important to note that, for all of the debates, role changes, rule changes, and innings limits, the Yankees have Chamberlain exactly where they want him this spring, coming off a season of 160 innings pitched and ready to spend a full season in the rotation without having a cap placed on his innings pitched. For that reason, I believe that the Yankees are looking at the fifth starter’s job as Chamberlain’s to lose, though they’d ever admit it. Chamberlain is nine months older that Hughes and a season ahead of Hughes in terms of his innings progress (Hughes threw 111 2/3 innings between the minors, majors, and postseason last year; Chamberlain threw 100 1/3 in 2008). If Chamberlain claims the fifth-starter job this year, and the Yankees can find Hughes 150-odd innings, Hughes can follow Chamberlain into the rotation as a full-fledged starter in 2010 on the heals of the free agency of both Andy Pettitte and Javier Vazquez. If that happens, the Yankees will have established both young studs in the rotation before their 25th birthdays. They’re thisclose.

There are just two problems. First, Chamberlain got his innings to the right place last year, but his head and stuff seemed to go in the opposite direction. Second, getting Hughes 150 innings this year with Chamberlain eating up close to 200 in the rotation could prove to be as challenging as limiting Chamberlain to 160 last year.

Taking the latter first, the flip-side of the fifth-starter battle is the assumption that the loser will move back in to the eighth-inning role that both young pitchers have excelled at in recent seasons. In his 50 career major league relief appearances during the regular season, Chamberlain has posted a 1.50 ERA and struck out 11.9 men per nine innings while holding opposing hitters to a .182/.255/.257 line. Hughes, in 44 regular season relief appearances, all from last year, posted a 1.40 ERA and 11.4 K/9 while opposing batters hit .172/.228/.228. That sort of late-game dominance is hard to resist (thus the endless Joba debates), but both pitchers would be more valuable throwing 200 innings a year than 60, and given the impending free agency of Pettitte and Vazquez not to mention A.J. Burnett’s injury history, the Yankees have to resist slotting the loser of this spring’s competition into that role to such a degree that they’re unwilling to stretch him back out during the season, as they were with Hughes last year. Doing so would reset the clock on that pitcher’s journey toward the rotation and thus could severely damage his career path.

(more…)

This update is powered by . . . an all-star performance of  “In the Midnight Hour”

• Joel Sherman warns of the major contracts of the aging Yankee core.
• Ramiro Pena realizes he won’t be playing short on a regular basis anytime soon.
• Brian Cashman, on Robby Cano:

“He’s already one of the premier guys in the game, but that’s the only thing separating him from taking it to a whole other level,” Brian Cashman said. “If he can be more selective at the plate, he could have a Hall of Fame-type career.”

Since Cano debuted in 2005, his .306 average ranks 13th among all active players and fourth among all American Leaguers who have played at least 700 games, trailing only Ichiro Suzuki (.328), Derek Jeter (.322) and Michael Young (.313).

“He’s still young,” Cashman said. “He really has a chance to make a name for himself that would last forever. That’s the type of hitting talent he has.”

Mark Teixeira, who watched Cano from across the field for four years, didn’t gain an appreciation for just how good the 27-year-old is until last season.

“He has so much talent, it would be easy for him to say, ‘I’m going to let my talent play and I’ll have a decent year,'” Teixeira said. “But he wants to be one of the best – and he can be.”

(more…)

This update is powered by an amazing mathematician:

• How many records with Jeter and A-Rod set in Yankees unis?:

. . . If he stays healthy, Rodriguez, who turns 35 in July, is an overwhelming favorite to shatter Barry Bonds’s career record of 762 home runs. Sometime near the 2011 All-Star Game break, Jeter, who currently has 2,747 hits, is projected to get his 3,000th.

. . . Only eight players have amassed more than 3,400, and only five have reached the 3,500 mark, beginning with Tris Speaker at 3,514.

Whether ranking in the top five will mean something to Jeter and motivate him to keep playing remains to be seen.  . . .

Rodriguez, meanwhile, begins this season with 583 home runs and should surpass 600 sometime in late June or early July, reach 700 in 2013 and overtake Bonds in late 2015 or early 2016, when he will be 40 years old.

. . . The most crucial variable is health. Rodriguez missed 38 games last season following hip surgery. Jeter is a remarkably durable player — he has played at least 148 games in all but one of his 14 full seasons — but shortstop is a demanding position. If he continues to play there and perform at a high level, he would buck the trend.

• Curtis Granderson, on Jeter possibly NOT retiring as a Yankee:

“It’d be tough,” said Curtis Granderson, the Yankees’ new center fielder. “But it’d kind of be like Ken Griffey Jr. Everybody in here who’s a baseball fan knows Ken Griffey Jr. as a Seattle Mariner. Then he goes to Cincinnati and Chicago and back to Seattle. Jeter’s definitely in that category. If Ken Griffey can move teams, you never know.”

(more…)

This update is brought to you by Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards:

• Jorge, (re)meet Javier … Javier, (re)meet Jorge:

Posada caught Vazquez for the first time in more than five years during a bullpen session Sunday.

“I asked him if he remembered the way I pitched,” Vazquez said.

Vazquez, originally scheduled to throw Wednesday, wanted to get in a 30-pitch session because it had been too long (about 10 days) since he last threw, in Puerto Rico.

Like other starters pitching their first session, Vazquez threw only fastballs and changeups. Soon, he will add in a slider that he did not throw during his first tour with the Yankees. Posada said what impressed him most is how Vazquez has adjusted over the years. He specifically mentioned his two best off-speed pitches, his changeup and curve, and how he has a much better feel for increasing and decreasing the velocity of those pitches.

• Jeter (re)worked his body over the past two years.

(more…)

Alex Belth said it perfectly. Spring seems eons away here in New York. Especially since we haven’t seen grass here in two weeks — longer if you live in Pennsylvania and further south in the mid-Atlantic region.

But pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training brings vitality to the discussions had in the local media marketplace and here in the blogosphere over the past three months. The Yankees have an unofficial count — if you pay attention to talk radio and are on top of the beat — of three questions:

1) Who will be the fifth starter?

2) Which young gun will be in the bullpen, Joba Chamberlain or Phil Hughes?

3) What will the batting order look like?

Taking these questions individually, the answer to the first questions will likely answer the second. Sunday afternoon, Sweeny Murti and Ed Coleman had Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland on WFAN and asked him point blank about taking the reins off of Joba, and whether that would give him an edge heading into spring workouts. Eiland said Chamberlain and Hughes are on equal footing in terms of the competition for the fifth starter, along with Chad Gaudin, Sergio Meat-Tray, and Alfredo Aceves.

The most sensible option outside of Chamberlain and Hughes, it seems, based on the numbers, is Gaudin. He didn’t post Aaron Small 2005 numbers by any means, but as Joba insurance, he was serviceable, allowing less than a hit per inning, 7.3 K/9, and a 125 ERA+. Not great, but not bad. Just what you expect from a fifth starter. But when you think of the dropoff from Javier Vazquez to Chad Gaudin, yikes.

Eiland said on Sunday in that WFAN interview that Hughes would be on an innings limit this year, but not with the same level of stringency as Joba Version 2K9. If that’s the case — just speculating here — the ideal situation is to have Joba in the fifth slot and Hughes in the bullpen. This wouldn’t be as difficult a decision if both twentysomethings hadn’t done so much to inspire confidence that either is better suited to be the last piece in the bridge to Mariano Rivera, or even Mo’s heir apparent.

Re: the batting order, there’s a consensus among the pundits on the following spots:

1. Jeter
3. Teixeira
4. A-Rod
5. Posada
6. Cano
8. Swisher
9. Gardner

The issue becomes who bats second: Curtis Granderson or Nick Johnson? And really, it’s a toss-up. Based on Johnson’s on-base percentage (.402 career OBP to Granderson’s .344 career OBP, Johnson has the edge. But despite Granderson’s propensity to strike out, his speed may allow him to see ample time in the two-hole. Granderson has grounded into just 18 double plays in his career, while Johnson grounded into 15 last season alone. Nick Swisher could even slide in, given the number of pitches he sees per at-bat. Robinson Cano and Jorge Posada could flip-flop at 5 and 6.

None of this is news. Given the way the Yankees entered camp last year, when we were discussing the merits of Selena Roberts’ book, Alex Rodriguez’s sincerity, whether CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and AJ Burnett had what it takes to thrive in New York, and overall, what it would take for the Yankees to make the playoffs, let alone win a World Series, maybe that’s a good thing. The only off-field issues left to talk about are the contracts of Girardi, Rivera, and Jeter, and those likely won’t be negotiated until after the season. Rivera may retire. But we have eight months to go before that speculation becomes more rampant.

For now, as Girardi said in his 30-minute powwow Wednesday, “It’s nice to be talking about baseball.”

And while we look out the window and see a wall of white with no threat of a thaw, it certainly is.

This update is powered by the Peanuts gang, cause its still a kid’s game (smile):

• MLBTradeRumors provides a capsule summary of the Yanks off-season.
• Christina Kahrl examines some Spring Training questions:

. . . Will Joba Chamberlain start or relieve? Or will Phil Hughes get the job? Or will both tyros be in the pen, opening up the rotation slot to a more classically defined fifth-starter type like Chad Gaudin or the reliably bad Sergio Mitre? Or will Alfredo Aceves swap places with Hughes and Chamberlain and get the skippable fifth man’s job? . . .  With the decisions to acquire Javier Vazquez and retain Andy Pettitte, the fifth starter’s slot ought to be skippable given an expensive quality front four; a quick run through the Yankees schedule suggests that the they could avoid starting anybody on short rest and reduce the fifth slot to 25 turns on the year. . . .  it also has the nice advantage of having the fifth starter face the Red Sox or Rays just once in 13 September games against their two most likely rivals, and they could easily turn that number into zero if they felt the need.

Of course, any such proposition relies on the front four being healthy and delivering, and I’ve already expressed my doubts about Javier Vazquez. . . .

. . . If the Bombers were to leave Hughes and Chamberlain in the bullpen for a combined 150-160 innings, it isn’t hard to envision a dramatic improvement, and if Aceves ends up manning the middle innings, that might add up to a historically outstanding unit by any flavor of relief metric.

As for the outfield, I don’t really see the contest as that dramatic, since I expect an initial job-sharing arrangement not unlike what happened last year between Gardner and Melky Cabrera. However, Winn’s the sort of hurdle Gardner should be able to beat out over time, and regardless of the outcome both players should get plenty of at-bats, especially once the Yankees decide there’s not much to be done about Curtis Granderson’s issues against lefties.

(more…)

Today’s update is powered by . . . chocolates, and Lucy:

• Tyler Kepner on Jeter’s next contract:

. . . In some ways, Jeter’s performance will affect the size of his next contract. If he has another standout season, churning out hits and moving nimbly from side to side on defense, he is clearly in a stronger position. But unless he pulls a George Costanza and drags the championship trophy around the parking lot from his bumper, Jeter’s legacy is secure. He is the icon of the franchise.

. . . Jeter’s value is different, and the Yankees understand they must treat him as a special case. Parting ways would be devastating to their brand, but no less so to Jeter’s legacy. The Yankees and Jeter need each other, and it is hard to imagine acrimony at the bargaining table.

. . . Jeter’s ability to stay above the fray, easily accessible to the news media yet out of the firing line, is part of his mystique. In Jeter, the Yankees know they have a dependable, well-spoken, maintenance-free front man for a global business. That is part of why they will pay him handsomely after this season.

The question is how much. Jeter has talked about wanting to own a team someday, and his next contract will help in that ambition. The value of the deal will also reveal something about Jeter and his true feelings about Rodriguez.

Will Jeter demand a contract that also takes him through age 42? Will he seek to make more than Rodriguez?

[My take: Give him three years/$60-70M and then a stake in the Yanks.]

• The GM on Damon, Jeter, Mo and Joe:

“The industry the last two free agent markets seems to be going downward and the player’s ages are going upward,” Cashman said. “It makes more sense to be patient. My attitude is if this is the place you want to be, you will make it happen. Johnny Damon professed his love for the Yankees, wanted to be here and was given every chance to be here. He’s not here anymore and I don’t feel that is the Yankees’ fault. They have to reconcile why they are not here, not me. If people want to be here and be a part of something, then find a way to work it out. Of course we want (Jeter, Rivera, and Girardi) back, but we choose to delay that until the end of the year.”

Cashman confirmed reports that Damon wanted the same two-year, $18-million deal that right fielder Bobby Abreu got from the Angels in order to re-sign with the Yankees, who countered with two years and $14 million. Damon reportedly has a two-year, $14-million offer on the table from the Tigers.

“I hope he does not sign for something less than our offer,” Cashman said. “That means he should have been a Yankee and that’s not our fault.

(more…)

Pitchers and catchers report in less than a week, but there are already Yankees in camp working out. The Yankees have no players returning from major injuries (Chien-Ming Wang and Xavier Nady having both moved on), and it will be weeks before we’ll find out if Joba Chamberlain can find the missing ticks on his fastball and more than a month before Joe Girardi names a fifth starter or a left fielder. So, with pitchers and catchers somewhat anticlimactic, and spring training games still three weeks away, what are you anxious to see or hear about as the players begin reporting to camp?

Today’s update is powered by the ballad of Beaker:

• Its never too early to worry about NEXT year’s Yankee free agents:

The Yankees could be facing a most interesting offseason following the 2010 season. Closer Mariano Rivera and shortstop Derek Jeter, two franchise icons, will become eligible for free agency, and manager Joe Girardi’s three-year contract will expire.

The Yankees have a strict policy of not negotiating contracts until the current one has expired. Thus, questions about the future of all three will hang over the Yankees all season. GM Brian Cashman, though, does not see that as a potential problem.

“Everybody signed those contracts and there is a lot of money being made and people are comfortable,” Cashman told the New York Post‘s irascible George Arthur King III.

(more…)

Today’s update is powered by the almighty Nawlins staple, the po’boy:

• MLB.com examines the versatility of the Yankees’ outfielders.
• Might a former Yankee prospect (since traded) be older than advertised?:

His birth certificate and passport say outfielder Jose Tabata was born Aug. 12, 1988, in Anzoategui, Venezuela. Yet, during a recent radio interview, general manager Neal Huntington admitted there are “a lot of rumblings” that Tabata might actually be in his mid-20s.

In Latin America, record-keeping can be spotty, especially when it comes to youngsters with excellent baseball skills. The New York Yankees investigated Tabata’s background in 2005 and, satisfied he truly was 16, signed him as an undrafted free agent.

The Pirates are not publicly disputing Tabata’s age, and yet …

“All of the documentation he has used to obtain his visa from the U.S. government and his passport from the Venezuelan government indicates his reported age is accurate,” Huntington said in an e-mail to the Tribune-Review. “Apart from unfounded speculation, there is nothing to indicate his age any different than reported. My point is that while we have reason to doubt his reported age, it is a non-issue to us.”

• Joba speaks:

Q: How much of a relief is it to you that the “Joba Rules,” which limited your innings, are now a thing of the past?

JC: It means I’m growing up. As a competitor, I definitely got frustrated at times. But at the end of the day, I also understood why they were doing it. And I have the utmost respect for them taking that time and going through the good and the bad with me. Now we’ve done it. We’re better for it. We all learned how to handle the situation, and now I can just go out and play the game and get 200-plus innings in.

• Chase Wright (he of the four consecutive homers allowed in one inning) turns 27 today.
• Fritz Peterson turns 68 today.

Back on Thursday.

Today’s update is powered by . . . Man vs. Food (baseball food)

• Ready to Winn:

“They’re the World Series champions from last year and I have a chance to compete and get some playing time,” Winn said in a phone interview Tuesday night with The Associated Press from the Bay Area where he still lives. “I thought it was a great fit, being a versatile guy who can play all three outfield positions and can hit anywhere in the lineup.”

. . . “This came together quickly. The offseason was slow,” Winn said. “I didn’t really know what to expect. I got calls with interest but no offers.”

• Minor league managerial manuevering.
• Yahoo Sports offers this Free Agent Tracker, with this amusing note on a catcher we all know:

122. Jose Molina, C: If the Yankees re-sign him, A.J. Burnett should be forced to pay half his contract.

(more…)

Last week’s signing of Randy Winn was met with a thud the likes we haven’t heard since the Road Runner was leading Wile E. Coyote off of cliff after cliff. The reaction appeared to have little to do with the clusterf— that proved to be the back-and-forth hearsay between Brian Cashman and Scott Boras regarding Johnny Damon. No, it was more that the Yankees actually committed a seven-figure dollar amount to, well, Randy Winn, and didn’t loosen the waistband for the once Unfrozen Caveman Outfielder.

Some of us are still trying to wrap our brains around the pretzel logic that led to the release of a soon-to-be 36-year-old who, despite his defensive foibles, has a stroke tailor made for the New Yankee Stadium and is a perfect fit for the Yankee lineup, only to sign a soon-to-be 36-year-old who is, um, Randy Winn.

There was a great deal of rancor in the Yankeeland Blogosphere in the days following the Winn deal. Over at the Yankeeist, Larry Koestler, a friend to the Banter (well, this Banterer, anyway) likens the Winn acquisition to that of Tony Womack:

Randy Winn…may have at one time been a reasonable ballplayer, but that was back when Honus Wagner was suiting up for the Buccos. I know he’s coming aboard as the fourth outfielder/platoonmate, but sweet Jesus we’d have been better off flushing the money directly down the toilet. It would’ve taken what — an extra $3-$4 million to get Damon back into the fold? We couldn’t do that, but we could spend a third of the presumed cost of Damon on an absolute and utter complete waste of space like Winn? Better to have let Gardner at least try to hold the position down — I’m not even much of a Gardner fan but I’d still rather Grit in there every day than waste any at-bats on the second coming of Wilson Betemit.

Honestly, Brian Cashman knows better than this. Signing Randy Winn and his sub-.700 OPS in 2009 for any amount is craziness. It doesn’t make any sense nor fit with the Yankees’ work-the-pitcher, high-OBP MO.

Oh, but it gets better. The New Stadium Insider notes that Winn was the last straw in pushing a certain 2009 season ticket holder to the point of canceling his plans to upgrade in 2k10.

Backtracking a bit to Koestler’s item, it’s important to note that earlier in the piece, he shows startling similarities between Winn’s weighted on-base average over the past four seasons, and Womack’s during the last four years of his career. Combining Winn and Brett Gardner, you basically have the same skill set (.325 OBP, .700 OPS, etc.). In other words, two people providing replacement-level numbers. Not good if you’re banking on Curtis Granderson summoning his 2007 self and Nick Swisher repeating his regular-season production of last year.

Maybe left-field should be considered an afterthought. Consider that when the Yankees went on their dynastic tear in the late 1990s and early part of the oughts, left field featured the All-Star cast of Gerald Williams, Tim Raines, Darryl Strawberry, Chad Curtis, Ricky Ledee, Shane Spencer, Ryan Thompson, Chuck Knoblauch, Rondell White, and Juan Rivera. The Yankees made six World Series trips in eight years with that motley crew because the other eight members of the lineup were able to make up for whatever deficiencies existed by the 399 sign. This Yankee team is good, but is it good enough to overcome left field, the unknowns of Granderson and Swisher, and despite their productivity, the ever-increasing age of Jorge Posada, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter?

Perhaps a more apt comparison to this year’s left field situation is the right field situation of 2002, when a noncommittal Joe Torre rolled out a combination of Spencer and the inimitable John Vander Wal on a platoon basis. Spencer, despite his desire to be an everyday player, never recaptured the bottled lightning of September 1998. At least, he never came close enough to putting up numbers worthy enough to merit his everyday presence in the lineup. Vander Wal eventually regressed into what he always was: a pinch hitter. The two of them gave way to Enrique Wilson playing right field against the Mets. Wilson misplayed a couple of balls so badly that within days, the Yankees traded for the ball player formerly known as Raul Mondesi.

If history repeats itself this year, Ramiro Peña will have to make an emergency start in left and bungle it so badly that in a fit of panic, Cash will trade for Milton Bradley by the Fourth of July.

This is all figuring, of course, that Granderson is playing center field and not left. Certain pundits on certain afternoon drive radio shows have already put Granderson in left, and have said that Winn was not a terrible signing, Nick Johnson was an upgrade and a solid No. 2 hitter, and Gardner is not a terrible player, either.

We’ll find out soon enough, right?

Today’s update is powered by a Super Bowl QB, and Pampers . . . its a somewhat bizarre, long-form “commercial”:

• Jay Jaffe wonders where Johnny Damon will end up:

Where does that leave Damon?  . . . Even for Abreu money at $5 million per year, say, he may be too rich for some of these teams’ blood, and other obstacles may lie in his path. For reference, Damon’s park-neutral projection calls for him to hit .274/.353/.425 with 17 homers and 17 steals in 587 plate appearances, not to mention a +3 FRAA in left field (our system has been considerably more optimistic about his defense than other systems), which would be all good for a .271 EqA and 2.4 WARP, half of what he was worth last year. PECOTA simply doesn’t love ballplayers over the age of 35.

. . .  the Mariners and Braves seem to have the most flexibility, in that adding Damon wouldn’t put an established full-time player out of a job. If I had to put my nickel down, it would be on either of those two, with a slight edge for Seattle due to the ability to DH him occasionally. But their interest in him is no given, and I suspect whoever lands him will have to surprise us with another move in order to do so.

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This update is powered by a trip in the Wayback Machine, to a commercial for Compaq computers, with John Cleese:

• As you probably know by now, the Yanks will be adding free agent Randy Winn to their roster.  But they might not be done hunting for outfielders:

The Post also reported that the Yankees could be closing in on a Minor League contract with (Rocco) Baldelli, which would pit him against roster hopefuls like Rule 5 Draft selection Jamie Hoffmann and speedster Greg Golson, acquired on Tuesday from the Rangers for a Minor Leaguer.

• Who will start in LF and CF?:

. . . “That’s something that we’ll discuss as we get down to Spring Training,” (Joe) Girardi said. “You kind of wait to see what’s going to happen here, if we do sign another bat and another outfielder, and how that really adjusts everyone’s playing time.

“I’m not really locked into anything. We’re going to do whatever makes our team the best, but until we have that full team, it’s kind of hard to make that decision.”

. . . “When you look at our outfield, right field is the short porch, and left and center are the areas to cover ground,” Girardi said. “I think wherever we put either one of them, they’re going to cover a lot of ground when they’re out there.

“If Gardy is in left, he’s going to cover a lot of ground and that’s going to be helpful. Our field is built to where you want your left fielder and your center fielder to cover a lot of ground.”

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People talk about the electricity of a heavyweight title bout, the spectacle of the Super Bowl, or the madness of the NCAA basketball tournament, but for my money there is no greater championship than baseball’s World Series. In those years when we’re lucky enough to see the game’s two best teams engaged in a closely fought series, we witness a battle which stretches out over more than a week as the Series lives and breathes with context and texture unmatched by any other sport’s championship. Because of this, the greatest of these Series live etched in our memory, and even those which were merely good become the subjects of books.

We all remember the ecstasy and the agony (not to mention the Mystique and Aura) of the 2001 World Series; we know the significance of Burt Hooton, Elias Sosa, and Charlie Hough; we’ve mimicked Carlton Fisk’s frantic waving from 1975; and we’ve seen the grainy newsreel footage of Mazeroski’s clinching home run in 1960. Because we are fans of the Game, we feel like we know all there is to know – or at least all we’re supposed to know.

But what if we don’t? Enter Mike Vaccaro and his latest book, The First Fall Classic: The Red Sox, the Giants and the Cast of Players, Pugs and Politicos Who Re-Invented the World Series in 1912, an engaging look at a World Series you’ve never heard of. As he describes the Hall of Fame players and personalities on both sides, as well as politicians and gamblers lurking on the sidelines, Vaccaro argues that this was the series that gave the World Series its place in our national psyche. He was kind enough to talk with me about it for a bit recently. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. (Note: As I opened the book, I had no idea of how the Series eventually turned out, and I enjoyed this added suspense. In order to preserve this for any readers who might like a similar experience, the author and I did not discuss the outcome. Where indicated, some of the links will give the result.)

Bronx Banter:  Have you always been a baseball fan? Did you play as a kid?

Mike Vaccaro:  Yeah, absolutely. Baseball was always a pretty important part of my childhood, and now it’s an important part of my adulthood. I played through high school and was never terrible, but never terribly good. Always just enjoyed it. I like to stay close to the game.

BB:  So what teams and players did you follow as a kid?

MV:  I was a Mets fan growing up. Most of my childhood they were awful and then later on they kinda gave us a nice shining moment in ’86, so that was my team growing up, for sure. I was a big Tom Seaver fan, as I’m sure almost all kids of my age were.

BB:  I suppose for a lot of your life you were probably hoping for a career playing baseball. At what point did you decide on a career in journalism?

MV:  When I realized that I not only couldn’t hit the curveball, I couldn’t throw the curveball, I could barely identify a curveball. If I was gonna do anything at all in terms of professional experience, it would have to be from the sidelines in some regard. Writing was something that I enjoyed, so it was a natural marriage.

BB:  Here’s a question that I always look forward to asking journalists: are you still a fan? Can you be a fan – not just of the game, but of the Mets, for example – and a journalist at the same time?

MV:  I’m a fan of the Mets in the sense that when they play well it’s a lot more interesting story to cover, I think. I do think that the occasional train wreck is also an enjoyable story for people to read, but let’s face it – Mets fans would prefer to read stories that have to do with the Mets doing well, just as Yankees fans do also. So I do think that it’s probably fair that when you’re working the press box you root for good stories first before you root for teams or anybody, but I do think they go hand in hand. And I do try to look a little bit through the prism of a sports fan, even though that’s hard to do. You do obviously have access fans don’t have, and so therefore you have to take advantage of that telling your own stories, but I like to think I understand what sports fans bring to the game. I try and have that color my writing. I don’t believe in the complete detachment of emotion when it comes to writing. I know a lot of people like to say, “I hate the games, I don’t like the games, I don’t care about the games,” but I think if you do that, that really informs your writing and I think it really lessens it as well.

BB:  I think I’d agree with that. So with this book, what was your research process like? Where did you get your information, how long were you researching, and when did you sit down to write?

MV:  It was actually a fairly swift process. I suppose one of the good things about writing a book in which all the characters are dead, is that you’re kind of on your own schedule, not anybody else’s schedule. (Laughing.) So it was just a matter of getting my butt to the library, to the archives, to the Hall of Fame, and all these places where you could find the information that I wanted to find. It’s interesting. In a lot of ways it was easier to write a book about that era than it even would be about the 50s or certainly today, because there were so many newspapers, there were so many stories written, there were so many of these players that were first-person reporters in their own right for all these newspapers. It was almost… I won’t say there was too much information, but there was certainly enough there to be able to weave a tale out of it. From the first moment I arrived in the library with a blank notebook trying to start taking notes, to turning in the final manuscript was probably about nine months, start to finish. And the funny part about book publishing is that it actually was longer between turning in the final manuscript and publication than the actual book itself. That’s partly because instead of having a release date earlier in the year they decided on one to coincide with the playoffs, which was a smart marketing decision, I think.

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As of this writing, it’s January 26, and Johnny Damon is in free agent limbo. To date, t’s been a bizarre soap opera of power plays, hasn’t it?

Here’s the brief chronicle of events:

* Scott Boras sets Damon’s “value” at $13 million a year and states Damon won’t sign for less than a three-year deal. The Yankees were amused.

* Brian Cashman, after pulling off the three-team stunner that brought the Yankees Curtis Granderson, counters with two years at $14. Boras is amused and counters at two-for-20.

* Hideki Matsui signs with the Angels Who-Claim-To-Be-From-LA-Only-To-Boost-Marketing-Efforts for one year at $6 million. The Yankees are amused and silently gloat that they might have assessed the market correctly.

* The Yankees raise eyebrows by signing Nick Johnson to a one-year, $5M deal to be the DH, and a week later, swinging Melky Cabrera to Atlanta in a package that brought Javier Vazquez back to the Yankees. Amusement reigned in the sense of irony the Vazquez acquisition represented; here is the man who gave up the home run to Damon that effectively cemented the worst postseason collapse – or greatest comeback, depending on your perspective – in baseball history. As Daffy Duck once said, “Ho ho. That’s rich. It is to laugh.”

So here it is now that Damon, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney, has interest from the Oakland A’s (monetary value unknown). Meanwhile, Jon Heyman reports that the Yankees have $2 million left in their budget. Elsewhere, Marc Carig heard directly from the source that Damon expects to have a team within a week. If you believe Bill Madden, Damon overplayed his hand and the Yankees misjudged how much they need him.

That may seem dramatic. Michael Kay, on his afternoon show, discussed the Heyman and Olney reports. He wondered if the A’s are offering $5 million and the Yankees do in fact make a last-ditch, take-it-or-leave-it $2 million offer, will Damon swallow his pride, deal with the “emasculation” of an 85 percent pay cut and sign with the Yankees, or if he’ll take Oakland’s money, since that’s the best offer. Bonnie Bernstein opined that if Damon comes back, when he reports to Spring Training and is welcomed heartily, he’ll reclaim his status in the clubhouse. Kay wondered if the ego blow would be too much, noting that the Yankees management “keeps score” (Kay’s words), and would silently revel in their victory.

The Yankees have been known to wait until February to pull rabbits out of their hat. February is a week from now. There are still some pretty notable rabbits on the market. Judging from the flow of reports that surfaced over the last 24 hours, the Yankees might have smartly waited for the New York football season to officially end before breaking their silence.

One thing is certain: Brett Gardner will not be the Yankees’ starting left fielder in Spring Training. … Right?

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Today’s update is powered by Fats Domino (congrats to the Saints on their first Super Bowl appearance):

• A-Rod gets emotional, in a good way:

Alex Rodriguez looked at the award he just received from Babe Ruth’s granddaughter with big eyes and a broad grin. It was as if he almost couldn’t believe it was his. “Postseason MVP. Wow,” Rodriguez said Saturday night. Pausing for effect he added, “What’s next, the good guy award?”

. . . And after he told fans at the dinner that “he’d stick to the script of 2009 and keep it very, very brief,” he choked up, taking a long pause — save for a nervous laugh — to look down at the podium and smile awkwardly.

• Does the GM have a deadline for a deal with Damon?
• Bill Madden blames Johnny’s faith in Scott Boras for Damon’s dilemma.
• Dale Mohorcic (reliever for ’88 and ’89 squads) turns 54 today.
• Happy 92nd birthday to the legendary Ernie Harwell.

Back on Thursday.

Today’s update is powered by The Charlatans UK:

• Johnny Damon is running out of options.
• Would Rocco Baldelli be a viable OF option?  MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch responds:

. . . Baldelli would make a nice choice for a platoon situation and fits the bill as a right-handed bat that the Yankees could add without breaking the bank. Despite the medical limitations that interfered after he was once a first-round Draft pick, Baldelli can hit — especially against left-handers — and for what it’s worth, he was also well liked in the clubhouse with the Rays and Red Sox.

• FanGraphs crunched the numbers, and values Derek Jeter’s 2009 season quite highly:

Back in late July, R.J. noted that Derek Jeter was having a resurgent offensive season and on his way to an excellent year. Jeter did not let up after that, either. He finished the season with a wRC+ of 142, his best since 2006 and second best since 1999. Combine that with excellent defense at short and Jeter had a 7.5-win season, his best year in the Fangraphs-WAR era and fifth-best among position players in 2009.

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