No turkeys here … just the news:

• Tom Boorstein of SNY.TV gives us something to feel good about …. the Yankees bullpen depth going into 2009:

… The Yankees didn’t have any shortage of capable arms last season. No one except Mariano Rivera perfect, but most people in the ‘pen outside of LaTroy Hawkins had extended stretches of quality pitching. None of them appears to have been particularly lucky either.

(Girardi) didn’t have a true stud setup man a la Scot Shields of the mid-2000s or Rafael Betancourt of 2007. But he did have more than his share of guys who more than filler. By not relying on one or two arms exclusively — ahem, Joe Torre — Girardi discovered he had multiple trustworthy options warming up behind Monument Park. Yes, (Edwar) Ramirez had his rough stretches in which he gave up home run after home run, but Girardi didn’t bury him. He used him in some lower-leverage situations until he felt ready again to bring him in a big spot. He had a similar approach with Veras. He even stopped using (Kyle) Farnsworth, a personal favorite, during his struggles in April and May.

Want more good news about the bullpen? The Yankees have plenty of potential that wasn’t tapped in 2008. Humberto Sanchez brought over in the Gary Sheffield deal, has been plagued by injuries but has big-league stuff. Brian Bruney walks too many hitters. But if he harnesses his control and can turn in a full season — he missed a good portion of 2008 with a foot injury — he could be a nice middle reliever. Jonathan Albaladejo, whom the Yankees fleeced acquired from the Nationals in exchange for Tyler Clippard, will be coming off a shoulder injury but has a promising arm. And don’t forget Chris Britton, who has never gotten a true shot despite his more-than-capable performance at Triple-A and in brief Major League stints during the past two seasons.

• The L.A. Times reports that the Angels, failing to gain any traction in re-signing Mark Teixeira, are now focusing on C.C. Sabathia:

The Angels appear reluctant to guarantee more than seven years in a contract for Teixeira, said a source familiar with the club’s thinking. They appear more likely at this time to pursue Sabathia, with an offer in the range of Johan Santana’s six-year, $137.5-million contract with the New York Mets.

Teixeira remains the Angels’ top priority — the club would sign him but does not want to miss out on Sabathia while waiting to see whether Teixeira’s asking price falls. The Angels are not believed to have made a formal offer to either player.

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A Yankee-loving friend of mine reminded me of this great look behind the scenes of the old Stadium, in a March 2008 Times article from Tyler Kepner.

An excerpt:

Canó is only 25, but he felt the tug of history when he visited a storage room beside the Yankees’ batting cage two years ago. He was taken there by Reggie Jackson and Ray Negron, a Yankees adviser who featured the room in his children’s book, “The Boy of Steel.”

The room is used for repairs to the 55,000 or so seats in the stadium. It is cluttered with plastic seatbacks and wrought-iron frames. There are workbenches and boxes, and one of the pillars in the room is splotched with graffiti.

But another pillar is holy ground. Upon it is a rendering by the artist James Fiorentino, who has depicted three Yankees captains — Derek Jeter, Thurman Munson and Lou Gehrig, who is shown weeping.

Negron, who has worked for the Yankees since 1973, said Gehrig’s widow once told him the room was a refuge for her husband when a degenerative nerve disease was ravaging his body. When Gehrig needed privacy, he would retreat to that room. His wife would wait by a side door, just up a ramp beside the old bullpen, and take him home.

…

Nearby is a room with happier memories for a Yankees icon of a later generation. In the late 1970s and 1980s, only two people had keys to the room: the clubhouse manager, Jimmy Esposito; and the star pitcher Ron Guidry. It is where Guidry stored his drum set.

“I played the drums before I pitched to make my wrists strong,” Guidry said. “It was the storage room for when you had a day at the stadium — Hat Day, Bat Day, whatever it was, all the stuff would be in that room. It was a big room, and it made a left, and back there was just excess storage space. So I brought them in, and I usually would play them right before I went to pitch.”

Kepner also narrates a slide show of the old Stadium here.

Enjoy!

The Yankees have a lot of parts that could use some fixin’. The team has decided to focus on the starting rotation despite the many young starting pitching prospects working their way up through the organization. Last week, I largely focused on first base, where the Yankees have a big hole and the free agent market offers the perfect player to fill it. During the 2008 season, two major areas of concern were second base and catcher, but the Yankees have very talented players signed to long-term contracts at each of those positions, both of which are very shallow in terms of the talent available league-wide. Third base is not broken, nor, for the moment is shortstop or the bullpen, but the Yankees’ outfield and designated hitter situation very much is.

Here are the players who started for the Yankees at the three outfield positions and DH last year:

*adjusted for position

Center field was a disaster, the aggregate numbers at the position having been inflated slightly by Johnny Damon’s .294/.378/.529 line in 33 starts there. With Damon helping out in center and DH, the team’s performance in left field dipped below average. Designated hitter was also buoyed by Damon, but even moreso by the outstanding work of Jason Giambi, who has since departed as a free agent, as well as seven strong starts from Alex Rodriguez (.333/.414/.625). Meanwhile, Bobby Abreu, who started all but ten games in right field and kept that position in the black, has also headed off to find perhaps his final fortune as a free agent, leaving right field in the hands of Xavier Nady, whose .268/.320/.474 line as a Yankee was a far more accurate representation of his abilities than the .330/.383/.535 he hit in Pittsburgh over the first four months of the season. Last year, the average right fielder hit .276/.347/.451. Nady’s career line is .280/.335/.458, and he’s a sub-par defender.

Here are the Yankees’ other in-house options in the outfield:

*on Opening Day 2009

The problem with this list is that the Yankees’ best outfielder (setting aside the career year Nady won’t repeat) is their oldest, while their youngest (from among those with major league experience) is their worst. As it stands now, the Yankees have a giant hole in center field, a rapidly aging DH coming off knee surgery who is no longer viable in the field (Matsui), an average-at-best right fielder, and a 35-year-old Johnny Damon in left with little on the way other than Austin Jackson, who just hit .246/.298/.377 in the hitter-friendly Arizona Fall League and has yet to play above Double-A.

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Alessandro Candelaria smells of pipe tobacco, aftershave and perfect bacon. He wears brown shoes and white socks and black pants and a tan overcoat. His sharp-brimmed fedora marks him from another time, but he’s always looking ahead.

He asks a stranger on the subway platform for the time. It’s 6:45 a.m., he’s told.

“Where is that train?” he asks shaking his head. “I hate being late.”

Candelaria rode the 2 train to work for 53 years and now he rides it because old habits are hard to break.

Sometimes he finds a seat, but mostly he stands. He always holds a newspaper, but never reads. He likes to look at faces and remember what it’s like to work and worry and be miserable and alive.

“I never knew how much I enjoyed it,” Candelaria says. “People used to tell me that the climb is half the fun, but it’s really all the fun. I retired and got stuck with a bunch of old people who want to talk about old times.

“I want to talk about new times and this is where they’re happening,” he continues. “I’ll spot a guy reading the paper and ask, ‘What do you think of that damn mayor?’ Or I’ll see a guy in a Yankees hat and ask, ‘How do you think the team is coming together?’

“I’m already excited about baseball season,” Candelaria goes on. “And I want to talk about the young guys: Joba and Cano and Hughes and this kid Mark Melancon that I’ve heard so much about. Sometimes people stare at me like, ‘You probably aren’t even going to make to Opening Day old man.’”

Candelaria winks and smiles and tips his fedora.

“I’ll make it for sure,” he says. “I’ve got a couple of World Series left in me. Never count an old man out, especially one who stays young like me.”

While pondering whether the Yanks can amend A-Rod’s contract to include a “no Madonna/Kabbalah” clause under the auspices of “the Player’s participation in certain other sports may impair or destroy his ability and skill as a baseball player”, I stopped long enough to give you this news:

• Tyler Kepner of the Times spoke with Yanks hitting coach Kevin Long about Robinson Cano and A-Rod.  Long believes A-Rod’s slightly down year was due to personal issues, while Cano has fixed his swing and taken more responsibility for his conditioning.

On A-Rod:

“To say that what he went through in his personal life didn’t affect what he did on the baseball field, I think you’d be hard-pressed for it not to affect anything,” Long said. “But he seems to be moving forward and doing great. He sees his daughters all the time, and he seems to be doing O.K.”

“I can’t even imagine going through a divorce in the middle of a season and trying to compete at the highest level. He was able to do a good job, but there were days last year when you could just tell he had a lot on his mind. He’d be looking through you, and not completely focused like I’d seen him. You try to push that to the side for a couple of hours and do the best you can, but it’s easier said than done.”

On Cano:

Canó also made an important mechanical adjustment, scrapping the open stance he had lapsed into and reducing the movement before his swing. Long said he knew the swing would be in order when he visited Canó for six days during the week of Nov. 9, but he had no idea Canó would be in such good shape.

“He’s got a personal trainer, and he’s probably down to 10 or 11 percent body fat,” Long said. “This kid is focused, he’s determined. I’ve never seen him like this. His arms are cut, his stomach is cut. He’s doing hitting, throwing, agility work — and these workouts at night, I watched them, and they’re grueling. I told him I was so proud of him.”

Canó still needs better knowledge of the strike zone, Long said, and to work deeper counts.

• In a separate article, Kepner wonders if the Yanks have enough offense right now, assuming Cano bounces back and Matsui and Posada are healthy.  Kepner also offers up a projected lineup.
• The A.J. Burnett sweepstakes still appears to have six ticket-holders, according to BaltimoreSun.com.  The six are the Orioles, Yanks, Red Sox, Phillies, Braves and Blue Jays.
• Don’t worry about possibly seeing Odalis Perez in pinstripes next year.  MLBTradeRumors reports that the Yanks were one of three teams to make him an offer, but he’ll most likely sign a multi-year deal with the Nationals.

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Winter is comfortably settled into the Bronx. So Javier piled on layers before heading down five flights to Walton Avenue and then over to the Grand Concourse for breakfast.

“I can take the cold,” Javier said, “but nothing can beat the boredom.”

The only hint of Opening Day in the neighborhood is the buzz of construction at the new Stadium.

“Maybe baseball seems so far away because we’re moving,” Javier reasoned. “I still think about games at the old place. I’ll get used to the new Stadium, but it will take some time.”

Javier snapped up his collar and tugged down his hat to keep off the cold.

“There is a lot more winter and even more boredom ahead,” he said. “But I’ll get through because there’s baseball on the other side.”

Don’t worry … none of this will be on the quiz.  Here’s the news …

• At BP.com, John Perrotto has heard that the Red Sox will outbid everyone for Mark Teixeira, unless the total package goes over $200 million.  Perrotto also has this brief Mussina note:

In an informal poll of veteran baseball writers, it appears Mussina may not be a lock to get into the Hall of Fame when his name will first appear on the ballot in 2013. However, no eligible pitcher with a won-lost record of at least 117 games over .500 has ever been denied entry into Cooperstown.

• Joel Sherman of the Post has this opinion attached to the Yanks’ dance with Sabathia:

The Yanks also have indicated they will put a time limit on their six-year, $140 million offer for Sabathia. But that is a worthless time limit. They said last year they would not re-sign Alex Rodriguez if he opted out, and then not only brought him back, but did so on a record contract. So their credibility on this issue is zero.

• ESPN’s Buster Olney spoke with Sabathia about C.C.’s impending free agency a few times during the season, and came away with these impressions:

1. He fully appreciates the fact that no matter what decision he makes, he is never going to be able to spend the money he is about to earn.

2. Factors other than money could serve as tiebreakers in his decision. Maybe, in the end, it will be about remaining in his home state of California, if the Dodgers or Giants or Angels check in with a competitive offer. Maybe it will be about playing in the National League. Maybe it will be about heading to New York with a good friend who happens to be a pretty good basketball player, and taking a parallel path and commiserating and sharing the experience of shouldering enormous pressure and conquering New York.

• The News’ Mike Lupica on Hal Steinbrenner:

The best part of this is that Hal Steinbrenner can do it his own way now. He doesn’t have to do it with back pages and headlines and threats and being louder than New York City traffic, because everything we have seen from him so far indicates that it isn’t his style. Hal Steinbrenner, who was always going to be the guy in charge no matter what his older brother kept saying, who was quietly learning the business while his brother kept talking, can do it his own way and make his own way.

And because the Yankees are such a big deal around here and always will be, there is no reason to root against him, no reason to hope he does anything besides do things right, and with some style. This is good for the Yankees and good for baseball, which did not want Hank to be the one in charge.

• The Times’ Alan Schwarz has a nice article on new Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu.  Wakamatsu has a Yankee connection … he was the Yanks 51st round pick in the 1984 draft  … the 839th (and last) man selected.  He decided to go back to school.  From the article:

According to the Web site baseball-reference.com, Wakamatsu is one of two players to reach the major leagues after being the draft’s Mr. Irrelevant. The other was Desi Wilson, the 1,490th overall pick in the 87th round in 1989 by the Astros.

Wakamatsu is also the second Mr. Irrelevant to become a major league manager. Matt Galante, who became the second member of the club in 1966, led the Astros for 27 games of the 1999 season when Larry Dierker had health problems.

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In my sophomore year of college, as part of my Sport Studies minor, I took a Philosophy of Sport class. The professor made us swear an oath to not divulge the nuances of the class, but out of courtesy — he was my advisor and mentor, and remains a good friend — I asked his permission to violate that oath for this column. Anyway, one of the tenets of the class was “dying at the right time.”

Roberto Clemente literally died following a serviceable 1972 season — his final hit was the 3,000th of his career, and he hit .323. Who knows? Had he lived, he may have been compelled to retire at age 37. However, to die at the right time, in sport philosophy parlance, means to have the self-confidence, self-assurance, and self-recognition to say it’s time to retire and move to the next phase of your life.

Still, few athletes “die” appropriately, or at least, in the way we discussed in class. Mark Harris demonstrates the concept brilliantly in his Henry Wiggen series, tracing the ballplayer from a talented kid who rises to the Majors in “The Southpaw,” to the staff ace who comes to grip with his selfish behavior in “Bang The Drum Slowly,” to the 38-year-old veteran in “It Looked Like Forever” who has problems with his “prostrate” and his fastball, but rejuvenates his career as a closer only to see it ended by a line drive hitting him in the head.

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The Boss – George M. Steinbrenner III – has sometimes been too tough and too demanding and even too mean. He has also been the perfect Yankees owner you couldn’t help but love around here.

“Sure he’s made some mistakes,” said a man smoking outside Ball Park Lanes across from the old Yankee Stadium. “But he gave us some damn good baseball teams and a whole bunch of championships, too. He got us Reggie and Donnie and Gator and Goose and A-Rod and Mariano and Jeter. And now he’s building the new Stadium.”

The man took a last drag on his cigarette and tossed it to the curb.

“I’ve heard people bitch because they say we’re paying for that Stadium,” the man said. “Who cares? We pay for everything anyway and at least we can watch baseball at this place. Yeah, The Boss could’ve done a little better, but I still love the son of a bitch.”

There have been a lot of newspaper columns about The Boss since it was announced that his son Hal officially took control of the Yankees last week. They have written him as a good guy and as a bad guy and sometimes everything at once. They are all probably spot on. That makes The Boss just like the rest of us.

Some of the papers even ran a list of his highlights and lowlights as the owner of the Yankees. It was filled with championships and fines and suspensions, but they left a few things out.

The Boss hired Bob Watson, who became the first black General Manager in Major League Baseball to win a World Series.

He hired the first female Assistant General Manager Kim Ng and he also hired the second, current Yankees Assistant General Manager Jean Afterman.

He hired the first female Major League Baseball radio broadcaster Suzyn Waldman.

Before buying the Yankees he hired John McLendon, the first black coach in professional basketball, to lead the Cleveland Pipers.

The Boss always wants to be first. He demands it and won’t accept anything less. How could you not love the guy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Marvin Blain used to get weekends off.

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

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

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

Blain laughed and then continued:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I like ‘em.”

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

They’ll both have to do for now.

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

Here is the news:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*on Opening Day 2009

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

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

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

*as of Opening Day 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

So he asks for help on the 2 train.

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

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

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

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

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

Here now the news:

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

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

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

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

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

2008 Yankee Starting Pitchers

*Support Neutral Lineup-adjusted Value Against Replacement: a Baseball Prospectus statistic based on win expectancy and adjusted for run support and the strength of opposing lineups that essentially measures wins above replacement level.

Removing the free agents, Rasner, who was sold to Japan, and Bruney, whose lone start was actually a preemptive relief appearance as Joe Girardi attempted to out-smart an early-season rain storm in Kansas City, the 2008 starters still in the organization are:

*on Opening Day 2009

Even in that group, Giese is a career reliever, who successfully experimented with starting in triple-A last year, but is more likely to return to the bullpen, and Igawa is a three-time loser in pinstripes who is unlikely to get another chance without first having a breakthrough in the minors. Given the struggles of Kennedy and Hughes last year, the innings limits on Hughes and Chamberlain (both of whom will likely be capped at 150 frames in 2009), and questions about Hughes’ durability, it’s clear that the Yankees need outside help in the rotation for next year.

That said, in stark contrast to the first base depth chart I posted the other day, the Yankees do have pitching on the way in the minor leagues. To begin with, the only pitchers on the above list who will be in their 30s by this time next year are Giese and Igawa. Wang and Chamberlain, despite making just 15 and 12 starts respectively, were among the Yankees most valuable starters in 2008, with Chamberlain tying Andy Pettitte in SNLVAR despite making 21 fewer starts. Hughes remains the youngest pitcher on the list, and at 22 is just a year younger than top 2008 draft pick and former Stanford star Jeremy Bleich.

Hughes added a very effective cutter to his resume after returning from his rib injury last year and finished the season with a very strong eight-inning start for the big club. Still, he has been inconsistent in the Arizona Fall League (though he’s really there just to increase his innings for 2008) and the Yankees would be justified in starting him in Triple-A again in 2009 given his struggles this year and his still very young age. Still, he should ultimately make a significant number of starts for the Yankees in 2009 and be an important part of the 2010 rotation along with Wang and Chamberlain.

That already leaves just two more spots in the 2010 rotation, with many more arms on the way. Kennedy, a lesser prospect to begin with, was worse than Hughes in the majors this year, but better than him in Triple-A. Kennedy may need at least a half season if not more in Triple-A to regain both his game and the team’s confidence in his abilities, but he remains a potential mid-rotation starter, and pitched well for the Yankees in three starts at the end of the 2007 season. There’s a very real chance that he could be an important part of the 2010 rotation as well, leaving just one spot.

Enter Alfredo Aceves, a Mexican League product who raced through the Yankees system last year and profiles as a back-of-the rotation starter. Like Jorge Campillo, another Mexican League product who emerged as a reliable starter for the Braves this year, Aceves has no dominant pitch, doesn’t throw especially hard, and is unlikely to ever really dominate anyone, but throws strikes, does an excellent job of mixing his wide variety of pitches, and can keep opponents off balance. At worst, he’s an improvement on the Sidney Ponsons of the world. At best, he could be a solid number four or a very strong number five in a rotation led by Chamberlain, Wang, Hughes, and Kennedy and/or one of this winter’s free agents.

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