Yankee general manager Brian Cashman was in the heart of Washington Heights yesterday and he told reporters that he’ll keep Roger Clemens on his radar this spring, though it’s unlikely that the future Hall of Famer will return to New York. However, as Bob Klapisch notes:

It made for good conversation on a chilly February afternoon. Cashman seemed at peace with the Yankees’ pitching staff – he still professes faith in Carl Pavano – and in the bench, where Andy Phillips won a landslide victory over Mike Piazza during an internal poll of the organization’s scouts. The Yankees might be hard-pressed to win 95 games again, especially with the on-paper surge of the Blue Jays, but on balance, it was a good winter for Cashman.

Now he was enjoying the dividend, sitting down to a dish named after him. It’s La Nueva Caridad’s specialty, dedicating special meals to the restaurant’s special guests. Virtually every Spanish-speaking player who visits New York eventually heads uptown for lunch, and now Cashman was officially part of the Dominican Hall of Fame.

Ben Kabak considers the pros and cons of the Andy Pettitte coming back to the Bronx as well. Want some more wishful thinking? How about this report on Ramiro Mendoza. Hey, you’ve got to love pre-season optimism, right?

Ahhh, the comfort of pre-spring training puff pieces sure are a sight for sore eyes. The Daily News has a few of ’em today, including a bit featuring the latest from Joe Torre, and another detailing Octavio Dotel’s rapid recovery from Tommy John surgery. According to Anthony McCarron:

“I don’t want to say I’m 100% now, but I’m feeling really good,” Dotel said.

He hopes he can be ready by April, but he says he won’t rush, either. “The Yankees are the people who decide,” he said. “As far as I feel, I could be there in April, but I’ll let them decide when I’ll be in New York with the team.”

Following up on Bob Klapisch’s piece for ESPN last week, Christian Red has an article on Jason Giambi, who says that he expects to play first more than DH this year. I liked this bit:

“I was always the guy, in the beginning, that took over for Tino,” Giambi said. “Even though I had great years (in Oakland), we hadn’t won that World Series.

“I think every New Yorker, they love to see somebody face adversity and still stand tall. And not fall by the wayside. They like to see you man up, take your beating. You just keep going and clicking and keep working hard.

“They love those stories. It’s a tough town out here. It really is. I don’t know how many people I get that pull me aside and just, ‘We appreciate the way you handled it and the way you went about it.'”

Meanwhile, over at SI.com, Tom Verducci believes that Chien-Ming Wang could have a breakout season in ’06:

The cool right-hander is a strike- and groundball-throwing machine, getting through his average inning as an AL rookie with only 13.7 pitches. Pitching for a team loaded with offense, Wang is a near lock to win 15 games — but only if he stays healthy, which is still a concern among the New York executives.

No earth-shattering news, but hey, it’s a start. Dig in.

Okay, since there isn’t much news a-shakin’, how about taking pot shots at Murray Chass’ examination of Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball.” Chass, the highly respected columnist for the New York Times has been a frequent target of criticism on this blog over the past several seasons. This one should be fun for practically everyone.

Whatta ho-hum game last night, huh? Seattle sure picked a cruddy time to have a less than stellar performance; the refs only added insult to injury for ’em. The Stones did little to improve my mood at half-time. I thought they were all about to keel over as they plodded through “Start Me Up.” (You make a dead man, what?) They did get better though, and “Satisfaction” was a more convincing production. Anyhow, good deal for the Bus and company, and now back to the business at hand…

I got an e-mail from Bronx Banter regular, Mike Plugh, a guy who grew up in and around New York and is now teaching high school in Japan. Dig:

I enjoyed the piece about your day in Inwood and it got me thinking. I see that kind of thing everyday here in Japan and it amazes me. Baseball has been played as an organized game since the late 1800s in Japan, and I can’t imagine a greater love for the sport anywhere other than the Carribbean and some pockets of the US. To paint a picture in as few words as possible, I see junior high school kids riding their bicycles in the dead of winter to go to practice. I live in the Siberian snow country of Japan and I swear these kids are dedicated to the sport beyond sane proportion.

In Japan, you choose one sport and you play it year round. When I tell my high school students that I played soccer, basketball, and baseball in my salad days they nearly fall over. They spend 2 hours after school every day practicing in the fieldhouse during the winter. They practice on the weekends for more hours. They run the hallways of the school building to get their calisthenics in…..and we’re a top academic school…not a sports powerhouse.

Not too far from us are the Prefectural champions who will be representing us in the Koshien National High School Baseball Invitational held in Spring and then again in Summer for the more famous 2nd round. People stop working to watch the game. I’m telling you…..if you go into a doctor’s office the doctors, nurses, and patients will all be sitting around watching a little 1980s looking TV. Same in the bank, or at the restaurant…..

This country is baseball crazy and it’s one of the reasons I knew early on that I had a kind of soulmate relationship with the culture. Parts of daily life here are baffling and hard to digest, but when it comes to baseball it’s all love.

Reading Mike’s letter made me appreciate why a guy like Bobby Valentine is thriving in Japan. It’s not simply a detour from his MLB career–though I believe he’ll return one day–but a end onto itself. I’d love to visit one day, wouldn’t you?

Super Bowl Sunday. I plan on spending as much of the pre-game portion of the day as possible watching the half-hour Super Bowl highlight shows on ESPN2. I actually have the first XXXVII or so of them on tape in my basement, but I just moved into a new house and they remain packed. Football is my second favorite sport after baseball, but it’s a pretty distant second, really. Nonetheless, those excellent NFL Films highlight shows, with their dramatic slow motion shots, trumpeting fanfares, and poetic John Facenda voice-overs, do it for me every year. I especially enjoy the first XXII, which include all of the shows Facenda narrated before his death in 1984 (plus a few more), and take us from Lombardi’s Packers through the Giants’ glorious Super Bowl XXI victory over that punk kid Elway and Elway’s historic humiliation at the hands of the equally historic Doug Williams the following year.

As for this year’s game, I’ll be rooting for Big Ben and the Steelers, in part due to my everlasting distaste for expansion teams and gaudy uniforms and my corresponding fondness for past dynasties and sartorial consistency. That said, the Futility Infielder’s Jay Jaffe has an enjoyable write-up of his thirty-years of rooting (albeit frequently half-heartedly) for those expansion Seahawks. Most of all, I’ll be rooting for an exciting game. Nothing’s worse than devoting a day to a dud match-up that ends in a blowout.

With that in mind, allow me to reprint a list I posted on the BRB in the wake of Super Bowl XXXVIII of what I believe to be the ten greatest Super Bowl finishes in the game’s history:

10) VII: Dolphins 14, Redskins 7 – The Redskins trail the undefeated Dolphins 14-0 with just over two minutes left and are looking a 17-0 deficit in the face when the Dolphins’ field goal attempt goes haywire. A botched snap is picked up by Dolphins’ kicker Garo Yepremian, who attempts to pass only to have the ball fall behind him, where it is scooped up by Washington’s Mike Bass, who takes it 49 yards to bring the Redskins within a touchdown with 2:07 left.

9) XIII: Steelers 35, Cowboys 31 – Trailing 35-17 with 6:51 remaining, the Cowboys, led by Roger Staubach, score a touchdown to bring it to 35-24 with 2:23 remaining. They then recover an on-sides kick and drive for another touchdown to come within four points of the lead with 22 seconds on the clock. A second on-sides kick is snagged by the Steelers with 17 seconds left to kill the Cowboy comeback.

8) X: Steelers 21, Cowboys 17 – Leading by the final score, the Steelers turn the ball over on downs at the Cowboy’s 39 with 1:22 left to play. Roger Staubach moves the chains twice in the final minute of play but his final pass is intercepted in the end zone by Pittsburgh’s Glen Edwards as time expires.

7) XXXII: Broncos 31, Packers 24 – With the game knotted at a 24-24 tie, the Comeback Kid, John Elway, then 0-3 career in the Super Bowl, gets the ball on the Packers’ 49 with 3:27 left. Helped by a 15-yard facemask penalty, Elway brings the ball to the Packer’s one-yard-line with 1:47 left. Packers’ coach Mike Holmgren tells his defense to allow the Broncos to score rather than allow them to take more time off the clock and win the game on a chip-shot field goal. Thus, Brett Farve, no slouch in the comeback department himself, gets the ball on his own 30 with less than 1:45 remaining. After two quick passes for 35 total yards the Packers are on the Broncos 35 with 1:05 left, but manage only four more yards before turning the ball over on downs with 32 seconds remaining.

6) V: Colts 16, Cowboys 13 – A messy, lackluster game–the first played on turf–is tied at 13 (appropriately) when Colts kicker Jim O’Brien connects on a 32-yard field goal to give the Colts the win in the final seconds.

5) XXXVIII: Patriots 32, Panthers 29 – Trailing 29-22 in another see-saw affair, the Panthers’ Jake Delhomme hits Ricky Proehl for a game-tying touchdown with 1:08 remaining in the game. On the ensuing kickoff, Carolina kicker John Kasay kicks the ball out of bounds, giving the Patriots the ball at their own 40. Tom Brady moves his team 37 yards to the Panthers’ 23 in six plays setting up a game-winning kick by Adam Vinatieri (who missed both of his previous field goal attempts in this game). Vinatieri’s 41-yarder splits the uprights and gives the Patriots a victory eerily similar to their first in Super Bowl XXXVI.

4) XXIII: 49ers 20, Bengals 16 – Trailing 16-14, Joe Montana and the 49ers get the ball on their own 8 with 3:20 left on the clock. Montana then seals his reputation with a 11-play, 92-yard drive that devours all but 34 seconds from the game clock, concluding with a 10-yard pass to John Taylor.

3) XXXVI: Patriots 20, Rams 17 – Trailing 17-10 with 1:51 remaining, Kurt Warner takes the Rams 55 yards on just three passing plays for a game-tying touchdown to Ricky Proehl (yes, Ricky Proehl). With the game tied, 1:30 remaining, and no time-outs, rookie Tom Brady uses almost a full minute to get his team to it’s own 41 before an incompletion stops the clock at 33 seconds. He then completes two passes for a total of 39 yards to reach the Rams’ 30 yard line and spikes the ball to stop the clock with seven seconds left. Adam Vinatieri then connects on a 48-yard field goal to win the game on it’s final play.

2) XXV: Giants 20, Buffalo 19 – The closest final score in Super Bowl history. A see-saw game reaches its conclusion as Bills kicker Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field goal attempt with seconds remaining sails wide right.

1) XXXIV: Rams 23, Titans 16 – Down by seven, Titan’s QB Steve McNair executes a rousing drive in the closing seconds. On the game’s final play, he wriggles away from a would-be sacker and hits Kevin Dyson at the three yard line. Dyson turns toward the end zone and sees no one between him and the goal line, but as he lunges forward, the Rams’ Mike Jones wraps him up and drops him on the one as Dyson’s outstretched arm hovers just inches short of the goal line and time expires.

The Yankees new mouthpiece Johnny Damon (dubbed in the comments section the other day as “Johnny Talk Show”) met with George Steinbrenner yesterday in Tampa to say “hi.” Bob Klapisch has a piece on Damon’s good pal, Jason Giambi over at ESPN. Otherwise, all is quiet. However, thanks to Baseball Think Factory, I came across an interesting article by Mike Green at Batter’s Box, making a strong case for Mike Mussina (class of ’68) being a Hall of Famer. Check it out and let’s discuss.

You know it doesn’t much matter if the groundhog sees his shadow this morning or not, according to what I read in the paper this morning, there’s only 14 more days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training. Hey, New York native John Perricone would be happy to know that in his home town, sometimes if feels as if only baseball really does matter. Yesterday, a friend of mine showed me a poll on WFAN’s website that had more New Yorkers amped about spring training than the Super Bowl or the Final Four. Granted, hockey has a limited audience, the Knicks are awful, and there aren’t any local teams playing in the big game this Sunday, but still…

Yo, I forgot to tell you guys the sight for sore eyes I caught last Saturday up in Inwood. It was another unseasonably warm day and I went to visit my brother. On the way over, I was walking up 207th street and saw an older guy standing in the sun, filling out a lotto card outside of a Bodega. He was earing a Red Sox hat, not an uncommon site uptown. I thought to myself, I wonder if there have ever been as many Sox fans in New York as we see these days? Not only do you have a lot of transplanted New Englanders living here, proudly showing their colors, but the Latin communities uptown–especially the Dominicans–have been rockin’ Boston caps ever since Manny signed with the Sox, and they got Pedro. Formerly, you’d see a lot of Indians hats, but even with Pedro gone, Manny is a hometown hero in these parts. Add in Ortiz, and the fact that the Sox are just a good team, you see that Boston has become almost like a third team in New York, next to the Yankees and Mets.

It was so nice out, that we took Ben’s little boy Lucas (all of a year-and-a-half) out to Inwood park to tool around. The park is right across the street from their apartment. There are basketball courts, tennis courts and a huge green field with at least five baseball diamonds. Inwood is still a predominately Dominican neighborhood, so it didnt’ come as a major surprise that there, in the middle of winter, were kids playing baseball. A warm day? Quick, let’s get out and play. Now, this may not seem like a big deal for those of you who live in California or Florida, but in up here in the Northeast, where we’re always bemoaning the fact that kids don’t care about baseball anymore, it sure is a warming scene.

We passed the first diamond where seven kids–must of been 8th or 9th graders–were playing: two dudes on the left side of the infield, a guy in center, another in left, a pitcher, a batter, and a lone kid on the right side of the infield. They were using muddied old baseballs, were dressed like scrubs in sweats, and playing some kind of game of round robin. As we walked by, the kid at bat swung and missed at a pitch, and then popped one up to second base. The fat kid who was stuck on that side of the field because he was probably the worst of the lot made a futile stab for the ball, which landed with a thud about five feet away from him. Immediately, the rest of the guys started laughing, busting on him, including the batter. A wave of anger shot through me and I remembered being that age, taking pick-up games like this so seriously that I lost any sense of humor I may have had at the time. I wanted to defend the poor kid who wasn’t much good and who was laughing at himself along with the other guys. I imagined that I was him, humiliated, directing my anger at the hitter. I wanted to yell, “Yo dog, what the hell are you laughing about, why don’t you try hitting something besides a cheap-ass pop-up, you fuggin toy?”

My brother carried his son on his shoulders. We were approaching the playground. But before we got there we passed a second diamond that was occupied by a girl’s softball team. The girls were roughly the same age as the boys, but this was an official, or semi-official workout. They too were dressed in scrubs, but they had helmets, and looked altogether more organized than the boys. A middle age man stood on the mound, and a thick, middle aged woman, yelled out instructions from behind third base. It didn’t look as if there were enough girls for two teams, but it appeared as if a game was in progress. There was an intensity in the air that was almost palpable. I stopped and watched as the batter swung and missed at a pitch and then fouled the next one into the backstop. The coach was not just lobbing the ball in there. There was a runner on third, and the batter grounded the next pitch to short. The runner came home but the batter didn’t move out of the box. The third base coach came out onto the field, pointed around, gave some specific intstructions, clapped her hands and returned to her position. Soon, it became evident that they weren’t playing a game, but running through game situations.

I was almost besides myself. I mean, how cool is this, I thought. It’s January, and these girls are out here working on game situations, at full tilt. They cut right to the chase: bottom of the ninth, tying run on third, here’s what we’re going to do. The girls were focused, attentive, fierce.

After cooling our at playground for a while we made our way back. It was getting late and sky was grey. Three of the boys had taken a seat and only four kids were left on the first diamond. I’m sure at least one of them was a competitive red ass like I had been at that age, wanting to win whatever competition they were having, pissed at the fat asses sitting out. One thing was sure, though, a couple of them were going to keep playing until it got too dark to see anymore. Yup, in some parts of the country, even our city, it’s true: only baseball matters.

Okay, that’s a diss, and I don’t really mean it like that. But it’s a Honeymooner’s quote, and yo, I’m happy that ol’ Rubes got a chance to stick around some more. Hey, better in Minnie than in the BX, right?

While former shortstop Alex Rodriguez was honored at a dinner held by the New York chapter of the Baseball Writer’s of America on Sunday night, the Red Sox have reportedly picked up a shortstop of their own, another Alex, Alex Gonzalez (who will presumably be backed-up by Alex Cora). Gonzalez will join Josh Beckett to help give the Yankees warm memories of the 2003 World Serious. A lousy hitter–who has displayed some pop over the course of his career–Gonzalez is known as a fine defensive player.

Every year, Bronx Banter correspondent Christopher DeRosa puts out an annual for his friends called “The Baseball Procrastinator,” in which he chronicles the previous season in baseball. DeRosa includes sharp and entertaining book reviews in his annual–my favorite part, to be honest. DeRosa doesn’t only cover books that were released last year, he reviews books that he just simply got around to reading. Well, I find them so enjoyable that I asked if he’d modify a grouping of this year’s batch for you guys here at Bronx Banter. He has, and so here they are. Enjoy.

2005 Readings in Baseball

By Christopher DeRosa

Bill James Handbook 2006 (Cabrera cover)

They do a great job with the leader boards in this book. They’re so extensive that they’re not just a vehicle to see who did better than who, but to see how different players play the game.

You can use the Handbook to break down questions like, who was a better leadoff hitter, Derek Jeter or Johnny Damon? Not only overall, but specifically as a leadoff hitter, Jeter gets on base more than Damon, .391 to .367. Another job of the leadoff hitter is to take some pitches. Jeter led the AL in pitches seen with 2883. Jeter also led the league in ground ball to fly ball ratio. Is that someone you’d want hitting first, or second with possibly a man on? The book has a new baserunning report. Who scored a higher percentage of times when reaching base? Damon, 38% to 34% for Jeter. But Jeter was much better going first-to-third, doing so in 42% of such opportunities (18/43) vs. 19% for Damon (6/31). Jeter was also better at scoring from second base, 15 times in 21 chances, as opposed to 22 out of 34 chances for Damon. Damon did score 7 times in 10 chances from first base, Jeter 5 times in 10 chances. Damon was the better percentage base stealer, 18-1 vs. 14-5.

More Yankees: It’s fun to see Mariano’s across-the-leader-board domination of the reliever stats. He led the league in save percentage (91.5), relief ERA (1.38), lowest opponents’ batting average (.177), lowest opponents’ on base percentage (.235), lowest opponents’ slugging percentage (.230), retiring the first batter faced (.831). He was also 4th in he league in opponents’ batting average with runners on. He was the 3rd hardest pitcher for lefties to hit (.177), and the 5th hardest for right-handers to hit (.176). No one else was so high on both lists. He was tied for 3rd with 43 saves, tied for 4th with 7 relief wins, 10th in relief games (71), and 7th in relief innings (78.1).

After years toiling near the bottom of the league, Derek Jeter has moved all the way up to 2nd in the AL in range factor, and he won his second Gold Glove! After watching him all year, I don’t really think he deserved it, but it is a kind of funny payback for yet another season of relentless Jeter-bashing from the baseball hipsters.

Jason Giambi took the most pitches in the AL (Abreu led the NL). He led the league in secondary average, at .523. He had the highest offensive winning percentage of any AL hitter other than Travis Hafner, ahead of Manny, A-Rod, and Ortiz. He was the most effective hitter in the league versus sliders. Not bad for a guy Selena Roberts wanted them to release.

(more…)

Will Mike Piazza end up in San Diego? If he does, at least it will continue his streak of playing for team’s with pitcher-friendly home parks. Over at ESPN, Alan Schwarz has a good piece about how Piazza and Frank Thomas can still be productive.

While Johnny Damon anticipates the upcoming WBC games (and Mariano Rivera lets out a long sigh), Murray Chass examines the state of affairs in Boston:

Last Thursday, announcing that Theo Epstein would return to the team’s front office 12 weeks after he walked away from his role as general manager, club officials issued a statement that made them sound so full of themselves that they must have been inflated like hot-air balloons.

John Henry, Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein all released statements to the media:

The statements totaled an astounding 2,500 words. If they were printed in their entirety in this newspaper, they would take up three columns, or half a page. Henry & Company could have used a good editor.

For much of the past 12 weeks, the Red Sox had been widely viewed as having a dysfunctional front office. I disagreed. Epstein’s departure, I believed, did not throw the front office into a malaise that rendered club executives ineffective and incapable of performing the team’s off-season personnel activities.

With those statements, though, the Red Sox are beginning to sound dysfunctional. Their verbosity runneth over, and they tripped all over their words. Maybe that’s what happens when you put executives from Princeton, Yale, Amherst and Wesleyan in a room together.

Meanwhile, while it is not likely that we’ll see Mike Piazza in pinstripes this year, he’s not completely out-of-the-picture yet either. Accoding to The Daily News:

“I have not made a decision,” [Yankee GM, Brian] Cashman said. “We’re still going through it. I’m obviously evaluating Mike and seeing if he fits where we’re at at this point in time.

“I don’t have a need for anybody, but that doesn’t mean you don’t constantly evaluate what’s available and the price they’re available at.”

Too bad the Big Hurt was already nabbed by Oakland; Piazza would have looked great in the Green and Gold.

The Yankees signed Aaron Small to a one-year, $1.2 million contract yesterday. In doing so they avoid an arbitration hearing and fell just shy of meeting Small half way. That’s what amounts to big news out of the Bronx these days. Things have been dead quiet since the team signed Miguel Cairo back on January 5.

That’s in stark contrast to what’s happening 200 miles Northeast in Beantown. The eight-player, three-team deal that was to bring Coco Crisp to Boston has hit the skids after Guillermo Mota failed Cleveland’s physical (this despite passing Boston’s physical when the Sox acquired him from Florida in the Josh Beckett trade back around Thanksgiving).

Meanwhile, the man who will be responsible for sorting all of this out will be none other than Theo Epstein. Less than three months after leaving his post as General Manager, Epstein has not only returned to the team, but reclaimed his position as GM, putting the lie to fact that Jed Hoyer and Ben Cherington would share the job (Hoyer has been bumped down to assistant GM and Cherington has been made VP of player personnel).

It all makes one wonder exactly how involved Epstein really was during his 84-day exile. Here’s what the Sox have done in Theo’s “absence”:

That doesn’t include the still undetermined Coco Crisp deal.

While it’s very tempting to dust that list for Theo’s fingerprints, one tends to wonder if the “boy genius” would have left his club with Alex Cora at shortstop and a battle between Adam Stern and Willie Harris in center just 23 days before Pitchers and Catchers.

By the way, the last six items on the above list occured between the Cairo and Small contracts. Myself, I don’t mind the silence.

According to published reports, Mike Piazza’s agents have contacted the Yankees. While The Daily News writes that the Bombers have no interest in the Mets’ former superstar, Brian Cashman tells Jon Heyman in Newsday:

“We’re fairly set. Our designated hitter spot is taken by Bernie Williams and Andy Phillips. But I’ll keep an open mind,” Cashman said. “I’m always open to consider any possibility that may help the ballclub.”

My co-writer Cliff Corcoran has been in favor of the Yankees’ signing Piazza for months now. You know that Met fans would hate to see Yazzie in the Bronx. I’ve always loved the guy, so I think it would be a lot of fun to see him in pinstripes, playing for Joe Torre, but I don’t think it’s likely to actually happen.

Meanwhile, the News has a little puff piece on Aaron Small.

The noted baseball economist Andrew Zimbalist addresses the Yankee Stadium issue today in The New York Times:

Plans to build a new Yankee Stadium in the South Bronx have kicked up a small storm of local protest. Many people who live near Mullaly and Macombs Dam Parks, where the new stadium will be built, are concerned about what it will mean for their neighborhood, and rightfully so. But the crucial public policy question here is whether there will be a net benefit for residents of the Bronx and the other boroughs. The answer is yes.

Meanwhile, The Boston Herald reports that the Sox are close to finalizing a deal that would send Andy Marte (the guy they got from Atlanta in the Edgar Renteria deal) and Guillermo Moto to the Indians for center fielder Coco Crisp. The Phillies are also involved in the works and they’d send cf Jason Michaels to Cleveland. The Herald also reports that Boston is close to signing Alex Gonzalez to play short stop.

Crisp would be a much cheaper option than Damon for the Sox (Crisp isn’t elligible for free agency for another four years). He doesn’t walk all that much, but he had a good offensive season last year, and he does have some pop. With the acuisition of Julian Tavarez–who looks almost comically evil, like the villian who ties the girl to the tracks and twirls his mustache–Mota is expendable. Gonzalez isn’t a great hitter but a fine defensive player. The Sox had to do something to fill in the gaps.

What do you think? If this goes down, how much does this improve, or hurt, Boston?

Man, I just can’t help but chuckle at this one. The once and future King, Theo Epstein, winner of the Hot Stove Sarah Bernhardt Award, will return to the Boston Red Sox next week according to the team. The Boston Globe reports:

Epstein’s exact role and title had not been completely determined as of last night. Nor had it been decided exactly how co-GMs Jed Hoyer and Ben Cherington would be recast. The club, in a release, indicated only that Epstein would be rejoining the Sox in a ”full-time baseball operations capacity, details of which will be announced next week.” However, expectations within the organization point to Epstein returning as the lead decision-maker within baseball operations, with Hoyer and Cherington working under him.

Dan Shaughnessy, the polarizing columnist who is most closely identified with the Red Sox than any other writer (with all due respect to Peter Gammons), writes:

Here’s an inside look at how it works over at Fenway these days. The Red Sox are afraid of what is written about them in the newspapers and what is said about them on WEEI. That’s why we got this vague, preemptive strike just after the dinner hour last night. Nothing has changed since Theo left and no one knows how the new arrangement is going to work, but owner John W. Henry figured it was better to put out a press release saying ”all is well” than to read more speculation about weakness at the top.

Embarrassing. The people in baseball operations were working hard as usual late last night, trying to plug the team’s holes in center field and shortstop, when Epstein called them and told them there was going to be an announcement that he’s coming back next week. No one knew quite what to say to their former boss. There’s been no discussion about who will report to whom. No one knows how this is going to work, and Theo has burned some bridges with his own people. But John W. Henry loves him. So he gets to come back. The only certainty is that Theo will report to CEO Larry Lucchino, according to Henry.

Tony Massarotti adds:

Just 15 months after arguably the most glorious sports celebration in Boston’s history, the luster officially is off the ownership and management at fabled Fenway Park. In this soap opera, president Larry Lucchino first made the mistake of arrogance. Then, owner John Henry committed the blunder of passivity. And now, Theo Epstein is committing perhaps the most inexplicable transgression of all.

In the face of better judgment, he’s coming back.

Time for group therapy at 4 Yawkey Way.

The Red Sox, like the Yankees in previous years, have become equally, if not more, entertaining off-the-field than they are between the white lines. David Pinto thinks that the Red Sox keep finding ways of turning themselves into the Yankees. “Boston’s front office is a soap opera,” writes Pinto. “New York’s front office is the calmest and quietest I’ve seen it since George took over. Who’d have thunk it?” I don’t know how or if any of this mishegoss will impact the Sox on the field (remember, the Yanks had some winning teams during the Bronx Zoo Era), but Pinto’s right. Who, indeed, would have thunk it?

Rest in Peace, Wilson Pickett.

Creaking forward?

I’ve got a piece up over at SI.com about some of the moves I’ve liked and haven’t liked this winter. ‘Course I had to narrow it down some, but thinking more specifically about the Yankees and the rest of the AL East, what have been some of your favorite and least favorite deals?

The Yankees have exchanged arbitration offers with their two eligible players, pitchers Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small. When last I poked my head out of my hole to see if winter had passed, I estimated their 2006 salaries at $4 million and $1 million respectively. Turns out I was closer than even I would have thought:

Chacon’s request: $4.15 mil
Yankees’ response: $3.1 mil

Small’s request: $1.45 mil
Yankees’ response: $1.025 mil

It seems to me that Small is the more likely to lose his case due to his irregular career path and the fact that the Yankees regularly bounced him into the bullpen, including for the ALDS in which his coin finally came up tails. Much to my surprise, the owners have won the majority of the cases that have made it to arbitration (as the arbiter can only chose one figure or the other, most cases are settled before reaching arbitration with the two parties agreeing on difference-splitting contracts). From 1974-2004, the owners had a .573 winning percentage in arbitration cases. At any rate, the total difference between the offers made by the Yankees and the requests made by Small and Chacon is $1.475 million, or less any member of the Yankees’ 40-man roster who has reached his arbitration years will make in 2006 save for Mike Myers ($1.2 mil), Miguel Cairo ($1 mil) and Kelly Stinnett ($650K). Small will join that group regardless of how his case is decided in February.

Nothing to see here. Move along.