CBS Sports came out with an interesting tidbit today. Apparently Yankees GM Brian Cashman attended a breakfast meeting yesterday where he recalled a recent conversation he had with Andy Pettite. ““I told him, don’t ‘Brett Favre’ us. You got to be all in and fully dedicated to play.” Cashman recounted, “Do I need him? I need him, but I don’t want him to play if his heart’s not in it.”
This, of course, may elicit groans from many of you. Brett Favre finally turned in his retirement papers…again. Do we have to do this again? If you are not a Yankee fan, you may relax, because this will not take up half of Sportscenter every day. More like a two minute segment every other week, increasing slightly once the Super Bowl is over. This won’t even be half as bad as the Roger Clemens ‘Will he or won’t he’ drama of a few years ago. That said, if you do happen to bleed pinstripes and consider the Bronx your Mecca, you may want to get out your towels and start sweating because spring training is only a month away and you really need him. And the Pettite Watch begins.
There are significant reasons Yankee fans should be nervous. Yes, with the addition of Soriano and the retention of the best closer in baseball history, Mariano Rivera, the Yankees have the eighth and ninth innings covered. But how are they supposed to get there. Yes the lineup is still scary good. But offenses don’t win championships. They have an ace. C.C. Sabathia is one of the top five starters in the Majors currently. They have a number two starter coming off a great year. Phil Hughes should continue his development as a solid starter, and has All-Star potential. After that, well, it goes significantly downhill. AJ Burnett gets a lot of money for the Yankees but had a 5.12 ERA last year, is 34 years old, and can’t beat the Red Sox or Rays to save his life. That and he’s injury prone. Assuming that is the Yankee number 3, it still gets worse. The current Yankee No. 4 is…gasp…Ivan Nova. The guy you never heard of before last year, but threw decently (4.50 ERA), so now he is penciled in. Then comes No. 5. Let’s take a gander at the candidates. Sergio Mitre. Career record of 13-29 with a 5.27 ERA. Not exactly worthy of a team with 27 World Championships. Andrew Brackman. The only reason I know who he is, is because he played (get this) basketball at my alma mater, NC State. Mark Prior. Wait, I thought he hasn’t pitched for years. That’s because he hasn’t. Kei Igawa. Okay you got me now I’m just messing with you, but you see the point here right?
The Yankees really, and I mean really when I should say desperately, need Pettitte. They have no back half of the rotation. In a division where the Red Sox upgraded extensively, the Rays have replacements for almost everyone they lost, the Blue Jays one of the best hitting teams in baseball and the Orioles clearly on the rise, the pinstripers can’t afford to go into the season with what they’ve got. They needed Cliff Lee and didn’t get him. For those of you still not grasping the situation, let me hit you with this knowledge. Before he signed with the Twins recently, The Yankees offered a one-year deal to Carl Pavano. You remember him right? He, with the lucrative free agent deal, pitched 26 games over three years with the Yankees, with an average ERA of 5.02. That is how desperate the Yankees are.
That said, this isn’t totally like the Brett Favre saga. The Yankees can and will win a significant number of games without Pettitte. They will probably be, if not a playoff team, than a serious threat without him. There are major sports events going on right now, so the ESPN analysts will have more to talk about than just Pettitte. And as a bonus, Pettite hasn’t (as far as we know) sent lewd pictures of his hidden areas to any team employees. He had his scandal already, and the majority of the blame for that got shifted to Clemens anyway. Combine that with the lack of panic that Brian Cashman and the Yankees are operating with, this really isn’t like the Brett Favre saga at all. Except that, like the Vikings with Favre, the Yankees really need Pettite back.
Brian Cashman appears to be handling this the right way. He is not panicking. He is working feverishly to find solutions under the assumption that Pettite is not coming back. He is probably trying to conjure a miracle Felix Hernandez trade as we speak. At the same time he is still trying to convey the message of welcome and semi-urgent necessity to Pettitte. Meanwhile, the lefty (who would be invaluable against the new lefty-laden Red Sox monster lineup) sits happily at his home in Texas, spending time with his family. And why shouldn’t he? 240 wins. 2055 innings pitched. 2251 strikeouts. 5 World Series rings. Those are incredible numbers. He deserves a long and happy retirement, and maybe one day a call from Cooperstown. Yankees fans should be thankful. Just so long as he pitchers one…more…year.