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Saturday, March 31 Updated: April 2, 1:37 PM ET Will Yankees snap or snap up another title? By Jayson Stark ESPN.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TAMPA, Fla. -- The champs like being the champs. You should know that.
The champs can't handle the thought of anyone else being the champs. You should know that, too.
"You know what I remember most from this whole run?" Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte says. "What I remember more than anything is the years when we lost -- in '97, when we got knocked out by Cleveland, and '95, when Seattle knocked us out. That's what I remember. That's what keeps you hungry.
1. They signed Mike Mussina Why would a team with three ace-type starters go out and sign a fourth? Easy. Because pitching is the essence of what the Yankees are. Pitching is why they're even in this position. Their offense scored fewer runs than the Royals last year. But whose rotation would you want? "Spring training starts every year with the pitchers and catchers," Pettitte says. "And every year, the skipper walks through the room, saying, 'This is where we're going to win it, right here.' " So enter Mike Mussina. Mussina cost the champs $88.5 million for the next six years. He's also coming off what looks like the worst year of his career, if you judge it from the won-lost record (11-15). But it tells you all you need to know that the worst year of his career was a year in which he finished third in the league in ERA (3.79), first in innings pitched (237 2/3) and third in strikeouts (210). His addition means that of the five active starting pitchers with winning percentages of .645 or better, the Yankees employ three: Mussina (.645), Pettitte (.645) and Roger Clemens (.647). And oh by the way, the other two are Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson. Add in the fourth starter, El Duque Hernandez (41-26, .612), and the combined winning percentage of the big four is a ridiculous .641. They're 244 games over .500 for their joint careers. That's all. "How good are we?" Pettitte muses. "How good can we be? I'm not real sure. But I know Roger, obviously, is one of the greatest ever ... And I think Mike is in the top two or three in the league. ... And Duque is just as seasoned as any of us. ... I just look at myself as just a tired old left-hander who gives up a lot of hits, who's always in trouble, and I just make pitches when I have to. "But how good are we? We've just got to go out and play the games and find out. Hopefully, we'll all have our best years yet. That would be fun, huh?" Yeah. For them maybe. 2. Mariano Rivera still works here He might not go down as the greatest closer of all time. But Mariano Rivera is, almost indisputably, the greatest postseason closer of all time. He's converted 18 straight postseason saves -- 16 of them of more than one inning. His career postseason ERA is 0.71. And until the Mariners found a way to score on him in Game 6 of last year's ALCS, he'd ripped off 33 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings in the postseason -- the longest October zerofest of all time. "Mo's the key ingredient," Pettitte says. "He comes in, and the game's almost over. That's a pretty good starting point right there. He gives us an advantage the other teams don't have. 3. Watch out for Alfonso Soriano The last thing the Yankees need is another new secret weapon. But Alfonso Soriano gives them one. Just 23, Soriano's talents seemed to explode before their eyes this spring. All he did was hit .348, with five homers, 13 RBI, 15 runs scored, eight steals in nine tries and 14 extra-base hits in only 92 at-bats. He led the Yankees in every one of those categories.
It's a funny thing about the Yankees and money. They sure spend a lot of it. But it's hard to point fingers at them for it, because they spend it so well. "I don't think of this as a money team," says Knoblauch. "We just have an owner (you know who) who gives us an opportunity to win. And that's all we want. But I'll tell you, I'm amazed sometimes at the players we get. We win the World Series three times, and we get Mike Mussina. That's where the owner comes in, giving you a chance to win." The owner has been known to come in other places, too, of course. But one of the owner's big crusades is that he doesn't want to be Tom Hicks or Rupert Murdoch. Yes, it's very important to Emperor Steinbrenner to spend his money in a way that gives his favorite commissioner minimal opportunities to blame him for the runaway salary train. "I know collectively, it adds up to a lot," Cashman says. "But we don't have the highest-paid player anywhere on the field, except now at closer (where Rivera's extension averages just a sliver below $10 million a year). "Take Mussina. We weren't willing to go above $14½ million a year. We weren't willing to go to Kevin Brown money ($15 million). If it got above that, we would have tagged out. In fact, Mike Mussina is the first real big-name free agent we've signed in seven, eight, I don't know how many years. "So collectively, it adds up. But individually, we're not the reason baseball has got salary issues. We're not the ones helping to set new markets." No, the money the Yankees spend is money that gives them depth, gives them a farm system full of the best and brightest prospects off just about every island south of Key West, and gives them the flexibility to add pieces they need in midseason. (And they added $20 million worth of pieces just last season.) But other teams have far more star-studded lineups. What separates the Yankees from the clubs that burn money for kindling is that they're the perfect combination of resources and organizational brains that know how to use those resources. 5. They're not tired of winning yet You would think that after three straight trips down the Canyon of Heroes, and four titles in the last five years, these guys would be bored with all this by now. Sorry. They haven't spent the last five months working on their concession speeches. "I know these guys, and they're not satisfied," Knoblauch says. "You can walk in this room and not really know we've won the last three years. Nobody takes things for granted. That's what's made these guys the players they are." "We're never satisfied that we are what we are or we've done what we've done," says Pettitte. "If anything, this team's even more hungry to try to figure out a way to hold off these teams that have tooled up to beat us." Their core group remains essentially the same. The starting lineup has won a total of 30 rings. And every regular except Soriano has started at least one World Series game. But the front office doesn't just sit around the executive suite, playing cards and saying, "Yes sir, Mr. Steinbrenner," either. This team is constantly adding new ingredients to the pie. "We've been changing the formula more than people realize," Cashman says. "Look back to '96, and we've had two different closers (Rivera and John Wetteland). We've had an number of different starting pitchers. (In fact, 11 different pitchers have won a Series game for this team since '96.) We've had two or three different third basemen (Wade Boggs, Charlie Hayes, Scott Brosius). We've had two different second basemen, now three (Mariano Duncan, Knoblauch, Soriano). We've had a number of left fielders (too many to mention), two catchers (Joe Girardi, Jorge Posada). "So the core's been the same. And obviously, the manager's been the same. But we have been changing the formula every year." And this year, the new ingredients include Mussina and Soriano. But some of the other new ingredients have raised some major questions. Which brings us to the other side of this argument ... Why they won't win 1. They almost didn't win last year In the last two weeks of October last year, the Yankees were the Yankees. But in some of those other months, they looked as if they might have had trouble winning their own Old Timers Game. "We were pretty beatable last year," Pettitte admits. "It wasn't until we got to the postseason that we knew we were the team to beat again." But before they got to the postseason, they won just 87 regular-season games -- ninth-most in baseball, second-fewest by any World Series winner (the '87 Twins won 85) and the fewest ever by a Yankees team that kept playing in October. In one 41-game stretch in May and June, they went 16-25. Then they ended the year by becoming the first team ever to lose 12 of its last 15 and still make the postseason. Those stretches stood in marked contrast to this team's dominance in the previous two years, when it seemed obsessed with bludgeoning everyone in its path. The 2000 Yankees often didn't seem as driven as their predecessors, rarely showed that same killer instinct. And Pettitte concedes they weren't the same in some respects. "In a sense, I think maybe we did (lose that killer instinct)," he says. "Toward the end of the season, we petered out pretty good. But you've got to remember that over the last six years, we've played six more months than everybody else. It's a long season. And mentally, it got more taxing on us." But their defense is: With all that happened, guess who won? "Yeah, we were more beatable," Cashman says. "But when it counted, that's when this team played its best. I guess it was there for the taking. But we wound up as the team to take it." 2. They're too old Old teams don't tend to be healthy teams. And only the cast of "Golden Girls" had more age questions than the Yankees. Clemens turns 39 in August. Paul O'Neill -- now talking about retirement -- is 38. Brosius -- clearly in his final season as a Yankee -- turns 35 in midseason. Justice hits 35 in April. Mike Stanton will be 34 in June. And who knows how old El Duque is? All told, 16 members of the Yankees' Opening Day roster were born in the '60s. And just three of their nine every-day players (Soriano, Posada, Derek Jeter) are under 30. Eight of Oakland's every-day players are under 30. "Yeah, we're the old, veteran team now," Cashman deadpans. "Everyone says we're old and brittle. Well, we'll keep trying that approach and see if we have one last run left." 3. Todd Williams, Randy Choate, Christian Parker When the Yankees started spring training, Torre said this team faced more questions this spring than it had at any time since this three-peat run began. Little did he know the answers to those questions would be: Todd Williams, Randy Choate and Christian Parker. Williams -- a 30-year-old minor-league free agent pitching for his third organization in three years -- gets the job of replacing Jeff Nelson as the primary right-handed set-up man. Choate -- a 25-year-old left-hander who went 2-13 in A-ball three years ago -- moves into the bullpen to eat up some of the innings Jason Grimsley took with him to Kansas City. And Parker -- a 25-year-old right-hander who was basically the throw-in from Montreal in the Hideki Irabu deal -- replaces David Cone as the fifth starter, even though he's never won a game above Double-A. Now the three of them might very well go out and do everything their predecessors did. But when you think of how many known quantities the '98-00 Yankees sent to the mound every night, it's hard not to look at such unknown quantities as a sign of vulnerability. "The fifth starter is what he is," Cashman says. "He's a guy no one is ever certain about -- on a first-division club or a second-division club. ... A couple of years ago, look at El Duque when he became the fifth starter. We didn't know what we had. Now we like what we have." Replacing Nelson, on the other hand, is of slightly more critical importance. In his 73 regular-season appearances covering 69 2/3 innings last year, he allowed just 44 hits and struck out 71. And the Rivera-Nelson-Stanton bullpen tag team might have been the real reason this team got to hold another parade. So how does this team replace that? "You can't replace Jeff Nelson," Cashman says. "All you can do is try and cushion the blow, And I think we can. Just substituting Mussina for what David Cone gave us last year, he should provide more quality innings over the year than David did. So hopefully, we won't need as many innings out of the 'pen." On the other hand, El Duque battled elbow trouble all spring. Clemens has been on the disabled list with leg problems two straight years. Ramiro Mendoza -- their human insurance policy -- hasn't recovered yet from shoulder surgery. So if nothing else, there are more pitching mysteries on this Yankees team than any in recent memory. And that presents the most significant question of all. For three years, the key to the Yankees was that all the pieces seem to fit. But with Knoblauch suddenly in left field, Soriano bouncing now to second base, and all these mysterious people out there on the mound, do the pieces fit anymore? "You don't have to answer that question now," says Joe Torre, "because the game will tell us." 4. They don't hit In a spring in which the Yankees had the worst record in the Grapefruit League (9-20), the constant refrain from scouts who watched them was: They don't hit. Of course, all those spring numbers and four bucks will get you through the Holland Tunnel. But the truth is, this is not a great offensive team. Last year, nine teams scored more runs than the Yankees. Nine teams hit more home runs. Eleven teams stole more bases. Nine teams even drew more walks. Todd Helton nearly drove in more runs (147) than the Yankees' two corner men, Martinez and Brosius, combined (155). The offensive numbers of O'Neill and Martinez have sunk for four straight years. Brosius (.232) had a lower batting average than Kerry Wood (.250). And since 21 of Justice's 41 home runs were hit for Cleveland, it meant that even after four World Series in five years, not one of the Yankees' championship teams have gotten more than 30 homers from anybody. So what does that mean? Well, all it's meant in the past is that the Yankees managed to win, anyway, because their patience and intelligence always allowed them to rise above the sum of their pieces. "They're still pretty tough," says Red Sox catcher Scott Hatteberg, "because they have so many guys who are tough to pitch to. They may not have a Ken Griffey, a megastar. But they've got a lot of superstars, a lot of very, very good hitters who really make you work. They're very smart. They're very seasoned. They don't panic. They know situations. They're a hard lineup to work through. Believe me." 5. The league has closed the gap A big reason the Yankees were able to win again last October is that the only other teams in their league that were constructed to beat them -- the Indians and Red Sox -- never made it to the playoffs. But this year, as the Yankees look over their shoulders, they can feel the A's coming. And the Indians. And the Red Sox. And more. "It's like a chess game," Cashman says. "Every move I make, Billy Beane in Oakland, and the Texas Rangers, and the White Sox, and the Red Sox, make a move to close the gap. And we admit teams are closing the gap. But that's OK. We're trying to keep this thing going, too." Then again, they have no choice. Cashman openly labels the Indians as "the best team in Florida this spring." And from all reports, "Oakland is the best team in Arizona," he says. "And they both happen to be in our league, last time I checked." The Red Sox have had enough things go wrong this spring to think they're now dealing with The Curse of Manny Ramirez, but the moves they made this winter were all made with the Yankees in mind. Why did the A's trade for Johnny Damon? To go for it all, to beat the Yankees. Why did the White Sox trade for David Wells? To beat the Yankees. Look around at the best teams in the American League and think about why they've structured themselves the way they have. Because they know that the road to the top of the mountain goes through New York. "But our guys understand," Torre says, "that they've called this attention onto themselves. They understand how good they've been and what goes with it." And if they don't, obviously, there's always good old Boss Steinbrenner to remind them. So will they or won't they? They might be good enough to do it again. They very easily might not. But in some ways, it almost doesn't matter. Don't tell that to the owner. But it's true. These Yankees already have done enough to assure their place in history, whether they three-peat, four-peat or 10-peat. "What this team has done, winning four out of five years, is rare," Cashman says. "It's unique. And every year that goes by, people recognize how special it is. But it gets tough to look back and say, 'Remember those days,' right now, because we're still in the middle of it. "We have a thoroughbred here. We have a derby winner. And we plan to keep riding that horse. This is one of those horses that comes along every 20 years or so. But we want to hold on and ride it as long as we can. "Right now, we're Secretariat. We've done the triple crown, and we'll try to keep adding to it. But everything's so fragile" -- and here he stops and snaps his fingers -- "it could go like this." They now have seven months to listen for that snap. But the palm trees have just stopped swaying. The champs are still undefeated. And until they are, the next move in this chess game belongs to somebody else. Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. |
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