Pettitte Back for One More Year

Andy Pettitte and the Yankees have agreed on an incentive-laden one-year contract that will make him their fifth starter next year.

The contract will pay him $5.5 million in base salary, but offers an additional $6.5 million in bonuses based on innings pitched and days spent on the active roster. If he doesn't spend time on the disabled list and pitches 210+ innings this year, he will earn the full $12 million.

Earlier this offseason, Pettitte rejected a $10 million proposal from the Yankees, but he clearly wanted to pitch in the New Yankee Stadium. As a Yankee from 1995-2003 and from 2007 up until the present, Pettitte, along with Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera, is one of the last bridges to the '90s Yankees dynasty. While the current deal guarantees less money, the incentives are relatively easy to attain.

The 2009 Yankees rotation should look something like this: C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Chien-Ming Wang, Joba Chamberlain and Pettitte. Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, Alfredo Aceves, Sergio Mitre and the other youngsters will have to wait in the wings unless someone gets injured or Joba Chamberlain moves back to the bullpen (which, for the record, I am dead set against).

While I am against this signing on the grounds that Pettitte is old, and was very ineffective in the second half last season, I will never really get tired of watching him. David Cone and him were my two favorite pitchers growing up, so I hope he pulls a Mike Mussina and reinvents himself this season and makes idiots like me feel bad for doubting him. In reality, as a fifth starter, Pettitte should be just fine. It's just a shame to let Phil Hughes waste away in the minors when he clearly needs big league experience at this point to step forward.

Pettitte admitted to using HGH after being mentioned in the Mitchell Report last spring. With the distraction of that likely to be considerably smaller this season, I would not be surprised to see him bounce back somewhere between his 2007 numbers of 15-9 and a 4.05 and 2008 stats of 14-14 with a 4.54.

Former Yankees Moving On

Three huge acquisitions of this offseason are officially Yankees, following the announcement of Mark Teixeira's signing today. The event is likely to be one of the final shindigs for the good old ballpark in the Bronx.

Paralleling the move away from the past, word came today about three other big Yankees signings from recent winters. Jason Giambi is on the verge of a deal that will return him to Oakland for his twilight. Carl Pavano has reached agreement with Cleveland on an incentive-laden one-year deal. And Andy Pettitte has apparently formally rejected the Yankees $10 million one-year offer.

Oakland is looking formidable in the AL West with this announcement. Giambi was extraordinarily unlucky last season, based on typical rates of expected batting average on balls in play (xBABIP) and hit .247 in the process. A jump in average seems in order, and he did hit 32 home runs and knock in 96 runs for the Pinstripers last season. Along with right-handed slugger Matt Holliday, Giambi and the A's have the foundations of a formidable offense should this deal go through. Last year, hitting was their Achilles' heel, and despite my belief that Holliday's numbers are in line to sharply decline this season after leaving Denver, their pitchers should have more support. With the Angels weakened by the departures of Teixeira and Garret Anderson, and Brian Fuentes' replacement of Francisco Rodriguez, the A's will have a good chance to challenge for the crown.

With a rotation starting with Cliff Lee, Fausto Carmona, Jake Westbrook and now Pavano, the Indians have accumulated a serviceable front four. I would be shocked to see Lee repeat his numbers from last year, but he is a very good pitcher and I wouldn't be surprised to see a better season out of Carmona. The signings of Pavano and closer Kerry Wood, however, both scream injury. We shall see how Chief Wahoo's faithful feel about these moves when the contracts are finished. But Pavano's contract is relatively affordable, and forces him to pitch for the one thing he really seems to care about: cash. How good they will be hinges on Travis Hafner's and Victor Martinez's shoulders, as they simply can not hit without the presence of the two sluggers to support Grady Sizemore, one of the game's best.

Whether or not Pettitte is done in the Bronx will only be known when he signs his next deal or retires. Without him, the Yankees have plenty of eager youngsters who should produce at least one serviceable starter for next season and the future. Although one of them, Sergio Mitre, who I recently blogged about, is facing a 50-game drug suspension. It sounds like this case, and J.C. Romero's suspension, may largely be the fault of the players' union. They had informed the players that over-the-counter supplements bought in the US of A shouldn't give them any problems come pee time. Too bad, because this will give a lot of people the wrong idea about the two of them. Let's be honest, all professional athletes gobble down whatever supplements they can get their hands on without being burned. Telling them something is OK should absolve them of responsibility, on a basic logical level. But baseball wants to be tough to keep our Congress happy, so let them throw out the baby with the bath water and ignore circumstance, knowledge and intention.

It won't set Mitre back, really, because he was already going to miss the time with an injury. But the principle of the thing still stings.

The Forgotten Signing of the Winter Season

As it becomes clearer that Andy Pettitte will probably not come back to the Yankees for another season, there has been speculation that Phil Hughes, Alfredo Aceves and Dan Giese are the leading candidates to be the fifth starter, in that order.

Ian Kennedy likely fits somewhere on that list as well, although it seems to me that the Yankees would like to see some more solid innings out of him at the Minor League level before he gets a call back up to the bigs. But a strong spring, a couple of injuries or some ineffective outings from other candidates certainly can go a long way in shaping opinion on the baseball field.

While the job is most likely Hughes' to lose, and the other kids' to earn, the Yankees signed an interesting contingency plan in early November who has largely gone under the radar.

Sergio Mitre, rehabbing right now from Tommy John surgery, went 5-8 with a 4.65 E.R.A. in 2007. He sat out the entire 2008 season with an injury. His career record of 10-23 and 5.36 E.R.A. are unimpressive, and those  '07 numbers don't particularly pop, especially in the National League, but I see silver lining in this signing.

Mitre will be 28 next year, and 29 the year after. Those are peak years for a starting pitcher.  Many pitchers receive a boost in stuff  after Tommy John surgery, and better stuff never hurt anyone. And finally, Mitre had an E.R.A. of 2.82 on July 19th. 

His half-season of mastery at age 26 was essentially destroyed by six bad starts in late July and August when he had already more than doubled his career-high innings total. The main culprits were the Padres and Giants, who each shelled him twice. He had not faced either opponent in the prior two seasons as a starter. 

All of these indicators to me say that Mitre has the skills to be a solid to good major league starter. This signing has nothing but potential value to the Yankees. A kid this skilled doesn't become available for next to nothing very often. A pure upside move like this, when a kid has everything to prove, could help the Yankees tremendously when Mitre is ready to return midseason. 

If A.J. Burnett or Phil Hughes or Chien-Ming Wang go down in July or August, Mitre could come up and turn some heads. Or if Hughes and the crowd are ineffective and Mitre's pitching well in Scranton. Watch out for the former Marlin. He has some skills.