Having wrested full control of the New York Yankees' baseball operations over the past 18 months, GM Brian Cashman is running a leaner, less reactionary organization. His stockpiling of young pitchers this winter is bad news for the rest of baseball. The Yankees are difficult enough to contend with because of advantages in resources. Give them homegrown young pitching and patience and they become even more of a threat.
But Cashman's intentions will be severely tested in the next four months. Starting out the season, he plans to devote two-fifths of his team's starts to Kei Igawa, who some teams wrote off as "an NL West pitcher" (i.e., suited to bigger ballparks and weaker lineups), and Carl Pavano, who has made 17 starts and no friends in his own clubhouse over two seasons with the Yankees. And if either of those choices don't work, Cashman has Darrell Rasner (four career starts) and Jeff Karstens (six career starts) standing by.
Here is Cashman's problem: his two best options for those rotation spots should be off limits until June: 20-year-old phenom Philip Hughes (he'll be 21 in June) and 44-year-old legend Roger Clemens. Can Cashman continue to remain patient through the first third of the season while Hughes tears up Triple-A and Clemens waits until he's ready to pitch? While Cashman might have no control over when Clemens pitches -- it won't be in April -- he does have the power to bring Hughes up to the big leagues prematurely, which would be a huge mistake and a departure from the plan of calculated patience that Cashman has developed.
"I wouldn't mind if Philip Hughes spent the full season in Triple-A," Cashman said before leaving on a vacation this week -- yet another sign of his acquisition of power. A Yankees GM leaving on a vacation four weeks before spring training used to be unheard of. "We're going to sit down soon with [pitching coordinator] Nardi Contreras and map out some plans that will be in place when we get to spring training Feb. 13. If Philip Hughes spends a full season in Triple-A, that's not a bad thing."
Hughes, of course, is too good and New York's rotation too fragile for the Yankees not to touch him all season. But Cashman must know he is risking Hughes' development and health if he brings him to New York when the season starts. This is the same pitcher on which the Yankees put a short leash in the second half of last season to keep him under 150 innings. Hughes generally was pulled after five innings or about 80 pitches, whichever came first. And now he's going to make the Opening Day rotation? Cashman may be too smart for that, but don't think he won't get pressure to carry Hughes once the media and coaching staff see him in big league camp. Actually, Cashman revealed, it happened last year already.
"Joe Torre called up after the Anaheim series [in late August] when we were stretched for pitchers and said, "What about bringing up Hughes?''' Cashman said. "On the next homestand, Gator [pitching coach Ron Guidry] asked me about bringing up Hughes to help out the staff. I joked with him and said, 'Nope. I'm saving him for the next pitching coach."'
The plan that Cashman and Contreras map out for Hughes in the coming weeks should look something like this: Tell Hughes and the major league staff he has no chance of making the big league club coming out of spring training, no matter how well he pitches -- this reduces the chances of Hughes overthrowing to try to make the club -- and send him to Triple-A with the same pitch limits he had in place last season. The Red Sox used a similar plan with Jon Lester last season.
Hughes can help the Yankees in the second half, but only if he doesn't load up on innings in the minor leagues. The Yankees should budget Hughes for about 180 innings this year, postseason included. Better to cut back on those innings early in the cold of Scranton rather than late in New York.
Here's a good office pool to start among Yankees fans: Who makes a start for the Yankees this season first, Hughes or Clemens? The Rocket is not likely to be seen in any big league ballpark until June, the schedule that worked so well for him last season when he posted a 2.30 ERA in 19 starts.
"I would think spring training would definitely be out," said Andy Pettitte, the Yankees left-hander and friend of Clemens, about the Rocket's plans. "I don't think he's thinking he's heading to camp in the next three weeks."
Clemens does intend to pitch again. He is "working out like a maniac" with his son Koby, an infielder in the Houston system, according to a source close to Clemens, and is throwing batting practice regularly. Clemens plans to attend an Astros' mini-camp for pitchers, most of whom are minor leaguers, at the end of this month at Minute Maid Park. He is likely to keep his arm in shape throwing to hitters and working with young pitchers at the Astros' minor league facility this spring.
It is unlikely that Clemens will decide where to play until after the season begins, and then he will require a three-week program, including minor league starts, to be major-league ready. He will choose among the Astros, Yankees and Red Sox. Boston, according to one source familiar with talks, have "not been as aggressive as last year." The Red Sox were so eager to sign Clemens last year that they essentially gave him freedom to write his own job description. In one scenario, for example, Clemens would have been paid $1 million per start to pitch only on Sundays, with permission to leave the team in between starts.
The Red Sox may not be so aggressive this time around because of the addition of Daisuke Matsuzaka, but they still offer Clemens a unique storybook-style end to his career: to finish it where it began, to pass Cy Young as the franchise leader in wins, to have his No. 21 retired and to go into the Hall of Fame representing the Red Sox.
Meanwhile, Clemens will keep the Astros under surveillance during the first two months of the season to see if they are a strong contender and if their popgun offense that wasted many of his strong starts last season has improved. Houston was the worst-hitting team in the NL in 2006 while scoring fewer runs than every team except Milwaukee and San Diego.
The Yankees, meanwhile, are quietly monitoring Clemens and his progress. Clemens does maintain contact with a few Yankees, especially Pettitte and Derek Jeter.
As the Yankees wait on Clemens and Hughes, their spring training camp and the 24 starts in April and May that go to anybody not named Chien Ming Wang, Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte make for a new kind of drama around New York. Make no mistake, this is Cashman's team through and through these days. How he navigates the uncertainties in his rotation while resisting the promotion of Hughes and the waiting game on Clemens will be the toughest test yet of his patient approach.
