Source: NY Daily News

BY MARK FEINSAND
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Friday, April 13th 2007, 4:00 AM

OAKLAND - The Yankees instituted a new fitness program for their players this year, looking to enhance their performance on the field.

Instead, some wonder whether it has contributed to keeping several of the Bombers' biggest stars off the field, as a rash of injuries has hit the Yankees during the early weeks of the season.

Mike Mussina was the latest casualty, leaving Wednesday's game in Minneapolis with a strained left hamstring. He joined Bobby Abreu, Andy Pettitte, Chien-Ming Wang, Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui on the list of players who have suffered strains or pulls since spring training. That's 60% of the starting rotation plus the entire starting outfield.

"We have to deal with (the injuries), but I don't attribute it to our performance management team," GM Brian Cashman said. "Everything we've put in place has been to the benefit to our players."

Over the winter, Cashman got rid of Jeff Mangold, the Yanks' strength and conditioning coach for the previous nine seasons, and hired Marty Miller, who served as a minor league trainer for the Expos from 1995-97, to serve in the newly created position of director of performance enhancement.

Miller had not worked in baseball since leaving the Expos, spending the past nine years as the director of fitness at the Ballen Isles Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He has a master's degree from California University of Pennsylvania in performance enhancement and injury prevention.

"Marty isn't a baseball guy like Mangold was," said one player, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Marty has been given a lot of pull, and I think he's a little too gung-ho right now."

Cashman also hired Dana Cavalea, 24, to be the new assistant director of performance enhancement. Cavalea had served as a strength and conditioning coach under Mangold during spring training since 2003, but is now a member of the full-time staff.

During the first day of workouts with pitchers and catchers, the pair's pre-workout stretching program did not include any stretching exercises for the players' arms.

"Right off the bat, (Miller has) got a bad rap," said the player, who also called the team's current pregame stretch routine inadequate. "Pitchers and catchers out there not stretching their arms? Their thing is that the active stretch gets everything stretched out, but that's garbage."

Neither Miller nor Cavalea is permitted to speak with reporters, though Miller did an interview last week with the Palm Beach Post, his hometown paper.

"I've been able to come in here and really kind of change this whole department around," Miller told the paper.

According to the player, Miller and Cavalea have tried to force some of their program on players, many of whom have had successful careers for more than a decade. The response has been a combination of resistance and indifference.

"I think as Marty and Dana get more knowledge of the game, it will get better," the player said. "It's like a rookie pitcher coming to the majors: You might know a lot about pitching, but you don't know what you have to do to be successful at that level.

"They know a ton about conditioning, but they have to figure out how their strengths work into this situation," the player continued. "Mangold didn't have the knowledge that these guys have, but he took the workout that players wanted to do and he'd add things and tweak it."

In addition to the hiring of Miller and Cavalea, the Yankees entered into a 10-year strategic partnership with 24 Hour Fitness, a California-based fitness center company. According to the press release, one of 24 Hour Fitness' duties was the installation of a "state of the art fitness facility" at Yankee Stadium, but players have been less than impressed with the initial results.

"They've done a phenomenal job making the weight room nice," the player said. "Aesthetically it looks great, but functionally, there's nothing in there. You walk in there and there's four of the same machine and a bunch of empty space. What do you expect us to do in there?"

According to a team source, Pettitte was encouraged by either Miller or Cavalea to ditch the weight belt he usually wears while doing his routine squats, saying it would help him strengthen his stomach during the exercises. Pettitte injured his back while doing the squats, costing him 10days in spring training.

"None of these injuries have anything to do with this new program," Cashman said. "It's not anything that's putting anybody in jeopardy."

Cashman also noted that both Matsui and Damon suffered their strains during games played in temperatures in the 30s. Damon, whose calf strain caused him to leave the Yanks' season opener early and then miss the next two games, said Miller and Cavalea have been working hard to keep the players in shape, though he admitted that the unusual number of injuries "raises some eyebrows" in regard to the new fitness program.

A source said that George Steinbrenner was very upset about the multitude of injuries that have hit the team, but his spokesman, Howard Rubenstein, said the owner had no critical comments to make about the new fitness program. "He's not upset about it," Rubenstein said. "He said, 'Injuries happen.'"

Cashman has received positive feedback from some players, including Scott Proctor, Mariano Rivera and Carl Pavano, but he knows it might take some time for other players to come around.

"Cash is always trying to better the team any way he can," Proctor said. "This is a good investment; it just needs some time to take. Guys need to learn to trust it, and then it will be good for us."

"You can't change Rome in a day," Cashman said. "Does that mean all the guys are going to gravitate to them? No. We're not going to force them to switch their stuff ... if it's worked for them over the years."