Jeter's Latest Return Goes Mostly Unnoticed

Was it just me or was Derek Jeter's return to the lineup last night not even a blip on the radar?  Other than typing his last name into the batting order, I didn't even think about him in terms of having an impact on the game.  Jeter made it easy to not be considered, going 0-3 at the plate with a walk, strikeout, and GIDP and not doing anything noteworthy defensively for better or worse.  The best thing you could say about last night is at least Jeter came through the game healthy.  That's how low the bar has been set for him.

After 3 attempted comebacks, the novelty of Jeter returning has worn off.  This entire season has been a wasted one for him - he's played more MiL rehab games than Major League games - and the bigger concern now is how this lost season and the nonstop leg issues will affect him in 2014.  Expecting Jeter to provide a boost to the team is almost empty hope at this point and that was more apparent last night than in any of his other previous comeback attempts.  If he can manage to finish the season on the field and not the DL, that's about the best we can hope for.

Looking Forward To Brett Gardner's Return

(You might need that helmet, dude.  Courtesy of Jim McIsaac/Newsday)

Brett Gardner became the first of the Yankees' 5 remaining arbitration eligible players to avoid it yesterday and sign a new deal for 2013, guaranteeing that no matter what warm body the Yankees stick in right field next season, they'll at least have their 2 returning starters in center and left.  As it was with Michael Pineda and Mariano Rivera, 2012 was basically a lost season for Gardner.  He had just 37 plate appearances in 16 games before suffering the elbow injury that eventually ended his season.  But Gardner swung the bat well in those 37 PA, hitting .323/.417/.387 and scoring 7 runs.  The figures of Gardner's new deal have yet to be disclosed, but with him playing so few games last year I can't imagine he'll get much of a raise from the $2.8 mil he made, if he even gets a raise at all.  With what he did in 2010 and 2011, the possibility of Gardner coming back and playing a full season at that price tag is exciting and could end up being very beneficial to the Yankees.

BREAKING NEWS: Yankees Re-Sign Mariano Rivera

(The G.O.A.T.)

And Operation Old Guys is complete.  A day after the Yankees re-signed Andy Pettitte to a 1-year deal, they followed that up by officially re-signing Mariano Rivera.

Jon Heyman first reported the deal, which will be for a base salary of $10 million, $2 million less than Pettitte got.  Dan Barbarisi reported that the deal does include award bonuses, with rumors of them being near $5 million.  Mo will get another chance to retire on his terms.

For the Yankees, this all but completes their 2012 bullpen.  They'll need a long man, but will have plenty of options for that spot.  There's no guarantee that he'll be as dominant as he's always been, but based just on the numbers, you have to somewhat expect Mo will at least be good.

For the fans, this is another opportunity to watch the greatest closer in the history of baseball one more time. I promised myself if he came back I was going to make sure to go to a game next season to watch him one more time and now I have my chance.  Time to start scouting the schedule...

Andy Starts Offseason Workouts

The next, and possibly final, piece of the 2013 rotation puzzle may be starting to get put into place.  At least that's how a positive-thinking person would take Mark Feinsand's report Sunday about Andy Pettitte starting his offseason workout program as a test to see how his body responds and see if he thinks it will hold up for another season.  After the earlier report that Pettitte would make his decision sometime this week, this latest news makes it look more like we're going to see the lefty back in pinstripes for one more season.  There's no guarantee, but there are 2 big things to take away from this:

BREAKING NEWS: He's BAAAAAaaaaaack (Again)

Via George King of the NY Post:

"The iconic closer told Yankees general manager Brian Cashman on Friday that he wants to return in 2013."

That's good enough for me.  My expectation all along has been that Mo was going to honor his word and come back for 2013 after not being able to go out on his own terms this season.  But there was a bit of doubt cast recently after reports of Mo having second thoughts.  Cash said he wasn't surprised, and I'm not either, but hearing it from someone as closely involved as Cash makes it all but official.  For one more year, we'll get the privilege of watching the G.O.A.T do his thing.

Mo Unsure About His Comeback

Via Andrew Marchand:

"Cashman told ESPN New York that on Tuesday he and Rivera had a conversation in which Rivera said he does not know yet if he will return for a 19th season.

'He wasn't certain on what he is going to do,' Cashman said."

Alright, who changed the program on RoboMo to let it think it could actually retire?  Not cool, guys.  Not cool.

At first I thought this was just another classic exercise of Marchand pot stirring for pageviews, but the quote directly from Cash does make this a little more legitimate.  That being said, I wouldn't get too concerned yet until we hear something directly from Mo's mouth.  He's had this three-act offseason play after the last few seasons where he's up in the air on whether he wants to keep playing.  Act 1 is the uncertainty and desire to stay home and spend more time with his family, act 2 is the actual spending of time with said family, and act 3 is Mo getting the itch to pitch again and coming back.  Rinse, repeat.

Besides, what the hell is he really going to do at home with his family with all that extra free time?  There's nobody at his home who he can teach the cutter to.  Don't worry about the G.O.A.T.  My money's still on him coming back.

Mark Teixeira Will Return Tonight, But At What Capacity?

(Calf strain face.  Used courtesy of Reuters)

The situation never looked promising after the second injury to his calf and the snail's pace recovery process, and I still have a tremendous amount of trepidation thinking about how that calf is going to hold up to a regular MLB workload after a few instructional league games, but for the first time since September 8th, Mark Teixeira's name will be penciled into the Yankee lineup card tonight.  In a perfect world, one in which the Yankees held the comfortable division lead that they should hold, He'd probably be held out until the first division series round to make sure he had as much time as possible to rehab.  But with every game being a must-win this week, the Yankees have to roll the dice with Teix and hope he can provide something.  What kind of results can we expect on that roll?  It's tough to say.

What To Expect From Andy, Again

(He's already been struck down.  Does he come back more powerful than we could possibly imagine tonight?)

We've already had to do this once this season, and that was pretty damn unexpected, so just paint me completely shocked that it's the year 2012 and I'm writing my SECOND Andy Pettitte comeback post of the year.  After telling retirement to pound sand in the spring, and showing he had plenty left in the tank in 58.2 innings over 9 starts, Andy was sidelined in late June thanks to a line drive off the bat of Casey Kotchman that fractured his ankle.  He's worked diligently to make it back to the mound before the end of the regular season, and despite my skepticism that work will be complete tonight when Andy makes his return start against Toronto.  So what should we expect this time?

How's That For A Return?

An efficient 85 pitches in 6 innings; only 6 baserunners allowed in those 6 innings; fastballs located down in the strike zone; curveballs dropping out of the zone; 15 swinging strikes out of 53; 8 strikeouts; 2 runs allowed.

Dare I say Ivan Nova's first start since August 21st was...

Super?

Andy Takes The Mound Today

“I bounced back pretty good after that last one, so we feel like an inning would be good tomorrow. I realized I feel good enough to pitch.”

And with that statement, it became official that Andy Pettitte would pitch in Spring Training.  He's been working hard since the day he announced he was coming back- going through drills and exercises to build up strength, throwing bullpens, throwing BP, throwing simulated games- and now that tomorrow has become today and today Andy Pettitte will once again take the hill as a New York Yankee.

I know I wasn't as super-jacked as most other people about Andy's return when it was first announced.  I kept looking at it strictly from a baseball perspective, probably too much of a future baseball perspective, and I questioned whether mixing Andy in with the young stable of pitchers would help or hurt their development if they ended up being the one who was kicked out of the rotation for him.  As it turns out, that was the wrong way to think about it and it was an incredibly smart move to make by the Yankees.  For someone like Andy, it was wrong of me to put my fan side aside for the baseball side and question people's motivations.  Just another example of why Cash is making the baseball decisions I'm sitting at a desk writing a blog.

When Andy retired, I honestly thought it was for good.  The timing was right, he had nothing left to prove, and there hadn't been any hints that he was even remotely interested in coming back until he popped up at camp this year.  As much as we all didn't want to see him go, he really had no reason to stay, at least until last December when he got the itch again.  Now he's back, he's healthy, and he looks good so far, almost like he never left.

I have no way of knowing how Andy is going to pitch today against the Mets or this season against everybody else at age 40. None of us do.  But right now, I really don't even care about that.  This afternoon, something is going to happen that I never thought I would see happen again.  Andy Pettitte, one of my favorite Yankees of all time, is going to take the mound and pitch in a Major League Baseball game wearing the Yankee colors, and that's pretty damn cool.

(Quote courtesy of The AP)