For once, the story of the Yankees’ winter was what didn’t happen, as much as what did. George Steinbrenner didn’t go mad, didn’t let general manager Brian Cashman go, didn’t fire Joe Torre, or insist on an ill-advised trade for someone like Todd Helton. Instead, he quietly acquiesced to Cashman’s conditions for signing a contract extension, which were essentially that power over baseball decisions reside with the general manager rather than being spread across half the country and shifting with Steinbrenner’s whims.

That this was a surprising and novel development says most of what needs to be said about why the Yankees haven’t won a World Series since Bill Clinton was president, but the immediate effect is that the team is starting to look a bit more like a ball club than a video game in franchise mode. The team’s big off-season deal, signing center fielder Johnny Damon, came off like a glamour move because the charismatic Damon led the hated Red Sox to their first world championship in nearly a century two years ago, but it was in truth strictly a baseball move. Center field has been an enormous problem in recent years, both offensively and especially defensively, and Damon fills the hole perfectly.

Everyone is familiar with the Yankees’ weaknesses. They’re still a poor defensive club, the bench is thin, the rotation is a potential disaster, several offseason signings made the bullpen merely adequate, and a team this old has a significant chance of seeing several key players simply hit a wall at the same time. All that being so, the distance between the Yankees’ lineup and that of the Red Sox, baseball’s next most imposing offensive team, is comparable to the distance between the Red Sox and an average team; and a team’s pitching can only be considered so sketchy when its rotation is anchored by Randy Johnson and its bullpen by the incomparable Mariano Rivera. The caterwauling of New York’s baseball fans and press is simply the result of unreasonable expectations – this team has just as good a chance as any to win it all.

MANAGER

I’ve been somewhat halfheartedly saying the Yanks need a new skipper for a couple of years now, but I’m still not expecting it to happen any time soon. Some managers, like Tony LaRussa and Buck Showalter, insist that their teams reflect them; Joe Torre reflects his team. Like them, his enormous strengths are easy to ignore in the face of glaring and inexplicable flaws.

The problem with the way Torre has been running the team for the last several years is essentially that he’s become the push-button manager he was long (and unfairly) accused of being. The team goes only as far as its superstar talent takes it; it sometimes seems that unless a player is a multiple time All-Star, Torre can’t figure out any use for him. When presented with a hole in the lineup, Torre always defaults to the most obvious solution at hand, even if it doesn’t make any sense. (Witness last May’s experiment that landed Tony Womack in left field, Hideki Matsui in center, and Bernie Williams on the bench – which ended up, predictably enough, with Williams back in center, where he had no business playing.)

Torre is completely unable or unwilling to build sensible job-sharing arrangements; his idea of a platoon is letting one guy play until it’s clear he stinks, then running another guy out to do the same, then calling up some guy from Double-A to play for three days, then giving the job to the first guy who played his way out of it. He’s become an atrocious bullpen manager, completely willing to ride two setup men into the ground to avoid having to use inexperienced pitchers in pressure situations. And the team’s situational hitting-aside from Matsui and Derek Jeter, no one on the team ever seems to have a goal other than hitting a home run – also reflects badly on him.

Despite all of this, of course, the team wins 95 games every year – because of Torre, not in spite of him. Someone will figure all of this out some day.

BENCH

As usual, the Yanks will go with a ridiculously thin bench, out of which they’ll get even less use than they might because of Torre’s habits and practices, which involve assigning scandalously rigid roles to bad players and then not using them.

Andy Phillips,a 29-year-old righty who’s been slugging .600 in Columbus for years (that translates to about .480 in the Bronx, comparable to Jeter), will supposedly be getting at-bats as a designated hitter and top bat off the bench. I’ll believe he’ll be anything more than a defensive replacement for Jason Giambi when I see it. Bubba Crosby, while he has his merits as a defensive replacement in the outfield and pinch-runner, will be badly overstretched as the main reserve outfielder; he earned his Clay Bellinger card in last year’s 102 plate appearances, though, and will probably be filling the same role for the rest of the decade. Miguel Cairo is an older, worse version of Felix Escalona; neither utilityman will make anyone forget Enrique Wilson.

Rounding out this fearsome five some is Kelly Stinnett, who caught Randy Johnson for several years in Arizona and is perfectly qualified to do so every fifth day in New York. Nothing was funnier this winter and spring than the Yankees’ protests that he was definitely not a personal catcher brought in expressly for Johnson, who doesn’t like to pitch to Posada.

BULLPEN

Give the Yanks some credit; this year’s edition of the bullpen is significantly less feeble than those of the last few years, which consisted of Mariano Rivera, Tom Gordon, and, so far as anyone can tell, Whitey Ford, Ryne Duren, and Bob Turley.

The main improvement is that the personnel has been fitted to the system. Since Torre slots his relievers into specific roles no matter what, it’s a good thing that the likes of Mike Myers, an extreme lefty specialist, and Ron Villone, the prototypal utility pitcher, have been brought in. The pen will be further strengthened when Octavio Dotel, an elite closer when healthy, joins the team this summer after recovering from an elbow operation he had last year.

Best of all, though – and the sports editors of New York really need to send Cashman a bottle of champagne for this – the Yanks have brought on flame throwing Kyle Farnsworth, who in any given appearance might strike out the side with his 101-mph fastball or, with his eyes glazed and red, give up back-to-back upper deck shots. He is also guaranteed to use his martial arts skills on at least one hapless foe this summer. In all, Farnsworth, who routinely strikes out 11 per 9 innings, will likely prove an able, but much more entertaining, replacement for Gordon.

As to Rivera, who was the best pitcher in the league last year and is to my knowledge the only reliever ever to be considered a cinch first-ballot Hall of Famer while still in his prime, what is there to say?

tmarchman@nysun.com

Randy Johnson, LHP

The problem with building your pitching staff around a 42-year-old with a bad back, as the Yankees have found out, is that once you’ve done so you’re left with a pitching staff built around a 42-year-old with a bad back. If Johnson pitches even as well as he did last year, he will stabilize an incredibly sketchy rotation just by soaking up huge numbers of innings, resting the bullpen and being able to beat any team’s ace. That’s not at all a sure thing; Johnson has lost speed off his fastball and bite off his slider, and he can’t entirely compensate for that by adding different pitches and focus ing more on location. As he goes, so goes the staff.

2005 Stats
W-L IP H ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
17-8 225.2 207 102 32 47 211 3.79 1.13

Mike Mussina, RHP
[2006 PROJECTION: 11-9/4.00 ERA, 179.2 IP]

It’s time to give up any hopes that Mussina’s ever going to put together that one, unimpeachably brilliant Cy Young campaign for the Yankees; he’s now a 37-year-old who will have his days where he doesn’t break 90 with his fastball and can’t get anything else going. Even so, he’s an above average pitcher who on his best days can be dominant. The problem is that with the rotation in the state it’s in the team can’t really afford for him to go on what is now becoming an annual trip to the disabled list, and yet it can’t really afford to assume he’s not going to do so. For him more than for Johnson, the infield defense is absolutely crucial, and the Jeter/Cano combination isn’t really doing him many favors.

2005 Stats
W-L IP H ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
13-8 179.2 199 88 23 47 142 4.41 1.37

Shawn Chacon, RHP
[2006 PROJECTION: 8-9/4.84 ERA, 179.0 IP]

Like Wang’s, this projection should be taken with some skepticism, because what the computer doesn’t know is that Chacon is a curveball pitcher who before last summer spent his career in Colorado, which doesn’t just affect a pitcher’s numbers but also affects the break on their pitches. In truth, though, Chacon was hugely lucky last year; he’s nearly as extreme a flyball pitcher as Wang is a groundball one, he doesn’t strike people out, and a disproportionate number of balls hit off him found their way into fielder’s mitts last summer. He’s not as bad as his career numbers make him look, but that pretty 2.85 ERA he ran up in the Bronx may have expectations way too high.

2005 Stats
W-L IP H ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
7-3 79.0 66 25 7 18 40 2.85 1.22

Chien-Ming Wang, RHP
[2006 PROJECTION: 9-9/4.55 ERA, 151.0 IP]

Of all the projections on this page, this is the one I’d put by far the least amount of faith in, simply because Wang is such an unusual player. He strikes out about 4 batters per 9, absurdly low in today’s game and usually an indicator either of severe arm problems or a simple inability to pitch at the major league level. Wang just doesn’t need to strike people out; he has an incredibly nasty sinkerball and doesn’t walk anyone, leading to huge amounts of groundballs and very few home runs. The problems here are that after missing part of last year with shoulder problems and never having pitched more than 140 innings in a year, there’s no particular reason to think Wang’s going to be able to handle a #3 starter’s work load; there’s also, as there is for Mussina, the issue of the infield defense. Groundballs are good; groundballs that skip through a porous infield into an outfield stocked with below-average arms can be very bad.

2005 Stats
W-L IP H ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
8-5 116.1 113 52 9 32 47 4.02 1.25

Jaret Wright, RHP
[2006 PROJECTION: 5-6/5.07 ERA, 91.2 IP]

Jaret Wright is here merely as a placeholder for the cast of thousands that will march through the Yankee rotation, leaving the team with no chance whatever to win ballgames and leading to beautiful box scores that say things like, “1/3 IP; 9 R; 8 ER.” Wright, Carl Pavano (who recently bruised a buttcheek after falling on the mound while making a rehab start), Scott Proctor, and similarly hapless folks will wend their way through this slot, and their performance may (and I think will) prove the difference in the American League East. Some seem to think that Phillip Hughes, a 20-year-old who has yet to pitch above A-ball, is going to magically appear on the scene and nail this slot down, pitching with flair and gusto and establishing himself as the hottest thing in New York since Dwight Gooden. He’s not.

2005 Stats
W-L IP H ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
4-6 100.0 129 53 17 18 56 4.77 1.47

Johnny Damon

When the Yankees signed Damon, the one thing you heard on every barstool in town was that he’d give the Yankees their best leadoff hitter since Chuck Knoblauch. This begat a small backlash, as people pointed out that Derek Jeter has been leading off the last few years, and has actually been better than Damon at it. Of course, all of this was really a proxy debate over who really knows baseball – the guy who’s likely to tout on-base averages in an argument or the guy who’s likely to tout a hitter’s ability to hit the other way. Damon’s career batting line is .290 BA/.353 OBA/.431 SLG; his career highs are .327/.382/.495. Jeter’s career line is .316/.386/.461. At his best, Damon is about as good as Jeter is every year. Damon’s a valuable addition to the lineup because he’s a fine hitter and defender and exceptionally durable – but he’s not a better leadoff hitter.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
624 197 10 75 .316 .366 .439

Derek Jeter
[2006 PROJECTION: .298/.365/.431, 14 SB]

Jeter may be turning 32 this June, but fans should be worried – not by the intimation of mortality, but by the effects of age on defense. I’ve been agnostic about Jeter’s defense for a long while; I’ve never thought he looked as good in the field as his defenders thought – he’s never looked great moving laterally, and throws on the run too much – but the notion advanced by statistical analysts that he was the worst shortstop in history seemed preposterous. How could a team winning 100 games a year feature a historically bad defender at such a key position? After reading John Dewan’s “The Fielding Bible,” though, I’m a believer. Dewan had researchers watch every video of every play made in every game over the last few years, and chart every ball in play. Their findings? Jeter, far from a Gold Glover, is easily the worst defender in the game. There’s a reason that pitchers’ ERAs rise so dramatically when they come to New York, and it isn’t the pressure.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
654 202 19 70 .309 .389 .450

Alex Rodriguez
[2006 PROJECTION: .298/.391/.576, 43 HR]

Last year Rodriguez hit .351/.448/.666 in the Bronx, which is something like a left-handed pitcher putting up a sub-2.00 ERA in Fenway. 2006 was his greatest season yet, and he still had to apologize while accepting his well-deserved MVP trophy. According to the research referenced above, incidentally, the gap between Rodriguez and Jeter as defenders is about the same size as the gap between them as hitters. I know the horse has long since been turned to glue, but history will marvel at how the Yanks were willing to trade for Randy Johnson and sign Jason Giambi in their lust for a title, but they weren’t willing to put their best defense on the field.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
605 194 48 130 .321 .421 .610

Gary Sheffield
[2006 PROJECTION: .306/.392/.548, 114 RBI]

After the high jinks involving Randy Johnson’s non-personal catcher, the insanity surrounding Sheffield’s Sybil-like take on his contract extension was the next-most entertaining story surrounding the Yankees this spring. Sheffield, who’s been everything the Yanks could have hoped for over the last two years, has intimated he may do anything from refer to himself in the third person to play below his abilities if they don’t give him his guaranteed money. The Yanks, prudently figuring he might get hurt or fall off a cliff, being as he’s 37, don’t want to guarantee the option yet. One suspects that either way, Sheffield will generate silly headlines and hit the ball harder than anyone else in baseball.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
584 170 34 123 .291 .379 .512

Jason Giambi
[2006 PROJECTION: .251/.395/.492, 72 RUNS]

You heard it said last summer: While Giambi was on one of the more unbelievable hitting tears seen in New York in years, he’d rediscovered his swing, opening up his hips so he could drive the ball to the other field instead of being so pull-conscious. The result? In 2005, every one of his home runs in Yankee Stadium went to right field, and all but two of his doubles were also pulled. All the jargon about taking the ball to all fields (true enough of his singles, which were well distributed) obscured the fact that he was beating the holy hell out of the ball and getting on once per game via walk or hit by pitch. He has about as little value as a guy who hits as well as he does can have, but he and Rodriguez are the engines that drive this lineup.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
417 113 32 87 .271 .440 .535

Hideki Matsui
[2006 PROJECTION: .289/.361/.464, 72 RBI]

Would you believe that the most statistically similar player to Matsui is Paul O’Neill? Like his warhorse predecessor, Matsui can be a bit over mythologized by the faithful – he’s a lot more Cliff Floyd than he is Manny Ramirez – but it’s a good thing to know he’ll be in New York for three more years, hitting line drives with that vicious, level stroke and oddly combining sloth-like foot speed with the sort of bag-cutting more commonly associated with sprinters.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
629 192 23 116 .305 .367 .496

Jorge Posada
[2006 PROJECTION: .266/.372/.449, 18 HR]

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. On a per-at bat basis, Posada was about as good a hitter as A-Rod was in 2003 and 2004. Last year, when he was merely a better hitter than any catcher in the NL, people started to realize just how good he was. Posada circa 2003 isn’t coming back, though he can still hit a ton. But he also exemplifies a problem that could become a crisis for the Yankees: What to do with a loyal, long-serving player whose performance has slipped from MVP-level to All-Star level and could possibly slip be low average at any time? You don’t just get rid of a player like Posada because he’s no longer one of the 20 or so best players in baseball, but you also can’t keep him around because of what he’s done for you in the past. Hopefully, Cashman’s increased power will lead to wiser solutions to such dilemmas, though the treatment the next player has received doesn’t offer much hope.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
474 124 19 71 .262 .352 .430

Bernie Williams
[2006 PROJECTION: .261/.335/.384, 53 R]

If you saw the above projection for a middle infielder, you’d want to know a few things about him: How’s his defense? How’s his speed? Is he durable? When you see a line like that attached to a designated hitter, it’s just not acceptable. And especially not when the line actually represents an improvement. (He hit .249/.321/.367 last year.)

No one likes that it’s come to this; a few years ago, Williams hurt his knee, came back too early, and he hasn’t been the same player since, probably costing him a plaque in Cooperstown. Every one always assumed he’d age exceptionally gracefully, and that by now he’d be a Matsui-type hitter playing an outfield corner or first base, rather than a shell of the ballplayer he once was. If the team is going to keep him on board out of loyalty and respect, that’s a wonderful thing for which they deserve all credit, but giving him a role as the main DH and outfield reserve for which he’s just not good enough anymore isn’t doing him, the team, or the fans any favors.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
485 121 12 64 .249 .321 .367

Robinson Cano
[2006 PROJECTION: .283/.316/.425, 72 RBI]

If you want a litmus test as to whether someone has any idea what they’re talking about when it comes to the Yankees, ask them about Cano. Sane people recognize that 23-year-old middle infielders with passable gloves, decent power, and good contact skills are extremely rare and valuable. Others will swear that if he doesn’t shape up he’ll be in Columbus by July, and that he’ll need to hit double his weight to even be an average offensive player. All of this is ridiculous. Cando walked only 16 times in 544 plate appearances last year, an exceptionally poor rate. But he also struck out only 68 times and, most important, was a league average hitter, which is of course above average for a second baseman. On any other team Cano would be recognized for what he is: Flawed, exciting, and immensely gifted.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
522 155 14 62 .297 .320 .458