Even by their own high standards, the Yankees have had an absurd winter. Alex Rodriguez quits the Yankees during the World Series. Hank Steinbrenner bloviates about pride and tradition. Steinbrenner gives Joe Torre an even more graceless send-off than the one Del Webb gave Casey Stengel in 1960. Steinbrenner offers up young pitchers for Johan Santana. Steinbrenner signs Alex Rodriguez. Steinbrenner withdraws his offers of young pitching. Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens are accused of being drug fiends and summoned before Congress. Lost in the great blustering winds blowing in from Washington and the Bronx is just how good the Yankees are; it’s obscene for a team so rich to have this kind of young pitching talent. Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain, arguably the two most promising starters in the sport, and Ian Kennedy, a fine prospect in his own right, between them will make less than $3 million during the next two years. The Yankees have played in October for 13 straight years, and they might make it 20 with players just now breaking into the majors. It’s been a long time since the days of Stump Merrill and Hensley “Bam-Bam” Meulens.

The Yankees won’t need luck to make it 14 straight, but they will need for a few things not to go wrong. Three questions, then, about what those things might be.

1. Is Steinbrenner going to make out the lineup card?

The most troubling thing about the Yankees’ winter is that the team’s senior vice-president has acquired a habit of expressing his opinions on matters like whether Chamberlain should pitch out of the bullpen or in the rotation, and of talking about trades as if he was in charge of making them.

Like any bureaucracy, a baseball team needs unity of command. The general manager and the manager have to have autonomy over certain decisions. When a meddlesome owner becomes convinced that despite his lack of any professional background in baseball operations he is qualified to make personnel decisions and negotiate trades, you end up with the Baltimore Orioles.

Steinbrenner’s opinion on whether or not Chamberlain should start is really no more relevant than yours or mine, and in practice it should, and likely will be, treated as such. Just by expressing it, though, Steinbrenner degrades the authority of general manager Brian Cashman, as he did when he allowed Cashman to state, completely unequivocally, that the Yankees would not resign Rodriguez if he opted out of his contract. These are rookie mistakes, and Steinbrenner will probably stop making them, but he could do structural damage to an exceptionally successful front office before he’s through.

2. Remember Generation K?

A decade ago, the Mets’ Paul Wilson, Jason Isringhausen, and Bill Pulsipher were nearly as promising a troika as Hughes, Chamberlain, and Kennedy are now. They weren’t just hype — despite losing their stuff and their health to Job-like trials including depression, tuberculosis, blown elbow ligaments, and more, all three were able to muddle through and make careers for themselves, a testament to how good they could have been.

The Yankees’ three prodigies are in good hands. The team has proved it will not overwork them, manager Joe Girardi has had a hand in developing some excellent young staffs during his career, and even Steinbrenner has stressed patience and care in dealing with the inevitable ups and downs that come with young pitching. Still, as the fate of Generation K goes, it’s best not to count on too much from three prospects who haven’t, between them, pitched 150 major league innings in their careers.

The problem for the Yankees is that they are counting on them. Chien-Ming Wang, Pettitte, and Mike Mussina cannot pitch this team into the playoffs alone. It’s a courageous move, one fans should support, but the team truly is staking October on the kids.

3. What if 95 games isn’t enough?

The biggest question facing the Yankees is one that may be completely out of their control. As good as the Yankees are, the Boston Red Sox are a little bit better, and the Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers, young teams with dominant offensive talent and ferocious ace pitchers, both look like monsters. There are three playoff spots for these four teams. The Yankees could exceed expectations in every way and still miss out on October.

Cashman and Steinbrenner showed admirable restraint in holding on to young talent even with Santana at stake. With such brutal competition, though, will they be able to do so even when they’re three games out and short two veterans in July? And who exactly will be making that decision?

tmarchman@nysun.com