It says something about how the Yankees have run their franchise over the last few years that it’s impossible to pay them a straightforward compliment without it coming off as snide and backhanded, but here it is: The team’s lack of activity so far this off-season has been not only refreshing, but admirable. Should it continue until spring training, team management might even gain some credibility.

Two winters ago, the Yankees went on a spending bonanza, picking up Gary Sheffield, Javier Vazquez, and Alex Rodriguez. None of the moves required much imagination. Left last season without equally obvious ways of filling holes at second base and in the starting rotation, the Yanks somehow came up with Tony Womack, Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, and Jaret Wright. The world laughed at the Bronx brain trust as these players predictably failed to perform in the roles they’d been signed to fill.

All this while the Yankees played with a two-man bullpen and essentially no center fielder. Coming into this off-season, any fan might have feared that with tens of millions of dollars in payroll coming off the books, the team would go on yet another insane spending spree, signing pricey, inadequate, and elderly players to deals that would clog the roster for years to come. The specter of Johnny Damon rolling balls in from center field loomed large – as did, more to the point, the specter of a 38-year-old Damon stumbling around in center field several years hence while being paid $20 million to do so.

All told, though – and this is something of a surprise – despite the presence of exactly the sort of second- and third-tier players the Yanks have been wont to overpay in the last few years on the free agent market (Damon, A.J. Burnett, Paul Konerko), the team has yet to do anything head-slappingly silly. They don’t seem eager to trade Robinson Cano, who for all his flaws posted a league-average OPS last year as a 22-year-old while playing a decent second base, making him one of the more valuable commodities around. And most important, they seem honestly prepared to go into next season with some obvious holes rather than make empty gestures meant to give the appearance of filling those holes.

This gives the Yankees one bit of leverage they haven’t had over the last few years – the ability to say “no.” Rumors have the team talking to the Florida Marlins about Juan Pierre, for instance, which makes sense. The Marlins are getting rid of their veterans, and Pierre is just the sort of solid player – one with a decent glove and a reasonable on-base average – the Yankees should be looking for to fill their vacancy in center field.

In years past, the team would have become fixated nabbing Pierre at any price, and made a ridiculous deal. Now, they seem content to let Bubba Crosby start the year in center if a reasonable bargain can’t be struck for Pierre. This is sensible. Pierre is much better than Crosby, but over the course of a year, the difference isn’t a lot more than a couple of wins – not a big deal for a team that looks like a decent bet to win 90 anyway. Keeping the difference between these sorts of players in mind is important for any team, no matter its payroll – it’s what keeps a team from making mistakes.

The Yankees also have another bit of leverage that’s less noticeable but perhaps just as important. They seem committed to not run away from their mistakes this year. In recent seasons, the team has felt constrained enough to acquire various veterans, while ridding itself of others. This has led to the exodus of Vazquez, Kenny Lofton, Jose Contreras, Orlando Hernandez, Andy Pettitte, and others who proved better than their replacements.

Note that the Yankees are in no mad rush to trade Pavano and Wright this year. Both are wildly overpaid, but also perfectly acceptable back-of-the rotation starters, and perhaps a bit better than that. There’s no need to trade them for flotsam and jetsam simply to replace them with equivalent pitchers like the Angels’ Jarrod Washburn; the Yankees seem finally to have realized this.

In all, the do nothing plan (or do little plan – the team did sign flakey reliever Kyle Farnsworth last week to a three-year deal worth $17 million to replace Tom Gordon, which he’s unlikely to do adequately) is a perfectly sound strategy for a team coming off a 95-win season, one with seven hitters who are well-above-average for their positions and six starters likely to be anywhere from good to excellent.

The frenzy surrounding this organization is understandable; for all the criticism it gets for giving in to the madness, it deserves as much credit when it manages to tune out the noise and focus on not fumbling the ball.