Andy Pettitte is a New York Yankee... again. The winningest pitcher in the post-season has returned after his self-inflicted one year "retirement" and has gotten to work reclaiming his spot in the rotation. Now, the current starting staff was already six men for five spots and this only makes that worse for Girardi and Rothschild, but as the old adage goes, "You can never have too much pitching." And while Cashman had been trying to throw some pretty big money ($10-12M for a year) at the big lefty from Texas over the last few winters, the Yanks signed Pettitte to minor league contract without incentives for $2.5M. This is clearly not about the money.

The announcement was made at the beginning of the Yanks/(g)Nats game yesterday afternoon (Yanks won 4-3 in 10); the story broken by YES's Jack Curry, although later in the day ESPN's Buster Olney took credit for it-- or tried to. And the joy of a spring training game meant that Cashman could be in the booth to talk about it, Girardi could be questioned about it on-camera and mid-game and Pettitte himself could call in discuss it with Yankee announcers Ken Singleton and John Flaherty.

And while there may have been some spin added to the tale (personally, my favorite part was that originally Michael Kay was being given some credit for at least verbally bringing the idea to Pettitte and Cashman, Pettitte either didn't know - or forgot - to credit the YES big-mouth much to the delight of me and Flaherty; I don't know how much of the chiding between the two men is serious, I know there's got to be a kernel of truth in there: Kay is just freaking annoying and he talks just way too much) this much is certainly true: If Pettitte returns to the rotation (most likely in May; he's been throwing but it's going to take some time to get his near-40 year old legs strong enough for pitching in the bigs) he will only do so if he can pitch like he did before he foolishly retired and if that be the case, we are talking about one of the better big-game pitchers we have ever seen.

And while I was pleased to think the rotation would be following the Rays path to youth and that the Yankees may have had 3/5 of their rotation 25 years of age or less, with Pettitte in there (Hughes seems the most likely to be moved to the bullpen but if he was feeling the heat yesterday, he sure responded with 4 very strong run-free innings in yesterday's win) that won't be the case. But with Pettitte in the rotation with CC, Kuroda et al a 28th World Championship feels very much within grasp this season. As a side note and with all hopes for a speedy recovery, not including AJ Burnett in this discussion is a great thing.

There's been some noise on the internet and sports pages that signing Pettitte is a sign of worry about the rotation which is just run of the mill, anti-Yankee sentiment. The rotation is healthy and it is strong and it is deep and it just got that much deeper -- and really for what amounts to a bargain in the current MLB clime.

I am really looking forward to seeing Andy Pettitte, cap pulled down low over his eyes, staring out from a mound again.

Thanks
Brian