And while there is snow on the ground and the locals are more excited about football -- or at least they were before the team from the neighboring state dismantled them -- it is but five weeks until pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training. And as far as the former part of the arrivees - the pitchers - the Yankees look pretty well set. With the winter priorities of re-signing Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Hiroki Kuroda, the Yankees have maintained the very good, albeit very aged, pitching staff. As for now, and perhaps through the duration of the overly long grapefruit league, who will be catching them on a daily basis yet to be seen. Right now it looks like a battle between some prospects and some erstwhile back-up backstops.

All last season everyone but the ghost of Earl Weaver got on the Bronx Bombers for their HR-reliant offense. The Yanks slugged their way to the division title and you can't blame a power outage per se for the failure against the Tigers in the ALCS-- the entire team pretty much stopped hitting. But with the long-ball threats lost this winter: Swisher, Martin, Chavez, Ibanez, and potentially for the season, A-Rod, the 2013 version of the Yanks will rely much more on the speed of Gardner and Ichiro to manufacture some of the runs that won't be trotting across the plate this year.

Cano, Texeira, Granderson and the incoming Youkilis will be relied upon the knock it out behind the place-setters. There very well may be more 3-2 games than 8-5 ones this season. But I would expect that GM Brian Cashman will answer the question of where the right-handed power will come this year before the opener vs. Boston on April 1st. Scott Hairston is the name that still keeps getting bandied about after a number of the guys the Yanks had been eyeballing - most recently seeing Fat Elvis (Lance Berkman) sign with the Rangers for a Yankee-esque $10M one-year deal with incentives. The thing with Hairston is that the guy has been saying all along that he wants to return across town to the Mets which speaks to where his heart and mind stand on where winning matters to the guy. Right?

I'll keep an eye and ear open on the above for y'all...

Cheers
B.