And the vigil begins tomorrow:

GM Brian Cashman will meet with New York Yankees co-owners Hal and Hank Steinbrenner on Monday in Tampa as the Yankees try to figure out how to win World Series No. 28 next season.

The meetings are expected to take two days, but could go longer. Later in the week, in New York, Cashman will also gather with his scouts to determine the best course of action in terms of which players the Yankees should keep and which they should go after.

This did have me chuckling to myself:

Cashman said he doesn’t put any monetary value on milestones. Jeter is likely going to become the first Yankee with 3,000 hits.

Yet, ARod’s contract is so grossly laden with milestone bonuses, it only makes Hank’s fingerprints on the ARod deal that much more indelible. Per Cot’s Contracts:

$30M marketing agreement based on home run milestones ($6M each for reaching 660, 714, 755 and tying and breaking major league HR record)

I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Baseball, to the informed observer, appears to be a straightforward game. Pitcher throws the ball, batter hits the ball, and fielders move toward the ball while batter runs around the bases. There are, of course, a myriad of things that can happen between them, and important to this post, there are a number of ways of seeing, experiencing, and deriving meaning from that play. This post isn’t going to be about small ball or waiting around for the three-run homer. It’s about describing the various reasons we watch/play baseball and, most importantly, the meaning of baseball to everyone involved in the process. At the end we may even learn something from this exercise.

It’s Just a Game

This is probably the most common perception of baseball, but I’m not sure we really understand what that means. When most of us think of baseball, we head back to the fields of our youths, and the inexplicable joy we got from playing baseball. We won. We lost. We learned about teamwork and sportsmanship. Baseball was just a game. This philosophy gives the game a childlike sense of simplicity, and it’s the purest and most innocent of the philosophies. At the end of the day, this philosophy allows us to go home and sleep easy. No judgments are passed, and we accept the outcome, no matter what it is or how it came to be, because it just doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that enjoyment is derived from the experience, which happens because it is a game.

As such, baseball is not equivalent to the MLB. Major League Baseball is a constructed form of baseball, and while it promotes the fact that it has the best players in the world, it only has the best players in the world under certain conditions. Because the MLB is powerful and holds substantial economic sway in the baseball world, the changes it makes are also usually made in the lower levels because an ultimate goal of those lower levels is to send players to the MLB (again, because of the economic benefits). Baseball, however, can be found elsewhere. As a game, someone may decide that Little League, European, Cuban, or Japanese (these are only examples and not the totality of types) baseball is the best or purest form of baseball. They are allowed to believe that. We all have different ideas on how the game should be played, and that may not always be the MLB or American baseball. This recently cost the MLB a good fan because he didn’t like the direction the MLB was headed, and my response to him was that he was not mad at baseball. He was mad at the MLB, and he should find a form of baseball closer to his beliefs on what baseball is.

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Before we get into the offseason stuff full bore, probably about the time the World Series ends, let’s take a second to look at what the Yankees did last year.

For the most part, a lot of Yankees fans regard the 2009-10 offseason as a failure, more or less, full of acquisitions that didn’t pan out to well and bad decisions by general manager Brian Cashman. Cashman himself even fessed up to not having a very good winter in his end-of-the-year press conference last week. Far be it from me to argue with the man himself, but I think Cashman may have been understating the degree to which last offseason’s moves didn’t work just to avoid picking a battle over something minor. All in all, I think the Yankees did about as good of a job as they could have.

There’s 2 important factors to keep in mind when evaluating any transaction; value and alternatives. Both are pretty straight-forward aren’t they. Is they player you’re acquiring worth what you’re giving up for them, and are there any alternatives who are either better than what you are getting or are simply a better value at the cost? Any objective measurement of a move has to filter principally through these two prisms. So with that in mind, let’s look at some of the moves Cashman made last year and grade them.

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Yes, ratings for the WS are, so far, below last year’s ratings. Is this any surprise? Take out two of the largest markets and ratings will slide.

Game 1 of the World Series was the top-rated program on television last night, and drew the fifth-largest prime time audience of the week. Among Adults 18-49, last night’s game averaged a 4.7 rating to give FOX its best night of prime time television in that demographic since the network’s American Idol finale in May.

Even so, compared to last year’s World Series Game 1, last night’s audience was down 25 percent in ratings and down 23 percent on average audience. Compared to the last non-Yankees World Series Game 1 — Phillies-Rays in 2008 — the opener was up 3 percent on viewership.

But the bigger question: Should you care? I say no.

Baseball’s as healthy as ever, despite all attempts to kill it and all dumb ideas that threaten its progress (or disguised as progress).

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Mark it down in your calendars folks, I’m speechless. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

According to major-league sources, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria was intent on making Guillen his next manager. Talks, sources say, progressed to the point that there was discussion of executing a trade that would send Guillen, who has a year left on his contract, to the Marlins for 20-year-old outfielder Mike Stanton, who hit 22 home runs and knocked in 59 runs in just 100 games as a rookie this season.

After Guillen met with chairman Jerry Reinsdorf late in the season and agreed to return to the Sox in 2011 — but not getting a desired extension — the Marlins talks died, sources say.

I’m parsing this a little bit, but it sounds to me like the Marlins offered to trade Stanton for Guillen…and the White Sox picked Ozzie! This is madness. I thought it would be hard for the White Sox to top the Swisher trade, but if this is true, it’s a lot worse than that. But it’s even worse for Florida to have entertained the idea. And to think, these two franchises have accounted for 3 world championships since 1997.

This is the stuff to remember the next time you think negative thoughts about Brian Cashman.

The New York Times is reporting that San Francisco Giants’ outfielder Jose Guillen has been linked to a federal investigation into shipments of human growth hormone (or HGH).

Is this just another story of a baseball player with ties to performance-enhancing drugs? Or in this case, a story of a ballplayer using a performance-enhancing drug that may not really enhance performance? No, there’s a bit more to this story.

You see, in this case the feds apparently tipped off Major League Baseball that Guillen was under investigation. Major League Baseball then tipped off the Giants. The Giants then removed Guillen from their post-season roster. You may have noticed, Guillen did not play in the division or championship series, and he’s not playing in the World Series.

Is there anything more to this story? Perhaps. MLB Trade Rumors reports that Commissioner Bud Selig “suggested” to the Giants that Guillen be removed from San Francisco’s postseason roster. The New York Times is more blunt in its assessment. According to the Times, the Giants were “directed” by Bud Selig to keep Guillen off the roster.

If this is true, we have quite a story on our hands. Did Commissioner Bud Selig order the Giants to drop a player from their roster, based solely on the player being under federal investigation? Without proof beyond a reasonable doubt, or even proof by a preponderance of the evidence? Without even giving the player a chance to defend himself?

Wow. Can the Commissioner of Baseball really do that?

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This appears to be something of an off-day for us, with everyone being busy with various things. So here’s an open thread to talk about whatever you want to talk about. Whether it’s Joe Girardi and the Binder of Doom, the World Series, potential offseason moves, crazy trades you want to make. You name it, it’s all fair game here.

We knew it wasn’t going to take long, and we new the basic parameters of what the deal was going to be, but the Yankees and manager Joe Girardi have reportedly agreed on a 3 year contract worth $9 million for Girardi to return as manager. Mark Feinsand was first with the news.

General manager Brian Cashman had called re-signing Girardi his first priority this offseason, and with this out of the way and the team already deciding to decline the options they held on Lance Berkman, Kerry Wood, and Nick Johnson, focus would not appear to shift to working out new contracts with Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera.

This is simply a must-read for anyone suffering from the Cablevision/Fox dance to the death:

More worrisome for cable companies is the potential for disintermediation via the Internet. MLB.tv was the first instance of a league selling broadcasts direct to fans. Sites like Hulu (co-owned by News Corp and NBC Universal) can deliver television programming direct to consumers bypassing the cable companies and their competitors. In addition Apple, Netflix and Amazon offer streaming options that can be viewed with set top boxes or video game systems. Roku’s set-top boxes which stream Netflix, Amazon as well as MLB.tv, will soon add Hulu, and the full disintermediation will have begun.

[...]

This move by Fox to gain a greater piece of subscriber fees is geared towards using the cable companies to finance building an infrastructure to go direct. By continuing this fight, Cablevision is antagonizing their suppliers and their customers. Never a particularly good recipe for staying in business.

Very interesting stuff.

No real stunning news, just the expected declining of options on Mssrs. Wood, Berkman and Nick Johnson. Says Aaron Gleeman:

Berkman’s contract included a $15 million team option or $2 million buyout for 2011, but as part of his accepting a trade to the Yankees it was changed to a mutual option. New York made it a moot point by declining their end after he hit just .255/.358/.349 in 37 games after the trade.

Wood’s deal contained an $11 million option for 2011, but with no buyout required that was a no-brainer to decline.

Johnson had a $5.25 million mutual option for 2011, which is actually slightly less than he earned this season, but the Yankees chose a $250,000 buyout after the oft-injured first baseman missed nearly the entire season following wrist surgery.

I’d like to see a way to re-sign Wood but there will be some team begging to pay him to close games and that pays better than being Mo’s opening act. I wish Berkman regained his form from a few years ago, but it wasn’t meant to be. I’ll bite my tongue on all Nick Johnson-related comments from here on out.

Yesterday I took a look back at the players who were particularly helpful to the Yankees in 2010, or represented organizational bright spots at the Major League level. As we continue to look back on the season that was prior to the start of the World Series, let’s take a look at the things that, well, didn’t go quite so right.

Derek Jeter:

Might as well tackle the big fish straight away. We all know this already, we talked about it about it all season, but The Captain did not have a good year. Even if we didn’t expect him to repeat his outstanding 2009 performance, I don’t think many of us would have guessed Jeter to be a mere .270/.340/.370 hitter. All of those numbers are easily career lows for Jeter, as was his 2.5 fWAR. 2010 was the first time since his rookie season that Jeter has been worth less than 3 wins. Just as alarming were career highs in GB% and O-Swing%. All in all, it’s more than fair to call this the worst season of Jeter’s career. Hopefully he bounces back at least a little next year. Things are going to get very awkward in the Bronx if The Captain can’t become at least a 3 win player in the next couple of years.

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I’m sure the allure was there to hire a “young gun” like Josh Byrnes, but it’s hard to argue with the selection of Sandy Alderson:

The 62-year-old Alderson, who built the powerhouse Oakland teams of the 1980s, comes to the Mets after spending the last year-plus as a consultant to MLB. Alderson’s most recent stint in a major league front office came as Padres CEO from 2005-09. Alderson previously served as MLB’s executive vice president of operations.

Alderson doesn’t come across as one of those guys who will watching over his shoulder, wondering if ownership has his back. The Wilpons needed to get a guy in this role who will immediately command respect around the league and Alderson is just that guy. He also won’t be afraid to make the tough decisions that need to be made to fix the Mets mess. Being part of The Big Boys Club won’t/didn’t hurt, either:

It was Selig who pro-actively told Alderson he could leave his position with MLB if he were interested in the Mets position. The commissioner clearly was looking to help his longtime friend, Fred Wilpon, by making available an executive of stature just at a time in Mets history when the organization needed that quality badly.

Nice job, fellas. Now quit it with the “Sandman” thing. We got that one covered.

Hold your panic, please.

New York Yankees ace CC Sabathia will undergo surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee…The diagnosis was made at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and the Yankees consider the surgery to be minor, the Post reported late Tuesday night. Sabathia should recover in about three weeks’ time and have no lingering issues when spring training starts.

While I am nowhere near CC’s size, I had the same procedure 20 years ago and there have been no lingering effects whatsoever. It’s an outpatient thing. Mine was done by the team physician for Syracuse, in Syracuse (so I could do my rehab on campus) and following the procedure, my folks and I made the 3 hour drive home. I was walking without crutches the next day and I’ve been known to milk every injury for as long as possible… Nothing to panic about.

That said, you don’t want CC’s shock absorbers to take too much of a beating too soon. Something to watch but not freak about.