Five things to know about the Yankees
Miller on Giambi
1. They are paying their projected five-man rotation $64 million this year (Randy Johnson and Mike Mussina $16 million each, Kevin Brown $15 million, Carl Pavano $10 million and Jaret Wright $7 million). Last year, the total payrolls of 15 teams were less than that. "Hopefully, they'll let me in a card game or something around here," said Wright, the rotation's weak link as far as salaries. "I don't know what the buy-in will be like. Maybe I'll have to take out something on my house."
2. Yes, Wright went 15-8 with a 3.28 ERA during his comeback season with Atlanta in 2004, but odds remain staggeringly high that the three-year, $22 million deal the Yankees gave him will backfire badly. Last time a healthy Wright pitched in the American League: Way back in 1999, when he went 8-10 with a 6.06 ERA (ouch!) for Cleveland in 26 starts. It's different in a league with the designated hitter.
3. Brown says his back is much better, and he now admits that it bothered him all last summer after April. He says he had some bones and muscles "structurally repositioned" over the winter, learned a bunch of exercises to help keep it locked in this summer and will drop the part of his training regimen that he thinks unknowingly agitated his back last year.
4. Noticing a pitching theme here yet? The Yankees attribute last season's debacle to not having enough pitching, so not only did they spend for high-profile starters, they added to their bullpen and, for the first time under manager Joe Torre, will take 12 pitchers north with them in April rather than 11. They added Felix Rodriguez and Mike Stanton to help out Tom Gordon, Paul Quantrill and closer Mariano Rivera, and Torre likes Tanyon Sturtze for his swing capabilities -- long relief, or stepping up to start if one of the older pitchers goes down for a spell (as is inevitable, most likely).
5. Hang 'em high: The Yankees hit a franchise-record 242 homers last season, a total that tied for the ninth-highest single-season home run total in history, and they have hit 200 or more homers now in each of the past five seasons.
