Y-Fans can then safely dive off the Cliff of Mapes and feel secure about life this year, until next year.

I hear he's entertaining offers from both the Yankees and the Red Sox, teams with established starters. I don't think he's shown interest in anyone else. Whichever one he goes with, he's going to be the backup, so he can't mind it that much. Perhaps it was just the situation in Toronto that was getting to him. He also knows both teams are desperate for a backup and will overpay him to do it.

Still, I wonder why a guy who's posted a line of .264/.362/.409 over the last three seasons wouldn't be interested in finding a starting job somewhere. Maybe he doesn't think he can handle the load anymore at 35.

Zaun should jump at a chance like this, especially if he is overpaid. But, he waited a whole carer to become a starter, as he has the last year or two in Toronto, so he may value one last chance at starting status over any backup deal.

Who be some of the other second stringers striving to live up to these legends and the legendary "8" boys, Bill Dickey and Lawrence Peter Berra.

Still think it is cool that they retired the number for two players.

Either way Zaun is the best option out there for the money. The article says he's looking for more than Blanco got with the Cubs (2 yr at 5.5 mil).

After that I'm really hoping they trade for a catching prospect. Pilittere might show something in Trenton, but I'd rather have someone a bit closer to MLB-ready in case Jorge suffers a major injury - something he's remarkably avoided so far. It feels like Russian roulette every year running him out there for 120 games.

That being the case, if Cashman doesn't overpay Zaun for a year and option to also man first on occasion, then he'll likely make a trade with one of the chips (or 3-4 middling prospects).

Would the 5-6 mil Zaun will cost be better off invested in pitching? We can find another Sal/Kelly/Wil for under 1 mil.

Maybe I'm being too frugal with Georges money, but a (good hitting) backup C is really the last thing we need, compared to pitching and a viable 1st baseman.

If we want to save George's money, let's get them not to spend the 5 or 5 million on another stimky 'proven veteran' pitcher, but try out some of the AAA arms. There is a far better chance the team would get a good return on their investment that way than signing Jaret Wright and Sal Fasano Mach II.

Sounds like Zaun will cost a bit more then 6 mil.

I like Mikey, but he won't be cheap like he was last year.

13 The difference Zaun makes in 40 games over a cheap catcher will not cost us that many, if any games. A decent pitcher (if we can find one) is apt to make more of a difference.

Pretty bad.

At the same time, he didn't really play there all THAT much, so the sample size might be inaccurate.

Mostly, he HATES playing there. But as a backup for limited games I somehow doubt he'd be much worse than your other options.

I'm not one of the Mets fans who would have hives at the thought of Mike playing for the Yankees. He was a truly great Met, but time marches on and all.

I remember Cliff saying, in another blog (The Baseball Analysts, if I'm not mistaken), that the Least Valuable Player of the Yanks for 2005 was NOT Tony Womack but John Flaherty. The backup catcher. He didn't get a lot of at-bats, but he did more damage to the team than Womack did in less time.

The Posada/Zaun platoon sounds great to me. One of the few times overpaying seems worth it. It also buys Cashman time to make a deal for a close-to-MLB catching prospect.

But the team's minor league strength now is in pitching, so it makes more sense to explore cheap options there, and spend money on positions (like 1B and back-up C) that can't be filled through the minors.

A bench of Zuan/Phillips/Melky/Guiel or Thompson would be the best we've had in ages.

As for pitching, 4M a year right now would get you a crappy reliever, do we need crappy relievers?

1) 589AB .285/.359/.482
2) 630AB .235/.300/.354

Line 1 is Johnny Damon. Line 2 is Bubba Crosby + Andy Phillips + Nick Green + Miguel Cairo. It doesn't make sense to spend $13 million dollars on Johnny Damon to get the first 600 ABs and then spend $2 million to get next 600 ABs. Every AB is worth the same to the club offensively. If you don't have good prospects for the bench (or Torre won't play kids) then you have to pay for a bench.

I've never seen Jorge play 1st, although I know he played the infield when he came up (SS?).

So if we need a bat, get Zaun's. Because we have no redundancy at catcher. If Posada goes down, we might as well just put a lawn chair behind home plate. Cause that's pretty much what we've been doing with our back up catcher position for a the last few seasons.