My New York Yankees Christmas List

Dear Santa (and the Yankees front office),

I am desperately hoping for a championship dynasty for the New York Yankees. Here is my list of wants—and demands—for the franchise. Some you’ve gotten me, others you haven’t. But I’m assuming you all are working on that as we speak. There’s absolutely no rush. Note: As long as it comes by Opening Day 2009, it still counts as a Christmas present.

1. CC Sabathia – An absolute no-brainer. He’s got the stuff, stamina, and the confidence that any team (including his past two employers the Cleveland Indians and the Milwaukee Brewers) would overpay for. So you did. And I applaud you. If the other owners don’t like it, then tell them to make more money. Or get donations. Or find replacements. Anything.

2. Derek Lowe – A hard-nosed, well-traveled, World Series-experienced sinker-baller. He’d be perfect right under the big fella in the rotation. Well, this didn’t happen—yet. I’m still holding out just in case you don’t get…

3. Andy Pettitte – I want to see the storied lefty do what you didn’t let Joe Torre stay long enough to do: open the new ballpark. But not at $16 million. If he didn’t falter a bit down the stretch last year and had managed to finish at least a game over .500, I really wouldn’t mind so much about having him signed at the same price of $16 million. But seeing that he closed out the Cathedral in style, hopefully something like $12 mil will do.

4. Mark Teixeira – Wow. And wow. This I didn’t see coming. With his power from both sides of the plate in this lineup AND his Gold Glove-caliber defense at first base, you guys have almost made the Bombers the team to beat.

ALMOST.

This leads me to my two newest additions to my list.

1. A.J. Burnett – Awesome stuff. Playoff and World Series experience. So why do I STILL have a problem with his five-year, $82.5 million contract? Well, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it twice, I’ve said it thrice. And I’ll continue to say it until I see a difference. Five syllables: DU-RA-BI-LI-TY. The man has thrown over 200 innings only three times in his 10 year Major League career.

He’s also been on the disabled list 10 times in that span. And he’s getting the contract of aworkhorse. This doesn’t make sense to me, but hey, you’ve already signed the man. So tell this to Mr. Burnett: take the disabled list off of your friends list on Facebook and AIM and make damn well sure it’s not in your T-Mobile Fave Five.

Get a restraining order, move to a different town. Hell, hide in your LOCKER. Do WHATEVER you have to; AVOID the disabled list!

2. Manny Ramirez – Yes, I said it. I want the Yankee killer, the crazy one. Yes, the one who took a potty break in the Green Monster during an at-bat in the field. The one that made a nice catch, high-fived a fan and then threw out the guy trying to advance on the fly ball (Did I mention that he’s one of the worst fielders in Major League Baseball—and maybe even the Japan, Korean, AND Chinese leagues?).

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