01:00 AM EST on Friday, April 2, 2004

BY LARRY MAHNKEN
Special to the Journal

EDITOR'S NOTE: Never has the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry so dominated baseball as it did this winter. The other 28 teams sometimes seemed to be nothing more than a backdrop as the Sox and Yanks played a high-stakes game of point/counterpoint. We know all about Boston's points. But what of New York's counterpoints?

Larry Mahnken, a popular Internet writer who focuses on the Yankees, tells us what the Yanks did . . . and, more importantly, why they did it.

For the Yankees, second place is first loser.

While the current Red Sox are burdened with 85 years of failures they aren't responsible for, the Yankees are measured against 26 championships they didn't celebrate. In the Bronx, a division title or even a pennant isn't good enough. The standard is higher: Win it all or be forgotten.

Not that they should get sympathy. The advantages of the enormous New York market more than counter the unfair expectations of their fans. Money, and lots of it, has allowed the Yankees to consistently field elite teams over the past decade.

While the core of their recent championship teams was homegrown, money has allowed them to keep that core together, complement them with good players brought in from outside the organization, and buy their way out of the mistakes that even the finest front offices will make. That the Yankees have a financial edge over the rest of Major League Baseball is a fact beyond dispute.

However, they're not to blame for the unfairness of the system. They have the advantage, and they'd be fools not to exploit it.

But in spite of their advantages, the Yankees were at a crossroads entering the offseason. Already an old, fragile team with a terrible defense and mediocre bullpen, they faced the loss of 60 percent of their starting rotation, with Roger Clemens intending to retire and southpaws Andy Pettitte and David Wells filing for free agency. The minors offered no relief, with the team's two best remaining prospects still not ready to provide any meaningful help. The offense had a gaping hole in right field and a smaller one at third, and while they had one of the higher-scoring teams in baseball in 2003, a decline seemed more likely than improvement in 2004.

With the Red Sox poised to take over dominance of the A.L. East -- trading for Curt Schilling, signing Keith Foulke, and seriously discussing a trade for Alex Rodriguez -- the Yankees couldn't stand pat and hope for the best. They needed to radically reshape the team.

First, they took aim at 2003's weaknesses -- the bullpen and right field.

They quickly signed two of the best relievers on the market, Tom Gordon and Paul Quantrill. Both are older, and Gordon especially is prone to injury, but they give the Yankees two reliable options to set up for Mariano Rivera, something they lacked all of last season.

Next, they turned their attention to right field, for which they targeted Gary Sheffield. There were several reasons to favor Vladimir Guerrero over Sheffield, chief among them his age, but the Yankees felt Guerrero's back injury, the length and size of his contract, as well as whispers that he didn't want to play in New York, made pursuing Sheffield the safer choice. While the Angels, who ultimately signed Guerrero, probably got the better player in both the short term and long term, the Yankees have taken a much smaller risk with Sheffield, and still have one of the elite hitters in the game.

Having effectively filled the holes in last season's roster, they then took aim at the holes that were opening up. The front office gave lip service about retaining Pettitte, but didn't pursue him aggressively and lost him to the Astros. Truth is, neither the Yankees nor Pettitte wanted each other. Pettitte wanted to be closer to home, and the Yankees had concerns about his elbow that made them wary of a long-term commitment.

The Yankees also expected Clemens to follow through on his plans to retire and declined to offer him arbitration. While it was a disappointment to see him follow Pettitte to Houston, there was no possibility of Clemens pitching outside of Texas in 2004. The Yankees didn't really lose anything, but they were still down two starters.

They addressed both of those holes through trades, acquiring Javier Vazquez from Montreal and Kevin Brown from the Dodgers.

The Brown trade was a strict salary dump by the Dodgers, who in return received pitcher Jeff Weaver and two minor-leaguers. Vazquez, however, cost the Yankees a very good if oft-injured player in Nick Johnson, as well as two lesser players in Juan Rivera and Randy Choate. Johnson, only 25, has a troubling history of wrist injuries, but had already established himself as one of the better hitters in the American League.

The Yankees, though, got great value in return. Vazquez only won 13 games last season but his record is deceiving because his offensive support has been mediocre at best. The number of runs he's allowed -- and more importantly, considering the Yankees' defense, the number of walks, homers and strikeouts he gives up -- show him to be one of the best pitchers in baseball.

Brown is a much better-known commodity. The only starters with a better ERA last season were Pedro Martinez and Jason Schmidt. The Yankees shouldn't expect Brown to put up an ERA below 2.50 again, of course, now that he's away from Dodger Stadium and the Dodgers' infield defense. But considering the fact that the Yankees scored nearly 2 runs more per game than Los Angeles, it's likely he'll improve on his 14 wins of 2003.

The trades give the Yankees one of the most talented rotations in baseball, though there are many questions about how good they'll actually be. Brown's back and elbow, Vazquez' mechanics and past workload, Jon Lieber's surgically reconstructed elbow, and the consistency and endurance of Jose Contreras are all areas of concern. Mike Mussina seems to be the only sure thing in the rotation, but, at 35, there's definitely got to be some risk there, as well.

While the Yankees worked to reconstruct their pitching staff, they also tried to fill the hole in the lineup created by the loss of Johnson. The team's first choice was to move Bernie Williams to DH and bring in Kenny Lofton to take over in center. While Lofton doesn't add a lot to the lineup with his bat, keeping Williams out of the field significantly improves the Yankees' outfield defense and could help keep him healthy all season.

It wouldn't be that simple, though. With Jason Giambi coming off knee surgery, suffering from the same chronic injury that ended Mark McGwire's career, there are concerns he'll have to DH for much of the season, negating the advantage of putting Williams there and forcing the Yankees to find a backup first baseman who can hit.

Initially, they signed Tony Clark for the role. But when their first choice, Travis Lee, lowered his salary demands, they brought him in, too. With a better glove and the ability to play the outfield, Lee is more likely to stay on the team all season. With that (and the fairly useless signing of Miguel Cairo), the Yankees' roster seemed set for Opening Day.

And then Aaron Boone decided to play some hoops.

The major knee injury he suffered left the Yankees scrambling for a third baseman. Tyler Houston and Mike Lamb were brought in, but the Yankees were determined not to settle for table scraps. Building off of the parameters of the failed Boston negotiations, they quickly worked out a trade for superstar Alex Rodriguez, sending All-Star second baseman Alfonso Soriano and two nothing minor-leaguers to Texas in return.

The trade shifted the hole from third to second, but also gave the Yankees one of the very best players in the game. Still, they failed to gain the maximum benefit from the trade when Rodriguez moved to third base, leaving Derek Jeter at short.

A-Rod is the winner of the past two Gold Gloves. While Jeter is highly regarded as a defensive player by many, every method of objective performance analysis rates him among the worst defensive shortstops in the game. Even if that analysis underrates Jeter, moving the better shortstop to an unfamiliar position where he'll field fewer balls keeps the Yankees from being as good as they can be.

A sub-optimal Yankees team is still very, very good, and it would be a shock if they don't make the playoffs. They're not the juggernaut some think; they won't score 1,000 runs, and bad defense and injuries make them very beatable in a short series.

But they're better than they were last season, and once again have a great chance to win the World Series. For most teams, that's more than enough.

For the Yankees, it's a good start.

Larry Manhken is the author of the Replacement Level Yankees Weblog, which takes an almost daily -- and often irreverent -- look at the Yankees. Go to http://yankeefan.blogspot.com