With Bernie Williams seemingly out of the picture, the New York Yankees continue to lack any righthanded pop off their bench.  Andy Phillips and Josh Phelps have proven they can't even be useful utility players and it's looking more and more as if Doug Mientkiewicz will be the regular starting firstbaseman.  It really is odd to not have Bernie at least on the bench, given the sad state of the Yankees bench, which doesn't even have a solid backup catcher, Mike Piazza would've been nice.  But with "backup catcher," Miguel Cairo and "other firstbaseman," the Yankees had better pray they don't have any major injuries like they did last season with Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui.

On the pitching front the Yankees still look solid with their top three.  However my only gripe is that the brilliant pitching of Jeff Karstens this spring will go for naught.  The Yankees in a panic move once again with Boston, felt they had to jump and sign Kei Igawa for an insane amount of money.  Proof that once again they never give their farmhands a shot until unless out of necessity.  In 1995 Jimmy Key went down with an injured rotator cuff and Andy Pettitte was slotted into the rotation.  Back in 1996 they almost dealt Mariano Rivera to Seattle for Felix Fermin because they weren't confident Derek Jeter could be the everyday shortstop.  Mariano Rivera became one of the Yankees top relievers and eventual closer because they'd tried and failed with everyone else in the 1995 playoffs.  Chien-Ming Wang and Robinson Cano emerged in 2005 after great spring training's and injury and ineffectiveness of Jaret Wright, Carl Pavano and Tony Womack.  In addition because of injuries last season and after a great spring showing, Melky Cabrera also came into his own.  So while all the attention may be focused on Phil Hughes, it may well be Karstens who will come up into the rotation and save the Yankees bacon in late May or early June.