Is Nutrisystem sponsoring the Yankees this spring? The guts and bellies of Yankee pitchers have graced both covers of the NY Daily newspapers a couple of times this week. CC has slimmed down and Joba has bulked up. Lucky for them, pinstripes are thinning. Unlucky for them, they’re both still fat. Hopefully, whatever they did to their eating habits helps. How many boxes of Cap’n Crunch they can eat in one sitting isn’t really on the top of my topics list when it comes to spring training. Who will be the Yankee 4^th and 5^th starter is.

CC is obviously going to be expected to win a lot of games as the Yankees Ace. Talks of his opt-out clause in his contract are already tickling sports writers pink, but in normal Yankee fashion he will refuse to talk about it anymore until the season is over. I boldly told a friend of mine that CC will win 25 games this season, and he may have to if the Yankees don’t find some way to finish out their rotation. The Yankees rely on CC a lot and that won’t change this season. Hopefully his dominating powers aren’t held in the General Mills cereal recipe.

To continue on my bold prediction path I’m going to say that Freddy Garcia will be a difference maker for the Bombers this season. Despite being 35-years-old last season he still pitched 157 innings and went 12-6. I don’t know about you but I’d sign for that right now if they could guarantee it.  Freddy has been known to give up some runs, his career ERA is 4.13 and has been lower than 3.81 for a season only once. On the other hand, he has only had 1 losing season in his career (not including seasons cut short by injury) and is a two-time All-Star.

If Garcia can put up decent numbers and win more than he loses, then I think you can count on him as the number 4 or 5 guy, depending on Ivan Nova’s production and if the Yankees trade for someone before the All-Star break. It does scare me that he is a right-handed pitcher that surrenders a hit an inning and a homerun every 9. Right-handed pitchers with those kinds of numbers don’t tend to fare well in the Bronx.

I can’t say there should be as much confidence in Bartolo Colon as there is in Feddy. Colon was an interesting choice, but pretty risk free considering he was signed to a minor league contract.  Having not thrown more than 99 innings since the 2005 season, I can’t imagine him contributing to the starting rotation, although he did win the AL Cy Young that year. Colon seems to be a bullpen contributor; I just hope he’s OK with that.

Ivan Nova and AJ Burnett are the biggest question marks going into the season. Despite going 1-2 last season, Ivan Nova was given some pretty high praise from Yankee fans and I think many of them are looking forward to seeing what he can do this season. He has a nice combination of pitches and doesn’t seem to be phased by playing in New York City for the Yankees.  I am all for giving the youngsters a shot, which the Yankees don’t do enough. They are very cautious with their young talent and it’ll be interesting to see if their desperate situation will make them more willing to let their young arms throw the innings. People are assuming Nova will fall into the 4^th spot but I don’t see that happening. With my rather high expectations of Feddy Garcia and familiarity with the Yankee organization babying their young pitchers, I think it’s safe to assume if Nova gets the nod, it’ll be at the 5^th spot.

AJ Burnett causes migraines so I’ll keep it short. He needs to perform better and stop talking about himself in the third person. Has anyone listened to his recent interviews? The one on “physical day” was so over the top it sounded as if he hired Deion Sanders’ publicist. In between ego-stroking self-references he seemed to admit to realizing that he pitched poorly last season and it had a big effect on the outcome of the Yankees season. I was there for his ALCS loss; it was ugly, as was most of his season after May. A 10-15 record with a 5.23 ERA?!? He should have to pay for everyone’s ticket on the games his starts if he doesn’t turn that around. Lord knows the Yankees pay him enough.

40 Days until opening day; 40 days to figure this mess out.