A day after praising Cliff Lee for rejoining the Philadelphia Phillies for a lot less money than he could have gotten elsewhere, I'm going to encourage Andy Pettitte to bleed the New York Yankees dry.
No need for Pettitte to negotiate with the Yankees. He should just name his price to delay his retirement for one more year and wait for the Yankees to meet it. For Pettitte, the decision is simple. Tell the Yankees to give him what he wants or he will go home for good.
The Yankees love using their leverage on their own players, but now it's their turn to feel the pain. Remember how they forced Pettitte to take a huge pay cut in guaranteed money in 2009 because they threw $180 million at Mark Teixeira and supposedly maxed out their budget? How about them publicly embarrassing Captain Derek Jeter into accepting a lesser deal, wrongly turning scores of fans against the best role model in baseball by depicting him as greedy and clueless and daring him to find a better offer?
The Yankees have no leverage against Pettitte. They have two major holes in their starting rotation and desperately need him to fill one of those spots or risk starting the year with a pitching staff of ace CC Sabathia, potential future ace Phil Hughes and a lot of question marks, starting with Mr. Erratic himself, AJ Burnett. Wonder how the Yankees like them apples?
Like I said before, karma's a bitch. So is payback. I hope Andy Pettitte makes the Yankees pay dearly.
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