In Pettitte Cashman Trusts

Word is out tonight that Freddy Garcia signed with the Mets.  From the Daily News:

The righthander agreed to a minor-league deal with the Mets tonight, the Daily News has learned. It's believed he can earn as much as $8 million to $9 million if he makes the team and reaches all of his incentives.

It's interesting that Freddy Garcia has signed a minor league deal before Ben Sheets has signed anywhere.  Sheets arm must pretty a lot worse than anyone has let on for him to slip this far into the winter.  Garcia has barely pitched over the last two seasons but he has a deal. I'm not heart-broken about the Yankees losing out on Garcia.  He would have been an extra arm and you can never have enough arms.  Will he pitch that much or pitch effectively enough that he couldn't be easily replace with a farmhand?  Probably not.  And he still has question marks. The fact that Cashman didn't push harder for Garcia leads me to believe that Pettitte is still very much  a possibility for the Yankees.  If Pettitte were truly gone, Cashman would be doing his best Theo impression right now, grabbing as many arms as he possibly could to back up his staff.  The Yankees need an inning eater, which given Pettitte's history, he could reasonably be.  Without Pettitte, the Yankees would need a group of ragtag pitchers, which may cause problems with their 40 man roster. With his unwillingness to pursue Sheets and letting Freddy Garcia go by the wayside, Brian Cashman must know he can sign Andy Pettitte if he needs to.  It's getting to the point where he needs to.