Pettitte to Return to the Yankees

By TYLER KEPNER

Published: December 4, 2007

NASHVILLE – The Yankees came to the winter meetings hoping to land a veteran left-handed starter for the top of their rotation. As the meetings began here on Monday morning, they got one. But it is not Johan Santana.

Andy Pettitte informed the Yankees that he will return to play for the team in 2008. The move bolsters the Yankees’ rotation and perhaps lessens the need to acquire Santana, the ace of the Minnesota Twins, who have until the end of the day to accept the Yankees’ trade offer, according to the senior vice president Hank Steinbrenner.

The Yankees had a standing offer of one year and $16 million for Pettitte, 35, to return. His agent, Randy Hendricks, confirmed in an e-mail message Monday morning that Pettitte was swayed by how much the Yankees wanted him.

“Calls and requests for him to return from Brian Cashman, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Joe Girardi, among others, influenced him, as did an outpouring of requests from Yankees fans,” Hendricks said, after the news was first reported by the Houston Chronicle.

“Laura gave her support and blessing. As to why now, he felt he should commit now so the Yankees would know they would have him as they formulated their team for 2008.”

Posada, the Yankees’ catcher, said last week that in his conversations with Pettitte, he got the impression that Pettitte was leaning toward retirement. Pettitte and his wife, Laura, have four children and live near Houston.

But Pettitte showed last season that he could still succeed in the American League after three seasons in the National League with the Astros. He went 15-9 with a 4.05 earned run average and had an excellent start in the division series against Cleveland.

More important, perhaps, was the condition of his elbow. Pettitte mentioned several times last season that he was surprised at how strong his elbow felt, even though it had given him trouble almost every season since 1996.

Pettitte worked 215 1/3 innings last season, the most on the Yankees, and his return eases the burden on the rookies Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, who are expected to be part of the rotation (though Hughes has been offered in a trade for Santana).

The Yankees have two other veteran starters, Chien-Ming Wang and Mike Mussina, plus holdover Kei Igawa, who struggled as a Yankees rookie after a solid career in Japan.

News source：http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/sports/baseball/04pettitte.html?_r=1&ref=baseball&oref=slogin

這下子洋基的Rotation也補的差不多了，就算沒有搶到Johan Santana，起碼還有一個Andy Pettite是左投手，而且壓制力也還算是不錯。只是我現在比較想看Santana這一齣戲碼會怎麼演，哈～到底是Yankees得手還是Redsox？又或者根本是Twins自己把Santana留下來？沒想到offseason也可以這麼刺激精采　XD