The hot stove is firing up, so we thought we’d check in Tyler Kepner of the NY Times for the latest on Yankee rumors.

1. Did the beatwriters spray champagne all over each other after the Yanks grabbed #27?

We just tried to avoid it. And actually, if you’re interested in the mechanics of the job (and I’m quite sure you are), we barely had time to get into the clubhouse after Game 6, anyway. There was a lot of access on the field, and after the ceremony on stage, there wasn’t much time left before deadline. Thankfully Rivera, Jeter, Teixeira and Arod went into an informal interview room for us, long after our deadlines, so we could get some good follow-up stuff in a more relaxed and sane setting.

2. It feels like we immediately went from winning a championship to the hot stove immediately. Can’t we just enjoy #27 for a while?

You should enjoy #27 forever. Seriously. Nobody really thought it would take 9 years for another championship after 2000, but it did. I wasn’t gonna take my son to the parade, figuring that there will be others he can see. But then I realized, “Hey, if they take another 9 years to win the World Series, that 7-year-old kid will be 16 and he won’t fit on my shoulders anymore. Better take him now.” The point is, enjoy it as long as you can, because they’re all special, as the 9-year wait reinforced.

3. Any teeth to these Roy Halladay rumors? How untouchable is Jesus Montero?

Toronto pretty much has to move on from Halladay now, don’t they? I don’t see any advantage to keeping him, unless they think they’ll get more at the trading deadline. The Blue Jays won’t win with him in 2010, and next winter he could sign with Boston or NY anyway. In other words, they’ll talk to AL East teams, and if they’re talking to Boston, the Yankees will obviously be involved. I doubt Montero is untouchable, because his value’s very high right now and there’s some doubt about his future at catcher, but I’m just not convinced they’d move the young pitchers (Hughes, Chamberlain). If they passed on a trade for Santana in December 2007, and a trade for Sabathia in June 2008 because they didn’t want to make a prospects-plus-cash kind of deal, my hunch is they’d apply the same logic here and pass again. But obviously, a Boston rotation of Halladay/Beckett/Lester would be pretty threatening.

4. Matt Holliday: No interest or Cashman ninja move?

Ninja move, I like that. Could be. Honestly I don’t have a read on precisely what they think of him. But I do know the Yankees are in a great position this off-season to let the market come to them. They’re not gonna set the Holliday market, but with Boras it’ll probably drag on a while. His price might drop into their range if Boras doesn’t get what he wants somewhere else. Holliday would make them younger and give them a 3-4-5 of Teixeira/Rodriguez/Holliday (three Boras guys, how about that) for many years. Hard to beat that trio, I’d say, as long as Rodriguez holds up phyiscally.

5. Matsui and Damon: Who’s back and who isn’t?

My gut says they’ll thank Matsui for seven outstanding seasons and let him go. It’s hard to do, because the guy has been the embodiment of the Yankee ideal (productive on the field, professional off it) his whole time here, and of course he was the World Series MVP. But they know they sort of dodged a bullet by getting very strong seasons from so many older guys in 2009, and they know it’s gonna be hard to ask all these mid-30s-and-up guys to stay at a high level without having that DH spot to hide them sometimes. Plus, if I’m the Yankees, I would want the flexibility to use Cervelli behind the plate and Posada at DH quite a bit. The pitchers love Cervelli, he can hit OK from what we saw, and you keep Posada’s bat in the lineup while decreasing his injury risk and still letting him catch a lot of games.

6. Will Cody Ransom be receiving a ring?

Haha, you know, during the postseason, I was wishing I had thought to get Cody’s number so I could give him a call. It would have made a fun story. Hey, he’s a good guy, he did his best, he just looked overmatched after a while. To answer your question, though, yes, typically everyone who played for the team at all gets a ring, so I expect he’ll get one. I just wonder if Steven Jackson gets one: he was a Yankee for like 10 days but never officially got into a game. This is the nonsense I think about.

7. What’s the latest on Pettitte?

Haven’t checked in on Andy lately; I guess I probably should. But at this point I’d be very surprised if he’s anything but a Yankees starting pitcher in 2010. He’s still good, he doesn’t want to go anywhere else, and most importantly, his elbow held up all season. I think when that elbow goes out again, Andy’s done, because he’s worried about it his whole career. But my hunch now is he just keeps pitching on one-year deals until the game or his health catches up to him. One more thing on Andy, as great as he was in Game 5 of the 1996 World Series, I wonder if Game 3 in Philadelphia wasn’t an even bigger deal. To grind through 6 innings on the road on a night when he had nothing, and to get a game-tying hit on top of it, that was classic stuff right there. As much as the Phillies will kick themselves about Lidge not striking out Damon to end the top of the 9th in Game 4 (and bring Phil Coke into the game for the bottom of the inning), you know they’re thinking, “We should have pounded Andy Pettitte when we were up 3-0 in Game 3.” It would have changed the whole series.

8. Wang: Non-tendered?

That’s my guess, yeah. Shoulder injuries are a big deal. They may try to bring him back for a lower base salary, but they have no idea if he’ll have the power on that power sinker anymore. Too bad because he’s a really great guy who carried the rotation for two and a half years.

9. Have you ever been electrocuted while shaking AJ Burnett’s hand?

I get it, I get it. But you have to admit, when his stuff is on, you see what they mean by electric. The Good AJ is really, really fun to watch.

10. We’ve heard the Granderson rumors. With the other needs the Yankees have, should we expect a change in CF?

If I’m Detroit, I try to get someone to take on a bad contract (Willis, Robertson, Ordonez, etc) to get Granderson. And you’re right, the Yankees have no crying need to upgrade at center field. We’ve been hearing rumors about center field for a while but, somewhat surprisingly to me, Melky really held his own out there and Gardner made an impact, too. I could be wrong, but I don’t sense it’s a huge priority.

11. Any word on the injury projects like Harden and Sheets?

Not yet; it’s been hard for me to get a true read on their feelings for these guys while their scouting meetings are still going on. But we know they’ve liked Sheets in the past, and everyone loves Harden’s stuff. It’s certainly plausible to think they could use their financial edge to go grab one of them. If he works out, then they have another front-end pitcher. And if he doesn’t, it’s only money, and we all know the Yankees have more of that than anyone else. Would that qualify as a ninja move?


T-Kep’s lovegame can be found at his blog, Bats