Is It A Good Idea For The Yankees To Sign Andy Pettitte Again?

How many times can you do the exact same thing? You can pay rent every month. You can ride a bike every day in the Summer time. You can tie your shoes over and over and over again. You can eat pizza every Friday night. You can brush your teeth every day and get dressed every day. You can say good-bye to family members every morning on your way out for work. Christmas happens every year. So does the New Year and July 4 and Memorial Day and well, you get the point.

And, apparently, you can sign Andy Pettitte to one-year deals if you’re the New York Yankees. Over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Pettitte will be 41 years old in June, 2013. The Yankees need to get younger and faster and better. You don’t do it by signing a 41-year old pitcher who is coming off of a broken fibula, 5-4 2012 season, even if he is a member of the Heroic Core Four.

See, these one-year deals are getting as old as Pettitte. It is the same thing every year. Pettitte has no idea if he wants to pitch again after the season. He then gets verification from his wife and kids if they are ok with him playing again. Plus he has to figure out if he has “the drive” again. And then the Yankees overpay him and sign him to a one-year deal. And then he gets injured in some capacity, comes back for the stretch run, and then we do it all over again. It’s old. It’s boring. It’s a waste of time.

While some would think there isn’t anything else out there, maybe the Yankees haven’t looked hard enough. Maybe they haven’t scouted hard enough to find another Hiroki Kuroda. Surely they haven’t groomed enough starting pitchers over the years because none of them are healthy or ready. A good idea might be to pass the torch to David Phelps just by default to see what the youngster has. At least with Phil Hughes, Ivan Nova and David Phelps the Yankees are younger. That problem is solved. The other problems of production and winning games is not solved, but certainly both are fixable considering what upside we have seen at times from all three.

Yankee fans understand the importance of Pettitte over the years. It isn’t about that. It isn’t about three Game 2 wins during the 2009 World Series run or beating John Smoltz head-to-head in Game 5 of the 1996 World Series. It isn’t about the .633 winning percentage or the 245 career wins or the 2,320 career strikeouts. It isn’t about the cutter into right-handers and away from lefties. It isn’t about the stare to home plate. It isn’t about that bulldog mentality or the pickoff move to first base. It isn’t about being a borderline Hall of Famer and the second greatest lefty in Yankee history.

It’s about what’s best for the Yankees. And because they need to get young and stop living in the past, it is about the team first and the future, not trying to make it like it is 1996, 1998, 2000 or 2003 all over again with these silly Andy Pettitte one-year deals.