It's now time to rationally assess the Yankees' winter, as opposed to previous emotional squeals. It's a lot easier to do so after the A-Rod acquisition, but that's far from the whole story.

With the exception of the Kenny Lofton signing, every move the Yankees made this winter was at least defensible from a baseball standpoint. Assuming health (more on that later), Vazquez and Brown will probably surpass Pettite and Clemens' performance. Even the choice of Sheffield over Vlad the Impaler can be defended on purely baseball grounds (most notably by Lee Sinins in his e-mail newsletter), even aside from the relative injury risks of the two. And I hated to lose Nick Johnson, but: a) barring a discovery of the Paul Molitor Fountain of Health, it's reasonable to assume that he'll never be healthy enough to play a full season, and b) the team could hardly obtain a better yield than Vazquez. And emotionally, good riddance to David Wells. (Logically is another story, as discussed below.)

As Billy Beane might say, the problem is in the aggregate. The net result of the Yankees' moves - even including the A-Rod heist - is to accentuate certain vulnerabilities in a fairly predictable way. The age factor is the most obvious, but the injury and defensive factors are more important.

1) The loss of Johnson means that Giambi will be asked to play first base regularly on his disintegrating knee (and it's unlikely that Travis Lee will be enough of an inducement to Torre to give Giambi the rest he needs) - which is not likely to help matters.

2) It's clear that the Yankees believed Pettite's elbow is unlikely to hold up over the length of his contract. They have a fairly good record with such predictions (see: Jack McDowell, Jimmie Key - but Jeff Nelson defied such doomsaying), but Kevin Brown is not exactly a better bet, health-wise. And the loss of Wells means that for now, the Yankees do not have a reliable extra starter for the inevitable injuries to Brown or other starters. (They are already getting scared over a groin injury to Jon Lieber and a back injury to Jose Contreras.)

3) And not to beat a long-dead horse, but with the addition of Brown, Quantirll and Lieber, the Yankees need infielders who can field the grounders those pitchers will yield. Yet as Steven Goldman wrote before the A-Rod deal, the Yankee infielders "don't view fielding grounders as part of their job." And putting a Gold Glove shortstop at 3B while leaving one of the worst-fielding shortstops in baseball at SS won't help matters. Do the Yanks have a defense attorney on staff for when Kevin Brown tries to assault the captain after a few grounders "past a diving Jeter for a base hit?"

Yet these problems could be solved. I expect both El Duque and Al Leiter to be on the Yankees before too long (more on the latter later). And the inevitable switch of Jeter and A-Rod (which I still think will come before year's end), couple with the team's likely acquisition of a good-fielding second baseman, will help the infield defense enough. And have we mentioned that the Yankees have A-Rod?

More to come.