Pettitte Calls It A Career

By Matt:

After an off-season of internal debate veteran left-hander Andy Pettitte formally announced his retirement today. Pettitte spent the past 15 years as a pitcher in the Major Leagues, 13 of which were spent as a member of the vaunted New York Yankees. A member of the “core-four” Yankees who chartered the team’s success in the late 90’s and stayed with the franchise through the 2009 World Series; Pettitte has gained recognition as one of the all-time Yankee greats. The 38 year old veteran will retire with a MLB record 19 post-season wins, a stat clearly padded by the addition of the Wild Card playoff round just prior to the start of his career but an impressive achievement nonetheless. For Pettitte, the future would seem to include debate about Hall of Fame potential and a lot more time spent with his family. As fellow Lousiana native Brett Favre has shown the world of the past 4 off-seasons, retirement can be a very temporary thing, but in Pettitte’s case a return to the Major League’s seems less-than-likely at this point.

As for Pettitte’s now-former team, the Yankees, an off-season that began with great promise has ended with new question marks. The Yankees entered the Hot Stove season with a solid rotation and expectations of adding Cliff Lee and creating a super-rotation. Unfortunately, the lefty Lee spurned the Yankees for the Philadelphia Phillies, the team he played against the Yankees with in the 2009 World Series (where he contributed the Yanks only two Fall Classic losses). After that point it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that baseball’s richest team would add baseball’s most coveted pitcher. Things didn’t play out that way. The loss of Pettite in addition to the failure to add Lee leaves the Yankees with a potentially major lack of starting pitching. The team still has ace pitcher CC Sabathia the highly paid, highly volatile AJ Burnett, and 2010 first-half phenom Phil Hughes. As for the other 2 pitchers, the remaining options are a combination of young, unproven talent and old, potentially washed away talent. Young pitchers Sergio Mitre and Ivan Nova were underwhelming in short starting stints with the Yankees last year. The team has also signed veteran pitchers Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, and former top-prospect Mark Prior. The Yankees hope that some combination of those options will provide consistency for a rotation that is currently marred by a striking lack of consistency. While Sabathia is consistently dominant, Burnett’s ERA inflated rapidly in 2010 and Hughes was an all-star through July and anything but down the stretch. At this point, it appears that the 2011 Yankees will have to win games by having their potent offense and deep, talented bullpen overcome the weaknesses of their beleaguered starting pitching staff. The Yankees were never a dominant pitching team, but Pettitte was a consistent pitcher who proved last year that even at his advanced age he had top-of-the-rotation upside. Losing a face of the franchise from the past 15 years hurts the Yankees, and now the team is left hoping that someone new will capture magic. Or that Pettitte will realize that he isn’t ready to walk away.