Pettitte Rejects Yankees Offer, Return Unlikely

By JOSH ALPER

Updated 12:51 PM EST, Tue, Jan 6, 2009

Print Email Share TWITTER FACEBOOK

Getty Images

The Yankees have made it a point to outbid any potential rivals for the services of free agents this offseason. CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira have cost a combined $243.5 million, but you can bet the Yankees don't regret spending one thin dime of it since they desperately wanted each player.

If the Yankees are willing to spend whatever it takes to get who they wants, what does that tell you about their desire for Andy Pettitte? Their $10 million offer cut his 2008 salary 37.5% and they haven't moved off that offer even after is was clear that Pettitte wouldn't fall over himself to sign the deal. Now, the New York Times is reporting that he's flatly rejected it and that there's no longer any offer on the table.

In the piece, Tyler Kepner writes that Pettitte may "wonder why the Yankees offered a pay cut" while spending so much elsewhere. He might, but his agents shouldn't be that ignorant of baseball economics. There's a short supply of Sabathias and Teixeiras on the market, while fifth starters, that's what Pettitte would be in the Bronx, are in plentiful supply.

They could get younger and sign the tantalizing potential of Oliver Perez. They could really rankle the natives and sign Derek Lowe to corner the market on free agent starting pitchers. They could roll the dice on Ben Sheets's oft-damaged but talented right arm or play it down the middle and sign Randy Wolf. Pettitte's not the only game in town and it's hard to see sentimentality being worth much more than $10 million.

Pettitte's only lure is history, and it's worth noting that part of that history includes his signing a $16 million deal last season with the knowledge that, before the ink was dry, he'd be named in the Mitchell Report as a user of performance enhancing drugs. The Yankees stood up for him, even after his testimony to Congress made it clear he lied in his inital admission. Part of Pettitte's repayment was a brutal second half, which he partially blamed on a rough offseason.

That's part of history, and a part that makes it pretty hard to sympathize with Pettitte's hangdog reaction to being offered $10 million to pitch this summer. You can never say never, but if the Yankees were dead set on having him in the rotation he'd probably be there already.