Let us wish our new President the resolve and ability to steer this country through these challenging times ….

Here’s the news:

• Over at the YES Network, Steven Goldman has some concerns over the state of the Yanks’ catching:

At this writing, the one thing that seems certain is that the days when the Yankees could count on Posada for 140 or more games are gone. That presents a problem, a familiar one. The only other catchers on the 40-man roster are Jose Molina and Francisco Cervelli. The Yankees have also invited five non-roster backstops to camp. Kevin Cash is the only member of that quintet who possesses major league experience, though most of that experience is comprised of making outs. The same thing goes for Molina, and is also indicated in any reasonable forecast for Cervelli, who, thanks to that pointless spring training collision, has yet to play in any meaningful way above High-A. Given his offensive shortcomings, which include the complete absence of power (he even slugged a lowly .350 in the Venezuelan Winter League), the Yankees would be wise to ticket him to Double-A and let him play his way upward, proving that his one solid hitting tool, his batting eye, stays with him as he climbs.

• The News notes that Don Zimmer has stated he has recovered from the minor stroke he suffered last month:

“I lost my speech capacity for about a week,” Zimmer said in a brief telephone interview Sunday. “But it’s come back now and I just got done with a whole bunch of tests, including a stress test on Friday, and I’ll get the results on them later this week.

“I’m fine,” he added. “For a while, I had a little trouble getting around, but I’m getting better at that every day, too. I’ve got just about everything back, all of my speech.”

• At LoHud, Pete Abe gives us the rundown on the Yankees appearing in the upcoming WBC, and wonders if Robinson Cano will be well-served by playing in it.
• MLB.com also has an article on the WBC Yankees.
• Derek Carty of The Hardball Times has an evaluation of Robinson Cano’s #s from a fantasy perspective.
• Happy 31st birthday to 2009 NRI John Rodriguez.  Rodriguez actually signed with the Yanks as an amateur free agent in 1996.
• Kevin Maas turns 44 today.  You’ll remember that Maas set a ML record for the fewest games needed to reach ten career HRs when he came up in 1990, and banged out 21 HRs in 79 games that year.  But the pitchers caught up to him the following year, and he was out of baseball by 1996.
• On this date in 1977, the Yankees obtain outfielder Paul Blair from Baltimore for Elliott Maddox and Rich Bladt.