Its Saturday morning … you wanna sleep late … but your cat has other ideas …

Important note!
I would rather not (further) play into the MSM’s fixation with the A-Rod PED story. I don’t want to help feed the “let’s hunt down every possible angle til we tear down Rodriguez” monster, so from here on, I will only post a PED-related A-Rod story if it has a direct result on his playing status (ex. he needs to miss a game to speak to Congress). Otherwise, I’m gonna let it slide.  This has Alex Belth’s blessing.  I hope you understand.

Now, back to the news:

• David Ortiz admires Mark Teixeira, and his fortunate timing contract-wise:

“Everybody needed a player like him at the time and the market was wide open. He walked into a situation that was perfect for him, and on top of it he was a very good player. Everybody who performs at that level wants to be put in that situation.” …

Under his previous deal, (Ortiz) could have potentially hit the free agent market at the age of 31.

But in the first month of the 2006 season Ortiz chose to sign a four-year, $52 million extension with a team option for 2011. …

“Teixeira was 28 years-old. In a few years I’ll be 35. It’s a totally different situation,” Ortiz said. “They know what you deserve and you go from there. But I’ll tell you what, if I was 28 I would be thinking like that.

“The market (when he signed his deal) wasn’t like it is now. It wasn’t close to what it is now. The year after I signed my deal the market exploded with the big television deal. I know it will be hard to get that kind of money a few years from now. I haven’t really sat down and thought about it. All my focus is about doing my thing. You work, try to get better every day for a reason. I’m not planning to go anywhere.”

• Johnny Damon and Xavier Nady are experiencing some financial liquidity issues:

Damon, 35, and Nady, 30, told FOXSports.com on Friday morning that their finances are frozen because of money they have with a Stanford company.

On Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission froze all assets of three entities — Stanford International Bank, Stanford Group Co., and Stanford Capital Management — all managed by Robert Allen Stanford. Those were the only three entities whose assets were frozen, according to the SEC filing.

“I can’t pay bills right now,” Damon said at the Yankees’ spring training facility in Tampa. “That started on Tuesday. I had to pay a trainer for working out during the offseason. I told him, ‘Just hold on for a little bit and hopefully all this stuff gets resolved.'”

Nady faces similar concerns.

“I’m affected in some ways. I have the same (advisor) as Johnny,” Nady said. “He said I didn’t have money with Stanford (investments). But all my credit card accounts are frozen right now because of that situation. I’m trying to get an apartment in New York. I can’t put a credit card down to hold it.”

[My take: Maybe Nady should see if A-Rod’s apartment is still up for sale (vacant)?]

• A son of one of the Yankee VPs was apparently guilty of trafficking steroids back in 2002.
• Tyler Kepner updates us on Bernie Williams:

“I’ve always had the desire in the back of my mind that I could play, perhaps, if the situation was right with myself and my family; I could come back before it was too, too late,” Williams said. “So I don’t know. Right now, I’m really concentrating on representing my country well, not embarrassing myself or the team.

“And from that point on, if I still have the need for competition in me and still have the fire, I may have to seriously consider taking the opportunity to maybe play somewhere else.” …

“There’s always going to be this small kid in me who’s going to say, ‘You can still do this, man, you can still do this,’ ” Williams said. “But I think I could be 70 and that kid’s still going to be there.

[My take: You think they’ll retire his number someday?]

• Kepner also notes that Girardi should be better tuned into Robinson Cano this season:

The Yankees were nine games out of a playoff spot, with two weeks left last season, before Manager Joe Girardi finally confronted Robinson Cano in a public way. When Cano showed an alarming lack of hustle in the field on Sept. 14, Girardi pulled him from the game and benched him the next day.

From that point through the end of the season, Cano batted .413. But it was too late to make much of a difference, and it left the impression that Girardi, in his first year on the job, should have disciplined Cano sooner. …

“You don’t ever want to get to that point with a player,” Girardi said. “Obviously it did. Would it have helped if I had acted sooner? It’s quite possible. That’s something that I know, now, about him. I know him better as a person, he knows me better as a person and we can try to stay away from that situation.”

• PeteAbe gives us this scouting report on the lanky Andrew Brackman:

Brackman has a lot fewer moving parts in his delivery than I expected. He sort of brings the ball from behind his ear and has a nice downward plane to his delivery. But I can’t see him in the majors before the end of the 2010 season. The Yankees will keep him in Tampa and there’s a chance he sees Trenton this year. He has so little experience and probably knows next to nothing about holding runners, fielding his position and setting hitters up.

• Chien-Ming Wang seems to be back in stride.
• Finally, here are the current local metro-area “Baseball Prospectus 2009” book events to be held in the next few weeks:

Date: 3/1/09
Kevin Goldstein, Christina Kahrl, Steven Goldman, Neil deMause, Cliff Corcoran
Time: 2 PM
Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center
Montclair State University
8 Quarry Road
Little Falls, NJ 07424

Date: 3/12/09
Steven Goldman, Jay Jaffe, Neil deMause, Cliff Corcoran
Time: 6 PM
B&N @ 18th Street
2 East 18th Street
New York, New York 10003

Date: 3/26/09
Steven Goldman, Jay Jaffe, Cliff Corcoran
Time: 6 PM
Rutgers University Bookstore
Ferren Mall
One Penn Plaza
New Brunswick, NJ 08901

Poll time!

[poll id=”16″]

• Oscar Azocar turns 44 today.  Oscar’s Yankee claim to fame was managing the grand sum of two walks in 218 PAs in 1990.   That’s an even bigger issue if you hit .248 in that season, as he did.  He DID go 7-for-7 in stolen base attempts, leading one to believe if he ever learned a little plate discipline, he might have had a future as a SB threat.
• Joel Skinner is 48 today.  Skinner was acquired from the ChiSox in ’86, and was a part-time catcher for the Bombers through ’88.  His 1987 season was memorable for a line of .137/.187/.230 in 154 PAs.   That .137 is tied for 2nd-lowest BA for anyone with that many PAs since 1973 (yes … the other two are catchers also …. Luis Pujols and J.R. Towles).  The .187 OBP is the 2nd-lowest for the same criteria.
• On this date in 1985, George Steinbrenner gives manager Yogi Berra the dreaded vote of confidence. Steinbrenner says that Berra will remain Yankee skipper for the entire season, regardless of how badly the team might struggle. Berra will last only 16 games before being fired.

Until Monday ….