Happy New Year everyone!  Today’s update is brought to you by a classic later edition “Hollywood Squares” moment:

• MLB.com offers 10 questions for the Yankees in 2010, including:

7. What will Johnson add, and can he stay healthy?

The first part of that question is easier to answer than the second. Johnson gives the Yankees a lineup cog powered by on-base percentage, and that’s really the appeal, since he’s obviously not going to start at first base over Teixeira. If he gets on board and becomes RBIs in the stats columns for guys like Teixeira and A-Rod, he’s doing his job.

The problem is that “DL” is almost as attached to Johnson as “OBP.” It’s not like the Yankees didn’t have to treat Matsui carefully as their designated hitter in ’09, but the point is that Johnson will be no help if he’s on the shelf.

8. Is Vazquez going to be able to cut it in New York?

Yankees fans don’t exactly have the greatest memories of Vazquez’s 2004 season, particularly the grand slam he served up to Damon in Game 7 of that year’s American League Championship Series, so it’s easy to understand some hesitation. But he was also pitching with a lingering shoulder problem that he hid from the trainers a little too long, and the makeup of this staff is a lot different than it was in ’04. If you stack Vazquez against the other fourth starters around the AL, he compares very nicely. No one is looking to Vazquez to drive the bus — that’s Sabathia’s job. All he has to do is stay on turn and come along for the ride.

9. What does the year hold for Chamberlain and Hughes?

The Vazquez trade helped create a domino effect in that, on paper, now only one of the two touted righties would have to be in the rotation for Opening Day — and perhaps neither. Chamberlain and Hughes would conceivably fight for the fifth spot in the rotation, and whoever loses that competition either goes to the bullpen or goes to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. It’s worth noting that Chamberlain has no innings restrictions, and Hughes still does. Don’t forget, Alfredo Aceves, Chad Gaudin and Sergio Mitre have to be considered in that mix too, along with Zach McAllister and Ivan Nova.

• The Yankees return to dominance, good for baseball?:

Success is required of the Yankees, and not only through the stratospheric expectations of their fans. It is no fun despising them when they languish in third place, out of the postseason, as they did in 2008. For the passion to persist on the anti-Yankees side of the argument, they have to be at the summit, on the pedestal, in the winners’ circle, at least occasionally.

Whether anybody likes it or not, the Yankees are a singular part of baseball’s broad attraction. When you have beaten the Yankees, you have beaten all that tradition, all that history. Or, if you want to be directly envious, all that money. Either way, it’s an unmatched deal.

I’ll never forget the scene after Game 7 of the 2001 World Series on the field at what was then Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix. The Arizona Diamondbacks had just beaten the Yankees in one of the most compelling Series in history.

In the midst of a full-tilt celebration, Craig Counsell, who had been the Most Valuable Player for the D-backs in the National League Championship Series, was asked about the fulfillment a Fall Classic title must bring. Counsell patiently explained that this was not just about winning a World Series. This was also about beating the Yankees in a World Series.

• No Coney in the booth next year?:

. . . It appears Cone’s short but brilliant run in the YES broadcast booth may be over. Sources say Cone is out after a heated disagreement with network executives.

A spokesman confirmed via e-mail: “David’s contract is up. We’d love to have him back, but he’s in the process of evaluating his various options. … He may not be back based on what he decides.”

• Not a Yankee note, but long-time Baseball Prospectus writer Joe Sheehan is leaving them :

This is my last column for Baseball Prospectus. My contract ends today, making me like any number of free agents looking for work. No hard feelings or recriminations, just two entities doing business.

. . . I just want to thank everyone who reads us, who listens to us on the radio, watches us on TV, buys books, writes comments, sends in e-mails… all of the people who have helped us build Prospectus into what it is today. I never in a million years thought I’d get to write about baseball for a living, but I did. I did thanks to Gary Huckabay and Clay Davenport; Christina Kahrl and Rany Jazayerli; Dave Pease and Keith Woolner and Keith Law and Nate Silver and so many other people who built Prospectus in the 1990s. In the 2000s, we benefited from the grace of men such as Rob Neyer, Peter Gammons, Billy Beane, Brian Kenny, Jeff Erickson, Bernie Miklasz, Chris Stone, Michael Epstein, and Louie Belina, who spread the word about what we were doing, who helped us make the leap from niche to mainstream, even as the mainstream was coming our way. I cannot ever thank these people, or the hundreds like them who simply pointed at BP and said “read those guys,” enough.

[Late update: the uber-talented John Perotto tweeted this morning that he is the new Editor-in-Chief at BP]

• Ted Lilly turns 34 today.
• Long-time Yankee minor league manager Trey Hillman turns 47 today.

Back on Thursday . . .