You think this is a bad Yankee offseason?

I'll show you a bad winter... 2005.

That December, we traded Kenny Lofton to the Phillies for Felix Rodriguez. (Lofton killed us later.)

On Dec. 20, we signed Carl Pavano. Eight days later, we signed Jaret Wright.

On Jan. 11, we traded Brad Halsey, Dioneer Navarro, Javier Vazquez and an economic stimulus package for Randy "Get Away From Me" Johnson, who had killed us in 1994 and 2001. He flubbed the 2005 playoffs.

Later, we signed Buddy Groom.

Now, THAT was a shitty off-season.

By the way, you might wonder how our all-knowing scribes saw it? Well, they loved it. Here is what Mark Feinsand said.

What makes the Yankees the favorites in most people's minds is the addition of Johnson and Pavano. You can slant statistics any way you want, but to point to Johnson's 14 losses as a reason that he isn't as good as people say is questionable. Johnson's ERA was second best in all of baseball, he led the Majors in strikeouts and threw more innings than anyone other than Livan Hernandez. Had Johnson been on a team with any offense at all, he probably would have won 25 games and had one of the best seasons in a decade.

As for Pavano and Wright, you can go back and take their career records, but what they did last year was pretty impressive. Pavano's 3.00 ERA was eighth in the Majors, while his 18 wins tied for fourth. Wright's 15-8 record helped the Braves win yet another National League East title, and as a fourth starter, he will be a valuable addition for New York.

And this is what Brian Cashman said.

"Randy Johnson is one of the premier pitchers of any baseball era. To be able to add a pitcher of his caliber to the top of our rotation further solidifies and strengthens our entire pitching staff."