With Opening Day fast-approaching, 10 ponderings about the Yankees

Somewhere in the bars of Cigar City, a 55-year-old, semi-balding GM is furiously working his iPhone, with nobody returning calls.

The Yankee pipe dream - trading an extra infielder for a lefty-slugger LF - may need to wait until August. To paraphrase old Rumsfeld, you go to war the season with the army lineup you have. The war is a week away. Meanwhile...

1. Anthony Volpe picked a crapola time to turn frigid. He's 0-8 in his last two games, his BA dipping to .279, Roy Smalley territory. Three weeks ago, Volpe was Tampa's IT Girl, and his quest for opening day Jeterhood seemed inevitable. Now, we wonder: How long will this mini-slump go, and how will he respond? 

2. Sadly, Oswald Peraza has failed to take advantage of Volpe's hiccup. After another hitless day, Peraza's spring average stands at .171, Alvaro Espinosa territory. Small samples come with grains of salt. But these numbers are sobering, and these days, who wants to be sober?

3. If we were to name a spring MVP, it would be The Man Without a Place, Oswaldo Cabrera. He homered yesterday, his third, the lone Yank run. He has done everything asked of him - LF, CF, SS, 3B, 2B, 1B - yet the brain trust seems determined to play Aaron Hicks (.250). That's Chinatown, Oswaldo.  

4. According to Forbes, the Yanks remain - by barges and barges - the most valuable franchise in baseball. They're supposedly worth $7.1 billion, more than $2 billion more than the first runner-up Dodgers. Hold onto that Yankee Shaman headdress. Next time Hal whines about the luxury tax, we riot. 

5. Check out the 2023 Tabloids Covers Race (left), and you'll see why Hal actually should worry. Through March, the Yankees have received their fewest barrels of free tabloid ink since we began counting. Hal's dad always ruled the back pages. He saw the gold in those screamer headlines. As a result, the Yankees have owned NYC for decades. Could they be entering a mega-drought? Climates - even financial ones - don't change overnight. Once flipped, the switches don't soon turn back. 

6. Carlos Rodon threw a session yesterday, and the Yankees are ecstatic delighted overjoyed blah-blah-blah pick-your-B.S. with what they saw. Rodon is critical to 2023, and yesterday was a baby step, as he returns from a tender forearm. What he didn't throw were breaking balls, supposedly the source of his earlier pain. We'll see in five days, when he tries again. Fingers crossed. Without Rodon, the quest becomes the wild card.  

7. Along with the battle for SS, the search for a Cinderella left-fielder has also dried up. The two early non-roster wonders - Willie Calhoun (.282) and Rafael Ortega (.161) - have turned back into mice pulling a pumpkin. Estevan Florial remains a pinch-runner/defensive replacement, and little more. For all the talk, they all might disappear, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa could stay. 

8. Josh Donaldson attributed his two HRs the other day to a revamped swing. Keeping in mind that batters often say such crapola, it's still nice to hear. The only thing that can save Donaldson's career is his willingness to change. Sluggers from Justin Turner to JD Martinez used so-called "swing doctors" to taper their moves and keep going. Did Donaldson get the memo? We'll see. 

9. Fordham's Justin Shackil will replace Sweeney Murphy as host of the post-game radio show. He'll also call 30 games with Suzyn, in place of John Sterling. It won't be easy, replacing a God. Shack comes by way of the Trenton Thunder, Tennessee Smokies and Mobile BayBears. You don't follow Yahweh without paying your dues. 

10. Let me state what everybody is thinking: Aaron Judge should have played in the World Baseball Classic. That last at-bat - it shoulda been Otani v Judge. And everybody knows it.