Yankeetorial: When Hal Steinbrenner says we only need "fine tuning," does he mean he's turning cheap?

That's what Brother Hal blathered yesterday in a media scrum. Fine-tuning. That's all the Yankees need for 2012.

Maybe Hal was just posturing, speaking crapola to hide his real plans. Baseball poohbahs do that all the time. They boldface lie. We fans are stuck at the other end of the sewerage pipeline, wading through their bullshit, trying to decide if they are actually the genetic clods that they play on TV.

But it's possible Hal believes what he said - because of another genetic trait of the Steinbrenner family: Hubris.

Yep. Hubris.

Hubris is what Herman Cain thought of those sexual harassment complaints. They just needed fine-tuning. Hubris is how the Greeks originally reacted to their budget debt. Just a tweak here and there, and everything would be fine. Hubris allowed Boston to bring chicken and beer into the clubhouse. Not a problem.

Fine-tune? That's great, if everybody else stands pat. But Texas and California are revving up to chase Yu Darvish, CJ Wilson and everything from Cuba that cannot be smoked. Boston and Toronto are planning major overhauls. Even Tampa is going full hog. We're fine-tuning?

Yeah, 2011 was a decent year. We pulled players off the salvage yard and won the league. But we Redsocked in the playoffs, and the ship is creaking loudly. Mark Teixeira keeps turning into a Giambino. We still have no third, fourth or fifth starter. We wasted maybe the last great years from Mariano and Jeet. Arod could become a mediocre 3B. It's not hard to look at the 2012 lineup and wonder, aside from Robbie, who is sure to hit?

Fine-tune? Screw that. We need to be spenders. We need a Wilson, a Darvish, a somebody. And we need to face the truth.

We were damn lucky last year.

Next year, maybe not so.