Baseball

Separated at Worth?
Andy Benes had similar numbers to those that Todd Stottlemyre took to free agency last year—except for the ones with dollar signs in front of them. The same applies to Aaron Sele and Al Leiter . Benes and Sele , though younger than their statistical peers, signed for fewer years and less money in what was a bearish market for pitchers.
		CAREER		PREVIOUS 4 YEARS
PLAYER	AGE	W-L	ERA	W-L	ERA	IP	CONTRACT
Stottlemyre	34	129-113	4.22	46-36	3.86	727?	$32M, 4 years
Benes	32	131-119	3.79	55-42	3.95	837	$18M, 3 years
Leiter	34	90-71	3.82	57-39	3.45	772?	$32M, 4 years
Sele	29	75-53	4.45	57-43	4.88	752?	$15M, 2 years

Left Side Story
It may take a sinister plan to beat the Yankees

The three American League playoff clubs that did not reach last year's World Series asked themselves the same question this off-season: How do you stop the Yankees ? They all came up with the same answer: lefthanded starting pitching. The only wonder is why the Red Sox , who added Jeff Fassero ; the Indians , who signed Chuck Finley ; and the Rangers, who added Darren Oliver , Kenny Rogers and Justin Thompson , didn't try this tack sooner.

Since 1996 the Yankees have been much more vulnerable in regular-season games when they face a lefthanded starter (96-79, .549) than when they meet a righthander (304-169, .643). But American League opponents rarely had the weapons to exploit that weakness in October. In 31 league postseason games New York saw a lefty starter only four times: Oliver with the Rangers, Kent Mercker (twice) of the Red Sox and David Wells , who was coming off a poor season with the Orioles .

"When all five of your starters are righthanded, you're bound to have look-alikes, like Charles Nagy and Dave Burba ," Indians general manager John Hart says. "That's why I wanted a lefthanded starter. And yes, it doesn't hurt that our guy [ Finley ] has a good track record [15-9] against the team we're all chasing. Our goal was to have more balance."

That's one reason Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette took a flier on Fassero rather than on Dwight Gooden , a righthander who signed with the Astros . Duquette believes Fassero , who last year had a career-worst 7.20 ERA with Seattle and Texas , can—with the help of Red Sox pitching coach Joe Kerrigan , his mentor in Montreal—return to the form that brought him 15 wins with the Expos in 1996.

Hart says there is a reason teams haven't thrown more lefties against the Yankees : "They're hard to find." The dearth of lefties has been more acute in the American League than in the National. The lefty shortage is so dire that:

?In the past three seasons the number of starts by lefthanders against the Yankees has dropped from 51 to 44 to 33. That last figure was one below the number of lefties faced by the average American League team last year. In each of those three seasons New York had the best record in the American League against righthanders.

?Only one lefty currently in the league has won 20 games, and he pitches for the Yankees : Andy Pettitte .

? Yankees lefthanded starters won 12 of the staff's 50 postseason starts in the 1990s. The rest of the league's lefty starters won only six times out of the 178 postseason starts by American League pitchers who were not on the Yankees in the '90s.

?In the past 51 years the Red Sox , Indians and Rangers combined have had only one lefthanded starter win a postseason game: Bruce Hurst , who won three times for Boston in 1986.