'Does the front office work for Hal Steinbrenner or is it the other way around?' Lupica

11/24/10, "You wonder how long Hal Steinbrenner -

• does the front office work for him or is it the other way around?

• - lets this go on.

As one American League East executive said Tuesday,

• "Out of all the guys in sports, they're going to take this kind of hard line on Jeter?"

Over the past few days the Yankees seem to have lost their minds because Jeter's agent, Casey Close, told me Saturday night that he finds the Yankees' negotiating strategy "baffling."

• Not stupid. Not cheap. Not arrogant. Not insulting. Baffling.

But in the thin-skinned world of the Yankees, they acted as if Close were Larry Lucchino of the Red Sox calling them the "Evil Empire" all over again.

The Yankees act as if Close is the one who ramped up the rhetoric, and not the other way around. You know when the rhetoric really started on this thing? When Hal Steinbrenner said a few weeks ago that the Jeter negotiation "could get messy" before it ever really began. And you know who's the only one who can fix this now? Hal Steinbrenner.

Could Close and Jeter have come into this looking for too much money, way too many years? I'm sure they have. Just because the Yankees are being the Yankees doesn't mean that the other side is the Vatican. Close and Jeter probably want a lot more than three years. And a lot more than $45 million. If you were Jeter, so would you. Nobody can say he's been stealing money over the last decade.

• But how about this as an idea for both sides to look at, before this whole thing becomes more viral than it is? How about you take the average that Jeter just made over the last 10 years - it would work out to $18.9 million a year - and make that the three-year offer.

And if Jeter is still hitting .300 at the end of that, a fourth year, for the same money, automatically kicks in.

That way Jeter isn't asked to take a salary cut after everything he has meant to the Yankees and continues to mean. You know what the difference is between $57 million for three years and what the Yankees are offering Jeter?

• It's just a little more than the Yankees paid Javy Vazquez last season."...

11/24/10, by Mike Lupica, NY Daily News, "Only Hal Steinbrenner can fix the disconnect between the Yankees, Brian Cashman, and Derek Jeter"

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