With the various "plans" that have been coming out, I decided to sit down and come up with a "doable", preliminary plan of what I would like to see the Yankees accomplish this offseason as far as the roster is concerned. In other words, I limited myself to one trade and focused on free agents. Here is the roster:

Lineup

C - Jorge Posada
1B - Jason Giambi
2B - Robinson Cano
3B - Alex Rodriguez
SS - Derek Jeter
LF - Hideki Matsui
CF - Torii Hunter
RF - Gary Sheffield
DH - Bernie Williams

Bench

C - Bengie Molina
1B - Tino Martinez
OF - Bubba Crosby
UT - Miguel Cairo
UT - Damian Jackson

Rotation

SP - Randy Johnson
SP - Mike Mussina
SP - Chien Ming-Wang
SP - Shawn Chacon
SP - Carl Pavano

Bullpen

CL - Mariano Rivera
SU - B.J. Ryan
SU - Tom Gordon
RP - Scott Sauerbeck
RP - Aaron Small
RP/SP - Jaret Wright

Now, I've got some 'splainin' to do. The one trade, as you can see, is Torii Hunter. I watched some clips of his D and, suffice to say, I'd love to have it. He's not an offensive dynamo, but he's not terrible, either. .270 BA, .320 OBA, 30 2B, 20 HR. He'll be 30 years old at opening day next year and if we trade for him and extend his deal, there is our CF for the next 4-5 years at least. He'll make Matsui and Sheffield better.

Now, there are a number of players here that we'd have to convince to come on in various roles. I know you see Bernie at DH and that might look a little odd. I stuck him there because he is the primary DH in my plan, but that DH spot will be home to a few different people. I stuck Jorge at catcher as he will be the primary catcher, yet Molina will get a bunch of playing time. Jorge will get more days off with Bengie Molina starting. A lot of these times, he will DH and some of these times, he will just sit out. For Bernie to fit in this plan, he'll have to be ready to a primary DH and 4th outfielder as well as a bench guy a lot of the time, meaning he'll have to be ready to play LF, CF and RF. To that end, he might get a couple games in center and give Sheff a break on a handful of days in right. During those days, Sheff might get some DH time as well. And then, once in a while, Giambi will take the DH spot with Martinez giving him a day out of the field. But, that won't be frequent.

We'd have to convince Bengie Molina to take a "visible" backup role. i.e. Posada is the primary catcher, but Bengie will get plenty of starts. Will he go for that? I don't know as his stock is probably rising, but we should try. Tino will not get much playing time. A few days for Giambi, maybe a little pinch hitting depending on the situation and then he'll be a late inning defensive replacement. Crosby will be back in the 4th/5th outfielder role, giving guys rest and coming in in the late innings. He'll also serve as a pinch runner.

Next, I like Miguel Cairo and Damian Jackson because I feel they give us a lot of depth and options. Both of them can play a number of positions including infield and outfield. And they're better than Womack with the stick, as well. Cairo is a career .270 BA and .318 OBA while Jackson is a career .245 BA with a .325 OBA. They can both pin run respectably. The one part of the bench that bugs me is the lack of power, but it's a tradeoff for the increased depth. Also, because of the movement and days off that some guys will have, on most days, you will probably have 2 of Tino, Bernie, Sheffield, Giambi, Jorge and/or Molina available to pinch hit.

No real surprises in the rotation. Pavano beats out Wright for the 5th spot. I don't think we need to go out and get anyone new (a.k.a. Burnett).

For the pen, I want to convince Flash to come back and be part of a dual setup with B.J. Ryan (who we will also have to convince out of the closer role). Both of them could even pitch in the same game with some frequency, as well, making it so that a pitcher only needs to go 6 good innings, then we go Flash, Ryan and Mo. How rough would that be for opposing hitters? Plus, if Mo happens to go down (please let's not speak of it - it's too scary), one of them can close and one of them can set up. And then they can also give Mo a night off sometimes with that very same setup, should he need it.

It's time we finally got a real lefty specialist in here. I mean, Ryan kills lefties, but we need a guy who we can go to for 1 or 2 batters, keeping Ryan fresh. We need someone to fill an Embree role, except he needs to be good. Enter Scott Sauerbeck. This guy is a flat out lefty specialist. Righties hit him hard, but he is very dominant against lefties. They've hit .196 (1.10 WHIP) against him in the 425 games he's faced lefties. Compare that career number with the other guys we've trotted out - Embree (.238), Stanton (.246), Heredia (.221) and Franklin (.261). This guy is a lefty specialist. I say we just sign a good one and be done with it.

Finally we bring back Small and with Wright, those two will pitch the long relief situations and make some spot starts (or fill in for an injured guy). I think if this all came together, we'd be in excellent shape. Again, this is preliminary look and may change overtime as something comes to my attention for the FA landscape changes.