The Yankees are planning to go to spring training with Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain being programmed to start. "They can always go from starting to the bullpen, but it's tough going the other way," says Yankees general manager Brian Cashman. Cashman feels David Robertson and Damaso Marte can pitch the seventh and eighth innings in front of Mariano Rivera, but a Yankees run at John Lackey, Ben Sheets or another starter hasn't been ruled out. The feeling inside the Yankees' offices is that there will be some payroll cutback, but how much is not known.

---

One Tigers source emphatically says, "There will be no fire sale. [Owner] Mike Ilitch wouldn't allow it." They have measured the markets for Edwin Jackson, Curtis Granderson and others, but manager Jim Leyland continually points out, "if the Twins went only 19-5 down the stretch, we would have made the playoffs. We didn't collapse; we went 11-10. But they went 20-4, and hats off to them. They're a helluva ballclub."