And in the back of Cashman's mind ...The Cubs fail to re-sign Derrek Lee

But Sheffield should know nothing has changed. If he really wants to be a Yankee, he better have another menacing, 30-100 season and stray closer to low maintenance. At that point, on a one-year deal, Sheffield would again be a good purchase at $13 million. However, if Sheffield, now 37, hits 15 homers this season or suffers a major injury or causes more angst around the team than usual, he should expect to learn how meaningless yesterday's heart-to-heart was, even if Cashman said, "He's such a great player I would be surprised if in the end we did not pick up the option."
But here is something else that would not be a surprise after this year: The Cubs fail to re-sign Derrek Lee. The Yanks win a bidding war against the Red Sox by agreeing to pay the free-agent first baseman $13 million annually for five years. That moves Jason Giambi full-time to DH, motivates the Yanks to import a solid player/citizen type such as Jermaine Dye to play right and leaves Sheffield looking for employment.

Are we getting ahead of ourselves?