Andy a "Petty" Thief?

According to Bill Madden's article in today's Daily News, Hank Steinbrenner is expressing a fair amount of displeasure with the $16 Million contract given to Andy Pettitte, due in no small part to Andy's reluctance to fully disclose the extent of his involvement in the Mitchell Report.

But if feeling betrayed by one of the cornerstones of the Yankee dynasty of the 90's isn't bad enough, the biggest blow to Hank and Yankee fans has to be the new revelation that the Pettitte contract put the Yankees out of the bidding for Johan Santana. In fact Madden describes a clear decision that was made among Yankee brass between Pettitte and Santana, a decision that no doubt would have had a different outcome had Andy been completely honest.

Many people around baseball have expected Pettitte to retire in the wake of the Clemens controversy, but from where I am standing it looks like Andy has a controversy of his very own, and it could be the Yankees being the first to act on it.

Then again, according Mark Feinsand's article from just one day before, the Yankees would seem to be "doubling down" on their Pettitte gamble by sticking with him and hoping that his performance on the mound can make up for the damage that has been done. Personally I think it's a moot point either way, because unless Andy wins the AL Cy Young on the way to becoming the ALCS AND World Series MVP's, I don't see how you could ever measure ONE year of Pettitte against SEVEN years of Santana. And that's not even taking into account all the HGH, and lying about HGH and hearings on HGH and then coming clean about HGH and getting HGH from your dad and...well you get the point.