Over on Twitter today, the guys behind the @Riveraveblues feed, wonder if, in their words “the Yankees have a plan”.

No doubt brought on by the Phil/Joba thingie and the just-announced release of Chad Gaudin, it seems to be a question worth asking.

The answer, however, is strikingly simple: Yes, the Yankees have a plan.

The plan is to win the World Series, this year and the years beyond, and though we might not agree with the way the Yankees attempt to execute it, it’s still the plan.

The big, elephant in the room, of course, is that the Yankees have too many starting pitchers for too few starting pitcher slots.

Ideally, both Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes would start and pitch well, but it’s not possible because a) the Yankees have too many starting pitchers, and b) the AL East is too competitive to trust the rotation with Joba and Phil for an entire season in the rotation as of yet, and memories of 2008 are still much too near.

By trading for Vazquez, the Yankees have more or less put themselves in a no-win situation (that is, until the season starts and they start winning tons of games and then we laugh about how worried we were about this entire thing in the first place).

Either Phil Hughes starts, and we worry that the shuffling of Joba back and forth between rotation and bullpen has irreparably damaged him and made the last three years of Joba ruling a complete waste, or Joba starts and in four years Hughes hasn’t thrown more than 110 innings in any one of those years, the very years in which Hughes should be building his arm strength.

Joba turns 25 and Hughes 24 this season, so while they are still young, they’re hardly babies. Both should be starting, getting the innings they need, and not wasted in the bullpen to fill a short-term need.

That said, since the Yankees will probably be loathe to trade either one, or to send either one to AAA to get his innings, we’ll once again be left with a situation in which one bad start by whoever’s in the rotation, gets the whole starter/bullpen debate riled again.

This issue aside, however, the Yankees are in great shape.

The only other issue seems to be who makes it as the team’s fourth outfielder; everyone on the team that needs to be health is, (knock on wood), thus far healthy, and that includes the ‘core four’. The Yankees don’t have any position battles at any other starting position, and while we might not be able to expect 2009-level production from the likes of Jeter and Posada, we should still get enough to make the Yankees one of the most dangerous teams in the league.

Fifth starter battle or not, I’d rather have the Yankees’ issues this spring than those of any other team.