1.  The Yankees have some pretty noticeable weaknesses, both offensively and in the starting rotation.  Has there been any word if the front office is interested in trading for a name player (Adam Dunn, for example), or do you expect them to "fill from within" or discount shop on players like the late Corey Lidle and the Shawn Chacon's of the league?  How does the front office foresee the best way to fix the current squad?

They are not interested in Adam Dunn, mainly because they're trying to get away from one-dimensional players. As far as I can tell, they have 4 DHs who ought to be playing every day, when healthy: Damon, Matsui, Giambi and Posada. That's a big problem. For now there is not much on the market besides the usual-suspect kind of guys -- Wolf, Byrd, Fuentes, every Mariner besides Felix Hernandez and Ichiro Suzuki -- and the Yankees will keep trying to fill from within, from what I gather.

Think about it: when was the last time they made a trade that carried any risk? The Abreu/Lidle deal brought a lot in return, but it only happened because the Phillies had nowhere else to dump all that cash and were willing to take low-tier prospects. Brian Cashman is being very conservative, and it's hard to blame him -- the way Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner see things, a $209 million payroll ought to be enough to win, and you can fill in around the margins with patch jobs while growing the farm system.

CC Sabathia would have been nice, but they weren't going to do a deal without knowing they could have him long term, and deep down, they really didn't want to pay for him twice, in prospects and in cash.
 

2. There are rumors circulating that the Red Sox are interested in Barry Bonds.  We've been pushing for a Bonds signing for the last few weeks.  With Damon and Matsui now out, do you think Cashman & Co. would entertain this proposition?

I do not see this ever happening. Bonds and the New York media would be an absolutely toxic mix, plus he would need time to get in game shape, and by then their injured guys would be back already. Again -- they have too many DHs as it is. Plus, Bonds has all these legal issues hanging over his head. The Yankees have dealt with enough steroid clouds in recent years (Giambi, Sheffield, Clemens, etc.).
 

3. Has there been any discussion of trading either Brett Gardner or Melky Cabrera?

I think they might have been willing to talk about Melky, since he has value, until Damon and Matsui got hurt. Now they need him. They have very high hopes that Gardner can give them an element they haven't had -- a good left field arm, and legitimate speed. Also, notice that Gardner and Melky both arrived in the majors already knowing how to work pitchers and take tough at-bats. Must be a trait they are either teaching in the minors or drafting for, or both.
 

4. The just-traded C.C. Sabathia will become a free agent at the end of the season.  We would consider it unlikely that the Brewers would wage a successful contract agreement.  Have their been internal discussions about signing Sabathia or would the suddenly frugal Yankees back off on making a bid?

Yes, I think they will be major players for Sabathia. The fact that he was traded to a small-market club unlikely to sign him is terrific news for the Yankees. When they lost out on Santana, he went to a team that locked him up right away. Now they'll have a chance to bid on Sabathia this winter, and I can see no reason why they wouldn't.

When you look at his age, his durability and his success, and the fact that he's a lefty, he's exactly what you'd want. Forget the fact that he's so big -- he doesn't strike me as a ticking-time-bomb type of body, like Bartolo Colon was. Sometimes these big guys are actually excellent athletes who repeat their mechanics very well and don't get hurt much, like David Wells for all those years. Imagine a Yankees rotation that starts with CC, Wang and Joba, three ace-type guys all born in the 1980s. Then you'd still have all that "inventory" (Hughes, Kennedy, McCutchen, etc.) plus maybe another hurrah for Mussina and/or Pettitte. And don't forget that the Kei-man is signed through 2011....
 

5. Same question about Mark Teixeira...

I'm really not sure where they stand on Teixeira. He's a Scott Boras client, so he'll want a lot of money and probably get it from the team that is most desperate to have him. The Yankees could use Teixeira, for sure, but they won't be desperate to get him the way Baltimore will. Teixeira is from Maryland and Peter Angelos does not mind paying top dollar for sluggers.
 

6. In your interactions with Derek Jeter, does he seem upset at his performance this season?

No. Jeter believes the long season evens everything out in the end.  He's hard to read when addressing his own weaknesses. It's also hard because he never admits to any physical limitations, but plenty of others cited the bruised hand from the May 20 HBP as a reason he didn't hit for a while. I think he batted .300 in June, but I would guess you're talking more about his fielding and lack of walks.
 

7. What's the status on Jorge Posada's shoulder?

Posada needs labrum surgery this winter. He probably would have had it already if the Yankees didn't need his bat so badly. Just look at the difference between Posada and Molina, and it's easy to see. He's something like 3-for-33 in potential base stealers. Molina has caught 11 in a row and has the best % in the league. It's been over a month since anyone has stolen a base off him. I doubt Girardi would do this, but I think the smartest move while Damon and Matsui are out would be to catch Molina every day and make Posada the DH.
 

8. Any word on when Matsui will return?

Not sure on that, I'll have to ask around. He's been sort of forgotten the last few days given all the Damon updates. I think he'll try to take BP this week and see how much weight he can put on that back leg. That's a huge deal -- if he can't do that, he loses his ability to wait on pitches, and he'll start drifting forward and stop driving the ball. Giambi used to deal with this all the time in his early years with the Yankees.
 

9. Should we expect Wang or Hughes to return this season?  Furthermore, have you heard anything about the front office being concerned about Hughes flurry of injuries since he started pro baseball?

The Hughes issue is a big deal, but the Yankees hope he is young enough that he'll have many years to put this behind him. Some guys deal with a lot of injuries early in their careers (Josh Beckett, Jose Reyes) but then stay relatively healthy. Hughes has a good work ethic and he cares a great deal. That said, this injury is very strange in how long it's taking him to start pitching again. It's been over 2 months now, and he's starting all over again, so I can't see any way he returns before late August. Wang said the other day that he still had another month before the boot can even come off his foot, so I can't imagine him back before September.
 

10.  Lastly, with the media coverage that surrounds Arod's personal life, how much attention do you expect this divorce to receive and do you expect it to affect the Yankee clubhouse or his performance?

You know, the Yankees made Alex available in the interview room Sunday after he was named top vote-getter in the All-Star Game. He was there for 6 1/2 minutes and all the reporters stuck to baseball questions. Yet I bet if you asked most fans, they would have expected us to badger him with questions about his personal life. The truth is, sportswriters do not drive the stories about guys' personal lives. It does us no good at all. I laugh when I hear people say, "In Babe Ruth's day, the writers looked the other way." Believe me, we still see and hear lots of stuff we don't write about, because it's not relevant to the sports pages. In five years with the Yankees, Alex has rarely hung out by his locker anyway. And when he is around, sportswriters ask him about baseball, almost exclusively. Sometimes a paper might ask a sportswriter to see if Alex will talk about the stuff that the news side is writing, and that writer will grudgingly ask the question, and Alex will say no, and that's that.

He might be asked a little more now, since there is actual documentation that something significant is happening in his life -- not just wild gossip. Understandably, fans will wonder if he's able to keep his focus, and yes, Alex is a sensitive guy who still probably cares too much about what other people think. But he didn't get to be this good for this long by letting off-field stuff affect him on the field. That's his sanctuary, anyway, where no one can get to him and where he largely controls what happens. So I don't see it having any impact on the clubhouse or his performance.

Tyler Kepner has covered the Yankees for The New York Times since 2002. He joined The Times in 2000 as the Mets beat writer. A native of Philadelphia and a graduate of Vanderbilt University, Kepner has also covered the Angels for the Riverside Press-Enterprise in California and the Mariners for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and their four children.