NEW YORK - The Yankees officially began the work yesterday to assemble their dream rotation of CC Sabathia, Derek Lowe or A.J. Burnett, Chien-Ming Wang, Joba Chamberlain and Andy Pettitte. Yankees co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner confirmed last night at the team's spring training complex in Tampa, Fla., that an offer was made to Sabathia and that proposals will be forthcoming for pitchers A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe. "Yes," Steinbrenner said when asked if an offer was made to Sabathia. "And we're prepared to make offers to Burnett and Lowe."

The Yankees haven't even signed Lowe yet and I'm already sick of this story. The sports pages will make a huge deal about this. The talk shows will fill hours of air time with it. The Red Sox blogosphere is already revving up the trucks to dump mountains of dirt on this particular mole hill. Shaughnessy has a column all ready to go using the tired old Bob Lobel saw "Why can't we get players like that?"

But the fact of the matter is that Lowe is just not that good. Period. And I'm not saying this because he's about to be holding up pin stripes for the cameras. I said it a thousand times when he was here: Derek Lowe is the most mentally weak great athlete I ever saw. Someone (I seem to remember it being Mike Hargrove) once said that his stuff was so good that he could throw that sinker every pitch for an entire game and you still couldn't hit it. But still you never got more than occasional brilliance out of him:

• In 1998, he was your classic example of a young pitcher learning the ropes and went 3-9 out of the bullpen
• In '99, he settled into a long relief role (6-3, 15 SV)
• In 2000, he had one of the best seasons a Sox closer has ever had (42 SV)
• In '01, he was a train wreck (5-10, 67 Gs, only 24 SV)
• So they moved him to the rotation in '02, and he was brilliant. (21-8, 3rd in Cy Young)
• In '03 he was good at home, the Hindenburg on the road
• In '04 he was the Wikipedia definition of mediocre (14-12, 5.42 ERA)

Everyone will of course remember how well he pitched in the 2004 postseason, and for sure he did. His Game 7 performance in Yankee Stadium was the best game he ever pitched, including his no-hitter. But time and success have made a lot of us forget that down the stretch that year he had pitched his way out of the playoff rotation. The only reason he got a start in that series was because in the epic fail of Game 3, Tim Wakefield gave up his Game 4 start and came in in relief in order to save the bullpen. Prior to that Francona, with the unanimous consent of Sox fans, wanted the ball in Bronson Arroyo's hands, not Lowe's. Nor did anyone want him back for 2005 and they let him jump to the Dodgers without making him an offer. And since then he's gone 54-48. Just like the rest of his career, flashes of brilliance but overall nothing to get excited about. So from now until Lowe's unremarkable Yankee career comes to an end, pardon me if I don't get too excited.