As you know unless you have been hibernating, the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Pirates are waiting on approval from MLB on the A.J Burnett trade for 2 of the Pirates' minor leaguers. Please take a moment to understand how awesome Brian Cashman is.

Michael Pineda wants to lose 10 pounds during Spring Training.

Probably not what Yankee fans are super excited to hear, but I have faith he'll take care of it.

Ivan Nova doesn't care where he pitches in the rotation, he just wants to pitch.

If he can come close to repeating his 2011 this season, the rotation will be really exciting to watch.

The Texas Rangers are on the verge of dealing Koji Uehara according to MLB Trade Rumors.

Some say they might use the money saved to sign Roy Oswalt, so we'll see what happens with that.

The player formerly known as Fausto Carmona has been in the Dominican Republic urging young players to not lie about their identity.

Good for him. It's a messy situation for all involved when the truth surfaces like it always does.

Win Probability Added (WPA) is defined as the difference in Win Expectancy between the start of the play and the end of the play. Basically, WPA assigns value to how much a specific at-bat helped or hurt the team's chances of winning at that moment. The higher the leverage, the more value assigned to the particular at-bat. For example, there is much more WPA to be gained or lost for a player batting down 1 run in the 9th than if the same outcome occurred while up 6 runs in the 4th.

Most of you have seen the Win Expectancy graphs from Fangraphs posted here in game threads or recaps, but on the off chance that you haven't: they look like this. All these charts do is add or subtract the WPA for each play to determine how likely a team is to win the game. They are helpful if you want to see how much one specific play changed the game, or which player added the most to a win based on their calculations. Sometimes they fluctuate wildly, other times they are more of a steady progression, depending on the scoring in the game.

Now that the explanation most of you likely didn't need is out of the way, onto the actual point. I decided to look at each Yankee game of the 2011 season to find the 10 individual offensive plays with the highest WPA. No small task, I assure you. Most aren't that surprising, but it's an interesting look at the individual plays that had the most statistical impact on a game throughout the season. If you'd like to see a players total WPA for the 2011 season, Fangraphs keeps track of that here.

Beyond the jump you will find the list of what WPA says are the top 10 plays, but first, there will be a graph. Of course.

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The balloting is over, and here are the results of the first Pinstripe Alley Yankees Hall of Fame balloting:

Elston Howard (22/23- 95.6%)

Thurman Munson (22/23- 95.6%)

Jorge Posada (22/23- 95.6%)

Unsurprisingly, all three catchers nominated have been inducted to the Pinstripe Alley Hall of Fame! Don't feel bad about voting for all three of these candidates, as they were all exceptionally worthy.

Now, first basemen on the other hand... this conversation could get interesting. We currently only have Lou Gehrig in our Hall of Fame, but there are six nominees today to join him: Wally Pipp, Moose Skowron, Joe Pepitone, Chris Chambliss, Don Mattingly, and Tino Martinez.

Let's get to profilin' after the jump.

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Jon Heyman says that Johnny Damon is surprised the Yankees aren't pursuing him more.

Sorry, Johnny. When/if the A.J. Burnett trade happens, the Yankees are likely to sign Raul Ibanez faster than you can say defensive liability.

Speaking of trades, Jeff Sullivan looks at the last time the Yankees and Red Sox traded with one another.

Of note, the Red Sox have traded with every other major league team more recently than they have traded with the Yankees.

Mike Axisa at RAB looks at 5 prospects who could climb into the Top 30 by next season.

We hear so much about the Manny Banueloses and the Gary Sanchezes of the farm, so it's nice to read about guys who have not been regulars aboard the hype train yet.

Also from RAB, Larry Koestler analyzes the best pitches by Yankee relievers.

I bet you won't guess who leads the pen in Whiff% on their cutter.

Beat writer Marc Carig writes that Larry Rothschild and Joe Girardi haven't decided on the order of the rotation after CC Sabathia.

Feel free to make your predictions on that matter below.

An old school baseball trade. Give up a quality player to get a quality player. It's the best kind of trade, with both teams getting something they really need. Everyone benefits

Should I make it more obvious I'm talking about the Montero for Pineda trade? As far as post trade narratives go, the one from the above paragraph appears to be the prevailing one. The Yankees got the number two starter they were missing (I guess) and the Mariners upgraded their offense with a young power bat. Perfect trade for both sides.

Much of the same can be said about the signing of Hiroki Kuroda that almost immediately followed the trade. The Yankees got another high quality arm on a short-term contract and that contract allows Kuroda to explore a return to Japan after 2012. Perfect for everyone involved.

Everyone appears to benefit from the off-season pitching moves. That is unless you're talking about a pair of close to the majors arms hampered by an unfortunate label.

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