1. I wrote this column today about how the Yankees want to get to Cliff Lee in both Game 7 and also across the negotiating table. In both instances the Rangers are stumbling blocks. Obviously, if Texas beats the Yankees in Game 6 tonight, Lee can be preserved to start Game 1 of the Rangers’ first-ever World Series game Wednesday in either Philadelphia or San Francisco. And the Rangers also can complicate matters in contract negotiations this winter.

Look, in the end, I think Lee will end up a Yankee sometime in November or December. In general, the Yankees get what they want in free agency and they badly want Lee. Plus the word of mouth is pretty strong that Lee really wanted to be a Yankee in July and – as well as it has gone in Texas – he still has a strong eye on New York. Obviously, there will be big money in New York. But also the near certainty of playing meaningful games every year. Lee has a chance to construct a Hall of Fame candidacy in his 30s, and that is more easily launched out of the Big Apple than anywhere else.

But I think if the Yankees had completed their early July trade for Lee – and remember that they had a deal in principle with Seattle – they not only would be overwhelming favorites right now to repeat as champions, but also to sign Lee. Perhaps Texas would have still made the playoffs without Lee, considering the weakness of the AL West. But it is very hard to imagine them winning a five-game Division Series without Lee. Meanwhile, put Lee on the Yankees and it is hard to imagine any team beating them in these playoffs. Such is Lee’s stature right now as a dominant postseason force.

And if Lee had been a Yankee from July onward would any other team believe it was even worthwhile to bid aggressively to get him away? For example, without showing exactly what his value is first-hand, would the Rangers really have made a strong offer this offseason for Lee. Now, however, their new owner, Chuck Greenberg, promises a real effort to retain the lefty.

Also, Lee’s impact on the Phillies last year and the Rangers this year could motivate other teams to start thinking: Hey, we don’t really want to pay in the $25 million range for one starting pitcher, but if we were ever going to do it wouldn’t it be worthwhile to do it with a guy who makes this kind of difference both in the regular season and – just as vital – in the postseason? Now this cannot be a club without means or without belief it can win in the next few years. After all, even teaming Lee with Felix Hernandez – perhaps the best pitcher in the world – did not make Seattle a contender this year.

Still, in the column, I picked the Cubs and Angels as teams that I can imagine looking at Lee and wondering if he is the guy to break the proverbial bank on. The Cubs also have new ownership and the buzz in the industry is that ownership will go willingly go into deep pockets to spend big. Could any organization use the modern symbol of postseason success more than the Cubs?

Meanwhile, Angels owner Arte Moreno has gotten the reputation as not having the tolerance and/or stomach to bid hard and long for stars. That was the case with CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira. But the result of that philosophy, to some degree, manifested. The Angels had their run of three straight AL West titles end as the team with Lee, the Rangers, won the division. There is a strong belief that the Angels will be aggressive bidders for free agent Carl Crawford. But the Angels are in a situation not unlike the Yankees were after the 2008 campaign.

At that point, the Yankees had missed the playoffs for the first time since 1993. They had cleared big-time salary space with contracts for Jason Giambi, Bobby Abreu, Mike Mussina, Carl Pavano and Kyle Farnsworth expiring. And they remade their team by using that money to buy Sabathia, Teixeira and A.J. Burnett.

The Angels do not have a ton of dough coming off the payroll this year – about $16 million with expiring deals for Hideki Matsui, Scot Shields and Justin Speier. But after the 2011 season the Angels have about $55 million in expiring deals with Abreu (him again), Scott Kazmir, Joel Pineiro, Fernando Rodney, Juan Rivera and, yes, Gary Mathews Jr., who they still owe $12 million next year. So the Angels are motivated because they did not make the playoffs plus they have a ton of money coming off the books the next two years. They could do what the Yankees did with Sabathia and Teixeira and try to take the best two free agents – Crawford and Lee – off the board.

The Angels would then present a rotation front four of Lee, Jered Weaver, Dan Haren and Ervin Santana that could be a force both in the regular season and playoffs. They would have either Pineiro or Kazmir as a trade chip and way to create more salary room. Pineiro is due $8 million next year and would be tradeable. Kazmir is owed $14.5 million between salary and buyout and is probably borderline untradeable.

Anyway the big point is that the Yankees very well could have a real field to challenge them for Lee’s services – something that might not have occurred if they had been able to finalize that trade in July.

2. The Yankees are the Yankees, which means they have a $200 million-plus payroll loaded with luminaries. The Rangers were in bankruptcy until they were sold in August. And yet as a sign that you cannot have everything, I think you can make a pretty strong argument that despite the disparity in payrolls that Texas actually has the two most talented players in the series: Lee and Josh Hamilton.

3. Since becoming a Yankee at the trade deadline, Kerry Wood has pitched 31 innings between the regular season and playoffs and allowed three runs on 19 hits with 38 strikeouts.

He also has been durable as a Yankee. He has pitched more than one inning eight times and on back-to-back days five times with no signs of diminishing stuff or physical struggle. It is seductive for the Yankees, who have to think seriously about bringing back the free-agent-to-be to serve as both Mariano Rivera’s set-up man in 2011 and also closer insurance should anything beset Rivera.

However, just how far do the Yankees go financially to keep a player who has 14 DL stints on his ledger? He is kind of the pitching Nick Johnson, and enlisting Johnson for a full season this year proved to be foolhardy. I can imagine the Yankees offering Wood something like one year at $3 million to $4 million with a 2011 option for similar dollars. Would Wood take it? Well, he still might want to see if there is a place in which he could definitely close. Also, he lives in Arizona and doing spring training in that state has been meaningful to him in the past.