Hideki Matsui will join the Yankees as a spring-training instructor, The Post has learned. The beloved former player was scheduled to arrive in Tampa on Tuesday.
The Yankees invited the 2009 World Series MVP to work last year’s spring training, but Matsui declined due to the impending birth of his child.
Matsui, who formally retired as a Yankee last year after signing a one-day contract with the club, will join a long list of pinstriped legends who have worked spring training as instructors. Andy Pettitte took on that role in the spring of 2012, and he threw batting practice so well he ended up coming out of retirement.
The 39-year-old Matsui should be able to help newly signed Masahiro Tanaka in the transition from Japan to the Yankees. The two spoke briefly during the Yankees’ recruitment of Tanaka. Matsui is expected to remain with the Yankees until spring training games begin.
The Yankees, Marlins and Major League Baseball are planning an official announcement for their March 15-16 exhibition series in Panama, Mariano Rivera’s native country. Multiple sources said the trip will happen despite some speed bumps in planning it.
Joe Girardi, asked Tuesday about Alex Rodriguez dropping his lawsuits against MLB and the Players Association and accepting his season-long suspension, said: “It’s something that seems to have been settled, and we won’t have him until 2015. We’ll focus on this year this year, and we’ll deal with next year next year.”
Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner shut down a question about A-Rod, while general manager Brian Cashman declined comment on the matter.
Girardi said the competition for the Yankees’ fifth starter spot is “wide open. And the thing that it does, it affects your bullpen. Trying to iron out your bullpen, you can’t really iron it out until you iron out your fifth starter.”
Vidal Nuno, a long shot for the final rotation spot, is fully healed from the groin injury that bothered him last year. He pitched in the Arizona Fall League.
Austin Romine, one of several catchers looking to back up Brian McCann, spent the offseason improving his conditioning.
“I feel like I’m in the best shape I’ve been in in a while,” Romine said at the Yankees’ minor league complex. “I’m just looking for some time to show them I can still do it. It’s going to be a fight.”
He said he is looking forward to the chance to learn from McCann.
“Here I get a chance to study and be under a guy that’s been an All-Star forever,” Romine said. “It would be stupid not to pick his brain and learn from him.”
Romine has recovered from the concussion he suffered last September.
“A week after the season was over, it was still kind of hanging around, but after that I was good to go and started working out,” Romine said. “They made me see a doctor before I came out just to touch all the bases. I’m good to go.”