TAMPA, Fla. -- The morning fog lifted, the Florida sun shone brightly and the New York Yankees greeted 2005 Spring Training with a brand new, vastly improved starting rotation.

Admittedly, at a cost of about $64 million for this season, this rotation ought to be improved. But there they were at Legends Field on Thursday on the first day of work for Yankees pitchers and catchers; three new pitchers, a 60 percent turnover of the rotation.

This needed to happen. The Yankees flatly ran out of starting pitching in the 2004 American League Championship Series, and the Boston Red Sox made history out of this shortcoming. But now, Randy Johnson and Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright join holdovers Mike Mussina and Kevin Brown, and the Yankees' outlook is considerably brighter.

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Manager Joe Torre said he felt more comfortable with his pitching than he did last year at this time.

"Last year, my concern was pitching -- ours and Boston's," Torre said. "When they got [Curt] Schilling and [Keith] Foulke, it wasn't a quick fix. I mean, that was something you knew was going to help them for the long run. You're talking about established people. With Schilling and Pedro [Martinez], you're assuming you get into the postseason -- even though you're not allowed to do that with the way you approach things -- you realize that in a short series, they were a scary ballclub."

Now? The Yankees became a lot scarier themselves with the addition of Johnson alone. But the starting depth is better, too. Letting Jon Lieber go was a move that many questioned. But there are now two starters in their 20s, coming off the best seasons of their careers, and Randy Johnson is still Randy Johnson.

So the Yankees are very positive about their newly formed rotation. But how do the new pitchers feel about becoming Yankees?

"To come in here and put on this stuff for the first time, it's every bit as good as something you dream about," Wright said.

If there is anything strange about Wright's situation, after his career was revived with Atlanta last season, it is this: He is being paid about $7 million this season and he is by far the cheapest buy of New York's starters. Reminded of this, Wright laughed and said:

"Maybe they'll let me in a card game or something around here. I don't know what the buy-in will be. Maybe I'll have to take out something on my house."

Pavano was asked what the best thing was about his new situation. He laughed and said: "Just to see how the other half lives." And you knew exactly what he meant.

He was basically the ace of the Florida Marlins' staff in 2004, his breakthrough season. Now, at 29, he is the youngest member of the Yankees' rotation, 10 days younger than Wright. "It's strange, but I welcome it with open arms," Pavano said of his new status. After all, he can learn from some of the best pitchers in the business, one of whom is, of course, Randy Johnson.

Johnson spent what would have been a routine early Spring Training day, doing the ritual stretching, throwing a bullpen session, going through two fielding drills, along with his own conditioning regimen. But could it be considered routine when all his on-field activities were followed by scores of reporters, cameras, etc? The Big Unit, The Big Club, The Big Story.

Johnson was doing his best to keep the whole thing in perspective. It was probably a lonely task, but he seemed to be performing it fairly well.

"I'm not so blown away," he said, when asked about his brand-new experience. "I mean, I'm doing what I love to do. I'm here with a different team. One dimension of it, and it's not a little one, by any means, is that now I'm doing it for the New York Yankees. And I'm very proud to be doing that, and happy and very excited to be pitching here.

"But I also respect the game enough to know that I'm excited to be playing baseball, whether it was last year in Arizona or here. I think it's a matter of I'm excited about pitching for a Major League team, and realizing that I'm doing what I've been doing for a long time and now I'm doing it on one of the biggest stages, if you will, in the game.

"The only thing that I can see that's really different is that there's more people here, that's all. I'm not being asked to go out and try to do something that I haven't already done. There's more of you [reporters] and I'll respectfully try to give you more of my time because there's more of you, but I guess I'm not in awe of the situation. I mean, I understand what's going to come from what I have to deliver here, but I'm not overwhelmed. I mean, I was initially, but now I'm in my surroundings. This is my domain, if you will. I'm comfortable on the mound, I'm comfortable in this environment, this is what I do for a living and I've been doing it for a long time. I was kind of overwhelmed about the whole situation becoming a Yankee, but now it's very comfortable surroundings being here. And I just go out and pitch.

"I'm just being truthful, you know? Obviously, I haven't experienced my first game here, I haven't experienced my first bad game here, I haven't experienced my first good game here. I'm just telling you how I feel right now. Maybe I'll retract some of these words a couple of months from now, but now I'm excited and having fun."

Excited and having fun seemed to be the order of the day in regard to the Yankees' new pitching circumstances. When you put the New York rotation in context, $64 million is a figure that exceeded the total player payroll of 15 teams in 2004. This is a remarkable amount of money to be spent on just five pitchers. But these are the Yankees, and so, that is all relative.

The thing is, from the safe and optimistic vantage point of Florida in February, it appears to the Yankees that this was money well spent. They needed starting pitching. They paid top dollar to get it. Included in the package was the most dominant left-hander of this era, and his 41 years were not a detriment to excellence as recently as last year.

The 2005 pitching mood is expensive, but also expansive with the Yankees. They feel better about themselves on the mound than they did one year ago, when they won 101 regular-season games.

This does not add up to a feeling of well-being for the rest of the American League.