Joe Girardi has plenty of reasons to feel good about his upcoming season with the Yankees, especially with Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera seemingly back in the fold.

As Girardi said, it's always better when you know who you'll be working with. As such, the Yankees officially unveiled their 2008 coaching staff on Tuesday, keeping some members of last season's crew while incorporating some new faces and roles.

Hitting coach Kevin Long and first-base coach Tony Pena will return, while Dave Eiland has been promoted to pitching coach. Rob Thomson becomes the new bench coach, and both third-base coach Bobby Meacham and bullpen coach Mike Harkey -- both members of Girardi's 2006 Marlins' coaching staff -- have joined New York.

"Now that the coaching staff is put together, we can all go to work," Girardi said. "We've already started working on Spring Training and how we'll approach it. It's obviously a lot better when you know everyone that you're going to be working with."

Three members of Girardi's staff worked under Joe Torre in 2007 -- Long, Pena and Thomson, while Eiland traveled with the team in September after his season with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre ended.

"Just watching the work that they've done makes you comfortable with them," Girardi said.

Eiland, 41, will be entering his sixth season coaching in the Yankees organization, after playing parts of five seasons with the club. A familiar face to hurlers working their way through the system, Eiland came on board in September and embraced a role as an extra voice for Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, among others.

"Dave knows all the young pitchers," Girardi said. "Obviously, those young guys are going to play an important role with us this year, so I thought it was important that the pitchers were comfortable with the pitching coach."
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The only thing that I have a problem with is Thompson as the bench coach. With Girardi only in his second year of managing I would have liked to have seen them bring in someone who's been on the coaching side of the game for a long time and has some experience.