TAMPA, Fla. -- We don't find it amazing anymore that the New York Yankees have been to five of the last six World Series.

What's amazing is that somewhere in those six years, they never won a Nobel Prize for chemistry.

	Jason Giambi begins his first season in pinstripes with one goal -- win the World Series.

"People always want to talk about money," says new Yankees outfielder John Vander Wal. "But no matter how much money a team spends, that isn't why they win. They still need to have the chemistry to go out and do it."

There's no formula you concoct in the chemistry lab that magically causes your baseball team to somehow win 17 postseason games in six years in which it trailed in the seventh, eighth or ninth innings. Whatever that formula was, though, these Yankees had it. It's still hard to say which was more incredible -- that stat or e=mc squared.

But this isn't a column about the Yankees chemistry that used to be. This is a column about this year, this team, this chemistry. Because never in this latest run of greatness have the Yankees altered their mix, or messed with that chemistry, more than they have this season.

"We lost a lot of people, man," says Andy Pettitte. "Five people out of your starting lineup -- that's a lot of people. For a team like us, that's almost a complete makeover."

Heck, for a team like the Devil Rays, that's almost a complete makeover. But if a team that lost 100 games blows it up and starts over, nobody even notices. When a team changes more than half the lineup after getting within two outs of winning its fourth straight World Series, you pay attention.

When they line up for the national anthem Monday, on Opening Day in Baltimore, the only Yankees who will find themselves in the same spot they occupied most of last year are the four men up the middle. That's the catcher (Jorge Posada), the shortstop (Derek Jeter), the second baseman (Alfonso Soriano) and the center fielder (Bernie Williams).

So if you do that math, you know the first baseman (Tino Martinez), the third baseman (Scott Brosius), the left fielder (Chuck Knoblauch), the right fielder (Paul O'Neill) and the DH (David Justice) are all occupying different zip codes now. In their place, you'll find Jason Giambi, Robin Ventura (if healthy), Shane Spencer, Vander Wal and Nick Johnson.

If you're having trouble remembering another Yankees dynasty that did this much tinkering with a good thing, it isn't your memory that's failing you. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the only other Yankees World Series teams to make this many changes were the 1942-43-44 Yankees, who had their lineup decimated by World War II.

So in normal seasons, this kind of turnover has no precedent. And compared with the two previous Yankees three-peat champs -- the 1936-39 juggernaut and the '49-'53 dynasty builders -- this wasn't just an overhaul. It was an urban-renewal project.

After the 1940 Tigers ended that first group's run, the '41 Yankees dumped just one starter (first baseman Babe Dahlgren) and phased out two others (shortstop Frank Crosetti and outfielder George Selkirk).

After the '54 Indians interrupted the second group's streak, the '55 Yankees gradually changed just two positions. They eased out shortstop Phil Rizzuto (still around, but supplanted by Billy Hunter). They did the same with first baseman Joe Collins (who played 105 games despite losing his job to Moose Skowron).

	So Many Changes
	The only two years close to this season in which the Yankees changed their lineup so dramatically after playing in the World Series was during World War II in 1942-43 and 1943-44. Here are the most regular lineups from each year, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, along with the 2001 lineup and 2002 projected lineup:
	1942	1943
	C Dickey	C Dickey
	1B Hassett	1B Etten
	2B Gordon	2B Gordon
	3B Crosetti	3B Johnson
	SS Rizzuto	SS Crosetti
	OF DiMaggio	OF Lindell
	OF Keller	OF Keller
	OF Henrich	OF Metheny
	1943	1944
	C Dickey	C Garbark
	1B Etten	1B Etten
	2B Gordon	2B Stirnweis
	3B Johnson	3B Grimes
	SS Crosetti	SS Milosevich
	OF Lindell	OF Lindell
	OF Keller	OF Martin
	OF Metheny	OF Metheny
	2001	2002
	C Posada	C Posada
	1B Martinez	1B Giambi
	2B Soriano	2B Soriano
	3B Brosius	3B Ventura
	SS Jeter	SS Jeter
	OF Knoblauch	OF Vander Wal
	OF Williams	OF Williams
	OF O'Neill	OF Spencer
	DH Justice	DH Johnson

But let five regulars on a World Series team simply take a hike? Except for Wayne Huizenga fire-sale editions, it could be a long, long time before you see that again.

So the challenge for this Yankees team is much more complicated than figuring out where to put Giambi's locker. It's answering this pivotal question:

How does a team like this change so many significant elements so abruptly and still pour the same basic formula out of the test tube over the next six months?

"I'm not worried about it," says the man in charge of the Yankees mixmaster, Joe Torre. "I don't think the mindset is any different. Everyone is here for one reason -- to get a ring.

"I remember Roger Clemens coming in here a few years ago, talking about a World Series ring. It was a little premature. But the point is that everyone who comes here understands a World Series ring is at the end of this. And they also understand there's a whole lot of work in between."

But other teams understand that, too. Other teams do just that much work. And all most of those other teams have waiting for them at the end is a bag of golf tees.

So the fact is, no one knows yet whether this Yankees team will have the same mindset as the previous six Yankees teams.

No one knows yet whether this Yankees team will be able to find itself two runs down with two outs in the ninth inning and have full confidence its next miracle is waiting to be plucked out of the Bronx sky.

No one knows yet if this is the end of an era for one Yankees team -- or the beginning of an era for a new one.

"It's so hard to say right now," Pettitte says. "It seems right where it's always been. But it's so hard to tell in spring training, when everyone's always going in their own direction all the time. The beginning of the season, the first month, when you start making those road trips together, I think that's when you start getting the feel of what your team is like."

Until then, the holdovers will be watching, waiting, judging. It's the new guys who have been conscious of what they're walking into since the beginning.

"If I was still in Oakland," says the now-shaven Giambi, "I'd be out there in long hair, all unshaven. But it's OK. I'm not here to be different than anyone else. I'm here to fit in as best I can and hopefully get a ring."

"When you watch them from the other side," says new reliever Steve Karsay, "you can't help but be a little jealous of what the Yankees are all about. They play as a team. They do things as a team. Whatever it takes to win as a team, that's what they do. Coming in here, you understand those are the standards set by Joe. And if you don't abide by them, you're out."

"With the great success they've had here, you know they've obviously been doing something right," says Vander Wal. "So as a new guy, you come in and you fit in and you go with the flow."

And it's easy to find that flow -- because it's set, from day one, by Torre.

"It all starts with the skipper, on the first day," says new utility man F.P. Santangelo. "He tells you, flat-out, 'We don't care who gets the credit. It's all about winning. It's all about doing the little things it takes to win.' In a lot of places, that's talked about. Here, it's done."

"People on the outside might think that when you spend all that money and win that much, you get lackadaisical," Vander Wal says. "No way. This is the most intense spring training I've ever seen. People take nothing for granted around here. And I mean nothing."

The more you're around them, the more you understand how different they are. No matter how many old faces go out that door or how many new faces walk in, there is still one thing that separates the Yankees from almost everyone else:

That culture of winning that pervades everything and everybody.

Only the Yankees could get away with naming their spring-training ballpark "Legends Field" -- because half the legends are walking around that field every day.

"Ever since I've been here, it's been all about winning," Pettitte says. "Just the way they bring back all the great Yankees -- Yogi, Whitey, all those guys. And the new players who come in here, they see that.

"So that's the main thing about maintaining it. They see it. They see it's all about success. So nobody wants to mess with a good thing."

Giambi played for an Oakland team that was sent home by the Yankees two straight Octobers. Karsay's Indians kept crashing into the Yankees' roadblock all through the late '90s. Vander Wal's 1998 Padres lost to the Yankees in the World Series.

	“	Ever since I've been here, it's been all about winning. Just the way they bring back all the great Yankees -- Yogi, Whitey, all those guys. And the new players who come in here, they see that. So that's the main thing about maintaining it. They see it. They see it's all about success. So nobody wants to mess with a good thing. ”
		— Andy Pettitte, Yankees pitcher

So they've all felt that Yankees aura. They just felt it from the wrong side of the field.

"The season isn't six months long around here," Karsay says. "It's seven. It's not a successful season unless they win the World Series. Everyone has that in their mind when they come to spring training. And that's what we want. You get a little jealous of all these guys with three or four rings while you're scuffling just to get one and getting beat by them every year. So like they say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

But once you join them, it's your responsibility to carry that weight the way all those great Yankees did before you. And if you don't, there are still enough survivors from that championship core group to make sure you're reminded of how things are done in the Yankees' universe.

Especially one member of that core group.

"There may be a lot of new faces, but I still think this is Derek Jeter's ball club," Karsay says. "There's just something about him, just the way he plays, the way he carries himself in the clubhouse. If something needs to be said, he'll come up and say it -- not in a way that's embarrassing or putting anybody down. He'll just say, 'We need to do things like this.' "

Yet Jeter has gotten used to being the Yankees' permanent cover boy. So it will be fascinating to see how he reacts if Giambi's profile rises too high on the back-page totem pole. So far, though, even that hasn't been an issue, because Giambi has worked so hard to stay low-key.

"I think Jason did a little homework," Torre says. "I don't think he's coming in here cold. I think he understands what's in store and what we're all about. ...

"I know his personality, from managing him in All-Star Games, from playing against him and now from this spring. And I don't think there's anything to worry about."

Giambi has always acknowledged he doesn't expect to be a leader in New York the way he was in Oakland, "because they're such different teams. In Oakland, I had to be a leader because we had so many young guys. So it was up to me to be in that position of teaching those guys how to win, the way I was taught by Mark McGwire. But this team already knows how to win."

Yeah, you might say that. And Giambi is smart enough to understand Jeter will always have a certain stature he doesn't -- not just in the Yankees chemistry lab, but in the city that never ceases to be mesmerized by this baseball team.

"There's not enough spotlight in New York to take away from one or the other," Karsay says. "They're both great players. They're respected around the league. And New York ought to be big enough for both of them. Give Jeter the East Side. Give Jason the West Side. And I'll take the Village."

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.