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Post by GEO on Mar 21, 2009 18:43:15 GMT -5
The Yankees spend a lot of money. Blah Blah Blah. The Yanks are terrible for baseball. Blah Blah Blah.
Wrong. Wrong Wrong.
After the Yanks spent an absurd amount on big time free agents, they took a lot of admonishment for spending ridiculous amounts of money and supposedly being "bad" for baseball.
Lets think about this:
1. If they can afford it, they should be allowed to do it. By the way, under Major League Baseball rules, they are allowed to do it.
2. The Yankees should only be servicing one group of people. Yankee fans. Which they did. Thank you, Yankees.
3. The Rays proved that you can have success without spending a bunch of money. Big free agents mean nothing if they don't get you to the big game.
4. There is no such thing as buying a championship.
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Post by Nyi28nhl on Mar 21, 2009 22:36:05 GMT -5
GEO, have you read "The Yankee Years" ?
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Post by GEO on Mar 21, 2009 22:43:29 GMT -5
I haven't actually. It's on my reading list.
Did I hit the nail on the head or did I completely contradict Torre?
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Post by Nyi28nhl on Mar 21, 2009 22:59:25 GMT -5
Somewhere in between, closer to hitting the nail on the head. First and foremost, I thought it was a great book and I never liked the Yankees.
They do spend a tremendous amount on Free Agency, and that is the exact reason the book attributes to the lack of championships since 2000. Side note: can you believe it has been almost a decade since they won? Wow.
What used to happen was that teams were not able to keep their young great players because they simply could not pay them the money they would demand. This all changed in the late nineties as a result of the Internet, and MLB.com. The revenue made from all MLB websites (including individual team sites) is split evenly among all the teams regardless of how much money each team actually brings in. This was Selig's attempt to even the league out a bit.
While the Yankees get the some $40 Million or so as the Marlins, the $40 Million means a lot more to the Marlins than it does to the Yankees. It means that they can keep their 2003 team together to make the run for the championship. It means that the Rockies keep Holliday for a few extra years. It means that Sabathia hits the free agent market at 28 rather than 25 (when the Indians were able to afford to give him an extension).
This has prevented the top tier young free agents from being available for the Yankees to throw their money at. No longer could they pluck a David Cone off of Toronto's roster, or Paul O'Neill off of Cincinnati. Now, the free agents are players in their late twenties/early thirties. They are players on the decline, who are exactly what the Yankees don't need. They throw money at guys like Giambi to hope he can still have some of that skill he once had, and it blows up in their face. Essentially, building a team through free agency is very counter productive.
I could go on about other stuff as well, about the "Information Revolution" and how other teams around the league caught the Yankees napping. That the Yanks rely too much on old school scouting methods and this "new school" idea of using unbiased stats is working out quite well.
One interesting note in the book, since the Yankees dynasty of getting to the World Series (after 2003) there has been 8 different teams in 5 World Series.
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Post by wiz'wit08 on Mar 22, 2009 14:53:22 GMT -5
I think that the Yankees are once again a force to be reckoned with. What they did in free agency is a disgrace to baseball but we as fans can't help that because Yankee fans are big enough not a very nice persons to still get satisfaction from buying a championship.
Despite this fact i think that the Yankees will be lucky to win the wild card in their highly competitive division.
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Post by Nyi28nhl on Mar 22, 2009 17:41:07 GMT -5
I don't know how great the Yankees will actually be this year. Posada, Jeter, Damon, and Matsui are all a year older and a year further into decline (both in the field and at the plate). CC is a great pitcher, but the only one on that staff. Wang is okay-- shows flashes of greatness sometimes and looks crappy others. Joba is a young stud, but I have zero confidence that his arm holds up if given a spot in the rotation. He belongs in the bullpen in my opinion as a future replacement for Mariano (sort of like Rivera-Wettland in the mid-nineties). Anytime (during the regular season) without A-Rod's production is a big hit. Cano is a huge question mark.
It's a tough division. I guess injuries will play a big role on which team gets the edge. If I were a betting man, I'd say the Sox with the Yanks getting the WC.
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