[Myrtle]

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thats the issue though. i dont give the yankees more leeway because they have more money, its a poor way to evaluate the deals they make. they need to be held to the same grading system as the red sox, and as the san diego padres. a good deal (giles) is a good deal and a bad deal (wagner, damon) is a bad deal.

look at it this way. lets assume your neighbor makes twice as much money as you. you both go out and buy the same car, and while conversing about your purchaces, you find out he paid 35k, while you paid 29k for the same exact product. are you not going to assume hes a sucker, just because he makes more money than you? of course not! you both entered the same market place and got the same product, yet mr jones paid more money because he went to the fancy dealership which is in place to fleece guys like mr jones.

baseball is a marketplace, and the product that is being sold (either runs, or prenetion of them) have a fair market value. those that pay less than the market value are schrewd and those that pay more are suckers.

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I guess I agree with all of this. However, whether or not your neighbor is a sucker really doesn't matter. he has the same car, and paid more, but he has more money, so so what?

The real life affect (or downside) to being a sucker in this case is pretty negligable, or non-existent.

as long as your neighbor - or in this case, the NYY - continues to have more money than you, then the amount they overpsend simply becomes an academic issue.

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i am not talking about the NYY going bankrupt. i am talking about *this* deal they signed johnny damon to. its a bad deal, just like the rich neigbor paying more for the same product as you, despite having more money than you.

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....looking at it in the narrow focus that you've presented, you are correct IMO.

However, the other mitigating conditions for all 3 parties (Yankees, Sox & Damon) make it a correct decision for ALL of them. (I'm not saying that I agree with it; simply that I understand the prevelant perspective of the 3 parties involved).

In pure baseball terms......The Yanks got stronger & the Sox got weaker for 2006.....net = a 2fer for Georgie & the Boys from the Bronx.