Money, Baseball, and Success

[Voltron87]

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Colon, Vladdy, Tejada (Although they didn't need a SS) Pedro, Bonds, Beltran

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colon- i dont remember the specifics

vladdy- got sheffield instead.
tejada- theres only 1 shortstop on the field, and the yankees have 2 right now.

pedro- hes old and injury prone. 3 years 40 mil (do i have that right?) is not a very good deal.

bonds- hates white people. wont come to nyy.

beltran- not anywhere near worthy of the deal he got. 100 mil for that long... no thanks. sure the yankees could have really used him this year but very soon they would be thinking "WTF did we spend 100 million dollars on him for so long?!?"




out of all of those, vlad is the only big mistake. hes younger and better than sheff. pedro and beltran both would have been awful contracts and the yankees would have been ridiculed for signing them. plus they didnt want to spend more dough.

im not saying the yankees FO hasnt botched a lot, they have, but those players arent really mistakes (other than vlad)

[sammysusar]

A few of my points :

1. Sports are not part of the free market. pittsburgh cant just leave pittsburgh. so a salary cap is not necessarily a bad thing.

2. I dont think the new york - boston rivalry is so great. when you have such an advantage you should be there every year.

3. The salary has been good for the NFL. You dont really have any cities with poor attendance outside of arizona.

4. A salary cap is baseball will never happen. yanks and boston and a few others lose too much in this scenario. luxury tax is the best they can do.

5. the unbalanced schedule is good for the leauge. should make the wild card more competitive especially in AL where the east has alot of wealthy teams.

[imported_The Vibesman]

Funny that, given who your avatar is, you would call Pedro Martinez "old." And he sure has pitched a lot of innings over the last 4 years for an injury prone guy. His contract with the Mets is actually about 4 years, 54 mil, so if you thought 3-40 was bad, you'd have hated that. I personally think he will earn every dollar of that deal.

What does Bonds hating white people have to do with Baseball or NY? I think the thing there is the Giants would never let him go.

I agree that Beltran got too much. But I think not upgrading in CF was a pretty big mistake this offseason. Not that it seems to have hurt you any.

[brettbrettr]

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Funny that, given who your avatar is, you would call Pedro Martinez "old." And he sure has pitched a lot of innings over the last 4 years for an injury prone guy. His contract with the Mets is actually about 4 years, 54 mil, so if you thought 3-40 was bad, you'd have hated that. I personally think he will earn every dollar of that deal.

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He's old with (semi) annual arm problems. So long as you can stand to miss him for a month, its totally fine. When he's on there's nobody better, but I strongly disagree that he earsn years 3 and 4 of his deal. Seems highly unlikely, but we'll see.

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What does Bonds hating white people have to do with Baseball or NY? I think the thing there is the Giants would never let him go.

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I have no idea why anyone mentioned Bonds at all. When was he available? Ever? Am I nuts?

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I agree that Beltran got too much. But I think not upgrading in CF was a pretty big mistake this offseason. Not that it seems to have hurt you any.

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It did hurt. It hurt lots.And, like I said, Cashman wanted to upgrade center and get Beltran. Steinbrenner really wanted unit and that was that.

[pheasant tail (no 18)]

As long as owners don't have a cap on how much they can make, how can players be forced to cap their earnings.

Sure we'd all love to see teams like '81?? pirates, the big red machine et. al. (when our team is not in there of course), but until they cap ticket and beer prices at the park I cannot agree that players should bear the load for the benefit of the owners.

If baseball cannot go on in Cinti. and KC, so be it. Fair Market Value is determined by what paople will pay. New taxpayer subsidized stadiums obviously are w/in the parameters of FMV since they are being put up every year. $175 to take the kids to the game...ditto. "Greedy" players are just getting their fair market value.

It's America for christ sake. It's the money.

BTW--Certain markets are huge, Phila. and Chicago are way bigger than Boston yet these owner seem to have found a winning formula by being in 3rd place in their divisions 6/10 years. Go Cubbies.

[sammysusar]

i dont think fans want caps because they perceive the players as greedy. its just the league would be better off with more even competition.
baseball is not a business in the usual sense. the teams can benefit each other my making condiditons more uneven that is not usually true in business.

[andyfox]

"he let Clemens and Pettitte go, and he replaced these pictures with Vasquez, Wright, Kevin Brown, Pavano etc. He has traded away his whole farm system"

He's been the GM since 1997, when he was 30. The team has been in the playoffs every year, gotten to 5 World Series and won 3 of 'em.

Clemens planned to "retire" and then play for Houston. He probably also planned to have his buddy Pettitte come with him. The replacement pitchers Cashman signed last year (Brown, Vasquez and Leiber) led the team to a record third straight 100-win season and within a stolen base of getting to the World Series.

I keep hearing about how the minor league system is decimated and yet the guy who won the game for them last night and the guy starting game two tonight came up from their minor league system in the middle of the year.

Every team eventually goes under .500. Meanwhile the Yankees have been well over .500, and won the most pennants and World Championships during Cashman's tenure.

[Pudge714]

Robinson Cano is a very good player, however name another big prospect in the Yankee farm system? The big difference from the WS and his teams right now is that the talent on the WS teams were homegrown and complemented with free agents. Right now Cano, Jeter, Bernie and Rivera are the only homegrown players that come to mind. As well he has done a good job in the past, but in the past five years he has not been a good GM. Most of his moves have been mistakes.

By the way Bonds was a free agent the same year as they signedGiambi
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ne...03silver.shtml

Speaking of Giambi another problem with Cashman is overpaying for players. My personal favorites are Al Leiter and Bernie Williams and Matt Lawton (Although he is gone)
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/salaries?team=nyy

[sammysusar]

One thing you have to consider is the difference is payroll between the yankees and the mid market teams has grown considerably since cashmann has been gm. In the late 90s the indians who were the best mid market team were spending 50 million on their payroll and the yanks 85 to 100 mil. Today the yanks are spending 220 million while alot of the successful mid market teams (twins, a's indians) are 40 - 60 mil.) so cashmann should be expected to make the playoffs every yr.

[sam h]

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2. A salary cap is a bad idea as well. The NFL is a thriving business IN SPITE of the salary cap, not BECAUSE of the salary cap.

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What is your evidence for this?

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3. There should be a salary minimun IF you want to get your share of the luxury tax revenue.

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Agreed.

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4. Most owners and GMs suck. If you suck in a small market, you will pay dearly. If you suck in a big market (read: Mets and Dodgers), you will still suck. If you are good in a small market (read: Twins and A's), you will cycle around every few years, and still be better than the sucky teams in the big markets.

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I agree to a point. The way to compete in any market is through good organization. But note that this is a solution for individual teams, not necessarily for the league as an entirety. If everybody gets wise, as I think the Dodgers and maybe Mets are doing, then it doesn't solve the problem.

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5. The Yankees are good for baseball.

5a. The Red Sox are good for baseball.

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People always say this. But the point perhaps is that the Yankees and Red Sox are good for baseball in some ways and bad for baseball in others. There's no reason to believe that the current system represents some equilibrium in which you cannot improve the bad aspects without hurting the good ones.