Not counting the luxury tax. They’ve averaged a payroll over $200 million/year since the largest post-season choke in major league sports.
Here’s hoping for a Philly sweep.
As much as I loathe to defend the Yankees, at least they put their money back into the team.
There are big market and small market teams that don’t give a shit about their teams and simply take the money they’re basically stealing from teams like the Yankees and putting it directly into their pocket, and not back into the team.
One thing you can’t fault the Yankees and their ownership for, and that is putting the best product they can on the field.
…and this is coming from a very bitter Mets fan.
Really?
Methinks you confuse “best” with “highest-paid”. Especially the free agents that aren’t on this year’s team—Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Jason Giambi, et al. Were they the best? Or were they aging stars (or injury-prone ones) entering declines.
Johnny Damon’s best years were with Red Sox and Kansas City. C.C.’s pitched well but not lights-out like he did in his Cy Young season with Cleveland.
Unlike the Regulators, you probably could get any halfway baseball literate geek off the street and he could do Cashman’s job. When you’ve got a near limitless checkbook, it isn’t hard to say “oh, Jorge Posada’s getting on in years…pencil in a $230 million dollar contract for Joe Mauer in 2011.” Or “oh, our 3rd baseman’s injured, let’s sign A-Rod…even though he’s a better shortstop than our current shortstop and have him play there.”
May they all wind up like Thurman Munson, and let us take comfort that if the unthinkable happens and the Yankees do buy a world title this year, that Big Stein is far, far too out of it to know what’s happening.
I never said they spend the money well, I said they don’t short change their fans like many big AND small market teams do. They put a great deal of the money they make back into the team, which I applaud them for doing.
Your Munson comment is way out of line, by the way.
Some people take their Yankee hatred way too far. I find many of their fans obnoxious, but this makes you sound just as obnoxious as they are.
I don’t see the allure in being a fan of the team, they’re too vanilla, corporate and boring for me, but I don’t understand what drives people to have such intense hatred for them.
Ditto on the Munson comment being completely inappropriate. You don’t wish tragic untimely death upon anyone.
Consider the following small and medium market teams who played in the World Series since 2001 (Rank in payroll the year they won the pennant): Marlins (25), Cardinals (11), Astros (13), Rockies (25), Rays (29). These teams are finding great success despite not having all the money the Yankees have. So you only get to make one of two arguments: money doesn’t matter or the Yankees are terrible at allocating their money. You can’t start with one and then, if the Yankees win, degrade their success because of the money they have.
