Upon Yankee stuff
It is hard to believe that as he matures into one of the Yankees most indespensible pitchers, Chien Ming-Wang could have been had for a bag of balls as a throw-in to the Randy Johnson deal. For all the moves to acquire Pavano, Javier Vasquez, Esteban Loaiza, Kevin Brown, and on and on and on, the most successful pitcher acquired in recent memory was a minor league bidding war pick-up.
For all the crap the Yankees' farm and scouts take from purported "insiders", three home growns have been crucial components to the Yankees success. For every Terrence Long/Aaron Guile, you can only hope a Melky Cabrera emerges. Each time you pick up Tony Womack, you hope he becomes what Robinson Cano has for this team. Too many knee-jerk, "we need a veteran presence" moves have held the Yankees back in recent years. Losing one of the aforementioned players to grab Greg Maddux or another name-outweighs-ability guy would have been boneheaded.
Yes, I do realize that most teams would have been crippled by making some of the moves described above; hamstrung financially while trying to pay off 30 million to Kevin Brown while he sits at home punching walls. And yes, when you grab All-Star Bobby Abreu to replace fallen All-Star Gary Sheffield, things do not necessarily look bleak. To all the payroll mavericks out there I say this, point to one place in the rule book that precludes other BILLIONAIRE owners from doing what Geroge Steinbrenner does. Money creates money; cash into the team puts fans in the seats and generally the team in the playoffs, which increases revenue, which is put back into the team (and shared with other "poor" owners who accept hundreds of millions from corporate sponsors to create partypoker.com stadium).
Mussina has now been placed on the DL, Jason Giambi has a barking hamstring, and Alex is out sick. Fortune is smiling on the Yankees in that the Sox are running into the same West Coast swing that they are, but with an additional 3 games, and no off day (Yankees are off Monday).
Randy Johnson goes tonight, and needs to continue the 5-6 inning no-hit stuff he has been showing recently, minus the several run blow-up.
posted by Charlie at 1:47 PM
2 Comments:
I wouldn't necessarily call Wang "homegrown." He was not subject to the draft and was signed by the Yanks as a 20 year old free agent to a $2.1 million contract. Teams like the Pirates, Twins, Royals, etc. don't get the opportunity to harvest such prospects. In any event, he's one hell of a pitcher and your ace. Only a fool would prefer the Moody Moose or the Eunuch in a big game.
Your statement that other owners can do what Steinbrenner does is simply not true. The big money these days is local tv revenue -- the above teams could win 150 games every year and not get the tv revenue Steinbrenner would get even if the Yanks lost 150 games every year b/c they are not located in a metropolitan area with tens of millions of stooges forced to pay for the Yes channel, whether they are Yankee fans or not. Steinbrenner plays with house money. The other owners have to reach into their own pockets to expand payroll. Steinbrenner doesn't. If Steinbrenner ever has to operate in the red, his loss will be overcome by the profit he has made through the increased value of the franchise from 10 million (when the convicted felon bought it in the early 70's) to over One Billion now (as per Forbe's). John Henry would had to have reached into his own wallet and taken a loss to trade for Abreu, Steinbrenner just reached into your's and mine (with the help of Cablevision, Time Warner and Mike Bloomberg).
I'll refer you here to this article
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=betweenthenumbers/salarycap/060405
"the Yankees are one of two teams never to have missed the postseason under the current system {of rules} (the Braves are the other). If we chart postseason appearances against average team revenue, we find that a little more than half of getting to the postseason is determined by team revenue."
and
"High revenue may help lead to the postseason, but postseason appearances increase revenue as well. Not only are playoff tickets a lucrative item, but a winning team typically sees regular-season sales soar. To avoid this dilemma, we can compare postseason appearances not with revenue but with TV market size. Beyond the obvious -- you really don't want to play in the tiniest markets, or in Canada -- the correlation between market size and playoff appearances is extremely weak. What explains the Cardinals' or the Indians' success, or the Phillies' lack of it? Market size accounts for 11 percent of the cause -- meaning anyone who's tempted to place bets on division winners based solely on TV market size is kidding himself"
Steinbrenner spent this money long before the YES network came into being, and MSG was an option channel not standard under old cable. He worked out this deal with Yankee moneyw which he earned as an owner, not outside money.
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