Remember, some of us hate the Yankees because they’re from New York City, not because they over spend. 
It is not a disadvantage and I did not say it was. I did say that despite the money the team still needs to be well built. As far as all teams having an even playing field, I am not sure I agree. You seem to think every sport should have parity. I am not a huge fan of the NFL’s version of parity. IMO, the game is not as good as it was when I was younger.
Should the disparity be less? Sure, how about every MLB team has to spend at least $50 million and a maximum of $120 million. We also have too many teams, probably by 2-4 teams.
Jim
There’s the quick fix. Dump a couple of the worst teams, and you’ll see the talent pool rise in the remaining ones. Bye-bye, Nationals! So long, Rockies! See you later, Devil Rays!
Agreed in full. I think at this point KC should be the 4th. I have a soft spot for Pittsburg as it is such an ancient franchise.
Jim
After seeing last night’s game against the Dodgers, I think the Marlins ought to be on the list as well. There were maybe 400 people there. Nobody in Florida roots for the Florida teams, because they are all from somewhere else and retain their loyalty to the “home” team.
Nope, you didn’t and I tried to fix that but didn’t get there in time.
I’m in complete agreement about needing to be well built. It just strikes me that in that endeavor some teams will be able to realize choices that others don’t enjoy.
That’s 3 teams. Which will be 4th - Mets or Red Sox? 
Just to correct a misception earler in the thread: Josh Phelps is a 29 year-old retread who came up with the Blue Jays in 2000 and had a few decent years platooning. He is in no sense homegrown Yankee talent and was in the minors because he couldn’t keep a regular job in the majors.
Well, you are right. The Yankees and to a lesser extend, the Dodgers, Angels, Red Sox and Mets and even the Cubs have the ability to write-off mistakes (like Carl Pavano) and bring in the next free agent or take back the next salary dump. This is a big advantage.
If the Yanks had kept up their farm system and spent money on young pitching instead of older hitters, the payroll would never have gotten so high. This current payroll is the result of patching problems caused by years of in-fighting and bad drafts and trading of the few prospect developed. Exactly the same thing that killed the Yanks in the Eighties, accept this time they have a better central core, a consistent if over-rated manager and have spent even more money than in the Eighties.
No team with any common sense would have signed Giambi, Sheffield & Damon. Maybe one of them, but not all three. The Yanks have also burnt out a lot of good middle-relief desperately looking for the next Nelson, Stanton & Mendosa combination. Torre finds one or two arms he trusts and fries them.
Jim
I don’t know… but it would be kind of fun to see Gil Meche’s face as he whines to the devil, “But you promised me the contract of my dreams!”
Teams from vastly different markets are in direct competition with each other.
In business, I don’t care if some company develops a massive competitive advantage over it’s rivals.
But, sports is different. The teams are members of a “league” which they benefit from while damaging the robustness of. And some of us enjoy seeing a good sports league. E.g., I’m much more of an NFL fan than a Ravens (local) or a Patriots (the team I grew up with). They put a good “product” on the field each week that I like to watch. Same with NASCAR.
But, in baseball, I believe the Yankees behavior is detrimental to the league. They’ve taken what should be a competition on the field, and made it a competition between owners where the primary advantages don’t come from wise decision making, or coaching, or scouting but rather from the status of being in a large market.
To implement some parity in baseball, the league implemented a luxury tax. . .a fee you have to pay to the league if your team salary is in excess of a specific amount (about $150M). Well, what the Yankees pay luxury tax is greater than the entire salary of some teams. It’s not just a little out of whack. Their pitching staff alone has a higher payroll than the entire payroll of other teams.
Imagine if someone did that in football. . .spent more simply on offense than other teams spent on offense and defense combined.
This latest acquisition is just the latest in a long string.
Tell it, brother. I’ve hated the Yankees since the 1962 World Series, when the players were all underpaid.
Excellent point; you can’t argue with results.
The Knicks currently are and the Rangers recently were longterm disasters. I’d say the Mets have been successful, though they don’t have any recent World Series wins to show for it. All three spend a crapload of money compared to the rest of their respective leagues.
Actually, you can argue with results.
Things that take place over a 162 game season have more correlation with the actual attributes of the team than things that happen over the course of a 5-7 game playoff. In that measure, almost no one has touched the Yanks and Sox over the past 5 years or so.
I really don’t know how the Rangers spend. The Knicks are notoriously stupid. . .but at least they have the option of being stupid. Starbury and Steve Francis might be terrible acquisitions, but I bet the the Royals would be pretty happy to have their equivalents.
Money doesn’t guarantee success and lack of money doesn’t guarantee failure, but that’s the way I’d bet it. If anyone wants to take the bottom 15 payroll teams in any league, and give me the top 15 payroll teams, I’ll take that bet for any number you can name.
I don’t really follow hockey, but to compare the Yankees with the Knicks is a little disingenuous. Basketball has a salary cap, and in spite of the many clever ways that exist to circumvent its actual restrictions and allow some teams to spend more than others, the cap does still limit spending and flexibility. Were the Knicks in the same situation as the Yankees - with the freedom to spend as much as they wanted - they would have the ability to free themselves from the various weights they’ve tied on over the last few years, cutting the noncontributors and paying better players.
Well, I’ve said this elsewhere, but the problem isn’t so much that they have an insurmountable advantage; it’s that they have a very, very significant advantage. This destroys my ability to enjoy the players, coaches, and staff for their accomplishments, which in turn precludes my enjoyment of the team. It is taken on faith among Yankees fans that Joe Torre and Brian Cashman are an outstanding manager and general manager, respectively. Is this true? I honestly have no idea. As far as I can see, Cashman and Torre are simply not working in the same game as any other Major League GM or manager. Comparing them with, say, Walt Jocketty and Ron Gardenhire, again respectively, is impossible; you might as well ask whether Shakespeare was better than Salvador Dali. Jocketty and Cashman have completely different jobs. And half the fun of baseball is comparing one thing with another, right?
Further, and as I’ve said before, because the Yankees go to such extremes to ensure winning, the times that they win are boring. Other than to a Yankee fan, a Yankee championship year is never an exciting year, in the end, because it has the feel of a foregone conclusion. When the Yankees spend so much more than everyone else, the only outcome that is interesting is a Yankee loss, so I root against the Yankees - passionately - because I want interesting baseball. I said this in the other thread too: if they hadn’t signed Clemens, the Yankees had a chance to become an honest-to-goodness feel-good story.
I mean, picture it. It’s October 14 in hypothetical world, and Yankee Stadium is packed. The fans are out of their minds, because for a few horrible weeks midsummer, no one thought they’d come anywhere near this moment. With starting pitchers dropping like flies to injury and several key players slumping or showing signs of injury, the Yankees found themselves 10 games back of the first place Red Sox, 8 games out of the Wild Card, and fading fast. But General Manager Brian Cashman calmly resisted talk of expanded his already bloated payroll by signing Roger Clemens. “We’re already spending $195 million,” said Cashman, “and we believe that we have 25 outstanding players on this roster. Plus, Roger expects to be able to come and go as he pleases, and that’s not how we do things here. We are the Yankees, and we expect a certain set of behaviors from the players on our team. Roger is a great pitcher, maybe the best in my lifetime, but we’re going to war with our guys.”
Clemens instead made his return to Boston, where he turned an already stacked Red Sox rotation into something nearly invulnerable. The Yankees, for their part, fought to keep pace. Manager Joe Torre turned in the greatest managerial job of his career, ably juggling a parade of starters that included Matt DeSalvo, Jeff Karstens, Brian Bruney, Kei Igawa, and homegrown prospect Phillip Hughes, and getting the most of a depleted, patchwork bullpen. And little by little, the Yankees veterans responded. Derek Jeter hit .360 after the All-Star break, keeping his team in the race. Alex Rodriguez finished his best-ever season with 59 home runs and another MVP award. In early June, Cashman finally re-signed fan favorite Bernie Williams, who contributed a surprising .505 slugging percentage in three weeks of sub work for an injured Johnny Damon. Finally, just before the deadline, Cashman pulled off a coup when she shipped prospects Humberto Sanchez and Jose Tabata, along with starter Kei Igawa, to the Houston Astros for ace pitcher Roy Oswalt. The Yankees managed to squeak into the playoffs by a hair, defying the chorus of media voices that called them “finished” in June. After winning their opening round series, they come to the Stadium to start a seven game set against the Red Sox, the prohibitive favorites with the rotation full of store bought All-Stars. Against them the Yankees would send a few superstars, but also Jeff Karstens as a game 4 starter against Clemens. None of the pundits are giving them much of a chance. But the fans, the casual fans, the fans of other teams in other cities - they’re rooting for the underdog. For the team of character guys who didn’t bow to the pressure to bring in an asshole mercenary the minute the going got tough. For the Yankees.
The Yankees will never, ever give the baseball world that story, though, so I’ll continue to root against them until the Great Stein himself comes to swallow my soul and take me into the darkness.
Why is this unfair?
Why is this artificial?
Nice post and mostly valid. I am not a huge fan of Clemens returning. I never liked him, I resented trading Boomer for him in the first place, all those years ago.
The Rangers until the strike spent and wasted gross amounts of money. The owners are now protected from themselves by the league imposed salary cap. The Knicks have been mis-managing the team horribly while outspending the rest of the NBA for years. Perhaps it is not a great analogy, but I think it is well worth noting at least.
What you said about Torre and Cashman, well I already mentioned in this thread, that Torre is over-rated. Cashman, I am still waiting to see, but he is no Gabe Paul so far. That was a Yankee GM* that was a genius. Gene Michaels and George Weiss are two more that come to mind quickly. This Clemens deal was an act of desperation, It appears the Boss panicked and ordered Brian to get it done. The capitulated on everything and bid against themselves on the money. Much like the Giambi deal many years back.
Jim
- Technically he was President, but he acted in the role of the GM making great trade after great trade.
All a reasonable perspective, and to be fair, I’m definitely not one of the people who’s running around complaining that the Yankees are ruining baseball. I enjoy rooting against the Yankees; it’s part of the fun. You enjoy rooting for the bad guys; nothing wrong with that 
So see you in a couple weeks, when Jose Reyes hits for the cycle against your new goon.
Roger was involved in a steroid investigation. Ryan was not that I am aware of. Steroids have been around a long time but most of us were unaware.
http://thesteroidera.blogspot.com/2006/10/evidence-against-roger-clemens.html
Here is another story on Roger .