Okay, have it your way: there is no Yankee fan on the planet who advocates paying Jeter 20 or25 mil per year for seven years, but fan support (and the the threat of fan disappointment) is the entire basis of his NOT having signed (to date) the far lesser contract the Yankees have offered him.
You boys can’t have it both ways: either it’s just silly to overpay him more than a token amount, or people (including folks on the SDMB) who claimed it was okay to do so were wrong. Your summary is just plain foolish, “it’s their money and they can waste it however they like” is ONLY valid if they have a literally unlimited budget for player salary, which even some extremists (like Mhendo) have backed off of.
But I am not getting what many people in this thread are arguing. My own argument is plain: there’s no way it’s smart for the Yankees to offer Jeter very much over his market value, that’s just pissing away resources, which will be needed to put together a winning roster by any team with a limited budget, however high that limit may be. I’ve been very specific about what “very much over market value” means–it means more than a token amount (in baseball terms, a million or two) per year above 7 or 8 million (let’s call it 10 million per year) for no more than three years. That’s a total of 30 million guaranteed–anything above that, I think, creates budget problems.
Now, some of you have quoted approvingly Jeter getting over 20 million guaranteed per year, for longer than three years. I have asked if anyone would like to place a friendly bet, with me taking the under on “84 million guaranteed money, total”–and there was a lot of backing off the position that that was a reasonable, fair, fiscally sound figure, so I’m left wondering why everyone couldn’t have agreed in the first place with me that such figures were NOT reasonable, NOT fair, and fiscally UNsound? That seems to be the position being taken today, in contrast with, say, Marley’s remark of 11-19 that “it seems pretty concrete they’re offering $21 million” and “I don’t think they’d go as low as $15 million. His skills are not what they were and it’s greater than his no-name value to a generic team, but I don’t see them asking him to take a big pay cut.” I’m putting 15 mil, OTOH, on the high end of what the Yankees will pay Jeter.
Anyone interested in taking the over on my friendly 84 million dollar total guaranteed value bet?
I think everyone understands what you’re saying, but speaking for myself, I don’t care if they overpay. I really, really don’t. Assuming they re-sign Pettitte and Rivera, they have a team that can compete for the championship. They could use someone like Kerry Wood to set up for Rivera, but that’s about it and Jeter’s contract won’t affect signing a free agent reliever.
Another way to look at this, illustrating the stupidity of the Yankees overpaying Jeter, is to think what they would be offering him if he had a great 2010 AND they hd won the World Series. If they’re going to offer over 20 Mil for four years (and I don’t think they will) what would he have been worth off a great championship year? Not that much more, if anything.
So, his argument is “Forget about the mediocre year I just gave you, at an age when permanent decline is the rule rather than the exception.”
Funny thing is, I’m rooting very hard for them to overpay Jeter, because I think the Yankee image is one of the few things that could bring down this franchise, at least for a few years. If they really do tie up 110+ mil in five elderly players, and they all go into the tank simultaneously, the Yankees might just finish up in third place in AL East, which would be sweet. I don’t think they will overpay Jeter to a crippling degree, but I do think their deal with Jeter will end up hurting the team.
In this chat, Rob Neyer addresses the Jeter question several times, once opining (correctly, IMO) that they could easily recover (on the field) from his loss, by putting a replacement level player in at shortstop, thus improving their defense while losing a few games overall from Jeter’s quality, and making up the difference by spending the money at other positions.
In case the link no longer works, here’s his quote:
Really? Why? I thought “overpaying for Jeter (or anyone else, for that matter) doesn’t really cost them another very good player on the roster. They seem willing to just keep spending and spending.” Are you saying that paying him that amount WOULD affect their overall budget, and cost them some flexibility in acquiring players at some point? Because that was my point, to begin with.
First, i think it’s pretty insane that Jeter and his manager expect to get that sort of money. Second, and more importantly for this discussion, the Yankees would be silly to pay it, not because they couldn’t afford it, but because they can (and will, i think) get him considerably cheaper. I’ve never once suggested that the Yankees should overpay Jeter; i’ve simply been arguing that, if they do, it doesn’t really do much damage to their ability to acquire other players, at least in terms of their finances.
Now, the question of the roster spot is somewhat different. It’s true that every person you have on the roster is a spot that can’t be filled by another player. But this would be true whether they were paying Jeter $5m/yr or $25m/yr. Despite the number of good players they have, and the number of free agents they have purchased over the past few years, the Yankees roster still isn’t completely full of All-Stars, and Jeter’s presence on the roster gives them someone who is still a decent-hitting shortstop without jeopardizing their ability to go after the good free agents that are available right now. And there aren’t that many good free agents right now anyway.
And that’s another reason why i said that the deal Jeter wants is insane; it’s not so much for the money he’s asking (although that’s pretty crazy), but the length of the contract. Right now, Jeter is still pretty much the Yankees’ best option for shortstop next year, but that scenario is less likely every year, and is why the Yankees have only been offering a three-year deal.
Remember, your main claim in the OP was that “Jeter’s contract looks to cost the Yankees is another very good player on the roster in 2011.” You still have given no evidence that this will be the case. What free agent/s will Jeter’s contract cost the Yankees? As far as i can tell, their main aim in terms of free agents is to sign Cliff Lee, and i’m betting that their offer to Lee is unlikely to be contingent on how much Jeter gets.
Here it is, in very short sentences so you can understand:
I’m not arguing that the Yankees should dramatically overpay Jeter.
I’m not even arguing that the Yankees will dramatically overpay him.
I’m simply arguing that, if they do choose to overpay him, it will not have the sort of negative consequences for the team that you suggest in your OP, and that it is not inconsistent with the Yankees’ desire to win the World Series.
(Well, that last sentence wasn’t so short, but if you take your time with it, i’m sure you’ll get the gist.)
You want evidence of something that hasn’t happened yet? And is a closely guarded secret (the Yankees’ exact thinking on a matter best kept private)? You want the name of the man whom the Yankees WON’T sign if they sign Jeter to a lucrative contract? Well, of course, I’m bound to disappoint you if you’re asking for evidence of something unknowable to anyone outside the Yankees’ inner circle.
But the Yankees would be much improved by signing Carl Crawford AND Cliff Lee AND Jayson Werth and a host of others, some of whom they will need to pass on, because of financial restrictions. They will have much sharper financial restrictions in 2010 if they sign Jeter to a lucrative, long-range contract. But you’re “betting” that their offer to Lee is completely independent of an offer to Jeter, offering no evidence of your thinking. IOW, we disagree, but you’re pretending to have some authority behind your thinking while denigrating the authority behind mine. Color me unimpressed.
Well, the difference between the Yankees paying Jeter more than 20 mil and the Yankees paying a replacement-level shortstop will free up something upwards of 20 mil, right? Since we all agree that they’ve got budget limits now, that’s 20 mil they’ll have available to spend elsewhere.
None whatsoever. But would not having that $20 million cause them “much sharper financial restrictions”? They may not literally have a unlimited budget, but there doesn’t seem to be any indication that $20 million would have much of an impact on it.
What do you suppose a limited budget means, exactly? We’re not discussing a trivial figure here–20 million is almost 10% of the Yankees’ annual player-salary budget. There’s not a company in the universe that lets its annual payroll rise or fall 10% lightly. Of course it has much of an impact.
It means they don’t have an infinite amount of money. But some limits are much higher than others. And some are A LOT higher than others.
The Yankees have had payroll jumps of up 20% several times in the last decade. Not the giving Jeter $20 million will be a 10% payroll jump. Doesn’t he make close to that now? And if they’re overpaying by $10 million, that’s not 10% of the budget.