Sports fans are stupid
Question:
When is the last time the New York Yankees spent more than $60 million on a single free agent?
A) 2008
B) 2007
C) 2006
D) 2000
If you answered D, you are correct. If you answered anything else, you’re the common sports fan.
The Yankees have the highest payroll in the league, I’m not going to deny that. But who is all the money going to? Their OWN free agents. ARod? Jeter? Posada? Matsui? Yep, resigned. The last time they went out and “bought” the biggest name free agents was December 2000, when they signed Mike Mussina and Jason Giambi to big money deals. The biggest deal they’ve given was the four year deal worth a little over $50 million to Johnny Damon a few years back.
Since then, they’ve always passed on the biggest fish in the free agent sea, letting Carlos Beltran, Barry Zito, Vlad Guerrero, J.D. Drew, Daisuke Matsusaka, and others rake it millions while they signed players to lower level deals–players such as Carl Pavano, Kei Igawa, and Jaret Wright. Yikes.
So this is the offseason they need to actually do what people think they do already. Buy people. And by people, I mean C.C. Sabathia, and possibly Mark Teixeria. CC is perfect. All he costs is money, he’s a lefty, and he would form a great one-two-three punch with Joba and Wang. Then, they can sign either Pettitte (which is really just a formality at this point) or Mussina if he doesn’t retire for the best rotation they’ve had since 2001, by far. If Mussina does retire, then i’m all in favor of having a minor-league free for all for the fifth spot. Instead of handing Hughes and Kennedy spots like last year, have Hughes, Kennedy, Aceves and Coke fight it out for the last spot, and you have plenty ready in AAA when you need another starter. I think it would be Hughes, though…once he realized he couldn’t pitch at a high level with only two pitches, he started throwing a cutter and a change and was far better the last few starts. But CC is important–otherwise you have to gamble on Burnett or Lowe or Sheets and CC is more of a sure thing. They really only need one starter though, and the bullpen is great. And it seems like they practically breed young starting pitching in the lower and mid levels of the minors, with Zach McCallister, Dellin Betances, Andrew Brackman, et all on the way up.
The lineup needs to get younger, and Swisher helps with that. The problem is their best minor league prospects are nowhere near the big leagues–Austin Jackson (CF) probably won’t be ready til 2010, and Jesus Montero (C/1B) and Austin Romine (C) until 2011 or 2012. So they have to make due, but starting Gardner in center, where he’d steal 100 bases if he hit .260, with Cano, Nady and Swisher is a step in the right direction. Tex would be great though–he can actually field! But with a good staff, it’s not a huge deal…those Yankee teams won championships with Bernie Williams hitting cleanup and nobody hitting 30 HR in any of the four championship years.
So we need one big name free agent this year. Overspend, its ok, you have $90 million coming off the books. Even if they got CC and Tex they’d still cut payroll. So spend big bucks for once!
More on this….going back through old entries. The first one, written in June (http://lettersfromsuburbia.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/i-still-like-sports/), gave five recommendations to the Yankees. They have since done ALL of them. Which means Brian Cashman solely relies on me for his personnel decisions. I said to designate Latroy Hawkins for assignment, trade Kyle Farnsworth, Trade Wilson Betemit, put Brett Gardner in CF, and don’t trade the farm for CC Sabathia. Now they can sign CC without sending prospects (although I said CC was overrated, but we can gloss over that)
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