10 reasons the Yankees aren't worth it.
 

This is written by Mike Lupica. I consider him one of the better sports jounalists around. I think he makes some very valid points in his article.

In a way, it was good for baseball that the Yanks didn't go any farther. If they did, it would destroy the integrity of the game. That only the top salaried teams could win. Just look at the Marlins a few years ago on what they did to the Yankees.

Glad


http://www.nydailynews.com/front/sto...p-302487c.html

New York Daily News -
10 reasons they
aren't worth it!

Tuesday, October 11th, 2005

Over the past five seasons, George Steinbrenner has spent just short of $1 billion on the Yankees in payroll and luxury taxes. It has bought him the softest Yankee postseason team in history. Including this team, one round and out against the Angels.
Think about it: The Yankees might end up with the MVP this season, Alex Rodriguez, the Cy Young Award for Mariano Rivera, have the Rookie of the Year in Robinson Cano and the Comeback Player of the Year in Jason Giambi, and still they can't make it out of the first round of the playoffs.

We thought this team might be different, especially after the way it won Game 4 Sunday night against the Angels to stay alive.

Then it did what five straight Yankee teams have done in October: Lost the game it needed to keep going, or to win it all. This team falls down in October, every single time.

This Yankee team, according to Major League Baseball, cost $210.9 million in payroll.

We all thought this team at least had the chance to be special. This team came back from that amazingly bad 11-19 start and from being 39-39 on July 1 to win its eighth straight title in the AL East.

But the Yankees are not measured by division titles and never have been. So by Steinbrenner's own standards, which means you win the World Series or you are a big fat loser, this year's team becomes the newest most expensive flop in sports history, beating last year's team by $4.9 million in payroll and $7 million in luxury tax.

They were something to see in the regular season, the hottest ticket in baseball, 4 million fans to the Stadium! When it was all on the line, they were as soft as ever.

Here are 10 reasons why it happened to the Yankees again:

1. Randy Johnson

He was this year's aging, insanely expensive pitcher, the one who was supposed to be the difference-maker the Yankees did not have when they fell down against the Red Sox one year ago like somebody falling off a bar stool.

Well, he was the difference-maker against the Red Sox, winning five games from them and probably winning the AL East from Boston in the process. But Johnson, who turned 42 during the season, was wildly inconsistent, clearly not the dominating pitcher he used to be.

Another guy the Yankees got a year or two too late.

He was brought here to win Game 3 last Friday night, get the Yankees a 2-1 lead in the series, never let the thing get back to Anaheim. He couldn't get out of the fourth inning.

Johnson turns 43 next season, when he will earn another $16 million of Steinbrenner's money. What a bargain.

2. A-Rod

I kept hearing all September that he had to be the MVP of the American League because of his glove. Really? Where was all that sparkling fielding when the Yankees needed it against the Angels?

And where was the guy who hit 48 home runs and had 130 RBI when the Yankees needed just one big hit from him? Instead, Rodriguez had the kind of October that used to have people in Brooklyn praying for Gil Hodges at this time of year.

No home runs.

No RBI.

Batting average of .133.

When it was all up against the Yankees in the ninth inning Monday night, when the whole season in New York was up against midnight, when Derek Jeter was on first and there were no outs and the Yankees were desperate for more hits and more baserunners, A-Rod grounded weakly into a 5-4-3 double play.

Reggie Jackson says all the time that you're not paid to win 100 games here, you're paid to win the last 11 in October. And if you are a Yankee, you are measured in October games. Last season, when things started to fall apart against the Red Sox, A-Rod shrunk to the size of an iPod Nano. Same thing in these five games against the Angels.

3. The late, great Yankee bullpen

Mo Rivera is still the best, the way Jeter is still the best. But in the old days, when the Yankees were good enough to win the World Series, it was never just him. Once, at the beginning, it was John Wetteland after him. Then it was Jeff Nelson, Mike Stanton and Ramiro Mendoza getting the ball before Rivera.

Now it turns out that the Yankees' second-best reliever is Big Unit Johnson. When the Yankees fought from 0-5 to take a 6-5 lead in Game 3 - a game that was everything - Aaron Small couldn't hold the Angels, Al Leiter couldn't, Scott Proctor couldn't, Tom Gordon couldn't.

$200 million team. Set-up men who weren't worth a plugged nickel when it mattered.

4. Hideki Matsui

Good grief, who stole Godzilla? I thought he was going to be an MVP candidate at the start of the season. By the Angels series, he couldn't hit or catch.

His performance at the plate in Game 5 was A-Rod-like, just left-handed.

5. No leadoff man

Once again Monday night, Jeter was the heart and soul of the team and the most dangerous guy in the world to the Angels. He's still not a leadoff man. He wants to swing and hit it hard. The Yankees haven't had a real leadoff man since Chuck Knoblauch.

Now A-Rod, who might end up hitting 800 home runs in the big leagues, is No. 2 at the end of this season, the way he was at the end of last season. It was a joke then and is a joke now.

6. Giambi

He actually hit pretty good in the playoffs, and you can't call him a reason why the Yankees lost. And he was a huge hitter for the Yankees over the last three months of the season. He was Comeback Player of the Year, in baseball and BALCO.

And it is why this is a perfect time to pay somebody as much as the Yankees can to get him out of here.

He is not a good first baseman and never will be and you saw it again this week. He is a DH. Still working off a seven-year, $119 million contract.

Papi Ortiz, DH, real MVP of the American League, made $5.3 million for the Red Sox this season.

7. Ervin Santana

The star of Game 5 was a 22-year-old kid with a big arm who came off the Angels' Double-A team this season.

You know when the Yankee farm system produces an arm like this?

Never.

The closest we have had lately is Chien-Ming Wang. And guess what? Last year, the Yankees tried to trade him and Robinson Cano for Randy Johnson.

Give away the kids when you can. Then watch somebody else's kid beat you.

8. Two front offices

You have the weasels in Tampa and you have Brian Cashman and Joe Torre here. All the weasels care about is protecting their own turf with the old man, and undercutting their own manager and general manager. Wonderful.

And typical Yankee excess.

Why not get A-Rod even though you've already got Jeter?

Why not have two front offices, constantly at war with each other, instead of one?

9. A team of great All-Stars, not a great team

The 2003 Red Sox lost a crushing Game7 against Aaron Boone. The 2004 Red Sox came back from that, then got knocked down as hard as you can, down three games to none, and three outs away from elimination with Rivera on the mound.

They came back and won.

They had been through something together and it made them stronger. You thought it might happen with these Yankees. But these are not the old Yankees. Not even close. Just an All-Star team of old Yankees.

10. Oh, yeah, they're old

They are older than the Rolling Stones, another big show business attraction at the gate. The team that tried to win the World Series this year was not just the most expensive, it was the oldest.

When Johnson started and Giambi was DH and Tino Martinez was at first and Bernie Williams was in center, the average age of the team was 33.

Five seasons of endings like this now. One billion bucks spent. No World Series won. Same old same old.

They seem worth it enough for you to take the time to post this and to wait for everyones response and to reflect on it.

I maybe naive, but I believe wholeheartedly, once Steinbrenner is gone, we'll see a cap in baseball salary, true revenue sharing and $200 million salaries taking the field against $40 million teams.

The only people who truly argue that teams should be able to spend spend spend are the Yankees and BloSux fans (for the BloSux, I think it's just to keep up with the Yankees).

But, I guess in the end you get what you pay for..... 2 very high paid worthless players sitting at home watching the ALCS, blaming everyone else on the team and in management except themselves.

I guess it must be nice to buy players that can win a division but choke in the first round. And it must be very satisfying to be a fan of a team that spends more than 4 times that of a team that had a better August and September than you and had it not been for their YOUTH and inexperience they would have beaten not only your season records but one of you out of the wildcard.

Then there was Tampa who spends maybe 1/5th of what you do and they owned you.

Yes I guess there is a lot to be proud of as Yankee and BloSux fan..... your owners outspend everyone, you are there at the end of the season... but now like 24 other teams fans, you get to sit home and watch 4 other teams battle for the WS Championship.

Only unlike the other 24 teams that are home, you get to sit on the most expensive worthless group of underachievers, has beens and prima donnas in baseball.

Must be nice to be a Yankee and Blosux fan.

Me? I'll take my overachieving Indians that have another year's experience and a truly bright future and my Cincy REDS, who have class act players, the greatest player in my lifetime and a team that is going to be stronger next year.

Neither team may be there but I know that both team's players gave all they had and made this season a fun and great season, that I can look back on with pride and the knowledge that next year those 2 teams will only be better and stronger....

Yankees and Boston fans have a winter of discontent, and wondering how much more they can spend to buy a championship.

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, cause unfortunately the players you get for those big bucks aren't team players and as we saw this year when the time comes and they are needed to show why they make their big money...... they choke and are sent home to blame everyone but themselves.

Interesting take. This however really caught my eye:

This just doesn't seem to jive with the fact, that the New York Yankee's, have recently overtaken the Montreal Canadiens (followed closely by the Boston Cletics), as the most successful sports franchise in the history of professional sports.

-bear

You have to remember also between 1923 and 1962 they won 20 out of 40 World Series. When yes, they were a true dynasty because they had the farm system and scouts and prestige. They have none of that today, only the glory of days past, high payrolls, primadonna players and the luxury of playing in the US's biggest market.

In the 70's only 2, in the 80's ZERO, and not until '96 did they win and won 4 of 5, but they did so with young players that were hungry. Some of whom they had farmed themselves.

But since 2000, they have been the highest paid team and haven't won. They have no true farm system, they don't have young hungry kids and they keep overpaying and ruining the market for other teams trying to buy a championship.

It's true since 2000 they choke in October. The "rental" players they buy aren't a team, they are over priced prima donnas that collect paychecks and know they'll make their money win or lose.

The 4 teams there, they have players where a championship and winning means something, where they give everything they have. Class acts each of those teams, with good farm systems and a nice mix of youth and veterans. Something the mighty Yankees lack.

I wouldn't exactly say that all their losses have been "chokes". The Yankees problems post-2000 have boiled down to one thing, and that is pitching. Every big name pitcher they have accquired since then has been a bust (right up until the time they get rid of them, at least). Pettite and Clemens seemed average, and the Yanks screwed up resigning one and lost both. And Clemens has one Cy Young after that, and if his team could've gotten him any support would've had another this year. And Pettite is now a healthy pitcher that would be an ace for any number of teams, and will probably help the Astros beat the team that had this year's best record. They dumped Contreras and El Duque this year, both of which had solid years for the White Sox. And they spurned David Wells, who was solid for Boston and has always been a big game pitcher. But they picked up Randy Johnson, expecting a performance like last year (where he should have won the Cy Young) and instead got an average performance. Kevin Brown never panned out for them, and neither did Leiter or the parade of other one-year too late pitchers they tried to get. And the younger pitchers they tried to get seemed to wither in New York (Vasquez, Weaver, Pavano). Basically, that cost the Yankees probably 2 titles. Despite some of the high priced players not doing well in the playoffs, it was poor pitching that cost them.

And I also think that they made a big mistake not getting Vlad Guerrero. Sheffield has been all they asked for and more, but they could've easily found a spot for Vlad, or just not have signed Sheffield. One will be an MVP candidate for 3-4 more years, one will be a candidate for the next 10-12.

But the best thing about the Yankees is that they will be back next year, and they will threaten again. Although I'm not really sure if there's any free agent pitching that is ace quality (maybe Schmidt? Millwood?).

Perhaps, but the Canadiens didn't have to waste billions, they did it out of heart and hatred for Toronto :D