The rich get richer - Yankees incorporated

[Keyser Soze]

Maybe i'm just a bitter Mets fan who is watching his own underachiving overpaid team spontaneous combust before my very eyes as we reach the midpoint of the season but damn you Yankees, damn you to hell!

Yesterday the Yankees aquired Toronto Blue Jays rightfielder Raul Mondesi for a bag of peanuts and a happy ending. They even got the Jays to hock up 6 million of his contract next year. Who the hell do you people think you are??

The Mets were supposed to be world beaters this year, Alomar, Vaughn, Cedeno, Burnitz, Piazza, Alfonzo...what the hell happened. "The Worst Team Money Can Buy" used to be how we referred to the motley crew of losers back when Vince Coleman was tossing firecrackers at unsuspecting young fans in the parking lot. Well this team is making them look like the 56 Yankees. I'm sad to say I have not been this disappointed as a Mets fan in my life.

I could accuse the Yanks of buying another pennant but the Mets aren't exactly cheapskates either, they just have the due diligence of the average RagingBull.com poster.

Congratulations to our rich older brothers over in the Bronx.

You bastards.



Edited By Keyser Soze on July 02 2002 at 1:13

[HedCold]

what pisses me off the most is robbie alomar isn't even trying. at least you can tell mo vaughn and jeremy burnitz play hard, they're just sucking. watching alomar play is so frustrating.

[Keyser Soze]

Alomar is too busy worrying if people are making fun of how he looks in a Padre's uniform on an old baseball card. If anyone was going to be a sure bet, it was gonna be him. He's the biggest disappointment of all. You had your concerns with Vaughn having the whole year missed and Burnitz is notorious for striking out a ton, but Alomar is a first ballot hall of famer. You wouldn't know it this year though.

[HedCold]

that's what make it even more frustrating.

the mets just have to forget about this year and try and get some prospects for once, and rebuild their shitty farm system

[CrimsonKing]

Well it would be nice if the Yankees would just die already. It's kinda pointless when you just buy your pennants. But, at least they lost world series to an expansion team.:toast:

[Sean Cold]

oh, ti gets worse

This just never ends, does it? I like Weaver as a promising young starter and all, but the Yankees again pull off a great trade for them selves and unbanlce all that can be considered right in the league.

[Tenbatsuzen]

I'm sick and tired of Yankee bashing.

Face it. It's not about the money, it's about the fact that the Yankees have the best scouting in the league.

Because of this, they have the best minor-league system, which enables them to make stars (Jeter, Williams, etc) and trade for talent that will help the cause.

[Sean Cold]

Hey, I am a Yankee fan but even I can see the obvious shit that this league is made of. It is really rather simple:

Rest of the League = Yankee's farm system.

[Galt]

Weaver is without doubt their #2 starter now. Give him run support and he's an automatic 20 game winner.

I bet he wins 10 more games this year.

[PollyannaFlower46]

Oy...new Yankees are coming every day! I just hope Thome stays put or goes to the National League...last thing the Yankees need is him on the Sawx.

[Galt]

The Sox have no one to trade. They gave up their second best prospect for Allan Embree. No bullshit.

PS. Don't ask me who their top prospect is, I have no idea.

[PollyannaFlower46]

Aren't the Indians sorta desperate to get rid of Thome though because they want to rebuild?

[Galt]

Yeah, but the Braves have more to give up. As do the Expos, Giants, A's, and pretty much anyone else that might be in the market for a 1B/DH.

The sox will have to give up Fossum and Trot Nixon to get anyone which would just leave them with other holes on their team since they have no value in the farm system to speak of thanks to Duquette

[PollyannaFlower46]

Ahh...gotcha, thanks for explaining that....

I'm wondering what other trades might be in the works that no one knows about yet....

[Sean Cold]

In Baseball, Rich Get Better
by Daily News' Mike Lupica

Raul Mondesi came first, in another week that was good for the Yankees and bad for baseball. Then came Jeff Weaver of the Tigers, a strong young guy from the Tigers. Mondesi is young himself, only 31, and had already hit 15 home runs for the Blue Jays, which means he might hit 20 more for the Yankees.

When it was just Mondesi, George Steinbrenner said, hey, what's the big deal, this was the same as the Yankees getting Johnny Mize and Enos (Country) Slaughter in the old days.

Steinbrenner now has a payroll that goes past $135 million with the acquisition of Weaver early yesterday morning. But he sounds like just another Yankee fan who believes nothing that has happened or will ever happen at the Stadium has anything to do with money. If you even suggest otherwise, you are accused of Yankee hating. I hear that one, from Yankee broadcasters especially, all the time. But then, this is officially a company town, at least where the Yankees are concerned.

If you don't love the Yankees, you hate them, and to even suggest that Yankee business isn't good for the baseball business is viewed as blasphemy.

"They're only playing by the rules" is another one you hear all the time. It is a way for people on the air who constantly carry Steinbrenner's water not to talk about whether those rules, which may get blown sky high if a strike comes to baseball soon, are really any good for what used to be the national pastime and is now Steinbrenner's.

So Steinbrenner gets right out there, after Mondesi and before Weaver, and says that getting a player like Mondesi because of a Toronto salary dump is the same as Mize coming to the Yankees when he was 38 and Slaughter doing the same at 39. Mize played 13 games at the end of the ‘49 season, came off the bench for years, never hit more than 14 home runs for the Yankees in a season. Slaughter, when he got here, played 69 games and got 125 at-bats.

Obviously, comparisons to players like Mondesi and, now, a kid like Weaver, are perfectly appropriate.

"The Yankees have always done it this way," Steinbrenner says.

No one has.

It is why what the Yankees do these days looks so vulgar to the rest of baseball, even as it is cheered — or cheerleaded — around here.

Rightfield needed work. They get a former All-Star and add nearly $12 million to the books over the next couple of years. The pitching staff is getting a little old, they didn't really believe in Ted Lilly even as he was hailed by some of the Yankee broadcasters as the new Whitey Ford, and so it is upgraded with Weaver. Weaver makes $4.15 million next season, then $6.15 million the season after that, then $9.15 million.

"He's signed through 2005 to a deal that fits well into our budget," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman says early yesterday morning when the deal is announced.

What budget?

There is no budget. There are no restraints. "This is a sure sign we're dead serious," Cashman says, as if there were waves of doubt crashing out of the Bronx that the Yankees were just sort of serious. They are dead serious. You bet. In an economic system in baseball that needs to be changed or just shut down.

So again, a first-place Yankee team is just the first draft of the season. It is no longer even interesting to point out that baseball never worked this way in the old days that Steinbrenner clumsily tried to evoke the other day. Or that the other major sports — ones that work a lot better than baseball — don't allow you to re-tool without any concerns about budgets, real or imagine. You're just a Yankee hater. You're not with the program. You're told on the radio that the Yankees aren't breaking any rules, as if anybody ever suggested that they're breaking any rules.

Baseball can't continue to work this way. It needs to be fixed, in a big way, and that might mean shutting it down — again — in a big way. I love it when I hear that the Yankees have won all these titles and played in all these World Series because of the homegrown talent. Sure they have. And Clemens, Wells, Mussina, Giambi, $20-million setup men like Steve Karsay, David Justice, Denny Neagle, Raul Mondesi, now Jeff Weaver — they're just part of the chorus.

We'll hear now that the Yankees are done with the second draft of their first-place team. Not if the Red Sox don't go away. You know there's more players out there who would fit perfectly into the Yankee budget. Whatever they're making. Raul Mondesi feels like a Yankee veteran already.

Again, I just wanted to post a little reminder that I am and always will be a Yankee fan. This article is coming from one of the biggest homers in the NY area and I have to say he is 100% right. While baseball is busy trying to have another work stopage, they truely need to consider some sort of salery cap already. Yes, it takes two to tango when it's a trade, but, with really no budget restraints to work around, The Yankee's could pull off a trade with any team in baseball. A team like Detroit will jump at the chance for a cool few million to get in bed with NY. Obviously, Oakland, a team that is furious with the Yankee's spending, can be bought as well. The only team that may be safe from the power of George is Boston.

[Galt]

You just "wait until next year", when the Sox get rid of the contracts of Tony Clark, Jose Offerman, and Darren Oliver (about $20 million/year), which will drop their payroll down to around $80 million, and give them a shitload of money for another starter, 1B, and 2B<font color=white>



Edited By Galt on July 07 2002 at 3:42

[Keyser Soze]

How bout dem Expos on the verge of getting Cliff Floyd. Isnt there a conflict of interest when a team run by Major League Baseball needs the approval of Major League Baseball to pass a trade? With Colon already added, they sure are doing alot of work to improve this team for an organization that is supposed cease to exist next year.

[Sean Cold]

Baseball will do what ever possible to avoid contracting a Canadian team. I really think they would be happier to purge Florida of ballgames before fucking with anyone else. The Floyd deal would all but put the writing on the wall that the Marlins are lame ducks.

[criticslovesnatch]

my money is on the expos moving somewhere rather than getting contracted, probably to northern virginia/DC area. Even $elig isn't that much of an idiot to contract a team that has the possibility to make money. the expos can make money, just not in montreal, move them and they will be fine.

[criticslovesnatch]

Well the Expos aren't going out without a fight. Pending MLB approval, they just made a huge deal:

Floyd, Dempster headline proposed Expos-Marlins deal

MONTREAL -- The Montreal Expos, rumored to be in their final season of play, are apparently trying to make the most of it.

Baseball officials with knowledge of the situation have told ESPN.com's Jayson Stark that the Expos and Marlins have agreed on the principal players to be swapped in a potential deal that would send outfielder Cliff Floyd and pitcher Ryan Dempster to Montreal.

The deal is not done and won't become official until it is approved by Major League Baseball, which currently owns and operates the Expos.

In exchange for Floyd and Dempster, the Marlins would receive right-hander Masato Yoshii and left-hander Graeme Lloyd and prospect package headed by pitcher Josh Karp, who was Montreal's No. 1 pick in 2001.

Expos general manager Omar Minaya told Stark that nothing was done yet, and that he was going to meet later Sunday with Marlins GM Larry Beinfest.

If the deal, which is subject to Major League Baseball allowing the Expos to take on additional salary, is finally completed, it comes on the heels of last month's acquisition of pitcher Bartolo Colon from Cleveland.

It would be Floyd's second tour of duty of Montreal -- he played six seasons there before going to Florida.

Saturday, Floyd just wanted the deal to be over.

"I'm just tired of it," Floyd told The Miami Herald. "I just hope it's over quick."

The Expos entered Sunday's action nine games behind Atlanta in the NL East, but 5½-games behind Arizona for the wild card.

"(The Expos) are a good team. ... They are getting better," said Floyd, who prefers not to play on artificial turf because of past knee problems. "Things aren't what you would like to see in terms of revenue and fans, but you're talking about my knees, something that can shorten my career."

Floyd's contract states he can block trades to six teams, but Montreal is not one of them. Floyd reportedly took the Expos off the no-trade list last offseason, never considering the Expos to be in the playoff hunt this season. The Expos might not be done. ESPN's Peter Gammons reports that pitcher Brad Penny is very much available. Other "names" being mentioned: All-Star second baseman Luis Castillo, first baseman Derrek Lee, outfielders Preston Wilson and Eric Owens, catcher Charles Johnson, reliever Vic Darensbourg and right-hander Julian Tavarez.