The 2005 Major League Baseball Offseason - leomazzonespeculationthreads.com

[GonzoStyle]

though I do agree his re-investment has gone a little off the last couple years by too much and not the proper investments. Plus I agree about the chemistry players, they still haven't found an O'neill, it was people like him who fueled the team not just a roster of all stars.

[HollywoodJewMoses]

the luxury tax is the worst thing that ever happened to the yankees.

teams can now afford to resign players like Johan Santana and Ben Sheets. Pittsburgh will be able to resign Jason Bay. before the luxury tax, these players would all be yankees when their free agency would be coming.

[HedCold]

at least the other teams are actually using the money to invest back in their players, instead of the teams that just pocketed it

[PeterDragon]

It's not a non-level playing field, it's how any aspect of business goes.

On this front, absolutely.

As for level playing fields, George was smart. He saw opportunity and ran with it.
The fact that the Yankees were god awful when he bought the team was just an indication that CBS knew nothing about running a sports team.

The Yankees are now, and have always been the most storied franchise in sports. That gives them a leg up, even without money - Hidecki Matsui is a prime example there. The capacity to make money with the Yankees in NYC is way above the capacity for any other team, with the Dodgers coming in a distant second.
Thats just the way it is; and the Dodgers show a prime example of how to NOT take advantage it.


Having said all of that, it takes brains to take advantage of all of that. George has always been a smart business man, and the growth of net value of the Yankees is a reflection upon that. He is not however, always a smart baseball man. The Yankees were fortunate when he was suspended - fortunate to have some really smart men around (Stick Michael, etc), who turned the franchise around.

I'll give him props for seeing a vision that puts money back into players and the franchise. The biggest joke is that some teams pocket the money.

As for the non-level playing field and aspect of business - these arent mutually exclusive. Baseball is as much Laissez-faire as america or any sport. Once again, he plays by the rules.

The NFL is the closest sport to having a level playing field- with a National TV contract, and fucking the players. Even there, however, its not all even in the important departments; The Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants will always be able to make more money than the Atlanta Falcons.

[GonzoStyle]

blah blah blah I was right.

[HollywoodJewMoses]

[Goatweed]

damn.

[The Jays]

NEW YORK -- Seattle outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, Minnesota outfielder Torii Hunter and Oakland third baseman Eric Chavez won their fifth straight Gold Gloves on Tuesday.

Boston catcher Jason Varitek, Texas first baseman Mark Teixeira and Toronto second baseman Orlando Hudson were first-time winners, while New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter and Toronto outfielder Vernon Wells won for the second straight season.


2005 AL Gold Glove winners
Pos. Player #
P Kenny Rogers,
Texas 4
C Jason Varitek, Boston 1
1B Mark Teixeira,
Texas 1
2B Orlando Hudson,
Toronto 1
SS Derek Jeter,
NY Yankees 2
3B Eric Chavez,
Oakland 5
OF Torii Hunter,
Minnesota 5
OF Vernon Wells,
Toronto 2
OF Ichiro Suzuki,
Seattle 5

[The Jays]

A-Rod wins second AL MVP Award
Third baseman beats DH Ortiz, is first Yankee to be honored in 20 years

Updated: 2:10 p.m. ET Nov. 14, 2005

NEW YORK - Alex Rodriguez won the American League Most Valuable Player award for the second time in three seasons, beating David Ortiz on Monday in a vote that rewarded a position player over a designated hitter.

Rodriguez, in his second season as the New York Yankees’ third baseman, received 16 first-place votes, 11 seconds and one third for 331 points from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Ortiz, the DH for the Boston Red Sox, got 11 firsts and 17 seconds for 307 points. Los Angeles Angels outfielder Vladimir Guerrero received the other first-place vote and was third with 196 points.

Voting was done before the start of the postseason, when both the Yankees and Red Sox were eliminated in the first round. Rodriguez hit only .133 with no RBIs in a five-game loss to the Angels while Ortiz batted .333 with a home run as the Red Sox were swept by the Chicago White Sox.

Rodriguez hit .321 with an AL-high 48 homers and 130 RBIs, breaking Joe DiMaggio’s 68-year-old Yankees record for home runs by a right-handed hitter (46). A-Rod also won the award in 2003, his final season as the Texas Rangers’ shortstop before he was dealt to the Yankees.

Ortiz batted .300 with 47 homers and a major league-leading 148 RBIs. Big Papi had 34 RBIs that put his team ahead, the most in the AL, and had eight RBIs from the seventh inning on that put Boston ahead to stay.

Rodriguez became the first Yankees player to win the award since Don Mattingly in 1985 and only the fourth player to win an MVP with two teams, joining Barry Bonds (Pittsburgh and San Francisco), Jimmie Foxx (Philadelphia Athletics and Red Sox) and Frank Robinson (Cincinnati and Baltimore).

David Ortiz batted .300 with 47 homers and a major league-leading 148 RBI.
A-Rod also is the fourth to win at two positions, following Detroit’s Hank Greenberg (first base and left field), the St. Louis Cardinals’ Stan Musial (outfield and first base) and the Milwaukee Brewers’ Robin Yount (shortstop and center field).

Rodriguez gets a $1 million bonus for winning the MVP for the second time during his record $252 million, 10-year contract. With Ortiz’s second-place finish, the price of Boston’s 2007 club option increases by $400,000 to $8.4 million. The buyout goes up by the same amount to $1.4 million.


Guerrero got $200,000 for finishing third and Boston outfielder Manny Ramirez gets $75,000 for placing fourth.

Cleveland DH Travis Hafner was fifth and earned an automatic $200,000 annual raise to $2.7 million next year and $3.95 million in 2007, with the price of Cleveland’s 2008 option rising to $4.95 million.
© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.