And they say they don't try to buy championships

[The Brain]

<marquee><font size=+2 color=red>WARNING! Incredibly long post following... people with attention deficit disorder should read in small doses... WARNING!</marquee>

Originally posted by Flock of Moosen
Oh, I don't deny the fact that you have to spend money in order to win, but all you ever hear from Yankees fans is \"We did it with people we brought up through the system\" or \"We don't buy championships\" or \"Well, every other team could spend the same amount of money if they wanted to.\"

While the part about the farm system may have been true back in 1996, there is no way anyone can say that with a straight face today.
Roger Clemens, David Wells, Mike Mussina, David Cone, Kevin Brown, Gary Sheffield, Kenny Lofton, Jason Giambi, Darryl Strawberry, Wade Boggs, Tino Martinez, Paul O'Neill. Those are just a few off the top of my head.

I would love, absolutely <i>love</i>, somebody to name a team that fields nine position players and at least one starting pitcher that all came up through that team's farm system.

The Yankee dynasty (for lack of a better term) has always been about the "core" of young home-grown players-- which up until this point was Jeter, Williams, Pettite, Rivera (and Posada becoming a starter later on). The rest has always been about veterans and journeyman coming in to fill key roles in other positions, and I don't know who could have been telling you otherwise.

The draft has never been a guarantee that a player chosen will make the big leagues-- case in point, Drew Henson. Nick Johnson (who by the way, the Yanks traded away a few months back) was the last home-grown talent to make it up to the starting lineup, even if he had to split time with Giambi at 1st base. So having gotten a third of their starting fielders (plus utility 1B/DH), a starting pitcher, and closer up through the farm system ain't too shabby, all things considered.

How is this any different than when Babe Ruth came from the Red Sox, and paired up with home-grown Lou Gehrig to win titles? How about Roger Maris, who came over from the old Kansas City A's to pair up with home-grown Mickey Mantle? Now Rodriguez will come over to play alongside Jeter. It's not even like the Yankees wooed A-Rod away from his original team with more money-- this will be his <i>third</i> team, and the Yanks will be paying him the same amount of money the Rangers signed him to, but were afraid to follow through on.

Why the Yankees should now be penalized for some other team's bad business dealing is beyond me. As I alluded to before, the Mets offered somewhere in the neighborhood of $150-175 million to him-- Tom Hicks than kept bidding against himself by $100 million. This move (even had it been A-Rod to the Red Sox), will now benefit the Rangers, who can free up money to go after pitchers that they were afraid to chase when they had so much money tied up in one player. Of course, had they been smart, they either would have:

A) Not offered so much money to him in the first damn place, or

B) Sucked it up, and gone out and spent the necessary money to complement their expensive acquisition with a pitching staff.

You know what I see when I look at that list? An All-Star team paid for by a man with more money than God.

No, because the Yanks would have Bonds playing left field next season if that were true. :tongue:

Sure, you mentioned the smaller market teams winning recently, but there is a huge emphasis on the word recently. You don't see these teams in the hunt every year, but you sure as hell see the Yankees there every damn year. Why? Because \"God\" buys himself an All-Star team every year and when they don't make it all the way, he gets all pissy and goes out and buys even more overpaid players.

No, because these teams spend money for a <i>single year</i> (see the 1997 Marlins), and then suddenly get wallet-shy when they realize that to stay <b><i>consistently successful</i></b>, they need to not only spend money to keep most (if not all) of their current roster, but spend to acquire new players to fill voids that will inevitably be created.

The Yankees, Red Sox, Braves, Mariners (especially the Mariners, considering the future Hall-of-Famers they let go) all have this in common: even when they lose cogs in the proverbial machine, they don't tear the whole damn thing down and rebuild it from scratch-- they simply find a new cog and reload. More teams should follow this business model, because these teams' continued success brings in revenue by putting fannies in the seats.

Hey, more power to ya, you guys have a great team. I don't deny that at all, but it kinda ruins the sport for everyone else when they go into a season knowing they have to play well beyond their abilities just to have a shot at beating the Yanks.

You know what: you're absolutely correct. Someone should back in time and assassinate <a href=http://www.baseballreliquary.org/flood.htm target=new>Curt Flood</a> for ever dare challenging the old rules which basically bound players for life (unless traded) to their teams, eventually opening the doors to free agency and all these absurdly expensive contracts.

Then we can go back to arguing about how players are sorely <i>underpaid</i>; how they have to organize traveling baseball sideshows like Ruth and Gehrig used to do during the offseason-- not for themselves, since they were making a few hundred thousand in salaries and endorsements, but to supplement the salaries of their fellow ballplayers, who were lucky to make $5-10,000 a year.

Yes, folks: steroid scandals and league expansion (or at least, lack of retraction of the Expos) and dilution of overall talent apparently don't hurt this game <i>nearly</i> as much as a sports business franchise willing to spend money to make money. Leaving one whom some would argue the best ballplayer (and most expensive) today wallowing in last place on a team going nowhere fast is now preferred to putting him back in the spotlight where he belongs, on a team (any team) in contention for a world title.

Oh, I forgot. It's the Yankees. They play by different rules than everyone else.

No. They just play the rules <i>better</i> than everyone else.