I am a diehard Yankees fan

[Admin]

I just read something that the Yankees are preparing a 6 year 150 million dollar offer to Sabathia that may not even be the highest they're willing to go. Granted the team cleared 91 million off the payroll this offseason but damn that is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for an overweight pitcher who has thrown a lot of innings. I really hope that this is just speculation and not reality!

[Swish]

Dude....we've tried to tell you. The Yankees define evil and ridiculousness in pro sports. Just expect them to spend way too much money and put together an all star roster and underperform :D.

[DrReality]

In this economy that would not be good for the league. Don't like the Yanks but the league doesn't need that right now.

[macdaddy]

I just read something that the Yankees are preparing a 6 year 150 million dollar offer to Sabathia that may not even be the highest they're willing to go. Granted the team cleared 91 million off the payroll this offseason but damn that is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for an overweight pitcher who has thrown a lot of innings. I really hope that this is just speculation and not reality!

The Yankees are interesting to me. Their really great years in the 90s had big payrolls for sure but it wasn't like they were choke full of high profile flashy players. They had really solid, hard-nosed players at every position and some great pitchers. You'd think they try to return to those style teams.

[Admin]

The Yankees are interesting to me. Their really great years in the 90s had big payrolls for sure but it wasn't like they were choke full of high profile flashy players. They had really solid, hard-nosed players at every position and some great pitchers. You'd think they try to return to those style teams.

Actually the payroll wasn't all that high. It was higher than most (maybe all) of the teams but it wasn't a ridiculous amount like it's been the past 6-8 years. People talk about the Yankees buying championships but the reality is that most of the players that were key to winning the world series came up through the Yankees farm system (Posada, Jeter, Bernie Williams, Andy Pettite) and the others were through trades that brought in players that other teams didn't want (Scott Brosius, Paul Oneill). Once we started spending big on FA's (Mussina, Giambi, etc) we haven't won the series since and that's why I've been so against spending big money like that, not to mention that you have to give up your 1st round pick when you sign a big name FA. Maybe the greatest single season team ever was the 1998 Yankees (114-48 regular season and 11-2 postseason) and look at the payroll numbers:

Bernie Williams		$ 8,300,000

David Cone		$ 6,666,667

Chuck Knoblauch		$ 6,000,000

Paul O'Neill		$ 5,500,000

David Wells		$ 4,666,666

Chili Davis		$ 4,333,333

Tino Martinez		$ 4,300,000

Andy Pettitte		$ 3,800,000

Hideki Irabu		$ 2,925,000

Joe Girardi		$ 2,850,000

Scott Brosius		$ 2,650,000

Mike Stanton		$ 1,916,667

Jeff Nelson		$ 1,766,667

Tim Raines		$ 1,300,000

Chad Curtis		$ 1,250,000

Darren Holmes		$ 1,066,667

Graeme Lloyd		$ 875,000

Darryl Strawberry	$ 875,000

Luis Sojo		$ 800,000

Dale Sveum		$ 800,000

Orlando Hernandez	$ 750,000

Derek Jeter		$ 750,000

Mariano Rivera		$ 750,000

Willie Banks		$ 342,500

Ramiro Mendoza		$ 275,000

Jorge Posada		$ 250,000

Joe Borowski		$ 188,800

Homer Bush		$ 178,900

Shane Spencer		$ 170,000

Jay Tessmer		$ 170,000


Total			$66,466,867[/code]




Compare that with the 2008 NY Yankees:



[code]Alex Rodriguez		$ 28,000,000

Jason Giambi		$ 23,428,571

Derek Jeter		$ 21,600,000

Bobby Abreu		$ 16,000,000

Andy Pettitte		$ 16,000,000

Richie Sexson		$ 15,500,000

Mariano Rivera		$ 15,000,000

Jorge Posada		$ 13,100,000

Johnny Damon		$ 13,000,000

Hideki Matsui		$ 13,000,000

Ivan Rodriguez		$ 12,379,883

Mike Mussina		$ 11,071,029

Carl Pavano		$ 11,000,000

Kyle Farnsworth		$ 5,916,666

Chien-Ming Wang		$ 4,000,000

LaTroy Hawkins		$ 3,750,000

Robinson Cano		$ 3,000,000

Jose Molina		$ 1,875,000

Morgan Ensberg		$ 1,750,000

Wilson Betemit		$ 1,165,000

Brian Bruney		$ 725,000

Billy Traber		$ 500,000

Melky Cabrera		$ 461,200

Philip Hughes		$ 406,350

Shelley Duncan		$ 398,300

Ian Kennedy		$ 394,275

Jonathan Albaladejo	$ 393,225

Ross Ohlendorf		$ 391,425

Joba Chamberlain	$ 390,000

Humberto Sanchez	$ 390,000


Total			$209,081,579

That's 143 million difference in 10 years! This season 91 million comes off the books so we're down to about 110 million which would put us at about where the Braves are, but of course we're going to spend a ton this offseason since we missed the playoffs for the first time in 14 years and we're moving into a new stadium and ticket prices have apparently gone through the roof.

The bottom line is that I hate it as do many Yankees fans but until baseball does something about the way salaries are going it's not going to change.

[uga2006]

25 mil. only the Yankees.

[Admin]

25 mil. only the Yankees.

The Mets gave almost that much to Johan Santana last year. The Yankees have the highest payroll no doubt but they've only got 6 of the top 25 highest paid players so they aren't the only team out there giving out big bucks. The whole system is flawed.

[NJHAWK]

Buying titles is the Yankee way. Baseball should have a salary cap of some sort to prevent some teams from having 200 million $$$ payrolls while others have 40 million dollar payrolls. Its pathetic and Im glad teams like my Phils can win with mostly all home grown talent. That said if they give CC that much money they are crazy. He is a terrible playoff pitcher just ask Shane "grand slam" Victorino. I LOVE YOUR CRYBABY CELTICS JOINT THOUGH THAT IS DA SHYYT.

[Admin]

Buying titles is the Yankee way.

Spending way too much money on overrated players is the Yankees way. As I've said before the Yankees have not bought any of their titles and ironically it was when they started spending big that they stopped winning.

Baseball should have a salary cap of some sort to prevent some teams from having 200 million $$$ payrolls while others have 40 million dollar payrolls. Its pathetic and Im glad teams like my Phils can win with mostly all home grown talent. That said if they give CC that much money they are crazy. He is a terrible playoff pitcher just ask Shane "grand slam" Victorino.

Agreed about the salary issue and even though I always want the Yankees to win I love seeing the underdog that doesn't have a huge payroll win it all.

I am praying that the Yankees won't be the team to give CC that much money. Basically he would just be replacing Giambi salary wise but I'd rather use that money on 2 pitchers like Derek Lowe and AJ Burnett.

I LOVE YOUR CRYBABY CELTICS JOINT THOUGH THAT IS DA SHYYT.

Thank you! What's funny is that the majority of those photos were from our game with them.

[Admin]

This is an interesting comment from the Keith Law chat on ESPN going right now:

Jason (Vegas): Is it time for MLB to start having a SALARY CAP? I mean come on you know the Yanks are going to go out and buy a team. They have to have a cap right?

SportsNation Keith Law: (1:33 PM ET ) "Buying" a team hasn't helped them in the last five years. Salary caps are just wealth transfers from players to owners.

I don't necessarily agree with it being a wealth transfer to the owners, but I suppose if there's a salary cap and the owner's don't reduce the cost to fans then yeah it would be a wealth transfer. If the fan's price stays the same I'd rather see the players get the money.

And another quote:

Steve (DC): Going back to the salary cap question. True it hasn't helped the Yanks the past 5 years, but would MLB want all of its teams to have a chance on not just a "select" few? The NFL is healthy because they have competitive balance to where MLB does not. You can say there is or that, but until teams like KC, Pitt, Florida, etc...can afford just to keep there own players and finish above .500, you can't say there is an even playing field right now.

SportsNation Keith Law: (1:37 PM ET ) KC and Pitt stink and have stunk for a long time because they were horribly run teams, making stupid big-league decisions, faring terribly in the draft, and punting on Latin America. Money had nothing to do with it: It was incompetence. As for Florida, the owner simply doesn't want to put money into the team until he can extort a new stadium from the state of Florida. Let's hope the recession causes the state to reconsider the giant toilet bowl into which they're proposing to send a half-billion dollars.

I definitely agree with that about KC and probably Pitt as well. We've seen several small market clubs with low payrolls win so it can be done as long as you draft properly since losing Type A FA's get you two 1st round draft picks each.

[AHF]

Actually the payroll wasn't all that high. It was higher than most (maybe all) of the teams

The Yankees weren't #1 that year.

Team Payroll

Baltimore $79,468,674

Boston 76,743,283

New York Yankees 72,456,584

Atlanta 71,917,256

Los Angeles 70,642,787

Cleveland 70,359,492 0

Texas 67,956,293 0

Colorado 64,528,977 0

St. Louis 63,418,980 0

New York Mets 63,006,935 0

Chicago Cubs 61,787,915 0

Toronto 60,431,061 0

Seattle 57,624,920 0

San Diego 55,200,647 0

Anaheim 54,316,233 0

San Francisco 52,728,621 0

Houston 52,303,808 0

Milwaukee 50,117,848 0

Chicago White Sox 46,848,473 0

Philadelphia 44,301,855 0

Arizona 43,424,615 0

Kansas City 40,079,975 0

Tampa Bay 39,326,925 0

Minnesota 34,568,529 0

Detroit 33,732,228 0

Florida 28,738,381 0

Cincinnati 28,621,323 0

Oakland 27,907,602 0

Pittsburgh 24,619,246 0

Montreal 15,709,833 0

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/...y_tax_payrolls/

[Admin]

The Yankees weren't #1 that year.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/...y_tax_payrolls/

I wish that were the case currently as well. It was kinda nice having Brian Cashman running things for a while since he was developing the farm system and trimming the payroll but now that the Steinbrenner brothers have taken over I'm not sure how much longer they'll be patient with him. I don't see the payroll being $200 million again but I'd bet on about $180.

[jhay610]

The Mets gave almost that much to Johan Santana last year.

Santana is a much better pitcher than Sabathia and projects to have much more longevity than Sabathia. Santana was the consensus 'best pitcher in the game' when he signed his deal, Sabathia is not.

The whole system is flawed.

You're right about that. If I was a Marlins or formerly an Expos fan I would swear off MLB 'til they fixed that. The Marlins of the late 90's to now and the Expos in the 80's to mid 90's were franchises that basically cultivated talent for the rest of the league. They drafted and developed players well, but when it came time for the major contract they always let the player go.

It's really unfair and one of the major reasons why I have scaled back my fandom of MLB.

[TruJerz]

I just read something that the Yankees are preparing a 6 year 150 million dollar offer to Sabathia that may not even be the highest they're willing to go. Granted the team cleared 91 million off the payroll this offseason but damn that is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for an overweight pitcher who has thrown a lot of innings. I really hope that this is just speculation and not reality!

haha im a Mets fan. we have the best pitcher in Johan Santana!

[NJHAWK]

haha im a Mets fan. we have the best pitcher in Johan Santana!

I'll take Cole Hamels, the NLCS mvp trophy, the WS Mvp trophy and the W.S. TROPHY over Johan any day of the week and twice in October.

[TruJerz]

I'll take Cole Hamels, the NLCS mvp trophy, the WS Mvp trophy and the W.S. TROPHY over Johan any day of the week and twice in October.

haha thats kool with me. Johan is a beast tho n u know it! lol

[AHF]

You're right about that. If I was a Marlins or formerly an Expos fan I would swear off MLB 'til they fixed that. The Marlins of the late 90's to now and the Expos in the 80's to mid 90's were franchises that basically cultivated talent for the rest of the league. They drafted and developed players well, but when it came time for the major contract they always let the player go.

It's really unfair and one of the major reasons why I have scaled back my fandom of MLB.

The Expos of the 80s/mid-90s have to be your poster children for why the spending imbalance kills your chance to be competitive. When you think of the massive amounts of talent given away by that team in player like Pedro Martinez, Vladimir Guerrero, Tim Raines, Larry Walker, Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, Moises Alou, Cliff Floyd, John Wetteland, Marquis Grissom, Jose Vidro, etc. and them never getting anywhere with their limited $$, it hits the point home.

The Marlins at least have won 2 championships by gutting the team, building back up, catching wild-card lightning in a bottle, and then starting over with the gutting again. The Expos fans just had to suck it up and didn't even get runs into the playoffs as compensation.

[Admin]

The Expos of the 80s/mid-90s have to be your poster children for why the spending imbalance kills your chance to be competitive. When you think of the massive amounts of talent given away by that team in player like Pedro Martinez, Vladimir Guerrero, Tim Raines, Larry Walker, Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, Moises Alou, Cliff Floyd, John Wetteland, Marquis Grissom, Jose Vidro, etc. and them never getting anywhere with their limited $$, it hits the point home.

The Marlins at least have won 2 championships by gutting the team, building back up, catching wild-card lightning in a bottle, and then starting over with the gutting again. The Expos fans just had to suck it up and didn't even get runs into the playoffs as compensation.

The Expos were also a very poorly managed and coached team as well, but yeah they let a lot of talent go for sure. I think that was before the whole "Type A" fa thing too wasn't it? That's how the Marlins have been able to stay so competitive since for every one of those that they lose they get 2 additional 1st round draft choices. As long as you draft reasonably well and pay your draft picks you can continue to turn over the roster with talented kids.

[AHF]

You are right that the Type A FA has done a bit towards levelling the playing field with respect to home grown talent, although it does not impact the foreign imports where a team like Pittsburgh, KC, Washington, Florida, Minnesota, Oakland, etc. will NEVER sign the next Ichiro no matter how much they might want him under our current system because the money just isn't there a team like Boston or New York will simply buy those players.

Even looking at the current system, however, I think there are still real problems. Looking at Oakland and Minnesota where things have been done the "right" way, for example, you can see the difference between the ultimate results from those teams and a team with money that does things the right way like the Red Sox. It is clearly a competitive disadvantage to have significantly less money to spend. Philadelphia doesn't have huge $$ but they are a step or two above those other teams. Consider how far they would have gotten this year if they had to deal Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, etc. or some of the their other young talent because they couldn't afford them long-term. A team like Tampa Bay can't sustain its success without amazing drafting because they will keep losing their young studs as they become FAs and getting draft picks back for them just isn't the same value (if it was, every team would let their young studs go because they would get the same value for less money).

[Admin]

You are right that the Type A FA has done a bit towards levelling the playing field with respect to home grown talent, although it does not impact the foreign imports where a team like Pittsburgh, KC, Washington, Florida, Minnesota, Oakland, etc. will NEVER sign the next Ichiro no matter how much they might want him under our current system because the money just isn't there a team like Boston or New York will simply buy those players.

Even looking at the current system, however, I think there are still real problems. Looking at Oakland and Minnesota where things have been done the "right" way, for example, you can see the difference between the ultimate results from those teams and a team with money that does things the right way like the Red Sox. It is clearly a competitive disadvantage to have significantly less money to spend. Philadelphia doesn't have huge $$ but they are a step or two above those other teams. Consider how far they would have gotten this year if they had to deal Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, etc. or some of the their other young talent because they couldn't afford them long-term. A team like Tampa Bay can't sustain its success without amazing drafting because they will keep losing their young studs as they become FAs and getting draft picks back for them just isn't the same value (if it was, every team would let their young studs go because they would get the same value for less money).

Certainly if the large market teams do things the right way they will have an advantage. Another issue is that when a team like Red Sox or Yankees pay 20-30 or however million in luxury tax and that's distributed back to the small market teams those teams need to use that money to sign players and not pocket it. The Marlins are notoriously cheap whereas the Rays have been willing to spend money on their stadium and players even though they're in a much smaller market than the Marlins. The Rays also make educated gambles on players like what they did with locking up Evan Longoria 6 games into his rookie season on a long term deal that will save them millions over what he's probably worth while a team like the Marlins rides their rookie contracts and then lets them go when they can't afford them in FA.

I don't know what you can do to fix the system either. It's certainly not fair in the NBA either when you can have a team like the Knicks that could easily afford a 100 million dollar payroll and pay the luxury tax as well. I also don't know how you go about setting a hard cap in MLB with so many enormous contracts since the players union would never allow that.