Some Quick Math

161 is 79.7% of 202.

I just wanted to clear that up, since there's been some controversy. You'd think such a statement wouldn't really be open for debate, but here we are.

Allow me to explain. $161 million is roughly the 2011 payroll of the Boston Red Sox. $202 million is roughly the 2011 payroll of the New York Yankees. And I have had quite enough of people telling me that the Red Sox spend "just as much" on their talent as the Yankees do.

Let's clear up a couple of other things, while we're at it. Spending money is good. If you have it, you should spend it. I don't fault the Yankees for spending $202 million, and I applaud them (and their massive market) for having $202 million to spend. If the Red Sox were to spend $203 million, that would not be evil or wrong, as long as they spent it effectively.

But there is a stigma associated with being the league's high-spender, and there is a tendency to lump the Red Sox and Yankees in the same category. The Red Sox and Yankees, and everyone else. (Funny, that isn't how the list reads some years, but that doesn't stop people from deciding the Sox and Yanks are the two fat-cats.) And it simply doesn't work that way.

Spending $161 million and spending $202 million is not the same thing. It's not even close. It is 20% different. It is $41 million different. It is the difference between a B- and an A+. It is the difference between a genius IQ of 155 and a middling 123. Imagine if the Yankees decided to send Mark Teixeira over to the Red Sox, for absolutely nothing in return, just because. That would just about even things out.

Let's clarify one last time, because it is easy for people to misrepresent the facts in this debate:

-Teams should spend all the money they have, guilt-free

-The Red Sox and Yankees both spend a lot of money on their teams
-However, the Yankees both possess and spend way more money than any other team, including the Red Sox, by a ridiculous margin
-Rooting for the Yankees is still evil

I do hope that clears things up. If anyone disagrees, I will happily accept 20% of your salary from now on. Don't worry, you'll still be making about the same amount of money.

If A Stadium Collapses And There's No One Around To Be Angry...

I just wanted to chime in that this:

http://deadspin.com/5490960/last-nights-winner-people-who-enjoy-watching-yankee-stadium-blow-up

Seemed like a good occasion to reiterate this:

http://pooponboozer.blogspot.com/2008/09/revisionist-history.html

However, read it while you can--in the spirit of the Yankees, I will soon be destroying all of the older posts in this blog's illustrious history. They just don't make me as much money as I'd like.

Texeir-ing The Wealth

You may have detected, if you truly read between the lines of some of my posts on this blog, some faint undertones of animosity towards the New York Yankees. You may remember that as the Empire wrapped up its offseason spending spree, I was there every step of the way, compromising my journalistic integrity in order to take highly partisan swipes at every Bostonian's favorite punching bag.

But it's a new year now, and if I had thought to make any new year's resolutions, it seems possible that one of them could have been a pledge to be more mature and open-minded. So, in the spirit of that hypothetical non-resolution, I thought I'd give the Pinstripes a chance and try to play devil's advocate. Sure, I found their winter free-agent binge disgusting as it unfolded. But now, as I examine it with fresh, fair-minded 2009 eyes, could it be possible that the Yankees' ridiculous spending was actually good for baseball? Can the unjustifiable be justified?

I'm not sure how much I actually believe this, but--maybe. It all goes back to the function that baseball--and sports overall--are supposed to serve in our lives. Some would argue that sports is about poetry, about superhuman feats that reveal some kind of unique deeper meaning. But I think sports is mostly about escapism. That's why baseball games are on at 7, and football games are on weekends--when we come home from work, or when we have a day off, we want something a little bit outside our lives to think about for a while. And, as I've said before, baseball stays the same as our country changes, which means that our teams are always there to reassure us.

And it just so happens that, in 2008, there was a lot to escape from. Mostly, it was the economy, which transitioned rapidly from our national strength into something truly frightening. It was surprisingly jarring for me to read articles about how the economic crisis might end up affecting teams' spending. Baseball teams, I felt, are institutions that are supposed to be immune from that kind of thing. We won't be able to turn on the game to escape from the economic crisis if it follows us into the TV.

And then, a few months later, it was the Yankees who stood up and expanded their payroll to reassert their sport's invulnerability. Sure, they monopolized the available talent and eroded just a little more of baseball's rapidly disappearing competitive fairness. But in its own way, it's almost admirable--who has flown in the face of our country's biggest current threat more than the New York Yankees? In outspending all 29 other teams combined by almost a 2-to-1 margin, at least they reassured us all that, for some teams, our sports could continue to exist apart from reality, as they had before the crisis began. While it may be somewhat obnoxious, the Yankees are just doing what they've always done. And that's exactly what baseball is for.

Empire State

The Yankees may not suck.

It's true, despite the chants to the contrary. But it's not as obvious a statement as you might think. The Yankees certainly did suck, from October 27, 2000, until midafternoon yesterday. That's what happens when you have the payroll of nine teams. You either win the World Series, or you suck.

Yankee fans may disagree with that admittedly high standard, but Brian Cashman is clearly on my side. What else could inspire a man to pick the top three free agents in a relatively stacked offseason and buy them all? For $423 million?

The Yankees want to win a World Series. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. They're going after the best players in order to do it, and there's nothing wrong with that either. The problem, as I've said before, is that they do it in the most inelegant way possible. Brian Cashman and Hank Steinbrenner may have just secured their team a championship, but there wasn't an ounce of baseball analysis or business negotiating skills involved in the process. Find the three free agents who had the best years last year and offer them endless money? Indications are that the Yankees weren't even bidding for Teixeira until the Red Sox and Angels dropped out, then they stuck their heads in and offered him $180 million and a full no-trade clause. Mark Teixeira, since I now hate you, it gives me pleasure to know that you could have held out for $10 million more. Trust me, they would have given it to you.

Sure, I'm a Red Sox fan, but if you think about who the real victims are here, it's the Nationals. They wanted to revitalize (well, "vitalize") their franchise. They broke the bank to make a huge offer that would have helped level a MLB playing field that so reliably tilts towards the big-money franchises. It's too bad, Nationals fans; it turns out your league is actually designed so you don't have a shot at the World Series.

So there you have it. You'd think that, to win a World Series, you have to be highly skilled at evaluating talent, and predicting when players are about to peak so you can buy them cheaply. But that's not the case--really, anyone can do it. You too can win a World Series, for the low, low price of $423 million.

Yes, you certainly can win a championship that way. But I'm certainly going to be satisfied every time the Yankees lose to the $30 million Rays along the way. 

140 CC's of Recklessness

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3703112

It's tempting to call this the most predictable move of the young baseball offseason, and there's certainly a lot of truth to that. But this baseball analyst thinks (hopes?) that there's still a lot that can be learned from this. Namely, that Hank Steinbrenner will follow in the wayward footsteps of his father.

See, the decline of the Yankees dynasty was marked by a practice of finding the best-performing free agent from the past season and making him an offer he couldn't refuse. It's a strategy that will net you some good players, to be sure, but there are two problems with it. For one, it's awfully inelegant; if you're a baseball GM, you're supposed to be able to predict who will perform above their market value next year, not look at a list of free agents from last year and go, "Look! He had the lowest ERA!" But more importantly than that, you end up dishing out long-term contracts to players who may just have had their peak year.

This Sabathia offer, in my opinion, is in keeping with that errant Steinbrenner tradition. Obviously, going after C.C. isn't an inherently bad idea--he's still a tremendous pitcher. But six years is a long time, $140 million is a lot of money, and there's also this:

C.C. SABATHIA'S 2008 ERA, BY LEAGUE

NL: 1.65

AL: 3.83

Something tells me that if you bring C.C. back to the land of designated hitters, you're not going to get that gaudy 1-something ERA you think you're paying top dollar for. But hey--he had the lowest ERA! Let's see if we can break the $200 million mark!

Revisionist History

First, it was the last season at Yankee Stadium. Then, it was the last All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. Now, we finally have the last of the lasts--the last game at Yankee Stadium, ever.

Sad? You bet it's sad. The season-long schmaltz-a-thon aside (if no one cares about the All-Star Game anyway, must we really obsess over The Last All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium Ever?), Yankee Stadium is the unquestioned first among this country's sports venues. It has the look, it has the location (not so much within the city, but the city itself adds to its mystique), and most importantly, it has the history. Yankee fans can have a tendency to think that everyone loves the Yankees as much as they do, but throughout the 20th century, they were right about one thing--the Yankees WERE the American team, and Yankee Stadium was where Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, and Dimaggio lived and breathed. Sports and American history don't intersect any more closely than that.

The surprising thing, however, is that as Yankee Stadium prepares to close its doors, there isn't more anger to go along with the sadness. Because Yankee Stadium, as glorious as past as it has had, could have gone right on making history. The plans to demolish it came about during a previous era, when the Yankees were irrelevant and attendance (and revenues) were slipping. But that was the past--perhaps you've heard, but the Yankees are profitable again, and--this decade aside--the Pinstripes are completely capable of winning championships with Yankee Stadium as their home. But the team that has the most money in baseball wants more, and it's willing to sacrifice its own history and tradition in order to get it. Say what you will about my beloved Red Sox, but as another of baseball's richest teams, they made a commitment to work with their historic stadium rather than give up on it.

So, to use a morbid but apt metaphor, Yankee Stadium isn't just dying, it's being murdered. Sure, sadness and nostalgia are still appropriate emotions, but so is outrage. This story in today's Boston Globe (of all places), however, is the closest I've seen. The rest of the media is treating Yankee Stadium's passing as something inevitable, as if baseball cathedrals were prone to dying of old age. But that isn't the case; as we all know, baseball history lasts forever. Unless the New York Yankees get involved.

pooping on your own team, temporarily

it's august 21st. jorge posada has been shut down, joba chamberlain isn't looking too hot, and sidney ponson and carl pavano might make up 2/5ths of your rotation.

yes, you are a yankees fan.

but today, as the bronx bombers spiral slowly towards .500, don't you think it might be time for a change? isn't it time you stopped wasting your time on rooting for the yankees - and started focusing all your energy on rooting against the red sox?

i know, i know - you already root against the red sox with every bone in your body. but there's another way to go over the top. it's time to root for the tampa bay rays.

we all do it to a certain extent. lakers fans root for the kings when they're playing 1st-place phoenix. red wings faithful root for the blackhawks when they're up against nashville. you don't like either team - but you certainly hate one team more.

now, the yankees are certainly a team that you can never count out of the race. but a 10-game lead in mid-august doesn't look too promising. hell, even the tigers are "just" 11.5 games out.

so is there any shame in rooting for the rays? we're talking about a team that set a club record by winning 71 games this season. yankees fans shouldn't hate the rays as much as pity them. and since the chance of seeing pinstripes in the postseason is severely declining, why not cheer on the team that is making the red sox look silly - not to mention the only team that seems to be able to beat the we-almost-always-sweep-the-yankees-now angels?

i dropped my inter-divisional hatred to root for the rockies last season. it's time yankees fans woke up and smelled the tropicana, too.

Poop on the AL East - The Angels have!

Dating back to July 25, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have only played AL East opponents. That's 2 series against the Orioles, 2 against the Yankees, and one at Fenway against the Sox.

Sweep the Sox? Check.
Sweep the Yanks? Check.

16 games, and 12 victories, including 8 of 10 against the Sox and Yanks--the duo that instills the most fear in the rest of the league, even nowadays.

The most recent was today's 4-3 victory, capped off by a Chone Figgins single past Robinson Cano in the bottom of the 9th to give the Halos--and the Rally Monkey faithful--a sweep of the Bronx Bombers in Anaheim (not Los Angeles, believe it or not, I was there!)

Here's the point: the Angels improved to 74-43 overall, good for the best record in baseball, hold a 14-game division lead over the Rangers, and are now 8-3 in the Teixiera-era.

Even more impressive? Angels fans actually stuck around to see the end of today's nail-biter. The place was packed through the walk-off single by Figgins, which, if you've ever been to a Southern California baseball game, is certainly notable.

The East Coasters may have their history, and that's all well and good, but sorry folks, there's no question who the best team in baseball is right now.