The Yankees are a walking time bomb right now. It’s not because their future is in any sort of danger, or because the team could change locations or ownership. In fact, with youthful owners compared to their father, with a manager who has won it all recently, and with a new stadium, the Yankees’ franchise is in better hands than it has been since well before the dynasty years of the 90’s.
No, the Yankees are a walking time bomb because if they open the check book for any player from another team (it will only take one), regardless of if that team wants nothing to do with said player, there will be a mercenary war unlike one we have ever seen before.
It wasn’t the relatively quiet off seasons in 2006, 2007 and 2008, which opened up the capacity for new levels of hatred for the Yankees’ franchise, those winters have already been long forgotten even though New York spent either a small amount (relative to the payroll) on Free Agents, or large amounts only on their own free agents while simultaneously trading what was left of large contracts like Gary Sheffield and Jaret Wright. Everybody forgot how New York budgeted itself after the arms race with Boston in 2004 and 2005 (again on its own scale) in preparation for 2009, but it’s a moot point.
After last year’s shopping spree of arguably the top three players on the open market, mixed with the contracts recently handed out to Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada (gross overpayment for past production in Posada’s case, an insane number to A-Rod after Texas set his original pay requirements and all Free Agents to follow with a historically career year right before free agency, and probably frighteningly fitting pay for the world’s best closer) and the long-standing captain contract for Derek Jeter, the Yankees have the top four current contracts in the game, and pay over 100 million dollars just to field the aforementioned seven players.Those names did not include the double-digit million dollar contracts to Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui, both of whom had their pay expire after the World Series win.
That is the formula for the new level of whining from small market teams, and even smaller, bigger, market teams who feel it’s unfair to keep the same payroll and still be able to dominate an off-season. Since 2004 when the Red Sox were burned by Jose Contreras, we’ve seen backlash from other franchises, since the beginning of time, we’ve seen backlash from other fans, but now it’s all coming to a boiling point, particularly with the Union contract expiring in 2011.
Maybe it’s this new formula of a Perfect Storm, or maybe it’s because of the recent championship after years of overspending and showing nothing for it, but the talks of salary caps (and floors) have been louder than ever, and networks like ESPN are starting to finally tackle the issue head on.
Maybe you believe Bud Selig’s words from the Associated Press, or perhaps Howard Bryant’s take of defending the Yankees but criticizing them in the same breath is a view you can side with. Even still, it could be the November 19th column from Jayson Stark which tickles your fancy.
Either way, payroll is the closest thing to politics we can get in Baseball, and it’s treated with the same passion and difference in opinion. Likely, it would take a say-all, end-event to ever change someone’s opinion on the issue (like the Yankees somehow shedding 80 million off of their payroll or the Pirates adding 100 million to their own), but for anything to get done, fans, owners, players, and the league itself are going to have to find a common ground.
Personally, I think Stark's article is the closest we've come to seriously considering everything involved. I disagree about the punishments he suggests (it will only make small marker teams pay less in payroll to afford the floor fees) and I'm weary of any reporter's numbers being dead-on accurate, but his article at least finally attempts to suppy the numbers we as fans have only speculated and even in his case, his numbers are just more educated speculation. Either way we know there is an issue in payroll discrepancy (even if it is currently legal right now) and we know there could be shady things going on with teams who have particularly low payrolls). You can't deny the Yankees are doing everything they can to supply the best product on the field, you can be skeptical about teams like the Royals, Pirates and Marlins.
Which leads me to my first belief. If we truly want to be prepared to decide on a salary cap or floor, or both, MLB teams will have to open its books. It's only fair. We need to actually know which side of the coin is shinier. Is Selig right? Are teams actually losing money, or is he not including all the free handouts (an estimated 60-80 million to every franchise) before even including attendance and other stadium operational numbers in a 6 billion dollar industry which as he describes "is thriving"? Is Stark right? Could teams really be pocketing close to 80 million dollars when they put a 30 million dollar team on the field? Has ownership greed truly reached that level? Has the persistent attack from small market fans on the Yankees and their franchise really been THAT off base? Or are we just being fooled again?
Open your books one way or another and this "losing money" issue will have to be solved. Right? I mean if teams truly are suffering to exist, they would welcome a financial interrogation if it would mean working towards a better, more fair, solution.
The only true concrete facts I have come to realize are that competing every year draws fans. When you have a successful product, fans will come. We saw it in 1997 and 2003 when the Marlins went on playoff runs, and we saw it in 2008 with Tampa and nearly every season with the Twins, even teams who never draw will fill seats if their team has a legitimate shot. Likewise remember the 1980's Yankees crowds? Spending money doesn't draw fans, being successful does.
Whether that legitimate shot will happen because the Yankees are down to a 140 million dollar payroll, or the Pirates are up to a 75 million dollar payroll remains to be seen. I don't think any of us can truly draw an accurate correlation between money spent compared to winning games and then attribute that to attendance. What we know is that the Yankees' brand, albeit an extreme example, draws fans home, draws fans away, puts an expensive product on the field, and competes every year. Despite all of that success, they probably still OVERPAY to get it.
So open the books, evaluate the baseball welfare going around in the form of luxury tax, revenue sharing, and all of the other merchandising sales which get spread among the league or from the rich to the poor and then put rules in place to force teams to adequately use that money on the franchise, not a yacht. Likewise, if a cap is found to be needed, start pestering the Yankees to lower that payroll every year until it is within range (regardless of what is implemented, it won't be done in one season because teams will need to restructure salaries, players, and ideologies.
I don't believe a cap is needed personally, but if I saw the real, undisputed numbers and saw teams were actually folding because they simply didn't have a chance to begin with (which I find hard to believe) and that gets coupled with the Yankees winning every year, then I would change my mind. Regardless, as I have said all along, if there is going to be a cap, there needs to be a floor. Personally, if the numbers are close to what Stark insinuates, there needs to be a floor regardless.
Secondly, and the only thing Selig doesn't seem to be ignoring, is fix the draft and lottery system. Even if no salary rules are put into place, the draft needs to be corrected. Include international players within it, and regulate signing bonuses. This one seems like a no-brainer to begin with. If you're going to compete in the playoffs every year, you need to make sure you don't miss on your draft picks. THAT is what seems fair. Likewise, if you're the Pirates, you need to sign your draft picks, you can't have a non-existent payroll and no money to sign amateurs if you're getting eight digit pay checks every season. That doesn't make sense.
The two biggest injustices in the game today are not being able to sign your own players to long-term deals and not being able to sign major draft picks. Would fixing that hurt the Yankees? It's probable, they specialize in taking on injury-risk, high reward players because their stock falls with teams who need the player to rebuild the franchise. They also can afford any Free Agent, though they have shown underrated restraint except for last off season, which was a designed plan admitted to by Brian Cashman himself.
Either way, there would be less Free Agents of such a high caliber if teams would be willing to sign their own homegrowns for years to come. Sabathia wasn't stolen from the Indians, Swisher wasn't taken from the Athletics (plus he was a trade), Burnett didn't get pried from the Marlins and Teixeira wasn't taken out of Texas by the Yankees, however, so even last year it wasn't an example of New York taking somebodies homegrown and leaving them with giant holes. There was a precedent set and the Yankees simply took advantage of circumstances.
If they were allowed to do that less, it would be interesting and while it's popular to feel anybody can be the Yankees' GM with unlimited money, the team A: Doesn't have unlimited money and B: under a set of rules which don't currently exist, clearly they would have to adapt. It's something they did when rules were put in place in the early 20th century to protect other team's farm players, it's something they did when Free Agency was invented, and it's something they've adjusted to after each strike and change in rules and structure. So to assume the Yankees win because they can afford the most payroll is ignorant. The Yankees' game plan is to build a team with contractual obligation being a minor issue because they can, but had the rules changed we can assume New York would figure out another way to win. History tells us as much.
Opening the books and fixing the draft would be a starting point. Unlike the Mitchell Report, running an investigation based on facts from every clubhouse and franchise would seem to be the most important thing, and then forming evaluations and conclusions based on that would be the next step.
Until then I truly have no sympathy either way in regards to payroll, I think it's both one of the most misunderstood and mysterious aspects of baseball. Before anything gets fixed, Yankees' haters will use it as a crutch because without it they would have to own up to the fact the Yankees' brand is a superior one and the team, at least right now, is the defending champions because it outplayed every other team.
Likewise, Yankees fans such as myself will continue to underscore the whole situation without actual hard evidence of anything and while not feeling sympathy for small market teams, greedy owners, and misguided fan hatred. We'll continue celebrating our championship because it's the first since 2000, which was before any of this payroll thing became a major issue since payrolls were relatively close in range back then.
Either way everybody has a side in the issue, and when push comes to shove there should be a solution. The Price Wars seem to be beginning.
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