I hope the Yankees win 140 games

i think boras may not have done the best for some of his clients here.

he should have had tex go to boston,so the yankees would need to sign manny. he declined arbitration for varitek so his stock dropped.

but i'm just a fan,he does it for a living,much better than mine too.

Stream of conscious....

They won 125 games one year and everybody loved them - everybody in the elite media that is. I imagine if they win 140 they'll love them even more.

There is a remedy for the Yankees. Pay for the best scouting in the world and you can beat the Yankees. Tampa showed it last year. Colorado and Arizona the year before that. Yes they were one year wonders but there are even better examples.

Lets look at a historically great team the Baltimore Orioles and what happened to them. Some guy gets rich by winning an asbestos class action law suit. He decides to buy a team and oh btw, he thinks since he has the most money, that also makes him the smartest guy in the room. Wrong answer. Seems like it is the same way with the Redskins but that is another subject.

Baltimore had one of the best scouting sytems going. When Angelos took over, you know where a lot of that scouting organization ended up? That's right, in Cleveland - perenial losers since 1954. The team that they made a movie about because they were so pathetic. Cleveland patented losing until the Baltimore people filtered into their organization. All of a sudden, we were the upstart Tampa Bay Devil Rays of 2008. Two world series appearances in the 90's. They tore that team down and have re-built two division title winners since then this decade. All this time Baltimore has won nothing.

An even better example is Florida. They beat Cleveland in the 1997 WS and completely tore that team down shortly thereafter. Based on astute talent appraisals, they built another WS winner in 2003. Some of that scouting organization is now with Detroit and they have had some success in recent years losing in the WS.

The problem with the sport is poor ownership in many cases. Rather than spending 160 million on one guy like Tex, why not spend 5 or 10 million (or more) and build the best scouting system and farm system out there. As much as the people like to look at the Red Sox and free agent spending, they also have one of the best scouting systems out there imho and that is what helped them finally defeat the evil empire.

In the early 80's, George tried to buy the pennant but it never seemed to work with the high-priced free agents like Winfield. When their farm system produced big for them with Jeter, Rivera, Pasada, Pettite, and so forth things took off from there. From that foundation, they were then able to add free agents to put them over the top. Free agents carry risk. Sometimes all that money makes guys get fat and lazy. Jason Giambi was once a star with Oakland.

Find the young stars, let them play, sign them to long term contracts while they are still arbitration eligble (See what Tampa did with Longoria) and re-place them when you lose some of them to New York. There are numerous examples to prove it works. It is also very exciting to see young teams like Colorado, Arizona, and Tampa compete.

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quote:

Originally posted by 20dad:
...but i'm just a fan,he does it for a living, much better than mine too.

Yeah 20dad, but he'd be lost trying to figure out how to use these...except for the knee-pads. He'd find someone to wear 'em!

Say what you want about the Yankees, good, bad or ugly, they've been and always will be baseballs benchmark.

Great points CD and to add to it the reason the Yankees farm system started producing guys like Jeter is because most of that time period is when Steinbrenner was on suspension by MLB. This allowed the GM Cashman to build the system. When the suspension was over and Steinbrenner came back he went back to buying players and trading the young guys away.

CD,

I liked your thinking until I remembered the last draft. Was it the scouts that picked Gerrit Cole in the first round for the Yankees this year? I think he must have had a pretty strong commitment to UCLA to fall to the 28th pick. I can't remember if there were numbers made public, but I think the Yanks would be able to spend whatever it takes to sign their first pick. Any idea what happened there?

Maybe I just illustrated your point for the need for better scouts.

quote:

Originally posted by infidel_08:
CD,

I liked your thinking until I remembered the last draft. Was it the scouts that picked Gerrit Cole in the first round for the Yankees this year? I think he must have had a pretty strong commitment to UCLA to fall to the 28th pick. I can't remember if there were numbers made public, but I think the Yanks would be able to spend whatever it takes to sign their first pick. Any idea what happened there?

Maybe I just illustrated your point for the need for better scouts.

You did illustrate my point infidel. I think the Yankees have some of the best talent evaluators in the business. Their enormous payroll allows them to take risks in the draft as well. They signed Andrew Brackman to an enormous amount even though he was scheduled for TJ surgery. What the Yankees don't always have is the patience to develop those young players. I think it is a two-fold process - scouting AND development. Development requires patience which the Yankees (or their fans) are not well-known for. Chamberlain and Hughes are two recent ones that look like they have good potential for them.

They can win 140 as long as 12 of their 22 losses are against the Red Sox and the Sox get the Wild Card and face the angels in the first round!

Let's see...why root AGAINST a team who has already cut its 2008 to 1009 salary by...$20 MILLION!

They are playing by the rules. Instead of hatred towards the Yankees, it is the system. They are paying their share of the luxury tax. some teams pocket it...others spend on scouting.

CD is correct stating that development takes patience and Cashman has gone on record stating that their fan base are not patient. I think that he would love nothing else but to put more money into player development.

Most teams have lots of money to spend, some spend it on trades, some on development and the draft. For example the Marlins do not spend on team, but they spend much on player development, turn out winners and then trade. Some don't mind they can go see a bunch of possible future hall of famers for less than 20 dollars a seat, and say, hey I saw him when he first began in Miami. I am not sure that a yankee fan would put up with that.

Gerrit Cole opted for college. When all other teams steared clear of him the yankees knew he most likely would head to college and they got another pick this year because of that (28 or 29), have lost their first round pick @26 (for signing player type B) and gave up the 66th pick (for signing player type A) so their next pick becomes the 76th pick. That's two picks in three rounds. Some teams will trade for those extra picks. Every team does business differntly, doesn't make one way right or wrong.

JMO.

quote:

Originally posted by gotwood4sale:
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quote:

Originally posted by 20dad:
...but i'm just a fan,he does it for a living, much better than mine too.

Yeah 20dad, but he'd be lost trying to figure out how to use these...except for the knee-pads. He'd find someone to wear 'em!

....these tools would have been the last objects Jimmy Hoffa saw while visiting New York.

The last time I liked the Yankees was in the mid-60s (at age 5 or 6, very exciting to pull a Mickey Mantle baseball card from the pack back then).

quote:

Pay for the best scouting in the world and you can beat the Yankees. Tampa showed it last year.

Look what Rays fans went through for the Rays to get all those top picks. And what happens as all those good players hit arbitration and free agency. A small market team can't afford to keep all their players.

An organization can run a great scouting and minor league organization so they can get to or near the top. But money allows an organization to be in the hunt every year.

I wouldn't expect the Rays to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox on a year to year basis.

Wed Jan 14, 2009 7:19 am EST

Being a 'Yankee hater' is in vogue again ... and it's free
It's the worst economic crisis of my adult life turns into an apparently bottomless vortex of daily — sometimes hourly — bad news, glimmers of hope are harder to come by than bank loans, wrote Philadelphia Daily News columnist Bill Conlin.

But here's a ray of lukewarm mid-January sunshine to bask in, if only for a few seconds: Yankee hating is in vogue again. In fact, the most smug, arrogant and, yes, successful, franchise in the history of American sports has never been easier to hate.

While the Wall Street dog that has wagged the tail of American finance since New York emerged as the financial capital of the world after World War I goes belly-up, the Yankees are preparing to move into The House That Ruthless Built. The Boss, George Steinbrenner, aging and infirm, might be out of the picture, but his sons have inherited the family trait of spending like drunken sailors.

The front- and back-page headlines in the New York tabloids have told a story of wild contrasts that will be studied by future generations of economists. They went something like this:

Front: "Broke GM Gets Record Bailout." Back: "$180M Score for Teixiera."

Front: "Did Madoff Makeoff With $50B?" Back: "$400M for Yank Free Agents."

I don't know whether Bowie Kuhn made it to Baseball Heaven. Wherever he is, however, the baseball commissioner who spent much of his turbulent term fining, suspending and warning George Steinbrenner must be spinning like a top.

Source: Philly.com

As a young boy in the early 1960s, I loved the Yankees as opposed to my Dad's Detroit Tigers. My favorite player was Roger Maris.

After they got rid of Bobby Murcer in 1975, I said to heck with them and grew to love to hate the Yankees. That continued even after Murcer returned.

But after what they did for Virginia Tech in the wake of the April 16 shootings -- and it was far, far more than just playing last spring at English Field -- it is impossible for me to root against them.

If they bought every pennant for the next decade I would be smiling at their success.

Go Yankees!
Go Hokies!!!

Jim McDonald
Virginia Tech '77

One thing about the Yankees is the Stenbrenners will do whatever it takes to put a championship team on the field. It might not always work but at least they put the money directly back into the team and not try and pocket the profits and let the team go down the toilet. The previous owners to Steinbrenner let the Yankees rot into a laughing stock.

The problem is the Steinbrenners understand the word "all-star" better than the words "chemistry" and "clutch." There aren't any O"Neils and Brosius' on the team. These guys were post season all-stars.

I don't think we have to worry about the Yankees winning 140 games now or ever. The 125 games were counting 11 in the playoffs as they won 114 during the 1998 season. This wasn't even the major league record for a 154 game season as the Cubs won 116 in 1906. In 1998 the Yankees didn't have two monsters like Boston and Tampa Bay that match up great in talent. I remember in 1976 when the Yankees signed the first big free agents Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson, all the writers were making comments like " should we even play the season, or just go straight to the playoffs?" Injuries and other variables will take their toll. The Yankees are in good position to win 95 to 105 games but even thats not in the bag. I have a feeling Tampa Bay may regress slightly but Boston is a great team. The Yankees will not get close to 30 wins from CC, Tex will hit over 30 dingers just like Giambi did last year although Tex is the superior player. The Yanks have some real question marks with **** recovering from injuries, will Hughes or Kennedy contribute, was Joba's DUI just one of those youthful discretions or something more and will he actually put in a full season, is Jeter in decline as his shortstopping skills are already slipping, is Matsui going to contribute and where, and is Damon going to be able to throw well enough to play center field. These questions will be answered in the spring but I have a feeling the Yankees might not like some of the answers. Sorry about the long post--just got carried away.

I don't see the Yankees even making the playoffs this year

If Sabathia and Burnett win 34 between them all they've done is matched pitchers lost (Mussina and Pettite) from last year. If last year was real for Youkilis, there's no difference between Texiera and Youkilis. Take 3, 4 and 5 in the order, Ortiz, Texiera, Bay or Ortiz, Youkilis, Bay .... what's the difference? The difference is 180M that can be spent elsewhere without committing to an 8 year contract.

Given all the other issues mentioned about the Yankees I don't believe they've improved. Given good health they'll be in the hunt with the Sox and the Rays.

Hokieone, your point is well taken. The story line this year will only be whether the Yankees bought the championship or whether the Yankees could not buy the championship. The networks marginalize the vast majority of the league to showcase about 4 teams. I agree with those that believe it does not have to be that way.

I hope the Yankees win 140 and then bow out early in the playoffs yet again!

Go White Sox!!