Mike Lupica spreads ignorance to a national audience.

"There were still so many times, even after the last Yankee dynasty ended in 2001 -- Game 7 against the Diamondbacks, bottom of the 9th, Luis Gonzalez dunking one over Derek Jeter's head -- when the Yankees would automatically be declared the champions of the offseason every time they signed another free agent or spent more money. They were the Yankees and there was this idea that they were smarter than everybody else because they had more money. And because, well, they were the Yankees."

The 2001 World Series?
 

"The funny thing is, it was losing that World Series to the D-backs -- and nearly winning it despite scoring just 14 runs -- that really made them start spending like sheikhs. Bidding against themselves that offseason, they spent nearly $120 million to go get Jason Giambi. But Giambi didn't put them back on top, so they didn't blink in early 2004 when they absorbed Alex Rodriguez's contract via a trade from the Texas Rangers. Now the left side of the infield alone, Jeter and Rodriguez, had contracts whose total value was nearly $450 million, though the Rangers were willing to pay $112 million to get out from under the rest of A-Rod's contract.

It would be five years before the Yankees won a World Series with A-Rod playing baseball for them, the only one they have won since 2000. And all they had to do that year was spend another $450 million or so on CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett."

Winning the World Series isn't easy.


"So even though the Yankees were still selling a World-Series-or-bust model to their fans every single year, and even though they never had a losing season, they were now far more likely to miss the playoffs entirely with another $200-million-plus payroll, or not make it past the first round, as they were to get near the last week of October."

True.

It isn't easy to win the World Series.


"The Yankees have kept this thing going for an amazingly long time in the Bronx, and sold a lot of tickets at the new Yankee Stadium. Even when the 2013 and 2014 Yankees missed the postseason, they gave themselves a chance. But there has been nothing special, or remarkable, about them for a while. You know what their biggest attractions have been lately? Farewell tours for Jeter and the great Mariano Rivera. Legendary Yankees at the back ends of their contracts. You know what they might be selling now, now that Beltran is gone and the full-time DH job opens up wide? The 41-year old Rodriguez trying to get to 700 home runs, as if that number matters to anybody else except him."

I find it astonishing that Lupica thinks the 2016 Yankees are going to market ARod's chase for 700 HRs when (1) no one cares about the chase for 700 HRs, and (2) most observers think ARod is about to get cut.