in 1996, the Yankees had the highest payroll.

In 1999, the Yankees had the highest payroll.

In 2000, the Yankees had the highest payroll:

"Most Yankee fans are tremendous, the way most New York fans are.

But always there is this loud minority thinking they have special insights into baseball that nobody else has because, well, they're Yankee fans."

Well, let me just say that I could throw a rock and hit a random person anywhere in the world and, even if that person has never watched a baseball game in their life, that person probably has more "special insights into baseball" than Mike Lupica.


Besides, who cares?: "I think Yankee fans are obnoxious." Who cares what you think about Yankee fans?

Tell us more about Johnny Damon's haircut or "One Tree Hill," you bozo.


"Ten years ago, we were privileged to watch as magnificent a Yankee team as there has been in the whole history of the Yankees.

The '98 Yankees won 114 regular season games and then won 11 more in the playoffs, those 11 in October Reggie is always talking about, which made 125 wins in all.

And you want to know what the best part is?

They didn't lead the world in payroll that year."

No, sir, that is not the best part.

The best part is that they won 125 games in all.

You are making some odd and irrelevant moral distinction between the highest payroll and the second-highest.


Also, you are demonstrating little "special insight into baseball."

Because the 1998 Yankees wouldn't stand a chance against the 1927 Yankees.

Not that anyone was asking until you brought it up.



"The Yankees didn't need to have the highest paid guys at half the positions on the field.

Here, in fact, is the team Joe Torre had on the field for the last game of the World Series that year:

Knoblauch, Jeter, O'Neill, Bernie, Tino, Brosius, Ricky Ledee, a pitcher named Andy Pettitte and a catcher named Joe Girardi."

Bernie made $8.25M in 1998 and was the highest-paid centerfielder.

Knoblauch made $6M in 1998 and was slightly behind Roberto Alomar and Craig Biggio as the highest-paid second baseman.

David Cone made $6.7M (free agent) and was the fifth-highest-paid pitcher.

David Wells made $4.7M (free agent), Andy Pettitte made $3.8M, Tino Martinez made $4.3M, O'Neill made $5.5M, and Chili Davis made $4.3M to play DH.

Through free agency and re-negotiations, a lot of these players (Jeter, Bernie) soon made EVEN MORE MONEY.


"The foundation for that team was laid by a great general manager named Gene Michael, with the help of Buck Showalter, and it really began when George Steinbrenner was out of baseball."

True.


"Michael somehow had a vision of the future that involved more than writing checks."

Also, writing checks.

Boggs, Fielder, Key, Wetteland for starters.


"And in the next decade the Yankees won four World Series in five years.

The crazy spending didn't begin until the Yankees stopped winning the Series."

Is that so?

After the 1999 season, I distinctly recall the Yankees paying Jeter a back-loaded contract which averages $20M per season. Then, I am pretty sure the Yankees won the World Series in 2000.

In 2000, David Cone was paid $12M to win 4 games. The Twins' entire payroll was under $16M.

In 2000, the Yankees paid Jose Canseco $3M to jog to the mound after the game to congratulate the other players on the team.

Because the Yankees were all about efficiency and that is how they won.


The Yankees have been very successful since the 2000 season.

Three 100-win seasons, two World Series appearances, nine playoff appearances in ten seasons, unbelievable attendance, enormous revenue, and, most importantly, a valuation of the franchise to over $1 billion.

The investment in payroll has paid off big time.

Unless you only care about winning the World Series.

Unless you're the type of fan Lupica describes thusly:

"These are the ones who think that the earth hasn't been spinning properly because the Yankees haven't won the World Series in eight years."

Lupica sounds exactly like one of these arrogant, foolish fans who expect the Yankees to win the World Series every year.

Lupica is not only a fool, he's a hypocrite.

The time value of money.

A couple of things to keep in mind as you read about the Yankees' free agent signings:

1) The Yankees didn't just write a check for $180 million and give it to Mark Teixeira. This money will be paid over 8 years. By the time the contract expires, Teixeira will be a bargain and the 50th highest-paid player in baseball. David Wright will be paid $35M in the year 2017.

Eight years ago, Albert Belle* was the highest-paid player in baseball and he got paid what Julio Lugo got paid in 2008.

* When I first wrote that, I thought I was exaggerating, but then I looked it up on baseball-reference.com and that is actually quite close to the truth. Belle was paid $12.9M in 2000 and Lugo was paid $9.25M in 2008.

2) $420 million is not really "almost" $500 million.

It's 84% of $500 million.

If 84%= 100%, then the Dow Jones Industrial Average is still at 10,000, this country is not in a recession, and Bernie Madoff's clients are not killing themselves.

If 84% = 100%, then the Yankees won 106 games last season.

Yankees cut payroll, part 2.

"For months we heard about how the Yankees are going to spend less, throw money around less, hand out fewer blank checks. We heard about how the Yankees are now on some kind of a budget. Apparently that meant an imaginary one."

They are spending less if you subtract the salaries of Giambi, Mussina, Pettitte, Abreu, and Pavano.

Since these contracts have expired, the accompanying salaries may be subtracted.

I apologize if I'm going too fast for you. Subtraction is a component of an area of personal expertise known as Advanced Calculus.


But that's hardly the point. Use your brain when Cashman says he's going to cut salary. It's a meaningless statement and it would be a foolish business decision.


"The Yankees are big business. They've been that way for the better part of three decades, ... "

For the better part of ten decades.


" ...and the notion that they would be anything but big business this year - the year a billion-dollar stadium opens, the year after they missed the playoffs for the first time since 1993, the year George Steinbrenner's sons officially took control of the team - is as ridiculous as when the Yankees say they've done everything by the book when it comes to paying for their brand-new ballpark."

Right.

So why is everybody shocked?

You spend $1 billion on a new Stadium and $160 million on payroll. You're going to spend the additional $22.5 million to help ensure you make the playoffs.

Of course, there are no guarantees. Start with injuries.

The Yankees still don't have too much depth, but the number five starter could be a combination of Hughes, Kennedy, Aceves, and Cook.

Each dollar they spend is going to have diminishing return.

But there is no reason for the Yankees to be penny wise and pound foolish.


"A year ago, the Yankees were talking about their kids. Young, cheap kids who were going to be the cornerstone of the franchise for years to come. Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain were the pitchers of the future, and Robinson Cano was a stud second baseman, worthy of the long-term deal the Yankees gave him even though they hardly ever buy out players who are still in their arbitration years."

Hughes, Cano, and Joba will probably pay off in the short-term and in the long-term. There is a very good chance these three players will be cornerstones of the franchise for years to come.

Of course, a year ago, these young players were surrounded by $15+ million contracts in left field, right field, shortstop, third base, first base, catcher, DH, pitcher, pitcher, and closer.


So, here's the drill since the early '70s:

1. Free agents become available.
2. Yankees (and other teams) act disinterested and claim poverty.
3. Yankees (and other teams) overpay for the free agents.
4. The populace acts outraged and shocked.

If you are outraged, that's your personal demeanor.

If you are shocked, you are a fool.

Yankees cut payroll.

"Sometimes it seems as if the Yankees inhabit some alternate reality, a bizarro universe in which the AL East race is not a competition among ballclubs but among bankbooks, one in which the recession doesn't exist, unemployment has been eradicated and depression is a word for shrinks, not sharks.

For them, it's always a bull market, money is plentiful, credit is readily available and cheap, and the World Series is not something to be played but purchased."

This "bizarro universe" has been around since before Wallace Matthews was born.

The annual fake outrage is a bit tiring.


"Obviously, they haven't noticed that unemployment is way, way up, wages are way, way down and morale among American workers is lower than Eddie Gaedel's strike zone."

I'm an American worker and my morale was just raised.

Wheee!

Go Yankees!


Timely Eddie Gaedel reference, by the way.

1951: What a year. That was right in the smack dab in the middle of the Yankees' six straight World Championships.

Yeah, Eddie Gaedel from the good ol' days. Before free agency. When the Yankees used the reserve clause and strong arm tactics to buy their Championships.


"Or that the enemy they always seem to be fighting, the Red Sox, is not the one they should fear.

...

Except that Boston is no longer the enemy and money is no longer the answer - if, in fact, it ever really was.

While the dinosaurs of the division were sleeping, the Tampa Bay Rays shot past both of them. The Rays return in 2009 a year older, a year more experienced, a year better. But not a penny more expensive. Unlike the Yankees, they win baseball games the old-fashioned way - on the field, not on the balance sheet."

What an odd thing to say.

I think the Red Sox will be competitive, probably for a longer time than the Rays.

Also, the Yankees got better. For their own sake. It wasn't just so they could beat the Red Sox. It was so they could beat all the other teams, too.


By the way, the Rays will lose because their young players will become eligible for free agency and then the Rays won't be able to afford them. A few years near the top of the standings will cost them high draft picks. Throw in a disinterested fan base and I think the Red Sox have more staying power.


"But no one could have imagined the kind of shameless shopping spree the Yankees have been on this month - $161 million for CC Sabathia, $82.5 million for A.J. Burnett and a reported $180 million for Teixeira - at a time when more than 10 million Americans are out of work and another 4 million might join them in 2009."

I'm someone, and I imagined this.

I would have been very surprised had the Yankees not signed Teixeira.


"After winning four of five World Series between 1996 and 2000 with relatively modestly financed rosters built around pitching, timely hitting and skilled role players, the Yankees went big-ticket with the likes of Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, Hideki Matsui, Carl Pavano, Johnny Damon, etc., etc.

They have won nothing since."

Matthews wasn't whining when the Yankees traded for Clemens after winning 114 games in 1998? Was Clemens a role player?

The 114-win team sparked all this luxury tax stuff. "The Baseball Universe is coming to an end. Only six teams are going to exist!"

The 1996-2000 Yankee teams were hardly "modestly financed." They were built around highly-priced free agents. (I think Baltimore had the highest payroll in 1996, but the Yankees the rest of the time.)

Why all the hand-wringing and revisionist history every time the Yankees sign a big-ticket free agent?

Why does it make Wallace Matthews feel better to pretend Paul O'Neill was a role player or Tino Martinez and David Wells were Yankee farmhands?

How come I know more than Peter Gammons and Buster Olney?

All this talk about gaping holes being filled reminds me of Pettitte and Clemens.

"Tired of waiting for the Yankees to make a move, the Brewers killed the proposed deal for Mike Cameron Wednesday, leaving a gaping hole in center field in the Bronx.

Could that hole be filled indirectly by Manny Ramirez?"

No.

Because Manny Ramirez doesn't play center field.

Thanks for asking.

Besides, I'm not sure if Brett Gardner/Melky Cabrera/Johnny Damon are really enormous gaping holes in center field.

A GM said ...

Good news for Yankee fans:

"I think [the Red Sox are] in the lead and ahead of where everyone else is right now," the GM said. "I'm not sure who's bidding against them at this point."

I say the Yankees blow Teixeira away with an offer he can't refuse.

Sixteen years and $800 million.

Sportswriting reaches its nadir.

Peter Abraham gets a chance to reunite with his daddy:

"Were it up to Joe Torre, the Winter Meetings would be in Las Vegas every year. The manager of the Dodgers arrived early with a large group of friends in tow and embraced the scene. The Torre posse - think 'Entourage' for the AARP set - stayed at the luxurious Wynn Las Vegas and enjoyed the best of food, wine and cigars.

'We fight over whether we're going to shoot craps or bet horses,' Torre said. 'It's a trip for the boys.' "

Really? You weren't discussing the importance of starting pitching depth? You weren't analyzing Jeff Kent's batting average on balls in play in 2008?

I understand.

No better place to get away from baseball than the baseball winter meetings.

"Yankees manager Joe Girardi, conversely, looked pained every second he was there. Girardi doesn't smoke, drink or gamble. He barely touched the rich chocolate dessert served at the annual managers' luncheon on Wednesday."

The rich chocolate dessert which ended up in Peter Abraham's coat pocket.

I've got an offer for you ...

$9.50 an hour to wash Joba's towels.

If you refuse this offer, your photograph goes up in every ticket booth.

You won't be allowed into the Stadium with a ticket.

Yeah, but ...

"After that, the Yankees and their fans will expect nothing less than greatness. If he delivers anything less than a championship, if he doesn't win big in October, he will be deemed a failure.

...

That challenge eventually destroyed Chuck Knoblauch and confounded Roger Clemens for most of two seasons."

Chuck Knoblauch won one ring before he joined the Yankees and then three rings in his first three seasons with the Yankees.

Chuck Knoblauch's teams are 13-1 in playoff series.

Olney somehow concludes that October failures eventually destroyed Knoblauch.


Clemens won two rings in his first two seasons with the Yankees.

The next year, Clemens won the Cy Young Award.

Seems like smooth sailing to me, other than gratuitous criticisms from dopey sports columnists.


Perhaps the lesson is, if Sabathia feels too much pressure, he ought to soothe his nerves by taking lots and lots of steroids.


"It's a challenge that still seems to gnaw at Alex Rodriguez."

Most likely, the lack of a ring gnaws at ARod.

Didn't seem to bother Mussina, though, did it? Or Fan Favorite/Steroid Abuser Jason Giambi. Or Chien-Ming Wang and his 14,000.00 post-season ERA; or Matsui; or Abreu.

In fact, for the past half-a-decade, only one Yankee player gets blamed.

I was at a game where Giambi caught a pickoff throw from the catcher, spun to tag the ghost baserunner who was not there because he was already running toward second base. Giambi then threw the ball out of the shortstop's reach. Giambi was paid $22 million last year, or something like that. Giambi didn't get booed that day.

You know who got booed. In fact, ARod didn't even play that day. He was booed when he appeared on the Diamond Vision telling the fans to watch out for foul balls.

Hey, everybody! A sportswriter says something stupid!

"And so far Sabathia hasn't been much better than A-Rod as a postseason performer, 2-3 with a 7.92 in five October starts, four for the Indians and one for the Brewers."

A lot worse than ARod, you mean.

Of course, as everybody knows, Sabathia pitched, like, 50 straight complete games for the Brewers down the stretch, all on two days' rest, and was simply wiped out by the time the playoffs started.


"Of course, he also showed great heart and toughness for the Brewers after being traded last season, carrying them to the playoffs with dominant pitching throughout August and September, the last few starts on three-days' rest after an injury to Ben Sheets left Sabathia as the Brewers' only hope.

In fact, some scouts and executives dismiss his poor Game 1 in the playoffs against the Phillies that saw him give up five runs in 3 2/3 innings, believing all the extra innings and short rest finally caught up with him in October."

Of course.


One more thing: Can the Yankees actually get to the playoffs before we start evaluating the playoff performances?

Attention to detail is the foundation of journalism

The New York Daily News polls its readers. Nice work, fellas:

How many games will C.C. win for the Yankees in 2009?

0-5 4%
5-10 4%
10-15 18%
15-18 36%
18-20 2 7%
more than 20 12%

I think C.C. [sic] will win exactly 15 games.

So I voted twice.

Because I think he will win both 10-15 games and 15-20 games.

The biggest fraud in baseball.

Cash in with a stupid GM while you can:

"A far better way to measure a reliever’s value is a statistic called Win Probability Added, which compares a team’s chances of winning a game before a pitcher takes the mound to the same figure once he departs. So the closer who protects the three-run lead in the ninth is credited with only 0.035 wins — the difference between the 96.5 percent likelihood of victory when he entered and the 100 percent when he left — while the setup man keeping a game tied in the eighth gets 0.113 wins, for increasing his team’s odds of victory from 36.5 percent to 47.8 percent.

Rodríguez’s 3.33 W.P.A. was only the fourth best among American League closers last year, trailing Mariano Rivera, Joakim Soria and Bobby Jenks."

I don't need Win Probability Added to know that K-Rod is not the best closer in the AL.

The End of Logic.

"It would probably cost the Mets $20-22 million a year for five years, but they are getting $25 million a year for 20 years from Citigroup, which is getting $45 billion from our wonderful government. Call it a Federal Bailout of the Mets."

Either Manny is worth that much money or he is not.

The value of the product is not determined by the source of the funding.

The Mets can probably afford to pay Manny $22M, and it's likely a good idea. But that's also $22M in opportunity cost -- like an entire bullpen.


"I know Manny laid down at times last year because he was unhappy about his contract status (just ask Mariano Rivera and every member of the Red Sox), but there are a lot of people who believe Jose Reyes and Carlos Delgado did the same thing because they were unhappy with Willie Randolph."

So Manny's negative is no longer a negative because Reyes and Delgado share the same negative.


I love logic. This guy stumbled into the right answer and can't give a good reason why.

It's not even really that difficult to figure out why Manny is worth it: He hits good.

Took you long enough.

"If Pettitte signs elsewhere, regardless of the dollar figure, he should be viewed as a world-class phony forever around here.
...

In his moment of need, when it was revealed Pettitte was both a liar and cheater, the Yankees stood by him last season. At that time, Pettitte was only too happy to say the Yankees were the only team he ever wanted to play for any more. He did not say he only wanted to play for the Yankees unless they offer him a paycut.The Yanks have indeed offered that cut. Pettitte made $16 million last year and, according to sources, he was offered $10 million to return in 2009. So far, Pettitte has rejected that bid while his camp has done nothing to dispel reports linking him to Joe Torre and the Dodgers."

Good article, but it's five years late.

Awww, shucks.

This guy's a trip:

"Before seducing free-agent CC Sabathia with a six-year, $140 million pitch, the Yankees made an offer to Pettitte. The offer was less than the $16 million the 36-year-old left-hander made last year, when he was 14-14 with a 4.54 ERA in 33 starts.

...

Nevertheless, the Yankees received word that Pettitte didn't want to take a pay cut."

So he's going to go play for the Dodgers and blame Steinbrenner again.