"People always say ..."

"If the Yankees still didn’t have Jacoby (We Hardly Knew Ye) Ellsbury on the books and hadn’t made the trade for Giancarlo Stanton, how much money would they be willing to throw at Gerrit Cole or Stephen Strasburg?"

Gee, I don't know.

Maybe $800 thousand?

No.

$1 billion?

No.

$250 billion.

If not for the contracts of Ellsbury and Stanton, the Yankees would offer $250 billion to Gerrit Cole. One-year contract worth $250 billion.

We go through this every year, over and over, and some people never learn.

Most people apply their personal economic rules to an infinite Corporation currently worth $3 billion.

The Yankees don't want to overpay for Cole or Strasburg.

Cashman has some vague upper limit based on the salary tax, but that's mostly PR.

Lupica's stupid observation is particularly moot since the Yankees only owe Ellsbury between $0 and $26 million.

Cole is going to get, say, 7 years, $225 million, escalator clauses, player opt outs, the whole shebang. If the Yankees really want him, the Yankees will not be outbid.

So, in the year 2027, Cole's salary will be $40 million ... and Cole will probably be washed up by that time.

Any team that signs this man to a long-term contract knows the risks involved. Or any long-term baseball contract, for that matter. Or any long-term anything, for that matter.

But the thing that's stopping the Yankees from pulling the trigger is a long-forgotten $5 million buyout of Jacoby Ellsbury?

No way.


"The books" Lupica is referring to aren't even the correct books.

The income statement is blah blah blah. The Yankees are far more concerned with the balance sheet.

Don't measure a 2-year $26 million contract vs. the $360 million the Yankees will spend on player salaries during those two years (even though $26 million doesn't sound like a heckuva lot when framed in those terms).

Instead, measure a 2-year, $26 million contract vs. $3 billion in assets.

"Don Mattingly belongs in the Hall of Fame.

So does Thurman Munson.

People always say that Mattingly’s level of excellence didn’t last long enough.

Neither did Sandy Koufax’s."

So take Koufax out.

Oh, it's too late to do that.

"Not saying that you compare Mattingly’s excellence with Koufax’s.

Nobody would ever say that."

Nobody would ever say the thing I just said.

"But starting in 1984 and going through the 1989 season (and before his back gave out), Don Mattingly knocked in 684 runs.

His batting averages were these: .343, .324, .352, .327, .311, 303.

In his prime, his fellow players, in a New York Times poll, once voted him the best player in the game.

There are a lot of guys in the Hall of Fame who were never considered the best in the game for one day of their careers."

This is true.

Also, there are a lot of guys not in the Hall of Fame who would have won a players' poll as best player in the game.

That's the end of Lupica's argument. Since Sandy Koufax had a short career with a relatively short period of supremacy, then Mattingly and Munson belong in the HOF.

Not a tough sell to a New York audience.

You forgot Ron Guidry and Don Gullett; Orel Hershiser and Kevin Brown; Fernando Valenzuela and Bob Welch.

Not to mention Lou Whitaker, Jeff Kent, Larry Walker, Bobby Grich, Fred Lynn, and Jorge Posada.

I wouldn't use Koufax as a HOF shoo-in. He captured the imagination of lots of voters during a super-dominant stretch during a high-mound pitchers' era. Koufax is a low bar for HOFers.

Mattingly probably passes that low bar, I suppose, and so does Dale Murphy ... and Al Oliver ... and Dwight Evans ... and ...