In case anyone forgot how amazing the Brewers are...

Not that it's the only item that proves my brilliance, but even I must say my picks for the all-star game were pretty amazing. Let's look past my Holliday vision and right now focus on how third baseman Ryan Braun became the first Brewers Rookie of the Year since 1992 (Pat Listach). And for the added drama he edged out Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki in the closest finish in history.

My dear, dear Ryan Braun- for whatever reason the eyebrows are working so keep it up! For those who don't know Mr. Braun got called up in the last weeks of May and then preceded to bat .324, led NL rookies with 34 home runs and a .634 slugging percentage. He drove in 97 RBIs and also managed to steal 15 bases.

I remain anxious for the pre-season....

Why I Believe in Veronica Mars

In an odd way I find justice that the Yankees are falling apart at the seams. I too have loved things and seen them fall apart despite my well wishing. I have seen great programs (VM and the '05 White Sox) endure pain they have not deserved, and I have mourned that loss. But recently, Yank Manager and Yank A-lister have been rumored to be leaving the "heaven of all heavens" aka the Yankee uniform. Leaving at the same time and in a sort of two for one deal headed towards the same place, LA... of all the gin joints in all the world. Please keep in mind the stats of the oh so many far fleeted Yank play off attempts, the lack of trophies, dollars, and their horrible cost-effective ratio... but the celebrity stock of free time in-fielders on E TV had gone up...so it's a wash, i guess by NY standards. Although, the Yank drama wouldn't get signed by the WB and yet you can still purchase it on DVD. (No justice....)
Back to point. The Brewers and Twins are not rebuilding this off-season; they are not "looking" for new life and new motivation with millions of dollars at their whim. They are training, they are practicing and they are embracing being grounded, skilled and very talented. Right now they embrace being a part of something that works, despite the Yank attempts at dislodging that.
Best of luck to the Yanks this off season with their millions of dollars being put towards their "re-structuring" efforts, and their unpublished trade agreements. Maybe this time they can steal a Red Sox who may actually help, and if not they always have their dollars and the 90's.

Sometimes I just love the numbers.

Prince Fielder just hit homerun number 50. At his age, he is now the youngest to be hitting number 50, his pace is super natural, surpassing even mr. wonderful. Lots of more stats to supplement his greatness are readily available. Ryan Braun is at 33 homeruns, since mid-year. Nicely done sirs. Brewers are 2 games out, with more then 2 days left to play. Right now, I feel the math and the gods are in the Brewers favor. Drink up everyone, the end of the world may have to wait a season...

it's not all about midwest love, the cubs are just as evil.

I remember when the Cubs were the Central League champions and were playing for the National League title against the Marlins. It was my first year of graduate school and we had just moved to Chicago from Milwaukee a year prior, and carried with us the typical Milwaukee angst for all things Chicago. However, I found myself that post season rooting for Chicago, rooting for the Cubs. For those 2 weeks I was cheering for the Cubs, and lots of those in my same bi-partisan frame of mind were doing the same. No harm done, right?
It has been brought to my attention that my hatred for the Yankees is based on “blind Midwest love” and a blanket appreciation for Midwest values that those fans from the east coast lack. This however, is not true. I know now that the Cubs are just as evil. There is a dying breed in baseball, and the Cubs and Yankees represent the unfortunate present and future of this sport where the purchased players win over the invested ones. I blame networks such as WGN and YES for spawning easy loyalty across the states, and bringing in half hearted, convenient fan revenue. The evil is rooted in celebrating high priced players, regardless of performance or means of purchase, in convenient fans who are easily swayed with excessive coverage, hyped up media, three-month mini-series, pink sport team shirts, high priced gimmicks and overpriced seating. This I feel the Cubs and Yankees have perfected. Do you have to win something before you can be hated? Is that why so many across the nation hate the Yankees, because of their past dynasty and their high priced “supposed” dominating players? No, its not all that. Fans hate the Yankees even if they haven’t stolen their players, even if they are in different divisions and leagues. Do you have to epically not win anything with a decent sized payroll to have a huge loyal fan base, is that why everyone loves the Cubs and Red Sox? No, because the Brewers and post 2005 White Sox have equally sob ridden histories and they have nowhere near the Cubs Red Sox following. I mean, one of the biggest goals of the White Sox is to become Chicago’s team, and regardless of winning the WST or being last in their division Chicago will never celebrate them and those truly loyal are still in small numbers. Does it all come back to the money? (In the comments I have posted a break down I found of the 2007/2006 payrolls and the payroll change.) I need to research player by player, salary relevant to individual and overall performance, somewhere there must be a logical explanation to why I find myself hating that the Cubs are the division rival to the Brewers more then I would the Cardinals. But yet, I am not comforted that despite the Brewers post all-star performance they are still in their position with 30m less to work with. Like I said, teams like the Brewers and the Twins represent the old way of managing and fielding baseball teams. It was proposed in an earlier post that its up to the Twins to do what needs to be done to keep Santana, that they need to play by these new business rules to stay competitive and give over the salaries that teams like the Yankees, and Cubs have defined, regardless of loyalty and investment. They have the means to do it; the ends are justified go-ahead drink the Yankee kool-aid, all ends up all right….
But, it’s not all right, it never will be. And if you cannot see why then I must assume you follow the likes of the Yankees and you can’t see all the harm that was caused by me just sitting and watching the Cubs for those brief weeks four years ago.

Baseball is about the stories

And it's time for my epic journey to unfold for you. I'm going to start in the middle, go back to the beginning and then jump to the end, because that is what works for me.

So, this weekend Houseboy and I (yes, I'm importing nicknames from my other blog, deal yo), decided to be whimsical and pack up the Blueberry and trek out to Minnesota for the 20th Anniversary of the 1987 World Series. There was a weekend of bobble heads, homer hankies and autographs in store for us. We enjoyed pizza and beer at the Leaning Tower, 3 blocks from our first apartment, wandered downtown in the drizzle and ate an Irish Breakfast at a pub on Nicollet Mall. Sunday morning we trekked over to the Metrodome around 10:15 am and stood in line in the rain for our Twins Hall of Famer Gary Gaetti Bobble Head Doll. Doors opened at 11 am and we were easily in the first 10,000 fans, through the door by 11:07 am. Once inside, I stopped to buy a Michael Cuddyer t-shirt. This process took slightly longer than it might have needed to since I had to agonize over whether I should be allowed to buy a Torii Hunter shirt given my track record with favorite players (as I stood there in my Eddie Guardado jersey). But, even so, I was in line for my Frank Viola autograph, heart aflutter, by about 11:13 a.m. We inched and we inched and we compared Wheaties boxes and commemorative plaques and made fun of the guy with the merry-go-round horse (how did he get that thing in there anyway), and generally there was a good atmosphere of fun and memories. Around noon a guy with a shit-eating grin informed us we were "on the bubble." About 12:15 pm he said that from the family in front of us back, we were "Probably not getting in." People started dropping out of line. But we also starting moving more quickly. I was nervous, but I had hope. At 12:29, I could see the table... there were only 30 people ahead of us and maybe 20 people behind us. Sure, he couldn't get to them all in one minute, but surely they could extend the deadline just a few minutes. But no. They shut it down. Just like that, at the stroke of 12:30 p.m., no ifs, ands or buts, it was over. And here's where it gets weird. I get this chokey feeling in my throat. My eyes are burning. And all of a sudden I have to crouch down by the wall and pretend to be figuring out how to fit all my memorabilia back in my backpack so no one will see me tearing up over not getting a 6' 4" man with a mustache to scribble on a piece of cardboard for me.

So, to go back to the beginning and possibly begin to explain this phenomena. I was born in Macon, Georgia in 1979, but I only lived there for about 9 months. The first home I knew was in what was then a small town in southern Minnesota and is now a sort of far-flung suburb. In 1985 we moved to Alexandria, Virginia for my mother to go to seminary. So, I went from half-day Kindergarten and a more-or-less stay at home mom, a small safe community with occasional loose farm animals and clean air and lakes, to a full day at school where they wouldn't let me bring my doll, my mom away all day, and I wasn't allowed outside of our apartment complex. The kids said "Coke" instead of "Pop" and "Cuss" instead of "Swear." There was almost no snow in the winter and, worst of all, seminary housing didn't allow dogs, so my Inky had to go live with my grandparents. Yes, my parents were hauled in for questioning at Child Protective Services on more than one occasion. Anyway, one bright spot in this was that on the walk to school there was a crossing guard who handed out baseball cards. At the ages of 6, 7 and 8, collecting the Twins players on these cards was like a lifeline to my parents' promise that this was temporary. We WERE going home. And, in the summer of 1987, we did. We moved to a smaller town, further south, in June or July of 1987. And as if they KNEW how much I had missed it and how much they had meant to me, the Twins went ahead and won a World Series that October, my first October in my second new school in 3 years. And if you know a thing or two about that series, you know that Frank Viola was one of its superstars. He continued to play for the Twins in 1988 and then got traded mid-season in 1989 and I swear I can remember the day I saw the headline, sitting on the stoop of a business on main street as I walked by... though that might be a completely manufactured memory, the feeling is the same. It nearly broke my heart.

So, cut back to my supreme embarrassment at being a 28-year-old verging on weeping in a sports complex. I gathered myself, went and bought a lemonade and found my seat, gazing down furtively at the card I had lovingly mutilated to make it say "Twins Win! Twins Win!" by folding down the "T" and "S". I was disappointed. I was almost determined to call the weekend a failure. But then, Johann Santana took the mound. It might be surprising to hear, but this was my first time seeing Santana live outside of Spring Training. And at the first pitch I knew everything was going to be all right. Ground out. Strike out. Strike out. Strike out. Strike out. Strike Out. MICHAEL CUDDYER HITS A F-ING HOME RUN. My heart just about exploded. There I sat, with the incriminating t-shirt in my bag. My admission that I was less worried about losing him than I was about losing Hunter. But he forgave me. He even went so far as to hit a home run to prove to me that I am NOT a curse. He is a lovely, lovely man. And the rest of the game recap goes something like this: strikeoutstrikeoutstrikeoutstrikeoutstrikeoutstrikeoutstrikeoutstrikeoutstrikeoutstrikeoutstrikeoutstrikeout

That's 17 strikeouts. That's a team record. The man is a freaking miracle. We barely sat down the whole game. The feeling of the crowd was so odd... there was audible disappointment at the few ground outs. Downright uproar at Sosa's single. Someone behind me started the chant "Check his bat! Check his bat!" People forgot themselves and accidentally booed when Joe Nathan came in to close in the 9th. Then they remembered who he was and cheered psychotically. Then there was an error, and fans went tumbling down the stairs head over heels. It was pandemonium. I've never witnessed anything like it.

Moral of this entire story is, so help me Mike, if you say a WORD about Santana, his contract expectations, the likelihood of him going to the Yankees or anything like that in the next, oh, millennium, I will END you.

Postscript-- Here he is, in all his glory:

I don't think Stark's article was very interesting at all

After hearing Rick Sutcliffe pronounce Justin Morneau's name as Morn-yo well into the 2007 season, I'm permanently resolved not to care what ESPN has to say about the Twins. A half-decade of ignoring good teams and great young players has earned them the gas face when they finally decide Minnesota is a worthy topic of conversation. But since Stark's bizarre survey of GMs has appeared I've now had several people try to hip me to it and I figure it's worth addressing specifically.

So we posed that question to GMs or high-ranking officials of five different teams: What would you do if you were running the Twins? Trade this man? Sign him? Keep him and trade him later? Keep him and sign him later?

I realize that Stark probably owes a great deal to his sources and needs to keep them anonymous, plus a GM publicly commenting on another team's player would be tampering. But can't we get a little bit more context than "GMs or high-ranking officials of five different teams"? Because I'd be much more interested in hearing the opinions of GMs from good teams that regularly deal with decisions like Minnesota's upcoming ones. We could have immediately disregarded the batch as Littlefield-infected if one of our "anonymous" sources had said, "They never should have let Santana reach his arbitration years without dealing him to the Cubs for Jose Hernandez, Matt Bruback, and Bobby Hill" but sadly there isn't any easy giveaway that Stark's sources are deficient and we're forced to look further.

"Sign him. Sign him. Sign him. Sign him," said one middle-market GM. "The longer they wait, the more the price tag just goes up. They really should have done this a year earlier. Then other things don't come into play. The [Barry] Zito contract. The [Mark] Buehrle contract. If you let it keep going, the market keeps changing."

I'm not an economist, but if there's some market changing going on between Zito and Buehrle, isn't it so far a good thing for the Twins? Buehrle's been better than Zito since the latter won his Cy Young in 2002, and I'm fairly confident the Twins would jump at the opportunity if Peter Greenberg called them and said his client wanted a deal just like Mark Buehrle's. The one thing I do know about economics is that something is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it, which means it only takes one stupid team to set the market, as was the case with the Zito.

Buehrle was still controlled by Chicago when he extended with them, so there was only one team that could properly express what they were willing to pay for him, but using him as evidence for the Twins' neglect in not extended Santana already kind of fails. Buehrle only had three months until the end of his final contracted season and four months until the offers could pour in from other teams and his deal doesn't resemble Zito's that closely. Four years for a pitcher isn't exactly low budget-style prudence, but it's an entire universe away from Zito's risky seven year deal, and for less money annually. Santana has a year more than Buehrle did from getting desperate offers from teams willing to pay anything for relevance. Curiously, I think the GM cited here is right that Minnesota should have acted earlier, but I don't see how the Buehrle contract could do anything but encourage Minnesota if they want Santana back.

"You have to sign him as early as you can, because you'll get a better deal sooner, rather than later," said an official of one large-market team. "You don't want to wait too long and cause a [Carlos] Zambrano situation. The closer a guy gets to free agency, the more he thinks, 'Why should I sign now?' He could change agents. Anything can happen."

Remind me again what the Carlos Zambrano situation was. Because I was under the impression that the Cubs and Zambrano were nearly done on a 5y/80mm deal until the team went up for sale and talks on a contract that large needed to be tabled. That's another deal that would be a very team-friendly analogue for any Twins/Santana talks, except that the particulars of the Zambrano "situation" appear so bizarre that mimicking them seem somewhat impossible unless the Twins go up for sale in the next 15 months. And I think we can confidently rule that out as long as they're still playing in the Metrodome.

"As I look at their club," said the same executive, "their entire strength is pitching. They have some very good offensive players, but they don't have a good offensive club. So preserving the strength of their pitching has to be their first priority."

I'm comfortable admitting that I think this is completely backwards. The Twins' offense, which is most charitably termed "inconsistent" (They scored 19 runs in their three game series with the Mariners this weekend and I still came away wholly unimpressed with the lineup. That's not easy.) appears to need the sort of help that only suitcases full of unmarked bills to players like Bobby Abreu and Pat Burrell can buy. The current strength of the team's pitching seems like an argument for letting Santana walk and applying his cash to somebody actually capable of hitting a ball over an outfielder's heads. Somebody who isn't Jason Tyner. Somebody who could eat Jason Tyner.

I don't think that's what they should do, though. I'm just saying.

"He's the face of that franchise," said a large-market official. "He's their stability. They're going into a new stadium. They've got to sell tickets around something, and to me, it's got to be him. ... If they can't sign him, I think they'll have a real credibility hit. If they don't sign Santana, they could have a hard time selling season tickets in the new park."

Without making a judgment as to who should be the "face of the franchise", the correct answer is Joe Mauer. He's boring in all the ways people love in Minnesota. Plus, he's really, really good. I'd also dispute the idea that a single player can impact longterm season-ticket sales, unless his argument is that the team can't possibly win without Santana. That would make a lot more sense, and if he meant that he should have said it. I'd disagree with that too, though. The team went to the playoffs in 2002 and 2003 despite bizarrely limited use of Santana. The Twins will survive.

OK, let's count up all the $20-million-a-year players in Twins history. There would be ... well, um, eh ... nobody. Obviously. Because they're the Twins.

When we're done counting the $20 million players in Twins' history, can we count the $20 million players in MLB history? Because I only see five of them. Somebody can correct me on that point if I'm missing the other two dozen or so around the league. And three of those players are on the same team (though Rodriguez' contract was obviously signed with Texas). Are the Mets and Cubs cheap and destined to let their best players walk because they've never signed any twenty million dollar checks? Clearly, the Twins are thrifty. But this was a stupid, poorly-researched point. Sometimes I think I'm too hard on journalism when I call it the lowest form of writing. But I'm not.

Stark goes on to mention Radke, Hrbek and Puckett as possible counterpoints, then dismissing them as n"different players" than Santana. The revelation that Brad Radke is an entirely different person than Johan Santana is likely little surprise to his wife, and it's of equally little use to us if we're seriously trying to understand what the Twins might do with Santana. Besides, it still seems likely that Stark is over-particularizing the matter. The Twins paid Frank Viola the biggest contract in the league in 1989. The ended up trading him that very season, but there was a time when they said to Frank Viola "Yes, we'll pay you more than any other AL player". Kirby Puckett spent most of his career in the 90's as one of the top-10 salaries in baseball, and his 1992 contract with the Twins was a huge deal money-wise. They've spent big dollars before. We don't have any idea what sort of predictive value that has, but it's a lot more solid than "Because they're the Twins".

It's true they have a new ballpark coming in 2010. But how much money can one new park manufacture? However much it is, the Twins would need just about every one of those new-park dollars to keep all their stars working in the 612 area code.

This one doesn't pass the smell test. Can anybody get a handle on how much additional revenue a new stadium might generate over the Metrodome? Because just enough money to break even keeping these players seems on the low side. Even if they decided to let Santana and Hunter and Nathan walk and just pocketed it, that still seems like not enough to justify paying all of the lawyers and lobbyists and the construction/infrastructure costs the team agreed to pitch in on. I realize TV deals like YES are where the real money is, but with increased ticket and concession prices, the money from the naming rights, and those juicy, juicy luxury suites? I've got to think that's worth a lot more than Hunter/Santana/Nathan/Mauer/Morneau in 2010. And Mauer and Morneau are both under team control in 2010 anyhow. We already know Mauer's cost for that year. It's 12.5 million.

"They shouldn't trade him [this winter] because he's too good," the GM said. "The goal is to win, so they should go for it. If it doesn't work and they decide to trade him next year at the [trading] deadline, the return won't be much less next July than it would be this winter."

This is the most interesting thing anybody said in this article. I don't have any idea if it's true, but it is worth thinking about. Dave Cameron had a cool article for USS Mariner about deadline trades for upcoming type-A free agents and how often they're worth more than the compensation draft picks. I recommend it highly. He listed and analyzed most of the recent ones and the cream of the crop is Brandon Philips, Grady Sizemore, and Cliff Lee for Bartolo Colon. That would be a pretty good return, but there are a few curiosities that make that trade hard to use as an analogy for anything. The uncertain future of the Expos left Minaya in more of a "win now" mode than perhaps any GM has ever been, since "the future" everybody keeps planning for wasn't very likely. Plus, Sizemore ended up being the real reason people see that trade and whistle in admiration and he hadn't played above high-A ball when the move was made. Whatever Cleveland's intentions were, he seems a lot like "the other guy" when that trade was made.

If that's the high-end of possible returns if the Twins try to give themselves through next July to extend Santana, it's not a bad consolation prize. If the circumstances of that trade are too unique for it to have any comparative value, then the runner-up is probably John Buck, Mark Teahen, and Mike Wood for Carlos Beltran. And that's a long, long fall. It's worth thinking about, in any event.

"So I don't envy Terry Ryan at all. He knows what he's got. What I don't know is what he's going to do."

What a delightfully useful conversation ender. I appreciate at least one person who either doesn't possess foreknowledge of the Twins' moves. Or maybe he just has the good manners not to give away the ending. If we're guessing, I think one of Santana or Hunter will be on the roster when the new park opens. Not zero and not two. My present guess is Santana, but if Hunter re-signs this off-season then I'm not going to change my guess. And I don't think Santana will pull 20 million dollars annually even if he does go to free agency. Zito is scheduled to make that much in 2013, and I'm guessing he'll be the first pitcher to do it when that happens.

I think the depth of cheap pitching talent at or above AAA for the Twins is enough to survive without Santana, assuming the money is spent elsewhere (I'd like to repeat my plea for somebody who can hit the ball over an outfielder's head) and payroll isn't cut. That sounds like a big assumption, but the only payroll cut I know of is about 2mm from 2003 to 2004, when they actually got better. They raised it 15 million between 2002 and 2003. It was nearly a 40% increase. The team isn't afraid of spending money. They're just afraid of spending it badly.

Pohlad can afford it, but if he's concerned about Santana tanking or getting injured and then paying him to sit on the DL then why should he? I'm losing interest in "the credibility of the franchise" being preserved, particularly when it's coming from Stark or ESPN. The Twins never had credibility to those people, and they've managed to inconvenience them by winning pretty frequently anyhow. And I similarly reject the need to preserve credibility for the casual Twins fan. These are the same talkradio-listening chuckleheads who thought trading Castillo was a huge disaster and that Joe Mauer's .305/.396/.435 line from the catcher position has been a real problem for the team. They should take whatever team Terry Ryan gives them and be happy it didn't come with a kick in the teeth. Or call in to Chad Hartman and whine about Mauer's RBI totals. Whichever, as long as they don't expect anybody to listen or care what they think.

Basically, I don't think credibility and winning are linked in any meaningful way when it comes to the Twins. The Twins will be met with the same shrug of indifference if they win or lose, which is unpleasant on certain occasions but is delightfully punk rock at most times. Stark and his semi-literate ilk can pretend to care about the Twins, but what they really care about is Santana because he's a story our corporate masters have approved for consumption. He's too good to ignore, but too geographically inconvenient for a simple baseball story. So we get this predictably self-interested piece from the East Coast guardians of baseball culture: Santana is leaving because the Twins wont pay him.

The Order of the Universe?

A well balanced article from Jason Stark analyzing the options for resolving the Johan Santana situation is linked below. The most poignant part of this article for me, based on our discussion from the other week is the part which discusses the need to sign him as an investment; to maintain the organization’s credibility as it opens a new stadium. Can the market support a $20M+/year contract? I’d guess not. Can Carl Pohlad afford it? Absolutely.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=2965174


-MK

Porcello Signs

First-round pick Rick Porcello and the Tigers agreed to a four year, 7.3 million dollar Major League contract late yesterday evening. The article has all of the relevant details, including a brief sketch of the ins-and-outs of signing 18 year olds to MLB contracts as well as a delightfully bizarre use of the word "ironic". MLB.com correspondant Jason Beck writes, "His [Porcello's] advisor, Scott Boras, compared his talent to that of Josh Beckett when he was drafted out of high school in 1999. Ironically, current Tigers president and general manager Dave Dombrowski selected Beckett in the same role with the Florida Marlins."

I think the same GM giving huge signing bonuses and MLB deals to more than one high school pitcher isn't ironic at all, but it's been awhile since I was forced to deal with exact definitions of complicated literary terms like "irony". As I understand it though, a certain deviation from expectation is usually an important characteristic of irony. Dave Littlefield or Kevin Towers throwing a garbage bags full of million dollars bills at Porcello would be ironic.

Instead of arguing about whether or not this is a good thing, since the goodness of this thing seems largely an issue of perspective, I'd mostly like to add that I'm really looking forward to "Rick" becoming THE cool first name again. I don't think the United States has had a name that was so obviously a marker of badassery since, well, the last time the name "Rick" was cool, an era that ended in the late 80's. The young Mr. Porcello was born in late 1988, which means makes him a sort of once and future king of Rick-ness.

We're standing at an important moment in history.

Match Game Answers

A. Greg Maddux
B. John Smoltz
C. CC Sabathia
D. Roger Clemens
E. Ben Sheets
F. Jake Peavy
G. Boof Bonser
H. Dontrelle Willis
I. Kerry Wood
J. Tim Wakefield
K. Francisco Liriano
L. Jason Jennings

Neat fun, this match game! What's interesting to me isn't just that some great pitchers struggled as youngsters, but the degree to which their young selves often didn't often even resemble their older selves. Greg Maddux and CC Sabathia had rough times finding the plate and Ben Sheets didn't miss that many bats. Obviously, rookie-ish pitchers with crazy breakout performances aren't impossible, but I think that Liriano/Verlander/Weaver really raised the expectations of a lot of fans last year. TINSTAAPP was always silly, but now it's been largely disregarded except by the GMs that would get canned if they put five 23 year olds in their rotation on opening day.

That's of course, almost what I want Terry Ryan to do in 2008 as I'd be totally pleased to see Santana playing the part of wiley vet along with Francisco Liriano (24), Matt Garza (24), Boof Bonser (26) and some combination of Glen Perkins (25), Kevin Slowey (24), or Brian Duensing (25). Speaking of Duensing, he's put up a 2.56 ERA in 91.1 IP at Rochester this season. He doesn't seem to be regarded as the higher profile pitching prospect on the level of all the other Twins I've named here, but he looks like a fine candidate for a back-of-the-rotation guy as he strikes out a few guys, keeps the ball in the park and doesn't walk many batter. Furthermore, he's slightly interesting for a shift in his peripherals since being promoted to Rochester when he turned into a fairly extreme groundball pitcher. The delightful minorleaguesplits.com confirms this as his balls-in-play are distributed as 120 on the ground and 104 in the air compared to a 72:85 ratio at New Britain. He's not getting particularly lucky either, posting a fairly average .302 batting average on balls in play.

So do we believe a pitcher can change personalities in this way? I'm not a scout, but when I think of groundball specialists, I think of big, tall, righthanders and not 5'11" lefties like Duensing. The great ones are anomalies, but the good ones are usually predictable and he's a bit weird for my taste. But depth is depth and Minnesota could have enough MLB-ready starters to fill Rochester's rotation so it's not like everybody's waiting with baited breath to see if Duensing becomes the next... Kenny Rogers? I don't know. He's a bit taller but that was the best I could do.

Match Game

Here's some pitching lines from a bunch of current starters' first year with 100(ish)+ IP:

A. 155.2 IP, 6-14 W/L, 101 K, 74 BB, 17 HR, 5.61 ERA, 1.64 WHIP
B. 208 IP, 12-11 W/L, 168 K, 72BB, 15 HR, 2.94 ERA, 1.12 WHIP
C. 180.1 IP, 17-5 W/L, 171 K, 95 BB, 19 HR, 4.39 ERA, 1.35 WHIP
D. 133.1 IP, 9-4 W/L, 126 K, 29 BB, 13 HR, 4.32 ERA, 1.31 WHIP
E. 151.1 IP, 11-10 W/L, 94 K, 48 BB, 23 HR, 4.76 ERA, 1.41 WHIP
F. 97.2 IP, 6-7 W/L, 90 K, 33 BB, 11 HR, 4.52 ERA, 1.42 WHIP
G. 100.1 IP, 7-6 W/L, 84 K, 24 BB, 18 HR, 4.22 ERA, 1.28 WHIP
H. 160.2 IP, 14-6 W/L, 142 K, 58 BB, 13 HR, 3.30 ERA, 1.28 WHIP
I. 166.2 IP, 13-6 W/L, 233 K, 86 BB, 14 HR, 3.40 ERA, 1.21 WHIP
J. 92.0 IP, 8-1 W/L, 51 K, 35 BB, 3 HR, 2.15 ERA, 1.21 WHIP
K. 121.0 IP, 12-3 W/L, 144 K, 32 BB, 9 HR, 2.16 ERA, 1.00 WHIP
L. 185.1 IP, 16-8 W/L, 127 K, 70 BB, 26 HR, 4.52 ERA, 1.46 WHIP

Here is your bank of names to choose from:

Jake Peavy
Greg Maddux
Tim Wakefield
Dontrelle Willis
Roger Clemens
Francisco Liriano
John Smoltz
Jason Jennings
CC Sabathia
Kerry Wood
Ben Sheets
Boof Bonser

No cheating. Ready, Set, Go!

Derek Jeter isn’t the devil, but he isn’t God either...

Okay, Jeter’s stats cannot be argued with. They have been seen from both sides and one cannot help but acknowledge that they are above par. Alright, fine...he is not bad and not alone. (al beit defensively he is really lacking)But he doesn't provide justice for the Yankee's and he doesn't rid the world of the Yankee's major ill's. There are many more arguments to be had that can show why one shouldn’t “choose” to be a Yankee fan. (I mean if born that way you have deeper issues that do take more then just statistics to help provide reason, which will continue to be provided) But on to the current issue at hand, which is why Ryan Braun (Brewers, 3B) can help show serious faults, future demise and dash the hopes of the Yankee franchise and their misguided fans. This provides hope for everyone.

Mr. Braun was recently named the National League's Player of the Month for July and the league's Rookie of the Month. For his rockin’ July he batted .345 with 11 home runs and 25 RBI’s and collected 12 multi-hit games and two multi-homer games. His 11 homers led the NL. YAY Ryan!

Beyond that, with the recent Bonds activity there is much talk about who next will take the record. A common name that pops up is Mr.Rodriguez. But he won’t. Mr. Braun will. Already, controversy is popping up around A-rod and about his previous and current performance. So, that great feeling we all expected (and didn't) feel when Hank’s record was broken will not be felt with A-rod but it now has serious potential to be felt with Ryan Braun. (plus… I feel it impossible to have Braun’s eyebrows and do “energy enhancing drugs” so the stigma which A-Rod and Bonds endure will not be an issue) Defensively, Braun is doing better but I want to try and keep this as short as possible, so just know that he is!!

Here are the basic stats….
Ryan Braun, Milw. :Curr. Av:.349, HR:21,RBI:55,SB:19
Alex Rodriguez, NY:Curr.Av:.296,HR:36,RBI:109,SB,10

In regards to the RBI stat, keep in mind who the Yankee's have been playing the past month, easy hitting. As well, check out the progression of A-Rod's hitting back in the day to where Braun is and you see what I am saying about the HR numbers. I'm working on getting that out!!

Speed is the New Power?

Several weeks ago, right around the time of the 2007 amateur draft, a friend emailed me a rant he had read on the Twins' disproportionate emphasis on pitching prospects in the drafts between 2002 and 2005. The argument itself was pretty silly on its face, as the dates are rather obviously chosen specifically to exclude the several quality position draftees that currently occupy Minnesota's roster. If we accept the easily acceptable proposition that the point of the amateur draft is more to build a quality MLB team and less to impress Baseball America with your system depth (not that those goals are necessarily exclusive) then it's not difficult to accept that Twins' scouting brass looked at the team in 2002ish and thought to themselves, "We're gonna have a batch of pretty decent position players up on the big club for the next 5-6 years. Maybe we should find some pitching." Though it's possible this sentiment was circulated in email or cellphone form rather than telepathically. We can't be sure.

An alternate rant that I would have sympathized with is that the Twins are still recovering from some rather unimpressive drafts. BJ Garbe? And the 2001 draft is pretty underwhelming once you get past the first name on the list. That's not the point here though.

I'd rather talk about Ben Revere. He's put up a .328/.373/.481 line in GCL play so far. As a 19 year old, that's not really too breathtaking, though it's his first couple months of wood bats and pro ball so it's not like he's a particularly slow mover; he was just old for a high school senior. What's rather cool about that .481 SLG is that it's built on the strength of 8 triples in 33 games. After Denard Span and Matt Moses and countless other Twins' prospects made short work of rookie and A-ball competition only to stall out as they advanced, I'm resolved not to get too wound up about Revere. He needs to walk more and hit the ball over the fence once and awhile before he's more Curtis Granderson than Jason Tyner. But what I will get wound up about is a triple every four games. There's obviously not much to take from that developmentally, except that Revere is very, very fast, a fact which hasn't been in dispute. So we wont deal with it from a developmental perspective, but rather from a fan perspective.

Triples are awesome.

Jose Reyes is a great, valuable player because he's buttressed his speed with improving plate discipline (honestly, why would anybody walk that guy if they could possibly avoid it?). But Jose Reyes is awesome because he hits triples.

Joe Benson is the CFer for the Twins' low-A affiliate in Beloit. He has 6 triples this year in 95 games. That's not as frequent tripling as Revere, or even as many triples as Revere, but it's a decent triple total. He's also hitting .294/.369/.452 since the beginning of July. There was a cool Bryan Smith article in BPro a couple months ago about teenage prospects in the MWL. Since I possess the tiny brain of a stegosaurus, I enjoyed his liberal use of anecdotal evidence. Since I further possess great powers of rationalization, I prefer his liberal use of anecdotal evidence because the ultimate end of player development is quality MLB players. Volume is nice, but the process is directed towards production of specific, individually valuable players. In any event, Justin Upton hit .263/.342/.413 there and it didn't stop anybody from thinking he was the next Willie Mays. Unless they never thought that to begin with. Lots of people prefer not to go overboard by comparing 19 year olds to inner-circle Hall of Famers, and being boring and reasonable is their prerogative. He also only hit one triple, which gives him a significantly lower awesome quotient than both Ben Revere and Joe Benson. Miguel Cabrera hit .260/.328/.382 there when he was an 18 year old at Kane County. He also only hit two triples, but gets some extra credit because I presently have a difficult time imagining Miguel Cabrera hitting triples even though he's apparently done so twice this year.

If you've gotten this far without already wondering what my point is, you should begin that process now. I did, in fact, choose a title to this blog entry, which suggests that I intended at some point to construct an argument. Don't feel bad if you were duped by this. I don't actually have a point. If you're looking for something to take away from all of this, here are some choices:

1. Between Revere, Daniel Rams, Chris Parmelee, Joe Benson, Wilson Ramos, Deibinson Romero and Trevor Plouffe, the Twins have a pretty good batch of 21-and-under position prospects.

2. Maybe four of those guys will ever see a big-league roster. Maybe 2-3 of those will put together a 5 year MLB career.

3. Prospect watching is fun anyways.

4. Triples are awesome.

5. Speed isn't really the new power. Speed is speed, but that's still better than speed being the old speed, which nobody cared about at all.

6. Corey Hart has only three triples, but is almost shockingly fast for somebody listed at 6'6". He was also picked in the 11th round of the famously bizarre 2000 draft. The Twins chose Adam Johnson. The Rockies chose Matt Harrington.

7. Matt LaPorta has a .260 IsoP in the Pioneer League. The Brewers have had some absolutely fascinating drafts lately.

Responses to Responses and a Cup of Tea

#1. Silly Nemesis, Jenny's a Commie, when are you going to get over that? That aside, I believe a good part of the economic argument here is over irresponsible spending which affects your beloved free market in exactly the predicted way: driving up prices for all and making it difficult for those with less income to compete in the market. Now, far be it from me to argue that there should be any kind of controls over the Yankees' spending. I'm just arguing that it gives me the inalienable right to hate them and, in fact, makes me right and them wrong.

#2. I may be wrong, as I haven't been too involved in the Jeter wars so far, but isn't the issue his DEFENSE? I mean, given the Twins offense, I'd take him as our DH in a second... but do I want his bumbling black hole right up the middle? No. Case in point, The Hardball Times Revised Zone Rating. Note Jeter cuddling up with Hanley Ramirez at the bottom. Also, the even better Ultimate Zone Rating (available publicly only through 2003, so give me a break) shows him as the WORST shortstop in the league. Noting THAT, if I had to pick MY players I'd take before Jeter, they'd be:

Miguel Tejada: .298/.349/.422 and an .860 RZR
Jose Reyes: .303/.375/.456 and an .883 RZR
Edgar Renteria: .336/.392/.487 and an .813 RZR
Carlos Guillen: .315/.379/.527 and an .804 RZR
Michael Young: .305/.356/.409 and an .816 RZR

And so that you don't call me out, here's Jeter's line: .327/.400/.456 with a .774 RZR. That gives him a better batting average than 4 of my guys, a better on base percentage than all of them, and a better slugging percentage than 2 of them. So yes, he is a better hitter than most of them. But he is a WAY worse fielder. In case you like graphs, check out THIS. Pay special attention to the blue dotted line on the bottom... that's Jeter falling on his ass every time a fly ball comes his way.



#3. I LIKE this link, originally linked by Nemesis. I disagree with opening it up so wide as to allow teams to free-flow and move as they please, but I do think that giving a share of revenues to visiting teams sounds like a good compromise. I especially appreciate that the writer singled out the multi-annual Yankees/Twins home run derby. Maybe that's not where you were trying to go with that, but I'm glomming on to it.

If on an island whom would you choose...?

The question/threat was poised to me today regarding a certain Mr. Wonderful and why I don’t give him the credit he deserves in his current position as shortstop for the Yankees. Then the ultimatum was thrown of daring me to provide 5 “current” players I would rather choose, 5 players that could even hold a flame to Mr. Wonderful. And, well I have them and honestly I feel very good about them, all things considered. I mean, they are younger, they are more fiscally responsible, and they have not neared peaking. If I had to choose I choose the below (in no specific order, since I wasn’t challenged to rank just to provide alternatives)

Jose Reyes, New York Mets:
He has a .303 batting average with 53 steals. Offensively, he has a .450 slugging percentage with 10 triples and 28 doubles, 8 homeruns, 45 rbi’s. And yeah, he is under 25 years old.

Jimmy Rollins, Philadelphia Phillies:
20 homeruns with 61 RBI. He has a league leading 12 triples and 23 doubles, a .288 batting average and a .524 slugging average. I also found out that he had 79 extra base hits this year, which is more then some of the other high rollers. He is on way, very quickly to the 30-30 club. (stolen bases-home runs..same season) He is 28 years old….

Hanley Ramirez, Florida Marlins:
A .339 batting average and 17 homeruns. Stolen 27 bases this season with 27 doubles. He has an amazing .565 slugging percentage. I repeat, .565 slugging percentage. And, he is 21 years of age.

Carlos Guillen, Detroit Tigers:
.310 average, 14 home runs, 72 rbi’s, and 10 stolen bases. Still only, 32 years of age. And he produces these results while only taking home 5mil a year.

J.J. Hardy, Milwaukee Brewers:
.271 average, 18 home runs, 63 rbi’s…okay his stolen bases aren’t up there but I can’t help it…he has serious potential for the future and all should be watchfully anxious of how great he can become. (on both NL and AL standards of “great”) I like him, can’t help it. Plus, his favorite movie is “the Rock”...that must show something about survival. And yeah, he is under 35 too…

The Bartman Effect: cheap tricks and tactics to avoid blame and shift responsibility

“Right” in my framework is what it is that justifies why I should not be a Yankee fan, and why others shouldn’t be as well. How can you not see the role that money plays in this? And, I do care who the team is being compared against, very much so. If we were comparing the Brewers to the Orioles, or the Twins to the White sox I would have a different platform, because for me what motivates the discussion is that it is the Yankees we are comparing to. Maybe that wasn’t clear. I am participating to hear arguments so as to try and understand why the Yankees are not as evil as I so naturally assume, if after having such strong, consistent (al beit at times statistically uninformed) opinions of the Yankees there is some bit of knowledge out there that would provide me with insight into this club and have it so maybe, if other things worked out I could support the Yankees or at least not hate them as much as I do and blame them for all that is wrong with this amazing sport. I have learned lots from the statistical banter that has been had and I get it, and we will continue to argue and spin stats that is one of the amazing aspect of baseball but right now my issue is that you want someone to prove that “the Yankees could do things by not just simply throwing their money around…”And, I don’t think they can because that is not how you have ever operated and it’s asinine to try and separate the Yankees from their business practices.

I guess I don’t “view baseball as baseball”. I love the sport of baseball, because I love my teams, and I have an emotional attachment to their history, with their success, their failures, to their mistakes. Not seeing the value in that emotional attachment may be a product of having a team franchise that never had to loose someone because of money and quickly forget that sting... time and time again. Money, which as you have said all teams have, it’s just how they choose to spend it and some spend it wiser then others. I know you have made the point that if we want to not be hurt by our teams in this way then all teams should spend the way the Yankees do and that is justified because its not just you that are the big spenders. Which then means, okay so my teams don’t care about me, about their fan base about the success of the franchise to spend money in the “correct way” and avoid this angst. To say that those without the same show of buying power “care more about cost-effectiveness and savings than winning, and that's unfortunate...” undermines everyone who is not the in the same financial bracket as you, and that’s the majority of the sport.

And come on…is it about the statistics or is it not? If it is then I feel that certain interpretations of your facts are just wrong and we must be defining what makes a good short stop differently?? But if as you say its not just about the stats and I just need to try and comprehend the White Sox being the White Sox doing the same practices that the Yankees do and then they will be a more “successful” team thus ridding me of my hatred of Yankees by taking away the stigma of their business structures, well that doesn’t convince because the approach that the Yankees (and I do believe it is Yankee specific) use to put these good teams on the field is a “wrong” one and that is why I feel when any other team (maybe not the red sox or cubs) beat the Yankees, win playoffs, and WST they have a far superior team to even the best Yankee dynasty. The concepts that guide your franchise are flawed.

I know that it is the easy target and subject of ridicule that I am both a Brewer and White Sox fan and I am comfortable that my hatred of the Yankees is from the White Sox side (Brewers and Cubs are similarly themed for me). Maybe I am just being simplistic or maybe I am just missing some huge point but I cannot get away from the mentality that the Yankees represent entitlement and arrogance and well, the White Sox, Brewers, Twins represent a tru-grit and a never say die attitude. Nothing that I have heard (statistically or generally speaking) has lead me away from thinking that of the Yankees

You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?

Welcome to my very first post on this blog. I think it's going pretty well so far.

"let's get down to brass tacks on the midwesterner's assumptions about the Yankees...that we simply purchase success. The very thought that we earned the latest dynasty through good decisions and a good farm system along with our money scares you all. That would mean we could beat other teams at their own game...through smart decisions and good player development. AND, we could back that up with deeper pockets. That combination would mean we'd be very tough to beat. So, as soon as someone in this argument admits this is a possibility...that the Yankees could do things by not just simply throwing their money around...the order of the universe would break down. Is this a fair assessment?"

Yes, I think that an important bedrock point of this whole argument so far has been that the Twins and other low-budget teams are better at making careful, well-reasoned decisions in the free agent market and also better at farming their own talent for cheap than the Yankees. The Yankees don't HAVE to make these kinds of decisions, and so even when they choose RIGHT, they still haven't beaten the Twins "at their own game," because they got that right choice through a lot more casting about with golden doubloons. I also think that as long as the Yankees have the budget they do, and they can buy up seasoned veterans and put them on the field, the likelihood that they will be taking their well-bought rookies and giving them a real chance in the majors, the way the Twins are forced to, is basically nil. I await the evidence that will prove me wrong.

The Twins, I'll agree have produced better talent from their farm system over the past few years than the Yankees. So, their stats aren't surprising. Of course, these stats don't mean a whole lot. When the Yanks play the Twins in the regular season and the post season, they seem to pull the games out more often than not.

And thank you for that. Yes, head-to-head, it seems like the Twins are terrified of the Yankees like little boys are terrified of bears. They still won only one less game in the regular season last year, so those stats seem to mean a whole lot somewhere, now don't they?

See again, the Twins and the Yankees have been able to get teams into the playoffs. The Yankees managed 6 pennants and 4 championships out their playoff teams. The Twins not so much with their recent teams. If a team makes the playoffs, is it fair to say they have the capability to win the WS? I'd say probably. Once you get to the playoffs the payroll and all of this $$ talk is largely irrelevant. The team is in position. The Yankees were able to put a special group of players together to win that went beyond simply spending $$. Again, I'll admit that's a part of our success yes. A necessary, but not sufficient condition for success. You still need other pieces to fall into place that money can't buy.

Oh, son, you just totally ignored the numbers, didn't you? The point was not that the Twins accomplished the SAME THING as the Yankees... it was that for A LOT LOT LOT less money, they accomplished CLOSE. In 2006 both the Twins and the Yankees were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs, and the Twins had only one fewer regular season wins than the Yankees. So, one win cost the Yankees $130 million. In 2005 the Yankees lost in the first round and the Twins didn't go. Twelve wins and a playoff bid cost the Yankees $152 million. In 2004, nine wins and one round further in the playoffs was worth $130.4 million. In 2003 eleven wins and the chance to lose the world series was worth $97.2 million. AND, in 2002, the Yankees won 9 more regular season games, but fell out in the first round of the playoffs while the Twins went on to the second, all for $85.5 million dollars less.

You see where I'm going here? Yes, the Yankees have more pennants and more World Series titles, but they are also doing it EXTREMELY inefficiently. I have the suspicion that raising the payroll a few million dollars might help solidify the Twins' playoff bids for the next 5 years, and even make the likelihood of a pennant or even World Series title more likely. But I don't think that they need to spend THREE TIMES AS MUCH. So, obviously, the Twins are doing something better than the Yankees, and the Yankees are throwing money around like they're at a strip club on Christmas.

Again, to the point about younger kids being a gamble. I get it. So, that means NONE of them are worth it? NO ONE is worth a risk? I simply don't agree. You don't need to pay every kid extra.

Sure, some day Terry Ryan might get a visit from one of the Pre-Cogs he calls scouts, who will insist that he has seen the future, and Jim Bob Joe Johnson is the next Ken Griffey, Jr., and then we will hope that Pohlad will let him open the purse a little for a signing bonus. I have no problem with the VERY occasional bonus over slot. I have a BIG problem with it becoming a regular thing. I also just don't trust your scouts like I trust ours.

(BTW, at least we're getting somewhere with the ownership profile. Yes, Pohlad is a billionaire...richer than Steinbrenner. After watching Steinbrenner for 25 years, I can tell you one thing for sure...that winning trumps everything else...even making money. Every fan would want an owner like that. EVERY FAN. The fact that Pohlad won't commit to winning first when he wouldn't miss the $$ isn't necessarily virtuous. Some could call it short-sighted and selfish. I mean, he didn't make billions by not taking any risks. Same principles here. He'd just rather not do it. Steinbrenner would.)

Yes. Carl Pohlad is evil. Find me a Minnesotan who disagrees and I'll buy you a pony.

Also, I don't feel that everyone should like the Yankees or that they're America's team or whatever. I don't believe they're better than the midwest because of geography. Like you Twins folk (or Brewers/White Sox folk), I was brought up believing the Yankees were the best because that's who my family rooted for. I have no problems with you hating the Yankees. I dislike other teams mostly because they're not the Yankees...regardless of where they're located.

Well, I'm honestly glad to hear this. I'm glad you're a "real" Yankees fan. But you have to admit that the marketing around the team is pretty blatant here, and that there is real East Coast bias against the Midwest. There is also real Midwest bias against both coasts, but where it's different is that we accept our fate as the redheaded stepchild and even embrace it. We never expect anyone to have any kind of respect for our geography or our teams. I still get a little excited when they name Twins players on SportsCenter.

the 82 brewers are one of the best teams ever.

There is a brewer/national league post well overdue and it was going to be posted but then this following comment appeared:
"let's get down to brass tacks on the midwesterner's assumptions about the Yankees...that we simply purchase success. The very thought that we earned the latest dynasty through good decisions and a good farm system along with our money scares you all. That would mean we could beat other teams at their own game...through smart decisions and good player development. AND, we could back that up with deeper pockets. That combination would mean we'd be very tough to beat. So, as soon as someone in this argument admits this is a possibility...that the Yankees could do things by not just simply throwing their money around...the order of the universe would break down. Is this a fair assessment?"
WHAT????!!!!! (F'*!!@#^%*ing) NO! YOU'RE THE YANKEES!!!
There were other points made, and they are below. But the long day has been spent getting all of the arguments out there which requires one to read, edit and post all this intense dialogue while forming one's own opinions at the same time. And, well...to come across this I find myself frustrated, motivated and sad. Sad because really, some people just don't get it. And I feel that of all those people, Yankee fans dominate the group. Which makes me sad, because they are not dumb but they are nowhere near being right. Sad. As I said, I have to go and write (and drink, possibly heavily) but here are the "other points" as promised....

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The Twins, I'll agree have produced better talent from their farm system over the past few years than the Yankees. So, their stats aren't surprising. Of course, these stats don't mean a whole lot. When the Yanks play the Twins in the regular season and the post season, they seem to pull the games out more often than not.

See again, the Twins and the Yankees have been able to get teams into the playoffs. The Yankees managed 6 pennants and 4 championships out their playoff teams. The Twins not so much with their recent teams. If a team makes the playoffs, is it fair to say they have the capability to win the WS? I'd say probably. Once you get to the playoffs the payroll and all of this $$ talk is largely irrelevant. The team is in position. The Yankees were able to put a special group of players together to win that went beyond simply spending $$. Again, I'll admit that's a part of our success yes. A necessary, but not sufficient condition for success. You still need other pieces to fall into place that money can't buy.

Again, to the point about younger kids being a gamble. I get it. So, that means NONE of them are worth it? NO ONE is worth a risk? I simply don't agree. You don't need to pay every kid extra.

(BTW, at least we're getting somewhere with the ownership profile. Yes, Pohlad is a billionaire...richer than Steinbrenner. After watching Steinbrenner for 25 years, I can tell you one thing for sure...that winning trumps everything else...even making money. Every fan would want an owner like that. EVERY FAN. The fact that Pohlad won't commit to winning first when he wouldn't miss the $$ isn't necessarily virtuous. Some could call it short-sighted and selfish. I mean, he didn't make billions by not taking any risks. Same principles here. He'd just rather not do it. Steinbrenner would.)

Also, I don't feel that everyone should like the Yankees or that they're America's team or whatever. I don't believe they're better than the midwest because of geography. Like you Twins folk (or Brewers/White Sox folk), I was brought up believing the Yankees were the best because that's who my family rooted for. I have no problems with you hating the Yankees. I dislike other teams mostly because they're not the Yankees...regardless of where they're located.

it's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning"

I heart Calvin and Hobbes. Bill Watterson gets to the core of serious issues and on top of providing ethics 101 he provides comedic relief to situations that could prove to be stressful and complex. Right now, I am looking for that humorous relief. Until then, my sanity has been preserved by Andy's comments below. The other participants, now that all are up to date, will be heard from soon. Ha!
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1. So the Meche contract has nothing to do with it? At all? C'mon. Then the Hendricks brothers are pretty bad agents. Also, remember that the Red Sox were in on the Clemens bidding. The Pavano signing was unfortunate. Though, lots of other teams were interested in a guy who went 18-8 the year before and had already pitched well in a WS.
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Pettitte's deal was finished the day after Meche's was. Unless the Yankees had Dayton Moore's office bugged, I'm pretty much positive they had nothing to do with each other. And since esteem for Boston's front office is pretty much equal to New York's, Boston's flirtation with Clemens comes over as profoundly uninteresting. Boring, creativity-deficient teams signing expensive veterans. Sun rises in east.
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2. Correct, Clemens, Pettitte and Mussina are older. And? Somehow they're still getting guys out. It is unfortunate that Liriano is hurt, but after that, is anyone supposed to be impressed that after Santana the Twins are relying on Boof Bonser? Yeah, I'll take any of the 3 aforementioned veterans anyday for any length of time before that. Plus, having them on hand to mentor younger pitchers is bad why?
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Since the argument is furiously being argued that the Yankees are in the middle of some youth movement, I think that he should be impressed that a 96 win team in 2006 is counting on a 25 year old in their rotation. Unless it's just typical Yankee fan bluster? It's an odd dig either way, since Bonser has been better than both Clemens and Mussina this year, while costing a total of $400,000.

The reason I pointed to their ages in the first place was because Yankees fans congratulating themselves for the wisdom in not signing old men through the end of the decade. Making fewer dumb decisions isn't the same thing as being smart.
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3. We'll see about 2009, I suppose. It's certainly possible for the Yanks to trade some of them--maybe even for the likes of Johan Santana. But I highly doubt it will be for less. If that were the case, Gagne or Teixieria or both would be on the Yankees right now since all of these prospects were asked for. Maybe Kennedy is moving too fast. Maybe not. How many innings did any of the college pitchers that the A's have brought up recently pitch in the minors?
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I promise you that the Yankees don't have the goods in their system to trade for Santana. The only way he'll appear in pinstripes this decade is if they wait for him to finish 2008 without extending with Minnesota and then they back a truckload of money up to his house in Venezuela. Which actually should be a source of hope. If Yankees fans want Santana, they should hope that Cashman knows his strength: keeping his hand steady while he signs checks, not developing pitching prospects.

My only interest in Kennedy's promotions is in passing. If he ever gets big league hitters out, I don't expect it will be in New York anyhow. I actually don't know which Oakland pitchers he's talking about in particular. Braden's moved fast, but he was a 2004 pick and logged nearly 300 innings in the minor leagues. In any case, he's sort of a weird case because I don't think Oakland expects much of him. He was a 24th rounder who works with a novelty pitch. He's more part than prospect.
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4. Again, point taken that the draft is crap shoot...more busts than hits. I get it. That doesn't mean it's not worth spending money on players you feel are worth the risk. The Yanks don't over-slot every pick they make. Just because players are busts doesn't mean that others aren't worth the gamble. If someone had a great career, it'd certainly be worth it. If these guys are the nexus of a WS winning staff would it be worth it? Of course it would. If it were the Twins who did it and won, of course it would be worth it.
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But they're going about their pursuit of prospects the same way they went about their pursuit of free agents: letting the money cover the mistakes. They don't pay overslot to every pick because not every pick demands overslot money. It's not like there's some great level of discernment at work. Just cash. And then if the first batch of cash doesn't work, more cash.
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5. Wow, you're picking on Posada's role in 1996 to counter this point? Fair, I suppose, though he was the starter, and an all-star in 1999, 2000, and 2001. It was my fault for forgetting about Bernie. It wasn't intentional. He was a great Yankee. It was convenient for the Yankees to forget him? Huh? Because they didn't sign him to another 1 year deal? Really? They just tossed him aside? Sure. And Bernie was so pissed about this treatment he went and signed with who? Right. No one. Because he's a Yankee for life and he knows it. He doesn't want to play anywhere else. I highly doubt you'll find many people outside of Lofton and Sheffield that haven't loved playing in NY during the Torre era. And, who was he supposed to play ahead of based on last year's performance?
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I picked on Posada because you were wrong about him. I wasn't countering anything, I just thought it was typically Orwellian Yankee fan behavior. Joe Girardi is unpersoned because he doesn't fit today's approved narrative. Maybe he'll rejoin the Yankees fold and be re-peopled, at which point his presence on the 1996 team will be remembered for his veteran leadership and invaluable mentoring to Jorge Posada. His family will be re-issued their treasured photo albums with his face reincluded and production will begin on his Yankeeography.

Berne Williams might not be so lucky. And they definitely tossed him aside. This is literally the first time I've ever seen anybody dispute this point. They failed to formulate a Bernie exit strategy of some sort and pretty clearly failed to articulate that they wanted him gone after 2006. He put up a 101 OPS+ this year, and the Yankees' bench hardly looks impressive enough that Bernie's 2006 line repeated wouldn't have been good enough. He outperformed what Johnny Damon's done this year and Miguel Cairo's been tapped to play 22 games at first base.
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6. I love the Maier mention. No dynasty without him. Except every Oriole fan conveniently forgets 3 things while crying in their beers: 1. Maier's catch only tied game 1; 2. The Orioles won game 2 and were in position to win the series without ever returning to NY; 3. The Orioles had a lead late in game 3 at home, blew the game, and lost 3 in a row at home. All because of Maier's catch! Oh, and by the way, the Yanks soundly spanked the Orioles during the year that year as well. I would agree that the Yanks dynasty ended after 2001. Sure their baseball decisions since then haven't been good...and, correct, no titles as a result.
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This is so incredibly not my fight. I don't care even a little bit about Jeffrey Maier. Except that it makes Yankees fans heated that they won a World Series in a year they that another team got jobbed. Somehow New York has become the wronged party here. Mean old baseball keeps bullying the Yankees. Ok. I lied. I appreciate the comedy value Maier provides. Good on that kid.
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7. So, the Yankees don't evaluate talent well since none of their picks were sleepers now? Oy. I'm sure they'll keep trying on this count. I would say that 'large disregard' for position players is a bit overstated with guys like Austin Jackson, Jose Tabata, and Jesus Montero in the fold. I love the Brad Halsey mention. Good one. I guess it's a good thing their international player development has produced Wang, Cano, and Cabrera...3 other guys that were supposedly over-hyped. Also, keep in mind the Yanks not only kept the right people in the late 90s...they also hyped and traded prospects that weren't as good. The Eric Miltons, Ruben Riveras, the Wily Mo Penas, the D'Angelo Jimenezs, the Ricky Ledees...in some cases the over-hyping was intentional.
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If the shoe fits, right? If Joba Chamberlain had stayed at Nebraska-Kearney (we used to run against those guys once and awhile when I was in college) then I'd be impressed at the Yankees beating the bushes. But pre-season All-Americans are hardly the evidence of top notch detective work.

None of Jackson, Tabata or Montero has made the AA jump yet, so I think the very fact that I've heard of them is a pretty solid indication they're overhyped. There's only one team who's high-A and rookie-league prospects I care about, but for some reason guys like Tabata (who've literally never done anything but be young for their level) end up on my radar. Boston is actually worse at this. There was no reason for me to ever know who Abe Alvarez is, but there was a point where he was allegedly a hot commodity. I'm still fairly confident that Peter Gammons draws a paycheck from their front office for pumping up these guys.
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8. If they go after Zambrano, that's the end of the youth movement? So, they shouldn't look to sign a quality pitcher? You think they won't make room for Hughes next year because of Pavano and Igawa? Oy. Ok. Wishful thinking, but ok. I think the 5 best arms will start. All of the comparisons to Navarro, etc. are largely irrelevant. As Mark Shapiro's quote in the NY Times article from last month, along with the demands that were laid out at the trade deadline indicate, most general managers think these guys are the goods. So, let's wait and see. I'll say it again, if they wanted to deal them for Gagne or Teixiera they could have and would have. The major league club would certainly be better for it right now. You can't ignore that as an indication of their intentions, right?
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I didn't say it was the end of the youth movement. I said it would be a good clue. And I'm right. And I'm positive they'll make room for Hughes next year, even if it means DFAing the veterans and wasting the 13 million dollars or so they owe to Pavano and Igawa. That's kind of been my overriding point for this entire discussion: mistakes don't mean anything to New York because they've got the cash to cover it up. Throwing Hughes in the rotation is a necessity next year, and the smart thing to do. But the smartest thing would have been avoiding the issue and not signing bad veterans to contracts that outlived their usefulness so he had a place in the rotation waiting without the team having to flush a small fortune. If Yankees fans want to congratulate themselves for their brilliance in making the obvious and only logical choice, that's their right. As long as I don't have to humor them.

Hughes is the only prospect in the Yankees organization as valuable as Saltalamacchia. The price for Teixeira would have started with him, and adding Chamberlain wouldn't have equalled Atlanta's package. If they wanted Teixeira, they would have had to stand in line and participate in the auction like everybody else. And they would have come in second because they didn't have the system to compete with the Braves offer.
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9. So Cabrera has no potential? Ok. I mean, after tonight's action his average is above 290, his OBP is pushing 350 and he's got the potential to be a gold glove caliber defensive player with an outstanding arm. So, his stats as a major leaguer as a 21 and 22 year old should just be extrapolated? He won't improve as he goes along? Ok. Again, we'll see how he progresses. By this logic, Jeter after his rookie year would look impish as well. Good thing the Yanks stuck with him. All I know is that more than 1 GM asked for Cabrera at the deadline. I understand Damon is having a down year, but did you see his stats from last season? What was he, chopped liver out there? The career high in homers was just due to the short porch at the stadium? At the time he signed, Cabrera was 20-21. Signing Damon for 4 years when there would likely be another outfield spot open for Cabrera in the meantime wasn't a bad decision. Ok, Damon is having a bad year this year.
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I didn't say Cabrera has no potential. I said he's not a "budding star". And I'm right. And your co-worker clearly agrees since he's scaled back that evaluation considerably already. I'm pretty comfortable saying he has potential. I'm comfortable compromising by saying Eric Byrnes is a nice comp. He'll have to stand in line for that Gold Glove, too, since THT has him at #7 in the AL. Safely in the middle of the pack. Though hope springs eternal, Derek Jeter never had to be the seventh best shortstop to win a suitcase full of Gold Gloves

Pre-meditated bulleting

Its funny how putting numbers or dots or roman numerals before ones thoughts basically have the same effect as a red flag in a bull fight...they draw you in and let you pounce in an expected, organized fashion. So we have another entry of bullets from a significant participant in this disussion...orchestrate your responses accordingly.

1. So the Meche contract has nothing to do with it? At all? C'mon. Then the Hendricks brothers are pretty bad agents. Also, remember that the Red Sox were in on the Clemens bidding. The Pavano signing was unfortunate. Though, lots of other teams were interested in a guy who went 18-8 the year before and had already pitched well in a WS.

2. Correct, Clemens, Pettitte and Mussina are older. And? Somehow they're still getting guys out. It is unfortunate that Liriano is hurt, but after that, is anyone supposed to be impressed that after Santana the Twins are relying on Boof Bonser? Yeah, I'll take any of the 3 aforementioned veterans anyday for any length of time before that. Plus, having them on hand to mentor younger pitchers is bad why?

3. We'll see about 2009, I suppose. It's certainly possible for the Yanks to trade some of them--maybe even for the likes of Johan Santana. But I highly doubt it will be for less. If that were the case, Gagne or Teixieria or both would be on the Yankees right now since all of these prospects were asked for. Maybe Kennedy is moving too fast. Maybe not. How many innings did any of the college pitchers that the A's have brought up recently pitch in the minors?

4. Again, point taken that the draft is crap shoot...more busts than hits. I get it. That doesn't mean it's not worth spending money on players you feel are worth the risk. The Yanks don't over-slot every pick they make. Just because players are busts doesn't mean that others aren't worth the gamble. If someone had a great career, it'd certainly be worth it. If these guys are the nexus of a WS winning staff would it be worth it? Of course it would. If it were the Twins who did it and won, of course it would be worth it.

5. Wow, you're picking on Posada's role in 1996 to counter this point? Fair, I suppose, though he was the starter, and an all-star in 1999, 2000, and 2001. It was my fault for forgetting about Bernie. It wasn't intentional. He was a great Yankee. It was convenient for the Yankees to forget him? Huh? Because they didn't sign him to another 1 year deal? Really? They just tossed him aside? Sure. And Bernie was so pissed about this treatment he went and signed with who? Right. No one. Because he's a Yankee for life and he knows it. He doesn't want to play anywhere else. I highly doubt you'll find many people outside of Lofton and Sheffield that haven't loved playing in NY during the Torre era. And, who was he supposed to play ahead of based on last year's performance?

6. I love the Maier mention. No dynasty without him. Except every Oriole fan conveniently forgets 3 things while crying in their beers: 1. Maier's catch only tied game 1; 2. The Orioles won game 2 and were in position to win the series without ever returning to NY; 3. The Orioles had a lead late in game 3 at home, blew the game, and lost 3 in a row at home. All because of Maier's catch! Oh, and by the way, the Yanks soundly spanked the Orioles during the year that year as well. I would agree that the Yanks dynasty ended after 2001. Sure their baseball decisions since then haven't been good...and, correct, no titles as a result.

7. So, the Yankees don't evaluate talent well since none of their picks were sleepers now? Oy. I'm sure they'll keep trying on this count. I would say that 'large disregard' for position players is a bit overstated with guys like Austin Jackson, Jose Tabata, and Jesus Montero in the fold. I love the Brad Halsey mention. Good one. I guess it's a good thing their international player development has produced Wang, Cano, and Cabrera...3 other guys that were supposedly over-hyped. Also, keep in mind the Yanks not only kept the right people in the late 90s...they also hyped and traded prospects that weren't as good. The Eric Miltons, Ruben Riveras, the Wily Mo Penas, the D'Angelo Jimenezs, the Ricky Ledees...in some cases the over-hyping was intentional.

8. If they go after Zambrano, that's the end of the youth movement? So, they shouldn't look to sign a quality pitcher? You think they won't make room for Hughes next year because of Pavano and Igawa? Oy. Ok. Wishful thinking, but ok. I think the 5 best arms will start. All of the comparisons to Navarro, etc. are largely irrelevant. As Mark Shapiro's quote in the NY Times article from last month, along with the demands that were laid out at the trade deadline indicate, most general managers think these guys are the goods. So, let's wait and see. I'll say it again, if they wanted to deal them for Gagne or Teixiera they could have and would have. The major league club would certainly be better for it right now. You can't ignore that as an indication of their intentions, right?

9. So Cabrera has no potential? Ok. I mean, after tonight's action his average is above 290, his OBP is pushing 350 and he's got the potential to be a gold glove caliber defensive player with an outstanding arm. So, his stats as a major leaguer as a 21 and 22 year old should just be extrapolated? He won't improve as he goes along? Ok. Again, we'll see how he progresses. By this logic, Jeter after his rookie year would look impish as well. Good thing the Yanks stuck with him. All I know is that more than 1 GM asked for Cabrera at the deadline. I understand Damon is having a down year, but did you see his stats from last season? What was he, chopped liver out there? The career high in homers was just due to the short porch at the stadium? At the time he signed, Cabrera was 20-21. Signing Damon for 4 years when there would likely be another outfield spot open for Cabrera in the meantime wasn't a bad decision. Ok, Damon is having a bad year this year.

Back to Virtue.

Virtue can be proven, it can even have excel spreadsheets to help understand it. They are available if need be.....

Following along the with the ongoing discussion:

While it is true that Carl Pohlad MORE than has the money to throw at the Twins if he chose to (he's a billionaire after all, and George Steinbrenner is just a lowly hundred-millionaire), I think the issue should not be how much out-of-pocket money the owner is willing to put toward the team. It should be how much they have, based on their revenues from ticket and fan product sales. That will HELP toward the understanding that the Twins and the Brewers really do work in a different world. So, let me make three inter-related points:

#1. The Twins work in a smaller market, with a population with less disposable income than the Yankees.
#2. Twins tickets and merchandise are cheaper than Yankees tickets and merchandise
#3. The Twins do more with the money that they have

#2 and #3 are incontrovertibly shown in the attached document. If he argues with #1 then you just have to give up on him because he's "touched." As you can see in my table, the Twins have an average ticket price more than $10 cheaper than the Yankees. This combined with a smaller market probably explains why their annual revenue is less than half of the Yankees'. In fact, they are at exact opposite ends of the rankings in revenue: the Yankees bring in the MOST and the Twins bring in the LEAST money of any major league team.

All that said, you can also see that in 2006 the Yankees had 97 wins and the Twins had 96. That puts the Twins at 27th in cost/win and the Yankees once again in first. So, obviously, the Twins are somehow able to muddle through with WAAAAAY less money. Now we're getting to the crux of the issue. The market in Minnesota and surrounding states is pretty well tapped. I don't see the kids out in Souix Falls and Brainerd shelling out for a cable channel (they tried it with hockey, and if Minnesota won't pay for hockey then they certainly won't pay for baseball), nor do I think you'll get away with big ticket price-raises in the new stadium (which, by the way, will seat about 10,000 fewer fans) or $100 Santana t-shirts. So, go ahead and come up with "creative" ways to make more money... all you're really saying is pass more of the cost on to the fans, and I'm saying that just won't fly in the thrifty Midwest. And it's not like we're selling a lot of caps overseas like the Yankees are.

So, we come back to the owners. I hold out hope that Pohlad will crack open that vault of his and throw a little money to us lonely beggars so that we can field a competitive team in the new stadium. However, I don't really think that's fair to him. Why should he have to pay for the mistakes of others? Because, really, I'm not mad at A-Rod. A-Rod is an all-star and I'd love to have him on my team. His salary is exorbitant, but it's not really like Jason Bartlett is going to go into contract negotiations with THAT salary in his mind. The problem is all the failures they've paid too much for. All the young kids who got those signing bonuses and never made it big. The slow and steady increase on players just out of serf-dom.

I was mad when it was big names, because it made me jealous. But really, the Twins were never in that market much. They weren't bumping up payroll by acquiring veterans from other teams, they were slowly losing their own veterans to the better deal elsewhere. That was always upsetting, but usually the Twins had someone in the background who was as good, or better, and would make the minimum (Mientkiewicz becomes Morneau, Pierzynksi become Mauer, Guardado becomes Nathan... the list goes on).

The scary thing to me is now the infiltration into those younger ages. If we can't compete for veterans, and so are destined to always be a young team, then we have to have faith that the people working in our AAA and AA and even A systems are the next Mauer. But if we can't afford the next Mauer either, because he gets a big signing bonus elsewhere, or because he knows we won't pour money all over him the first time he comes up for arbitration, then we are, as the pope would say, fucked.

And I don't blame Pohlad for not opening his purse under those conditions. "Penny wise and pound foolish" you say? Well, that may be true for some players, but when they are that young you can hardly KNOW that... if you have $200 million to throw around, you can afford to hand out signing bonuses to every kid you get that tingly feeling about, and you can give your feisty whelp with 3 years service time 5 million dollars in the hopes that he'll remain worth it. But when your market only brings in $2 million to the Yankees $4 million, you might not be able to just go on faith like that. And honestly, Midwestern values back in action, I don't think you SHOULD.

Oh, and just to throw it out there, the real reason I hate the Yankees is because they assume I love them. I hate New York and I hate LA because they think they're better than the Midwest and they expect us to agree. The Yankees are NOT "America's Team." The very thought sickens me.

i have an existential map; it has 'you are here' written all over it.

The discussion began before the blog was started. So to catch everyone up the remaining dialogue is all below. I wanted to do fancy things with the font to make it easier to follow but I have a Mac and am working on getting it formatted with this PC centric blogsite! No time for banter, let us get to the points at hand...

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3) In regards to the talent developed in the farm systems...keep in mind that when these guys reach the majors they get the major league minimum salary for probably the first 5 years of their career and they become arbitration-eligible. So, knowing that you're going to pay the kids chicken feed for a while, why not spend a bit more to ensure they sign with you after the draft? Penny-wise and pound-foolish if you ask me.
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Players are in serfdom and are only obligated league-minimum salary for three years of service time, not five. It might seem like a small difference, but when the ideal is to have a player's least expensive years coincide with their early prime, an extra two years difference is pretty huge. Plus, arbitration payouts are hardly peanuts. Not everybody gets Soriano/Zambrano payouts of 10+mm dollars, but the fact that a salary can conceivably escalate to 30 times league minimum over a short three year period is something a lot of teams (you know, the ones that actually have budgets) need to plan for.

Again, I have a hard time arguing with the idea that turning prudence on its head actually IS prudence. Signing bonuses aren't pennies. And the reason not to overpay to ensure players sign with you is that a)then the demands will get out of control, like Andrew Miller's demands for an MLB appearance in 2006 to get his service-time clock started and b)not all of them will play MLB ball in their lifetime.

The only reason that teams have to pay out-of-slot bonus demands is that if they don't, another team will. And that's not a good enough reason, particularly when the draft is set up to give bad teams a shot to improve.
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(responding) Whether the arbitration comes at 3 years or 5 years, you’ve got to view an additional signing bonus (though I know it’s paid it out immediately) as being amortized over those years of relative serfdom for the good, young player. Yes, I know the salary increases through arbitration aren’t pennies (though, as you say, they aren’t like Soriano’s usually, either). But, if paying out a little more early gets you the good player, then you see what happens. If you don’t get the good player to start with, nothing will happen. Furthermore, I agree about the Andrew Miller situation, but that is, in part, an issue with agents as well. The classic example of this provision is the Todd Van Poppel fiasco. That clause, basically, ruined his career by forcing him to the majors before he knew how to pitch.
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4. Most owners operate teams solely to make money. Now, I understand that it's important to make money on your investment. That's fine. But, most owners refuse to understand that the best way to make money, in the LONG TERM, is to put a winning team on the field. Period. I remember when the Yankees were lucky to draw 2 million in a year. This year they'll draw 4 million. That's not because Yankee Stadium is in the best part of town, either. Steinbrenner's first goal has always been to win, which I've always appreciated. I do feel sorry for the Twins that Carl Pohlad spent probably 5 years convincing Selig to contract the team just so he could get a good deal on the team and be finished.
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He's right that winning has a huge impact on attendance, but it's been awhile since the main revenue stream for baseball teams was simply ticket sales. What allows the Yankees to be so profitable isn't winning. It's being one of two teams in a market that's been proven (when the Yanks, Dodgers and Giants were around) to be able to support at least three teams and can probably support four. The Yankees wont be making money because of Jeter's on-base percentage. It will be because of a deal on their new stadium that charges them ten dollars rent a year and their stake in the YES Network that's actually worth more than the entire team.
And all these things are fine, to be honest. It would be nice to be in their position. But hearing Yankees fans pretend they haven't lucked into a unique situation, that their success is the result of intelligence, gumption and pinstripe-y goodness is what bothers people. Like Lyndon Johnson said about RFK, "He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple".
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5. Most owners cry poverty rather than being creative. So the Yankees start the YES network-nothing more than a regional sports network. Is this business model impossible to replicate in other markets? I would seriously doubt it."
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Carl Pohlad made his billions foreclosing on farms during the Depression. If completely overcoming any sense of human decency in order to make money isn't "creative" then nothing is. The Twins actually tried to start their own RSN, but it didn't work. They couldn't get enough money from local cable providers to make it profitable, so unless we've redefined "creative" as either "willing to operate at a loss in order to tell yourselves you've done everything the Yankees have done" or "keeping games on Victory Sports in order to hold fans hostage" then there was never a problem of creativity. It's not impossible to replicate in other markets. It's just really, really difficult to replicate profitably. And it having as much success with it as the Yankees enjoy probably is impossible.
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6. The Twins will be opening a new stadium in 2010. Not that I've researched it, but I'm assuming this stadium will be built largely on the generosity of the taxpayers. So, unencumbered by stadium costs, will the Twins make an investment in player salaries to put a good team on the field in 2010 to drive up attendance, merchandising, etc. and really take advantage of their new environment? Or will they continue to look to save $2M by trading all-star caliber players? At some point, I don't care if you're in MN or NY, you have to make an investment and spend money to ensure longer-term success.
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That's been the promise from the team so far, though obviously I'll believe it when I see it. It's worth noting that merchandising money is actually put into a pool and shared, though. A big part of the current problem is that the Twins don't control any of the luxury suites in the Metrodome, since the park was constructed for the Vikings and the Twins have been 3rd class tenants behind the Gophers and the Vikings for about two decades now. Jerry Bell says we'll see a larger payroll when the revenue can support it, and in the sense that charity believeth all things, I'm willing to accept the promise. Either way, it's silly to keep talking about the Twins since they actually are competitive.

On that note, I'm completely tired of the "they traded an All-Star 2B to save 2mm" meme from Twins' fans, so I'm definitely not interested in hearing it from Yankees fans. Castillo was a goner after the season anyhow. They've upgraded defensively and on the basepaths, and given the guy who was anointed as their 2008 second baseman a head start on learning on the job. It wasn't a salary dump, it was a lateral move in the present and a forward move for the future. Casilla will probably outplay Castillo over the stretch this year, and if he doesn't, Castillo isn't a valuable enough player to make the difference more than 1-2 wins.
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(responding) First, the Yankees are footing the bill for 90% of their new stadium. The only part the taxpayers are paying for, to my knowledge, are the public trans/parking improvements that are necessary. Secondly, as a fan since birth, and hearing more than my share about the good old days for the Yanks, I can basically say that when the Yankees made good baseball decisions, they’ve won. When they haven’t then they haven’t won. When CBS owned the team in the late 60s and into the 70s they were awful. No investment in anything. In the 70s, Gabe Paul built that team brilliantly. After the early 80s when Paul was gone and Steinbrenner stopped developing talent and attempted to make up for it with free agents, the team suffered. Finally, Steinbrenner was banished in the early 90s and Gene Michael built-up the farm system again, the Yankees took off. Again, no one will ever convince me the Yankees would’ve won championships without Jeter, Williams, Pettitte, Rivera, and Posada. On top of that, we TRADED for Tino Martinez and Paul O’Neill. Teams actually gave these players to us. Again, are these players the result of us having more money or good baseball decisions? I understand that keeping them all together takes money. But assembling them? That is intelligence and gumption.

Going further on the finances…Correct, the Yankees’ share of YES is worth roughly $4B and the team itself is worth $1.5B. But, how is it possible that the $1.5B is in no way connected to attendance. A revenue stream driven by attendance will have a significant impact on the teams’ overall valuation (as will their owning 90% of their new stadium). If this isn’t the case, why would teams build new stadiums to attract more people? Why would the Twins take the chance of building a new stadium if people aren’t going to come out in higher numbers?

I agree that simply throwing money at problems isn’t praiseworthy. Using money to back-up smart baseball decisions is, however. That epitomizes the Yankees of the late 90s and, hopefully, the Phil Hughes Yankees to come.
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7. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the fact the Yankees are richer than everyone else isn't new. It's been that way for 100 years. The Yankees still haven't won every year. So, other teams must have some way of competing with them.
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Yes, the way to compete with the Yankees is to be smarter and more resourceful. These things are actual virtues that teams like Oakland and Cleveland and Minnesota possess. And I'm fine simply watching my team compete with the Yankees on the field with these conditions. I actually don't have any real problem with the Yankees themselves so long as they're unapologetic about what they do. The irritation comes with Yankees fans insisting on turning common sense on its head and insisting that outspending the field and throwing more piles of cash at any problem is something virtuous and praiseworthy. It isn't. It just makes it more impressive when smarter, better teams beat New York and Boston at their own rigged game.