Post by musicradio77 on Oct 12, 2005 17:45:01 GMT -5
New York's premier sports columnist explains why the Yankees have become $1 billion losers.
Over the past five seasons, George Steinbrenner has spent just short of $1 billion on the Yankees in payroll and luxury taxes. It has bought him the softest Yankee postseason team in history. Including this team, one round and out against the Angels.
Think about it: The Yankees might end up with the MVP this season, Alex Rodriguez, the Cy Young Award for Mariano Rivera, have the Rookie of the Year in Robinson Cano and the Comeback Player of the Year in Jason Giambi, and still they can't make it out of the first round of the playoffs.
We thought this team might be different, especially after the way it won Game 4 Sunday night against the Angels to stay alive.
Then it did what five straight Yankee teams have done in October: Lost the game it needed to keep going, or to win it all. This team falls down in October, every single time.
This Yankee team, according to Major League Baseball, cost $210.9 million in payroll.
We all thought this team at least had the chance to be special. This team came back from that amazingly bad 11-19 start and from being 39-39 on July 1 to win its eighth straight title in the AL East.
But the Yankees are not measured by division titles and never have been. So by Steinbrenner's own standards, which means you win the World Series or you are a big fat loser, this year's team becomes the newest most expensive flop in sports history, beating last year's team by $4.9 million in payroll and $7 million in luxury tax.
They were something to see in the regular season, the hottest ticket in baseball, 4 million fans to the Stadium! When it was all on the line, they were as soft as ever.
Here are 10 reasons why it happened to the Yankees again:
1. Randy Johnson
He was this year's aging, insanely expensive pitcher, the one who was supposed to be the difference-maker the Yankees did not have when they fell down against the Red Sox one year ago like somebody falling off a bar stool.
Well, he was the difference-maker against the Red Sox, winning five games from them and probably winning the AL East from Boston in the process. But Johnson, who turned 42 during the season, was wildly inconsistent, clearly not the dominating pitcher he used to be.
Another guy the Yankees got a year or two too late.
He was brought here to win Game 3 last Friday night, get the Yankees a 2-1 lead in the series, never let the thing get back to Anaheim. He couldn't get out of the fourth inning.
Johnson turns 43 next season, when he will earn another $16 million of Steinbrenner's money. What a bargain.
2. A-Rod
I kept hearing all September that he had to be the MVP of the American League because of his glove. Really? Where was all that sparkling fielding when the Yankees needed it against the Angels?
And where was the guy who hit 48 home runs and had 130 RBI when the Yankees needed just one big hit from him? Instead, Rodriguez had the kind of October that used to have people in Brooklyn praying for Gil Hodges at this time of year.
No home runs.
No RBI.
Batting average of .133.
When it was all up against the Yankees in the ninth inning Monday night, when the whole season in New York was up against midnight, when Derek Jeter was on first and there were no outs and the Yankees were desperate for more hits and more baserunners, A-Rod grounded weakly into a 5-4-3 double play.
Reggie Jackson says all the time that you're not paid to win 100 games here, you're paid to win the last 11 in October. And if you are a Yankee, you are measured in October games. Last season, when things started to fall apart against the Red Sox, A-Rod shrunk to the size of an iPod Nano. Same thing in these five games against the Angels.
3. The late, great Yankee bullpen
Mo Rivera is still the best, the way Jeter is still the best. But in the old days, when the Yankees were good enough to win the World Series, it was never just him. Once, at the beginning, it was John Wetteland after him. Then it was Jeff Nelson, Mike Stanton and Ramiro Mendoza getting the ball before Rivera.
Now it turns out that the Yankees' second-best reliever is Big Unit Johnson. When the Yankees fought from 0-5 to take a 6-5 lead in Game 3 - a game that was everything - Aaron Small couldn't hold the Angels, Al Leiter couldn't, Scott Proctor couldn't, Tom Gordon couldn't.
$200 million team. Set-up men who weren't worth a plugged nickel when it mattered.
4. Hideki Matsui
Good grief, who stole Godzilla? I thought he was going to be an MVP candidate at the start of the season. By the Angels series, he couldn't hit or catch.
His performance at the plate in Game 5 was A-Rod-like, just left-handed.
5. No leadoff man
Once again Monday night, Jeter was the heart and soul of the team and the most dangerous guy in the world to the Angels. He's still not a leadoff man. He wants to swing and hit it hard. The Yankees haven't had a real leadoff man since Chuck Knoblauch.
Now A-Rod, who might end up hitting 800 home runs in the big leagues, is No. 2 at the end of this season, the way he was at the end of last season. It was a joke then and is a joke now.
6. Giambi
He actually hit pretty good in the playoffs, and you can't call him a reason why the Yankees lost. And he was a huge hitter for the Yankees over the last three months of the season. He was Comeback Player of the Year, in baseball and BALCO.
And it is why this is a perfect time to pay somebody as much as the Yankees can to get him out of here.
He is not a good first baseman and never will be and you saw it again this week. He is a DH. Still working off a seven-year, $119 million contract.
Papi Ortiz, DH, real MVP of the American League, made $5.3 million for the Red Sox this season.
7. Ervin Santana
The star of Game 5 was a 22-year-old kid with a big arm who came off the Angels' Double-A team this season.
You know when the Yankee farm system produces an arm like this?
Never.
The closest we have had lately is Chien-Ming Wang. And guess what? Last year, the Yankees tried to trade him and Robinson Cano for Randy Johnson.
Give away the kids when you can. Then watch somebody else's kid beat you.
8. Two front offices
You have the weasels in Tampa and you have Brian Cashman and Joe Torre here. All the weasels care about is protecting their own turf with the old man, and undercutting their own manager and general manager. Wonderful.
And typical Yankee excess.
Why not get A-Rod even though you've already got Jeter?
Why not have two front offices, constantly at war with each other, instead of one?
9. A team of great All-Stars, not a great team
The 2003 Red Sox lost a crushing Game7 against Aaron Boone. The 2004 Red Sox came back from that, then got knocked down as hard as you can, down three games to none, and three outs away from elimination with Rivera on the mound.
They came back and won.
They had been through something together and it made them stronger. You thought it might happen with these Yankees. But these are not the old Yankees. Not even close. Just an All-Star team of old Yankees.
10. Oh, yeah, they're old
They are older than the Rolling Stones, another big show business attraction at the gate. The team that tried to win the World Series this year was not just the most expensive, it was the oldest.
When Johnson started and Giambi was DH and Tino Martinez was at first and Bernie Williams was in center, the average age of the team was 33.
Five seasons of endings like this now. One billion bucks spent. No World Series won. Same old same old.
Over the past five seasons, George Steinbrenner has spent just short of $1 billion on the Yankees in payroll and luxury taxes. It has bought him the softest Yankee postseason team in history. Including this team, one round and out against the Angels.
Think about it: The Yankees might end up with the MVP this season, Alex Rodriguez, the Cy Young Award for Mariano Rivera, have the Rookie of the Year in Robinson Cano and the Comeback Player of the Year in Jason Giambi, and still they can't make it out of the first round of the playoffs.
We thought this team might be different, especially after the way it won Game 4 Sunday night against the Angels to stay alive.
Then it did what five straight Yankee teams have done in October: Lost the game it needed to keep going, or to win it all. This team falls down in October, every single time.
This Yankee team, according to Major League Baseball, cost $210.9 million in payroll.
We all thought this team at least had the chance to be special. This team came back from that amazingly bad 11-19 start and from being 39-39 on July 1 to win its eighth straight title in the AL East.
But the Yankees are not measured by division titles and never have been. So by Steinbrenner's own standards, which means you win the World Series or you are a big fat loser, this year's team becomes the newest most expensive flop in sports history, beating last year's team by $4.9 million in payroll and $7 million in luxury tax.
They were something to see in the regular season, the hottest ticket in baseball, 4 million fans to the Stadium! When it was all on the line, they were as soft as ever.
Here are 10 reasons why it happened to the Yankees again:
1. Randy Johnson
He was this year's aging, insanely expensive pitcher, the one who was supposed to be the difference-maker the Yankees did not have when they fell down against the Red Sox one year ago like somebody falling off a bar stool.
Well, he was the difference-maker against the Red Sox, winning five games from them and probably winning the AL East from Boston in the process. But Johnson, who turned 42 during the season, was wildly inconsistent, clearly not the dominating pitcher he used to be.
Another guy the Yankees got a year or two too late.
He was brought here to win Game 3 last Friday night, get the Yankees a 2-1 lead in the series, never let the thing get back to Anaheim. He couldn't get out of the fourth inning.
Johnson turns 43 next season, when he will earn another $16 million of Steinbrenner's money. What a bargain.
2. A-Rod
I kept hearing all September that he had to be the MVP of the American League because of his glove. Really? Where was all that sparkling fielding when the Yankees needed it against the Angels?
And where was the guy who hit 48 home runs and had 130 RBI when the Yankees needed just one big hit from him? Instead, Rodriguez had the kind of October that used to have people in Brooklyn praying for Gil Hodges at this time of year.
No home runs.
No RBI.
Batting average of .133.
When it was all up against the Yankees in the ninth inning Monday night, when the whole season in New York was up against midnight, when Derek Jeter was on first and there were no outs and the Yankees were desperate for more hits and more baserunners, A-Rod grounded weakly into a 5-4-3 double play.
Reggie Jackson says all the time that you're not paid to win 100 games here, you're paid to win the last 11 in October. And if you are a Yankee, you are measured in October games. Last season, when things started to fall apart against the Red Sox, A-Rod shrunk to the size of an iPod Nano. Same thing in these five games against the Angels.
3. The late, great Yankee bullpen
Mo Rivera is still the best, the way Jeter is still the best. But in the old days, when the Yankees were good enough to win the World Series, it was never just him. Once, at the beginning, it was John Wetteland after him. Then it was Jeff Nelson, Mike Stanton and Ramiro Mendoza getting the ball before Rivera.
Now it turns out that the Yankees' second-best reliever is Big Unit Johnson. When the Yankees fought from 0-5 to take a 6-5 lead in Game 3 - a game that was everything - Aaron Small couldn't hold the Angels, Al Leiter couldn't, Scott Proctor couldn't, Tom Gordon couldn't.
$200 million team. Set-up men who weren't worth a plugged nickel when it mattered.
4. Hideki Matsui
Good grief, who stole Godzilla? I thought he was going to be an MVP candidate at the start of the season. By the Angels series, he couldn't hit or catch.
His performance at the plate in Game 5 was A-Rod-like, just left-handed.
5. No leadoff man
Once again Monday night, Jeter was the heart and soul of the team and the most dangerous guy in the world to the Angels. He's still not a leadoff man. He wants to swing and hit it hard. The Yankees haven't had a real leadoff man since Chuck Knoblauch.
Now A-Rod, who might end up hitting 800 home runs in the big leagues, is No. 2 at the end of this season, the way he was at the end of last season. It was a joke then and is a joke now.
6. Giambi
He actually hit pretty good in the playoffs, and you can't call him a reason why the Yankees lost. And he was a huge hitter for the Yankees over the last three months of the season. He was Comeback Player of the Year, in baseball and BALCO.
And it is why this is a perfect time to pay somebody as much as the Yankees can to get him out of here.
He is not a good first baseman and never will be and you saw it again this week. He is a DH. Still working off a seven-year, $119 million contract.
Papi Ortiz, DH, real MVP of the American League, made $5.3 million for the Red Sox this season.
7. Ervin Santana
The star of Game 5 was a 22-year-old kid with a big arm who came off the Angels' Double-A team this season.
You know when the Yankee farm system produces an arm like this?
Never.
The closest we have had lately is Chien-Ming Wang. And guess what? Last year, the Yankees tried to trade him and Robinson Cano for Randy Johnson.
Give away the kids when you can. Then watch somebody else's kid beat you.
8. Two front offices
You have the weasels in Tampa and you have Brian Cashman and Joe Torre here. All the weasels care about is protecting their own turf with the old man, and undercutting their own manager and general manager. Wonderful.
And typical Yankee excess.
Why not get A-Rod even though you've already got Jeter?
Why not have two front offices, constantly at war with each other, instead of one?
9. A team of great All-Stars, not a great team
The 2003 Red Sox lost a crushing Game7 against Aaron Boone. The 2004 Red Sox came back from that, then got knocked down as hard as you can, down three games to none, and three outs away from elimination with Rivera on the mound.
They came back and won.
They had been through something together and it made them stronger. You thought it might happen with these Yankees. But these are not the old Yankees. Not even close. Just an All-Star team of old Yankees.
10. Oh, yeah, they're old
They are older than the Rolling Stones, another big show business attraction at the gate. The team that tried to win the World Series this year was not just the most expensive, it was the oldest.
When Johnson started and Giambi was DH and Tino Martinez was at first and Bernie Williams was in center, the average age of the team was 33.
Five seasons of endings like this now. One billion bucks spent. No World Series won. Same old same old.