I really, really should leave this alone...but frankly, it's weighing on me a bit. There's this perception that I'm in this thread and saying what I'm saying because I'm a homer and don't like the Yankees. Well, okay, that last part is true, but if that was the only thing going on here, I'd just say, "Go O's, beat Yanks!"...which I just essentially did.Originally Posted by HoustonGM
But the point in posting in the first place was that there isn't any Yankee "mystique" - whether you like it or not, and whether you think it's justified or "good" or not, the Yankees are where they are because of their payroll and how they manage players - specifically that they buy a great many talented free agents, beyond the reach of many other teams. Now HoustonGM and the rest know their baseball here, and I don't mean to say anyone doesn't. But there's a record to baseball, and it can be reviewed, and if what I said wasn't borne out, I'd just chalk it up to the beer and say to heck with it. So I did check the record; I'm still working on it, in fact, as I'm going back to 1980. And some patterns are emerging - enough for me to say that no, HoustonGM, my complaints are quite founded, and you are demonstrably wrong on this one.
Here's what is emerging:
The Yankees are not especially "shrewd traders". They have some very good trades and some very bad ones, and most are somewhere in the middle. Some of the players they rely on for their success (Paul O'Neill, etc.) came in a trade. This is not especially different from any other team. The Yankees do make a great deal of trades, which changes the character of their team fairly quickly, but they aren't all good and they aren't all bad.
Many of the Yankees' so-called "shrewd trades" are actually salary dumps by small-market teams and rent-a-player deals. There are a bunch of real fleecings on the record, but they aren't of the traditional type where one player tanks and the other becomes a star; they're just simple admissions that the player in question can't be afforded by any team other than the Yankees, so we'll send him there for a paycheck and cut our losses.
Example: Jack McDowell from the White Sox to the Yankees for a minor leaguer and the ever-popular player to be named later (Lyle Mouton, in this case; 1995). A plain ol' rental. McDowell, making $5 million at the time and two years removed from winning the Cy Young, leads the Yankees in ERA that season and is sent off as a Free Agent at the end, signing with the Indians in the off-season for less money. The Yanks lose to the Mariners in the off-season; his disappointing performance there may have had something to do with it.
Example: Raul Mondesi to the Yankees for Scott Wiggins (2003). Wiggins pitches three innings for the Blue Jays in his short career; Mondesi and his $11 million salary are off their books, causing the Jays to breathe a sigh of relief and pick up some very cheap Free Agents (Frank Catalonotto, Mike Bordick, etc.) and do a quick rebuild around some emerging stars. The Yanks, of course, have no real trouble with Mondesi's contract; he hits 11 HRs for them down the stretch and in the post-season against Anaheim. Mondesi's salary jumps $2 million with the Yankees and goes down $12 million(!) when he leaves a year later.
I mentioned the "common Yankee manuever" of picking up a veteran for the stretch run and got nay-sayed for it...well, it exists. Many "trades" are exactly these; usually it's a veteran pitcher for a ham sandwich when it's clear they'll be leaving anyway. So...John Montefusco, Doyle Alexander, Joe Niekro, David Wells. The aforementioned Mondesi was another, though of the non-pitcher variety, as was Aaron Boone (an emergent All-Star traded for a duff pitcher and a minor leaguer, shortly after his salary jumped) and many others. This isn't unique to the Yankees of course, except that they do it much more frequently than any other team.
The Yankees pick up, on average, one Free Agent All-Star per season. Again, I haven't run through all the record; it may be .9 or something. I'll post the full list (as I was asked to back myself up) later. I'm defining "All-Star" as one who was an All-Star or in line for a major award (MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year) in one of the two seasons before (or after, but I haven't found one of those yet) he became a Yankee. This essentially is the "line up the teams and pick the best guy" scenario I described before.
In fact, there's a very interesting trend to note. There's one period where the Yankees didn't do this: the mid-1980s. Several FAs came to town, but they were mostly role players grabbed to fill holes, much the same way that any other team would do; Gary Ward is the only real exception (1987). The Yankees tanked in 1989, and stayed that way through 1992 - the only real extended period where they did so in the last 50 years or so. Then it was back to signing All-Stars as fast as they could: Wade Boggs, Danny Tartabull, Jimmy Key, Mike Witt...by 1995, they were back in the playoffs; by 1996, they won it all.
Read that again for me. The one time in the past 30 years that the Yankees didn't buy Free Agent All-Stars, competitive balance takes over and they lose. The instant they go back to it, they win.
(The other thing to point out here is that not every team does this - not nearly to this extent. Granted, it would take more study, but I'm putting that out there as an exercise left to the reader...we're talking about, in any given off-season, one of the top eight or so Free Agents going to one team, the same team, every time. It can't really be duplicated easily by any other team, though the Angels and Red Sox are tryin' hard. In fact, this aspect is the main difference between the Yankees and any average team.)
Sorry for being a hard-ass about this one, Houston, but I was essentially told that I was full of applesauce when I could back myself up - and I just did.
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