Prospectus Today

Overall good and insightful coverage from BP over the past season. I am looking forward to more analysis and fun from the sport and this site in 2010.

The Rollins thing is big, but I think he'll bounce back to the mean of his 06/07/08 seasons, say 275/340/450. Still not great for a leadoff hitter but acceptable as Joe says with his speed and isolated power.

I think the bigger question is where does Cole Hamels go in '09? There was a BP piece on him during the series that suggested basically he was a similar pitcher in '08 and '09, just unluckier on balls in play and a higher HR/FB ratio.

Joe, what is your gut on what Hamels does in '10?

The vast majority ARE "criticizing the economic system of baseball," as you put it.

It's hard to fault the Yankees for taking advantage of it.

And of course, you can't fault individual players or even the Union for allowing the players for taking the most money they can get.

However it's EASY to fault --

-- ARod's sanctimonious attitude after misleading the public for years about his 'roid use.

-- Texeira's "I am so glad I joined the best team money could buy" line (I am paraphrasing) -- especially if you are an Oriole fan.

-- A system that is functionally the equivalent of letting me, as Little League coach, get the first five picks in the league before anyone else gets a pick in round one.

-- Selig for associating "higher attendance league wide" with the notion that the game is growing -- which it's not.

-- Selig for being an anachronism about replay and the payrolls.

I hate the Yankees, but, unless one of their fans is in my face crowing about how they won the Series while my team sat at home watching, I don't have any specific problems with the fandom (I mean, every team has obnoxious fans... even my Red Sox).

My only issue with the Yankees win on Wednesday was that it meant no baseball on Thursday. And a long winter until pitchers and catchers report...

While I am more than willing to point out that Yankees fans are spoiled (by the Yankees' recent success) I have no problem with Yankee fans, other than their blindness to their advantages.

I have significant issues with an economic system that allows one (or a few)teams to have large and systematic competitive advantages. It is to the Yankees' credit that they effectively exploit their advantages, but the constant assumption of superiority because of those advantages is annoying. I'm reminded of Governor Richards' line about George Bush: "He was born on third base, and thinks he hit a triple."

"Baseball isn’t a morality play, it’s a business."

There's no denying it is a business, but it is many different things to many different people. From some of the other comments, so far, the team you choose to root for - especially in a two team city - is to some degree a morality test. Their thinking is that baseball is a game, no participants should have an unfair advantage, rooting for a team that does is immoral.

Though I live in Toronto, I have no problem with the Yankees having an unfair advantage. They should. Presumably, they have the largest market. More people will be pleased if they win. Though I hate to say this due to some of George's crass antics, kudos to the Steinbrenners for building up that fan base as well as they have.

Though I'm actually a Detroit rooter, I believe the Toronto Maple Leafs (along with the Montreal Canadians) deserve even greater unfair advantages in hockey. The salary cap is more difficult to get around than the payroll penalties the Yankees cough up, however, Toronto has a horrible record of turning their market advantage into any advantage on the ice.

Besides, where do you draw the line about what is fair? Unless you are playing a brainless game that is based 100% on luck, some participants are going to be better than others. Who is to say what ways of being better are fair and which others are not - as long as no rules are violated? I guess it comes down to morals, but I certainly don't see the immorality of the Yankees outspending other teams for the best veterans. If it seems they are going too far, then let MLB tweak their payroll penalty to make it a little bit tougher for them.

Frankly, to whine about it now is bad sportsmanship. Congratulations, Yankees fans. It was well deserved.

My problem with Yankee fans is three fold:

-they are spoiled and most of them don't realize it. Most baseball fans are so thrilled to see their team in contention in September. Yankee fans are upset with anything else but a world series title. They don't seem to appreciate the little moments the way us lesser fans do.

-They seem to think their team is "America's team." They are the most recognizable baseball team around the globe, no doubt, but they do not speak for all of us. They win by overspending first, luck second and baseball acumen third. Teams like the Twins, A's & Rays more represent America's hard working spirit. Yankees represent our overindulgence. They are baseball's WalMart or Costco.

-They have a sense of entitlement. Because they are so spoiled and they seem to think they are America's team, they somehow think baseball is better off because they exist and because they are playing in the post season. As a fan that happened to grow up in NY, like Joe mentioned, and just happened to root for the home team, you aren't any more entitled to watching playoff appearances than a kid growing up in Kansas City, San Diego, Seattle, etc. Yes, your team has history, but so do all the other original MLB teams. My Giants have more hall of famers and more overall wins, but I don't feel any sort of entitlement. I get a little annoyed that your rivalry with the Red Sox is mentioned as being rich and storied while the far more even and venomous rivalry in the Golden State is never even spoken of, but at least I acknowledge that the other rivalries exist.

I don't blame the Yankees for exploiting every aspect of the economic system that has allowed them to have this aspect. I don't blame their fans for rooting for the home town team. I'm sure many of their fans don't exemplify the points I show above, but there is a great majority that do. That's why I'm annoyed by Yankee fans.

Oh, and Red Sox fans are just about as bad, if not worse. I had a Red Sox fan actually tell me "I thought everybody likes the Red Sox" when I said I was rooting against them.

It seems like the Yankees and by proxy their fans are symbolic stand-ins for the anger of the moment. That's certainly unfair and it must be frustrating but I do think that the escalation is telling. Joe is certainly right that it's not telling in any substantial way about baseball, and while there is no moral component to who wins and loses, I think it's dismissive to say it's not a morality play. This is America, everything is a morality play. I wonder if Yankee fans feel that the attitude is worse now than during the late 90's? It seems to me that it is for reasons that have very little to do with baseball operations and more to do with the Yankees as a symbol of wealth.

I have no problems with the Yankees or their fans. Most teams do not need to overcome the Yankees to make the playoffs. The Yankees don't win the World Series every year, so you can't claim that they buy World Championships. Unless you are a fan of the Orioles, Blue Jays, or Rays, your team losing is not a function of the Yankees winning.

And besides, do you think the game would be so entertaining if there was complete parity? I think it would be rather bland. You need the villain to root against. When you beat the Yankees, you feel a sense of pride you don't feel when you beat other teams. When the Red Sox came back from 3-0 against the Yankees, it really was that special because they did it against the Yankees, and I'm no Sox fan.

I say just accept it as part of the baseball narrative and move on.

Yankees win totals during a lot of crappy baseball in the 80's: 103, 59 (strike year, lost in WS), 79, 91, 87, 97, 90, 89, 85, 74.

The team had down years from 89-92. Back in contention in 93, 1st place when the season was canceled in 94, playoffs 95.

So that is why a lot of baseball fans feel Yankee fans have a sense of entitlement. Taking out the stike year the Yanks averaged 88 wins a season and that is described as "a lot of crappy baseball" by someone who is one of the more intelligent voices writing about baseball. Now imagine dealing with more visceral fans who don't know a damn thing about VORP and don't care but know that Jetes always comes through and the Yanks have the mystique and aura and can't believe it has been 8 long, long years since the last World Series title (and think of what Hank said...it's been a long time for us) and tell me that you can't understand why people get annoyed by Yankee fans.

As for Joe saying baseball isn't a morality play, that's true, but it cuts both ways. Most Yankee fans ignore the fact that they were born with a silver bat in their mouth and claim their team wins due to heart or mystique or intelligence or Jetes or whatever. They should enjoy the privilege, but at the same time realize that their team has enormous advantages over the rest of the teams, and that is why they win so often and no other reason.

A hardcore Yankee fan myself, I often get into it with other Yankee fans who would pretend that the economic advantage is secondary to their winning ways. Front and center: they make a ton of money, they spend it on players who help them win. Credit the Steinbrenner clan for plumbing the depths of their vast market and pulling out every dollar they can, and I am grateful as a fan that they reinvest it in their product. But I understand the frustration that that many Yankee fans are completely deluded about this simple fact. Why be embarrassed? They're rich, and they dump money into the product so they can compete every year.

That said, when rival fans of either deep-pocketed or poorly managed franchises make this complaint - often from a high horse - I have little time for their pettiness and/or hypocrisy. They're the guy in the Mercedes tsking the ostentatious Bentley driver, and they sound just as ridiculous.

I know that the Yankees - along with Boston, the Mets, the Phils, LA and perhaps a few others - have more than their fair share of boorish fans, but a**holes grow everywhere, and root for everyone. The "Yankee fans are the worst" call-out is so much sour grapes, and those who participate ironically fail to realize that they're engaging in exactly the same behavior they endeavor to criticize. I find it particularly funny when Red Sox fans curse out Yankee fans en masse for being crass and obnoxious. Really? I mean...really? Have you no mirror, sir?

I've had some of the best baseball conversations with fans of other teams, who tend to know more about other players, can feed my head, and can check whatever outrageous theory I have about the Yanks at any given time...sure we're all subjective, but so long as we're fans of the game first, our team allegiances just become sources of passion in our discussion.

Thanks, Joe, for the volumes of writing this post-season. Your columns are the ones I most look forward to.

"With the end of the postseason comes the end of another run of postseason columns. I write more in October, really the better part of a book, than I do in any other month. It comes with the job, but truth be told, I just love it, love being able to write about baseball games."

I love reading it. Thanks for all the great work this October.

Re: the Yankees $. I don't blame the fans. I don't blame the front office. But it's bad for baseball to have just one all-star team. Something really ought to be done.

Joe, Great article, perfectly articulated how I feel being criticized as a Yankee fan.

"So, stop criticizing people’s fandom."
I absolutely agree. To the Yankees fans out there, we don't hate you. We just hate the Yankees.
On the flip side, please extend us the same courtesy. I had no more choice about Reds fandom than Joe had about Yankee Fever. Whats more, there's not really much I can do about the fact that the Reds are run poorly. So stop giving us that know-it-all "If every team had an owner who wanted to win as much as Steinbrenner" lecture. I can't make Dan Castellini raise the payroll. And when Jay Bruce is patrolling RF for the Yankee's in 3 years because we "can't afford" his arbitration numbers or some nonsense like that, I'm gonna be righteously pissed off. And you... Yankee Fan... would be too.

One Yankees fan near me during Game 1 said of CC's strong showing, "He's pitched well...but that's what we pay him for."

That struck me as on odd way to think about baseball fandom.

Given the vitrol sent to the Yankees and their fans the last week, I'd hate to see what happens when the Cubs win.

"About time!"

"Better late than never!"

"Did it just get cold down below, or are you happy to see Hell?"

"Wait till next century!"

What I'd have the Yankees do with the money is what every team in the NFL does with theirs, with a similar method of essentially equal distribution of the common income.
Granted, it took me marrying a Manhattan native, born and bred Yankee fan to really absorb the essence of Joe's fair point about honoring other fans fandom as is, no better or worse and independent of their teams place on the MLB financial hierarchy. After all, I grew up a Royals fan with strong memories of '76-'78. And yes, I'm one of the majority of Royals fans whose favorite single moment in team history isn't Darryl Motley catching the last out of Game Seven in 1985, but George Brett's monster home run off Goose Gossage in the 1980 ALCS. And of course, even if the Royals were operating in MLB with something like the Chiefs share of the NFL pie, they could very well be every bit as futile, given the team's last twenty-odd years of bad management. Brian Cashman is going to outperform Dayton Moore in a fair fight. But it's not a fair fight, is it? The money doesn't guarantee success, but it at least buys the security of knowing that your team won't always suck, with no real hope of ever really contending unless you get a lot of breaks and manage to somehow keep your good players together at the same time before they head off for the money. I was thrilled, honestly, to see Johnny Damon have such a good postseason, and I'll always feel glad for his success, despite knowing that the Royals could never have kept him (and Dye and Beltran). Did the Yankees ever need to worry about keeping "the backbone of the dynasty" together? It's just a inherent, core inequity that one learns to live with, but never fully accept. And that's just part of it...sigh.

I had lunch with a very old friend who was never a sports fan growing up but has gotten into sports through the NFL. He's in the field of operations research, so he's fairly versed in statistical analysis, just not so much related to sports.

In discussing the the recent World Series outcome (in which he'd become interested mostly because I'm a rabid Phillies fan and also because here in Philly, it's been sort of unavoidable), I made a somewhat neutral remark about payrolls ("not bad considering they spent $80 million more than we did) and he said, quite in earnest, "Wait, there's no limit on what baseball teams can spend?" and I said, "Well, no. There's a luxury tax, but the Yankees can afford that."

His response was, basically: "Well, that's no fun."

I don't know if there's a takeaway lesson in that or not — I just don't know how sophisticated the average newfan is — but the idea (if not the absolute reality) of parity — regardless of how clumsily it's enacted — seems fairly ingrained in every other sport. I wonder to what degree a fighting chance is a prerequisite for newfandom of the "local sporting franchise."

Joe,
For me part of the great fun of following baseball is being able to put the needle to my Yankee fan friends who have no connection whatsoever to New York. But now that you've expressed for me the pain I am causing by calling these people front-running bandwagon jumpers, maybe I should reconsider my behavior.

I guess some of us just didn't realize how sensitive the poor, suffering Yankee fans are?

I honestly can't say I dislike a single Yankees fan that I know - and I know many. I don't like the lack of a cap, but I can't fault a person for liking the team. Hell, even my five-year-old son does.

Although I will add....Yankees fans - please stop complaining about the LONGGGGGGGG 9-year drought.

Give the rest of us - Mets, Cubs and Indians fans a goddamn break.

Please.

Hey, on behalf of fans of the Philadelphia Phillies - the losingest team in the history of the game - I apologize for people snarking on Yankee fandom. It's gotta be tough. Not that I would know, as Philly Phans have never been blasted for being happy about their team's extremely occasional success. Not once. Ever.

Seriously, good for the Yankees. If they can continue to combine smart management with big money, they'll be really good for a while.

Excellent point about Rollins - Tony Womack with pop is not someone you want batting leadoff. I just hope he's not as big a fancy lad as Abreu was about moving around in the order.

As a Phillies fan, I can't complain about 2009 even it the team came up short in the WS. Most other fans feel the same way I do - the better team won. And I'm not hearing any whining about it either, though I can't speak for all fans. You're right, the Yankees are willing to spend and commit to winning it all each and every year. The rest of us might not like it, but that's the way it is. I think it makes a championship sweeter when any other team wins it all because it's a deviation from the expected outcome.

I agree with your points about how the Phils played in the WS - Rollins and Victorino didn't get on enough, and that's been an ongoing problem with Rollins. Also, the Yankees were successful where other teams have not been - getting the Phillies lefties out.

Finally, is it just me, or do the Yankees have a pretty crappy group of outfielders (notwithstanding what Damon just did to us in the Series)? Given how they spend, I'd think they'd go out and improve themselves there in the offseason.

The best analogy I can make which expresses my feeling towards the Yankees is that it is exactly like going to a Casino and watching the house win. Where's the excitement in that (Unless you own the casino). You can cheer but the house is supposed to win. It doesn't happen all the time and it is really exciting when you see somebody really win big but in the end you know the house is going to be better than everyone who tries to take them down - the odds are just stacked up that way. So, I like having the Yankees around because you need somebody there all the time that you are not supposed to beat to make your victory even more satisfying, but it's never a lot of fun when you crap out.

The Baseball owners are unwilling to impose a hard salary cap on their teams. The Luxury tax is insufficient to make baseball more competitive. That being said, this is hardly the fault of the Yankees. I lived through the Horace Clarke years just as Joe lived through the 1980s. Incidentally, Mr. Steinbrenner made a number of lousy moves (sigining Steve Kemp, Ed Whitson, sending Doug Drabek to the Pirates for a washed-up Rick Rhoden,etc) that moved the Yankees from contenders to pretenders. When Roy Halliday was put on the open market my feelings were-enough already ! A cap similar to the one imposed by the NFL might nhelp, but it won't happen.

I don't think that a cap is the answer to forcing accountability on poor decision making by MLB GMs. I think a more appropriate structure would be to cap the amount of payroll a team can banish to the minors, or otherwise release. If you made a bad signing that ties up payroll, you must keep the player on your roster, barring injury that is independently verified. Why should the Yankees be able to simply eat up a Carl Pavano salary mistake? The Dodgers with Andruw Jones?
If salaries above a minimal threshold (say $2M) were guaranteed a roster spot, the MLBPA couldn't get too pent up, teams could still spend as much as they wanted, but they would be accountable for their poor judgment and good management would still be rewarded.

Here is a great excerpt, from the NY Times:

"Christopher Gregorio, 23, a student who lives in Pennsylvania, made the trip in the spirit of his grandmother Connie, a big Yankees fan who died during the All-Star break.

'She would have loved to have been here,' Gregorio said. 'She waited nine years for this. But since she passed, every time they were down we’d ask her for one more run. And she did it.'

Wow.

Who knows if the Yankees would have any of their last four championships if Steinbrenner hadn't been exiled from baseball in the early 90's? Maybe Jeter, Posada, etc. would have gone the way of Fred McGriff and Al Leiter - Yankee prospects who became stars elsewhere. You can't fault the Yankees for keeping the players they drafted and developed.

My opinion on why there are so many Yankee haters out there (besides the payroll): They're always on the national TV games (Red Sox are equally guilty) seemingly exclusive to everyone else. If Boston vs. New York played 162 times a year, the national TV game would always stay the same. A lot of people throughout the rest of the nation get sick and tired of it, I've heard the bitching about it, even though they understand the significance of this rivalry.

Something I forgot to attach to my above statement- It's the same reason that so many people hate the Dallas Cowboys. They're sick and tired of them taking up their time slot all the time year after year. America's Team? Really?

The Yankee's have been a terrible operation for years, sinking money into player's who are not worth the money or
risk, their farm system is barren and really has not produced a player of note in quite a while, but yet they
can still contend because of deep pockets, sink enough money into as many players as possible some will pan out.
What the Yankee's have is the ability to keep spending so
sooner or later they will hit. Does anyone really believe
A.J. Burnet will be a decent player for a couple of years,
come on.... Those kind of decison's by any other team
will mean the are sunk.

Rooting for the Yankees is sort of like rooting for Goldman Sachs: It's great if you've got stock in the firm, or even better if you're employed there, but for everyone else it seems .

Heck, as a Tigers fan, I don't care about making it to the World Series --I'd be perfectly happy with a *division* championship, which we haven't had for 22 years. And people complain about 9 years between World Series championships as interminably long...

The kansas City Royals paid 20 million dollars this year to three useless players (Guillen, Farnsworth, Jacobs.)
The Padres paid 15 million dollars this season to three useless players (Young, Giles, Floyd).

As a Padre fan, it pains me to say this, but small-market teams and their fans have to stop blaming the Yankees and instead look at their own teams front-office ineptitude. There's no smart person in baseball who thought signing Guillen to a 3 yr./36 million dollar contract was a good idea. There's no smart baseball analyst who would have argued that signing Cliff Floyd was a good idea. Nobody in baseball would have given Farnsworth as much money as the Royals gave him.

Yes, the Yankees have tons of money. Get over it. Too many small-market teams make crippling mistakes that even the casual obsever recognizes as crippling mistakes - we should call them out on it as much as we criticize the Yankees for spending their money wisely.

Think of it this way - for the money the Royals are paying farnsworth, Guillen and jacobs, they could have signed CC Sabathia. Let that sink in, and then imagine a rotation that starts with Greinke and Sabathia.

But, you know, Kyle Farnsworth has his uses, too.