There were gaping holes on this team that they failed to fill, largely b/c they wouldn't give more than one-year to anyone but Ichiro.

Yes. But no significant innings of baseball have been played yet. Let's see if the Opening Day roster has Chris Stewart and The Great Gazoo as the only two catchers.

It appears that the Yankees are standing pat on a thirteen or fourteen. But I think the organization has earned my benefit of the doubt; first we need to determine if they are actually doing this. Second, we need to determine if this is a good strategy.

Yes. But no significant innings of baseball have been played yet. Let's see if the Opening Day roster has Chris Stewart and The Great Gazoo as the only two catchers.

It appears that the Yankees are standing pat on a thirteen or fourteen. But I think the organization has earned my benefit of the doubt; first we need to determine if they are actually doing this. Second, we need to determine if this is a good strategy.

I think it is a good strategy; reset the tax-rate and then resume spending $200M. They've had a great run. 18 straight years as contenders; 17 of those making the playoffs.

But the team is old and hurt. I'd be all for a more aggressive tear down. Or, if they had wanted to go all-in again and sign a bunch of FAs; I'd have been fine with that too.

My complaint is being stuck in the middle. The world where they resign Cano to a 8/200 deal, let Granderson, Kuroda, Youkilis, Hughes and Pettitte leave w/o replacing them, but don't trade them to get anything back, is a no mans land that I think condemns you to mediocrity for several years.

Erik -

See, eg, this report from the Times: Yankees look to cut payroll:

TAMPA, Fla. — Strange rumblings about fiscal restraint and lower payrolls have been emanating from the Yankees for several months, and Hal Steinbrenner, the managing general partner of the team, confirmed Thursday that he wants the payroll to be cut by about $20 million, down to the critical threshold of $189 million, within two years.

“I’m looking at it as a goal, but my goals are normally considered a requirement,” Steinbrenner said while speaking to reporters in the lobby of George M. Steinbrenner Field, named after his father. “Is it a requirement with baseball that we be at 189? No, it’s not a requirement. But that is going to be the luxury tax threshold, and that’s where I want to be.”

It appears that the Yankees are standing pat on a thirteen or fourteen. But I think the organization has earned my benefit of the doubt; first we need to determine if they are actually doing this. Second, we need to determine if this is a good strategy.

Wouldn't giving them the benefit of your doubt mean you believe them when the say they're going to do it?

It's a question of priority - would they like to be at a reduced payroll number by a certain date? I think it's uncontroversial that they would.

But the thornier question is: If there was an Alex Rodriguez 2004 deal available, would they say "Sorry; we are not interested in putting the team in the best position to win games in the short run. We want to be flexible with the payroll."

I think that position assumes facts not in evidence. Certainly, given the stuff listed above, you are free to think I'm head-in-the-sand about this. But I've seen no proof. Unless you value Hamilton completely differently than I do, the 2012-13 offseason didn't really give us a definitive test case; while AJ Pierzynski is a nice player and would have fit the team's short-term hole on the field, he's not a great player in his mid-twenties.

Wouldn't giving them the benefit of your doubt mean you believe them when the say they're going to do it?

No, no, they have earned the benefit of the doubt, of being the worlds biggest bullshitters. See also "if Arod opt out we are not giving him a new contract", or "we have no intention of signing [available expensive free agent]".

he's not a great player in his mid-twenties

Available great players in their mid twenties are only slightly rarer than unicorns.

If the Yankees can replace Pettitte & Kuroda with in-house options (Pineda & Phelps?) they will be a lot closer to meeting the $189M threshold. I suspect they might go to a more expensive Plan B if those in-house options aren't there.

From Matt's #53 (I concede that this article doesn't agree with my thesis largely),

Steinbrenner said the payroll was expected to be $210 million this year, and he conceded that was about $10 million higher than he had planned. But when General Manager Brian Cashman asked to sign the free-agent pitcher Hiroki Kuroda to a one-year, $10 million contract, he agreed to stretch the payroll.

Note that this is in March 2012, for reference.

What will the true opportunity cost of the coming "austerity" mean for the team on the field?

They only played 161 games that year, so that's why I assume it was phrased that way

I get it - I said it was strange, not incomprehensible.

Since the publication of the Times article, there has not been a single Yankees transaction which was not 100% consistent with the goal of cutting 30-40M off the payroll by 2014. (Signing Hiroki Kuroda to two one-year deals, neither of which involves any guaranteed 2014 money, is 100% consistent with the goal.) The consistency is kind of amazing - most ballclubs never stick to a plan that long. The goal and the plan are indisputable at this point.

It is certainly possible that the Yankees will change their minds before 2014. But to dispute that this is the organizing principle, for now, you'd want to have at least a single piece of evidence on your side, and there isn't any.

And a little thing:

this phrase exposes the deep, deep groupthink of this site, with not a single on-the-record quote to back it up.

I trust you take this one back?

They can still resign him, if the price is reasonable, but I wouldn't give him a $200M contract.

Well, that's crazy. Especially if Cano puts up another 7 WAR season. He'll be 31 and the Yanks should never let a perennial MVP candidate walk.

And it's not like the Yanks have a cheap replacement waiting in the wings for Cano. Joseph doesn't have the glove for second, and David Adams can't stay healthy. Gumbs is 3 years away at best. So you want the Yanks to dump their best player because he's going to demand a salary that reflects his value and then go out and spend some other amount of millions of dollars on some middling middle infielder.

The Yanks are a lot more likely to be able to cheaply replace guys like Granderson (who can't even really play CF any more), Hughes, Kuroda and freaking Kevin Youkilis (who might be terrible this year for all we know, now there's a guy Joseph could possibly replace) than they are to make up for the loss of Cano's production.

Yes, Cano will be great this year, and next year, but the Yankees probably won't be very good (given the self-imposed cap).

With a second wild card, the Red Sox in flux, and the strength of the rest of the AL East, the Yanks don't have to be very good to get to the playoffs. Look at the O's last year. And the guys you are worried about losing can be replaced pretty easily on the FA market after 2014. Cano won't be.

After that, we're talking about a 32-38 (if you're lucky to sign him for only 8 years) y.o. 2B.

Who has the skill set and athleticism to move to another position if need be. And who has been extremely healthy. And I think it's been demonstrated here that great second baseman don't age much worse than other non-catcher position players. There's no reason to think Cano won't be more like Jeff Kent than Robby Alomar.

That's not gonna be a 6 WAR player. Best case you're paying $25M for 3-4 WAR p.a. That's just not particularly valuable. Most likely, by age-36, he's an oft-injured average player, like ARod.

You're just guessing. There's no indication that healthwise, he's going to age like A-rod rather than Jeter. It's certainly not "most likely."

At some point, this team needs to restock with young talent, and trading Cano could bring a lot of you talent.

Sure. Great players are worth a lot. There's a reason some teams might give up a lot of talent for him. He's crazy good. That's a reason for the Yankees to keep him. We aren't talking about the freaking Royals.

I think the way the economics of baseball is trending, signing prime age FAs is basically always a bad idea (unless they hit FA really young).

Without getting into that argument, I think that the Yankees should be making an attempt to compete every year. Robinson Cano and CC Sabathia give them a chance to do that in the current system and will for long enough for the Yanks to restock the team using their payroll advantage post-2014.

this phrase exposes the deep, deep groupthink of this site, with not a single on-the-record quote to back it up.

I trust you take this one back?

Yes. "Typifies" rather than "exposes" is a neater word which gets to my meaning better. Thanks for the opportunity.

After the disgraceful display by our "fans" in the ALCS, in which they barely made a peep except to boo the crap out of their own players, I'm ready to casually follow a losing season or two. We need to thin out the ranks of the white collar fans and get back to a 1995 atmosphere.

yes, I know it will never happen
.mostly thanks to the shitty new stadium.

You know that with Murhpy's law Ichiro will so hit 30 HR this year.

Seriously, people here will argue about everything. If there is ever a point reached on a subject where actual groupthink forms, it's not for lack of critical thinking, it's because you would have to be wilfully blind not to see the damn forest. And even then most of the time some people will say the group of trees is a mountain.

But the team is old and hurt. I'd be all for a more aggressive tear down. Or, if they had wanted to go all-in again and sign a bunch of FAs; I'd have been fine with that too.

My complaint is being stuck in the middle. The world where they resign Cano to a 8/200 deal, let Granderson, Kuroda, Youkilis, Hughes and Pettitte leave w/o replacing them, but don't trade them to get anything back, is a no mans land that I think condemns you to mediocrity for several years.

I tend to think that aggressive rebuilding is probably the right path for the Yankees, but also that it will never, ever happen. The hard part about rebuilding/reloading now is that you have to be really, really aggressive. Teams can't just decide to spend a shitload on the draft or the international market and have a kickass farm system in 3 years. As I see it, there are only three ways to build a farm system right now (a) be bad enough for long enough that picking at the top of the draft for a bunch of years in a row accrues to your advantage, (b) be better at finding prospects than everybody else or (c) be much more aggressive than everybody else at obtaining prospects. Nobody really wants to do (a) and everybody always tries to do (b), so that leaves (c) as the only novel organizational philosophy available. But now with more teams locking up their young stars to long-term contracts, it's not as if you can plan on rebuilding through the farm system and filling in key pieces with free agents, because those free agents just might not be there. Basically, rebuilding in baseball is just really hard right now. So while I think the most likely outcome for the Yankees for the next 3 seasons in something like 84 wins, 80 wins and 76 wins, I think any real tear down would be painful enough and uncertain enough that I can understand taking the chance on the upside variance around those figures. Also, this Robinson Cano creature was essentially conjured from thin air, so I'm not entirely sure that Mason Williams and Tyler Austin aren't the second coming of Bernie Williams and Paul O'Neil.

You know that with Murhpy's law Ichiro will so hit 30 HR this year.

He could if he wanted to.

groupthink groupthink groupthink groupthink

dupe

I've truly lost track of which groupthink is being referred to.

I've truly lost track of which groupthink is being referred to.

That your mom is good in bed.

“I’m looking at it as a goal, but my goals are normally considered a requirement,” Steinbrenner said while speaking to reporters in the lobby of George M. Steinbrenner Field, named after his father.

I still think this is one of the very best entitled-kid quotes of all time.

"My goals are normally considered a requirement" is a hilarious quote. I don't know if that sounds more like something Clarence Boddicker would say, or something Busta Rhymes would say.

"Mr. Wolz, the Don has set it as a personal goal for him to get this young man into this movie."
"Well you can tell him that he's gonna fall short of his goal this time."
"The Don normally finds that his goals are considered a requirement."

Not that I recommend trading Cano but the 2013 offseason Yanks look pretty bad.

The only offensive players signed past 2013 are ARod, Tex, Gardner and Ichiro. Yikes. Gardner will probably be the best of those. The only starters are CC and Pineda.

Now, it's not impossible but, good golly, the money it would take:

resign Cano
sign at least 2 of Wainwright, Josh Johnson, Halladay, Lincecum and Garza
sign at least two of Ellsbury, Choo and McCann

So sign at least 5 of the top 10 FAs that offseason (assuming I haven't forgotten any extensions). Easy peasy. Amazingly enough, they just might be able to squeeze that in under the cap but they might have some issues if other teams decide they might like some new players too.

Gardner / Ichiro / Ellsbury OF .... there must be some jokes we can write here.

Knowing the team, they'll probably pull some useful player out of nowhere this season again, so it wouldn't look quite as bad.

The last time the team looked this Dismal was probably before the 2005 season, then they pulled Cano and Wang outta their arse. and thx to those 2 to a large extend they basically rode out a potentially devastating part of their cycle.

You can't talk 2005 Yabks without mentioning Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small, the two biggest wtfs in baseball pennant race history.

You can't talk 2005 Yabks without mentioning Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small, the two biggest wtfs in baseball pennant race history.

True Yankees, the both of them.

pulled Cano and Wang outta their arse.

Must ... avoid ... obvious ... joke ...

Knowing the team, they'll probably pull some useful player out of nowhere this season again, so it wouldn't look quite as bad.

Of course they will! This is a crucial line in their contract with Satan. Whatever J. Random the Yankees plug into a hole will have a career year. That's why they're going to win 93 and eke out the division title and be praised for centuries to come for the grit and hustle that inspired a nation.

He'll be 31 and the Yanks should never let a perennial MVP candidate walk.

And, that's the way you got the ARod contract.

With a second wild card, the Red Sox in flux, and the strength of the rest of the AL East, the Yanks don't have to be very good to get to the playoffs.

Being a .500 team, and hoping to get lucky and sneak in with 87 wins is not a good model for the Yankees. I don't think the fans have any interest in paying premium prices to watch that.

Yes. "Typifies" rather than "exposes" is a neater word which gets to my meaning better. Thanks for the opportunity.

Am I taking crazy pills here?

You said the groupthink was typified by a belief in the Yankees self-imposed cap even though there are no on-the-record quotes to back up this belief. Hal Steinbrenner has in fact spoken on the record about the goalquirement of getting under the cap for 2014.

Being a .500 team, and hoping to get lucky and sneak in with 87 wins is not a good model for the Yankees. I don't think the fans have any interest in paying premium prices to watch that.

What's really going to be interesting is to see if the Yankees try to hold the line on their ticket prices after the disaster that seems to be shaping up this year and probably 2014 as well. Given that StubHub has already started to become a favored option among large groups of fans who don't like to commit to buying weeks or months in advance, I can only wonder what the attendance is going to be like as the Yanks suffer through their once-in-a-generation freefall. And that's not even considering what might happen to attendance if Congress ever got around to removing those "business expense" deductions for corporate season ticket holders.

For $20 on B-R these days I think you can sponsor one of Greg Swindell's nose hairs.

$20 can score you Jody Reed or Steve Lyons or Hensley Muelens. So there are options.

Andy--My second team for a long while was the mostly non-contending Expos......something nice about the impulse buy $6 ticket (and that was 1990s dollars!) where you enjoy the game with 15K of yr fellow baseball fans....tear the roof off the big O and it'd have been close to paradise.....if DNYS became the home of a .500 ish ballclub for a while, there'd be some upside.....

What's really going to be interesting is to see if the Yankees try to hold the line on their ticket prices after the disaster that seems to be shaping up this year and probably 2014 as well.

You mean keep prices the same, instead of raising them? Cause there is no way the Yankees are going to lower their ticket prices.

For $20 on B-R these days I think you can sponsor one of Greg Swindell's nose hairs.

Which would be worth more than the brick of Greg Swindells rookie cards I once bought on a lark back around 1989. Fortunately that broke me out of that particular two week habit before it had a chance to really take root.

----------------------------------------

Andy--My second team for a long while was the mostly non-contending Expos......something nice about the impulse buy $6 ticket (and that was 1990s dollars!) where you enjoy the game with 15K of yr fellow baseball fans....tear the roof off the big O and it'd have been close to paradise.....if DNYS became the home of a .500 ish ballclub for a while, there'd be some upside.....

Tell me about it. In the Griffith Stadium of my long ago boyhood, anyone 16 or under could sit 9 rows behind the box seats behind the plate for the 2013 equivalent of $5.88. Or in the late 70's, you could get courtside seats for the World Champion Bullets at the current equivalent of $25.00, or sit behind the dugout to see the 102-57 Orioles for the equivalent of $20.79 today. Lots of things have changed for the better, but affordable good seats at sporting events aren't among the improvements.

-------------------------------------

What's really going to be interesting is to see if the Yankees try to hold the line on their ticket prices after the disaster that seems to be shaping up this year and probably 2014 as well.

You mean keep prices the same, instead of raising them? Cause there is no way the Yankees are going to lower their ticket prices.

Ordinarily I'd agree with you, but my guess is that the laws of supply and demand are going to be tested in Yankee Stadium over the next few years as they've never been tested before.

Will the Yankees finish with a better record than the Mets this year, Andy? Because that's the real question.

Will the Yankees finish with a better record than the Mets this year, Andy? Because that's the real question.

Well, you're the resident optimist vis-a-vis the Mets. What say you?

And, that's the way you got the ARod contract.

The A-rod contract was for 10 years, not 6 or 7. And for 300 million, not 200. He was a year older and he started falling apart the year after he signed the contract instead of having a gradual decline. The proposed contract is different, the risk is different and the player is different.

Being a .500 team, and hoping to get lucky and sneak in with 87 wins is not a good model for the Yankees. I don't think the fans have any interest in paying premium prices to watch that.

Being a .500 team for two years is a lot better than being a .450 team for two years.

And if you want to bring Yankee fans into it, I'm sure they'll be super excited to shell out for the insane prices to watch a mediocre team and get a shitty ballpark experience a year or two after the one homegrown star the team had was traded for a couple of prospects because the Yanks couldn't "afford him." Trading Cano will be a PR disaster, no matter what they might realistically get in return.

Well, you're the resident optimist vis-a-vis the Mets. What say you?

I asked first!

Will the Yankees finish with a better record than the Mets this year, Andy? Because that's the real question.

Let's just have them play a Sewer Series sometime in November, and may the team with the best ratcatchers win.

The A-rod contract was for 10 years, not 6 or 7. And for 300 million, not 200. He was a year older and he started falling apart the year after he signed the contract instead of having a gradual decline. The proposed contract is different, the risk is different and the player is different.


No way Cano is signing for 6 years. Best case is probably 8/180. More likely over $200M.

And if you want to bring Yankee fans into it, I'm sure they'll be super excited to shell out for the insane prices to watch a mediocre team and get a shitty ballpark experience a year or two after the one homegrown star the team had was traded for a couple of prospects because the Yanks couldn't "afford him." Trading Cano will be a PR disaster, no matter what they might realistically get in return.

Yankee fans don't give a damn about "home grown stars". They care about winning, full-stop.

If they're 35-50 in July, they're not showing up at the Stadium, or watching on TV, regardless of whether Cano is on the team.

And, a trade of Cano does not preclude trying to sign him after the season.

Yankee fans don't give a damn about "home grown stars".

Yeah, sure, that's why they still love Mattingly more than they ever loved Giambi. And Pettitte gets his balls washed by most Yankee fans while Moose never got anything resembling that sort of affection. And Jeter is a god while A-Rod got booed during his MVP seasons. I mean, that's as demonstrably not true as a claim can get on this site without involving stats. Yankee fans love and hugely overrate lifelong Yankees.

Well, not you obviously, but most Yankee fans.

They care about winning, full-stop.

Yup, and keeping Cano gives the Yanks their best shot to win, even in the coming down years. You're the one advocating tearing down the team and sucking for two years to get prospects.

If they're 35-50 in July, they're not showing up at the Stadium, or watching on TV, regardless of whether Cano is on the team.

Obviously the fans won't show up if they are out of it by July. But next year they are a lot more likely to show up if the team has a star second baseman and a chance to make the playoffs than if they don't.

6 or 7. 200.

Whoa ... we're paying Cano $30 M a year now?

I put the probability of the Yanks not extending Cano at approximately zero so it's a silly point to discuss ... yet I can't stop!

And, a trade of Cano does not preclude trying to sign him after the season.

Unless Cano agrees to an extension as part of the trade, nobody is going to give up much of value for a Cano rental. (I mean they'll give up a good amount since it's a 2 win rental but you're not robbing the bank.) The small return is not worth it to the Yanks compared to all the sturm und drang surrounding a Cano trade plus the possibility that the new team will beat the Yanks to the extension. Trading Cano in the hopes of getting him back sounds to like the worst of the options.

I will say I didn't realize until this thread how much payroll "flexibility" the Yanks have for 2014 even with the threshold. They're projecting at $109 M right now. A lot of spots to fill but they can easily re-sign Cano and add 2-3 more FA from that list and still meet that threshold. That's probably still a team that gets pulled down by too many holes but they should be solid and primed to add another piece or two for 2015-16.

And, true, I don't know what the Yanks have in the system other than Romine who might fill a gap.

EDIT: and the 2014 question I find interesting is whether Jeter will want to keep playing and for how much.