The Worst Thing Any Yankees Owner Has Ever Done

Enough with pretending Coops is in charge of anything.  He is, to quote Paul Newman in The Verdict, only a bagman.  A front.  A beard.  The New York Yankees' equivalent of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Sean Spicer, and Ron Ziegler, all rolled into one.

The one calling the shots is Hal Steinbrenner.  And what he has done this offseason is the worst thing that any Yankees owner has ever done.

We have, to be sure, been pretty lucky in this department.

No Yankees owner has ever wrecked our team to finance a musical.  None has ever moved the team to LA, or Milwaukee, or Arlington, Texas. No one ever tried to actually dissolve the franchise just to keep from spending a few dollars out of his billions, as that 87-year-old guy tried in Minnesota.

But we have had some bad ones.  Our first two owners, Frank Farrell and Big Bill Devery—the country's leading gambling king and the most corrupt police commissioner New York ever had—rescheduled what turned out to be a key, pennant drive game from Hilltop Park to Boston, because they had rented the field for a Columbia-Williams football game for the day.

Larry MacPhail almost succeeded in trading Joe DiMaggio, once for Ted Williams and once for Mickey Vernon, God help us all, and then there was CBS, which wanted to turn the Yankees into just another miscellaneous corporate asset, literally on a par with the road show of, I think, "Funny Girl."

There was plenty of awful, awful stuff that the Mad King did, too, such as continually trying to hold up the city for more money, and dumping perfectly good players, and wonderful managers and executives.

But that was mostly out of very fan-relatable pique and rage over losing games.  Well, that doesn't really explain the extortion schemes.  Or the relentless bullying and buckpassing.  Or the hiring of a criminal to try to rat out one of his biggest stars.

But, you know.  That's just how rich people act out in America.

Hal's malfeasance this offseason, by contrast, was served up ice cold.  It was apparently planned for years.  And it has been covered up with something even worse.

Hal Steinbrenner apparently never had any intention of signing the leading free agents on the market this year.  That was just a lie from the get-go, designed to keep the fans coming up, and tuning in.

Even this subterfuge might have got tired, but for the one time in his long and largely fruitless career, Cooperstown Cashman actually made a series of good trades that recharged our farm system.

As things worked out, it made the signing of the same free agents we were promised—nudge nudge, wink wink—absolutely vital to take us over the top.

And they're not coming.

It's not that we HAD to have Manny Machado and Bryce Harper.  They are, it is true, the best-ever YOUNG players ever available in over 40 years of free agency.  But neither one is a sure thing.

We might, it is true, have done even better with a series of brilliant trades and other signings.  But that wasn't coming either.

What WAS coming was, instead, a series of incredibly cynical signings and re-signings of used-vets, worn out arms, and marginal mediocrities—ours and others—that will cost nearly as much next year as the big dudes would have, and will instead seriously damage the team.

The likely logic behind this was discovered at this site by Doug K.  It is to deliberately devalue the Yankees' YES Network so Hal can regain whatever portion he wants of it for whatever sports empire scheme he is working on.

Most of that $41 million of the terrible signings will be off the team by 2020 at the latest.  They were necessary to provide at least a fig leaf of cover for many of the slower fans and thicker commentators.

"Look, we re-signed Gardy!  Look, it's CC!  Why is he lying on the ground and not moving?  Oh, hey, Britton is back!"

This way, Hal and company have what used to be called "plausible deniability," back in those days before there was nothing even vaguely plausible about our leaders.

This way, he can at least say, 'Hey, the payroll WAS increased over 2018!  By tens of millions!'

This way, we actually have a player at every position.  Not necessarily a player who can move, but whattaya want?

Next year, the payroll will shrink again.  And the year after that, without the sort of bothersome, long-term deals that a Manny or a Harper will want.  And we'll be told that, hey, we're saving up for Mike Trout, or Babe Benitendi, or some other chimera.

Don't believe it.  Hal Steinbrenner just let the best, young-and-coming Yankees team in a generation die on the vine, and he did it so that he can save a few buck on a TV deal.  Out of his $4 billion estimate net worth.

And despite the fact that—had he possessed his father's balls and been willing to fire the Apple-Polisher for Life who serves as our GM—he might well have MORE than made up for what he is going to save now.

Worst Off-Season Ever.

Worst Thing Ever Done By A Yankees Owner.