It IS a form of "winning" to always have winning seasons, and another to frequently make the playoffs, but if the team, and therefore the brand, becomes a national joke... the fodder of late night comics... a punchline.
Shouldn't heads roll?
We can only hope.
EXACTLY, Doug.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to personnel, the Yankees almost always forgo taking big risks with potential, high payoffs—"Don't sign Freddie Freeman over Rizzo! He wants too many years!"—they end up instead taking really stupid, small risks, with almost no potential payoff. "Hey, that Frankie Montas will see us through!"
It's the same thing with their brand:
"Oh, no, let's just contend every year, don't want to start winning championship after championship again, something that will lead to a higher payroll and annoy the other owners in the cartel!"
But what HAL doesn't get is how likely this is to permanently wreck that brand. This isn't Kansas City or Cincinnati, where everyone is pretty much stuck with the good ol' home team. New Yorkers have many other entertainment options, even in major-league baseball, and they will dump the Yanks in a minute, once they seem like hapless chokers.
I see it already here in NYC, there used to be 2-3 times as many Yankees caps in public as the Mets, now its taking a sharp turn in the other direction. The Met fan is as worried as we are about an ultimate collapse, but, they have infinite confidence that the team's owner and manager will do the right thing by/for the team,,,, something we can only dream about. URGGG
ReplyDeleteHoss,
ReplyDeleteYou certainly have better baseball knowledge and wisdom than me, but I disagree on this one.
Ca$hole *does* spend on large long term contracts.
(See Elsbury, Glass man (via trade), Hicks, Pavano, ARoid etc. and so forth et. al.)
Unfortunately, 9 out of ten are straight busts, failures, catastrophes and disasters.
That's true, Rufus, over the years he HAS talked HAL into SOME big risks. You could add Setback Sevvy to that list.
ReplyDeleteAnd some have even worked out, at least a little. A-Rod at least finally produced a championship, for instance—with help from CC and Burnett.
But more often, again and again and again, the Yankees have refused to even contemplate signing the big free-agent risk out there. Carlos Beltran, Bryce Harper and Machado, Verlander and about a dozen other pitchers, the 27 shortstops who were available this off-season...
The list goes on and on. But yeah, you're right. Cashman does save those special, silver bullets to pick up certain guys...who are always wrong.