Every year, despite spending a pittance on talent, the Devil Rays - playing before tiny studio audiences inside a ping pong ball with the acoustics of a sewer pipe - somehow contend in the mighty AL East.
I'm not suggesting the magisterial NY Yankees should emulate lowly Tampa in any way, aside from the Salvador Dali Museum. But with media jackals currently calling for a Bombers roster makeover, let's pose The Essential Question:
If we were Tampa... What would Tampa do?
Well, we would:
1. Let Aaron Judge walk. No auction. No bid. A thank you note and Home Depot gift card.
2. Trade Gerrit Cole. As we did with David Price, Chris Archer, Matt Moore, Nathan Eovaldi, Blake Snell, et al.
(REMEMBER: THIS IS NOT WHAT I WOULD DO. THIS IS WHAT TAMPA WOULD DO. PLEASE, NO DEATH THREATS.)
5. Deal Josh Donaldson. Actually, Tampa would claim this is moot: They wouldn't have traded for him, to begin with. Also move Aaron Hicks (which they would have done two years ago.)
6. Bring up Estevan Florial, the catcher from Minnesota (who they wouldn't have gotten in the non-existent trade) and maybe even the Martian.
7. Fire Aaron Boone. Wait... this is No. 7? It would have already happened.
NOT SAYING THE YANKEES SHOULD BE THE DEVIL RAYS. But hey, isn't that Hal's dream?
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17 comments:
That was a particularly fun read.
I imagined Hal sitting alone, starring blankly at the walls and blinking one or twice every few minutes.
Whilst Cash is being fitted for a new elf costume his seasonal rappel.
Such exciting times
I'd think Hal would love all of these moves. Go cheap, go young. We've already gone home.
The resulting team might be a lot of fun to watch. As opposed to the team we have.
How about what would the Astros do? They let Springer, Cole, Grienke & Correa walk and never skipped a beat. Why, 1) They promote young players 2) They develop young players. Something this GM is incapable of doing.
3) They tanked for years until they got top draft choices. 4) They spent lots of international prospect money for young players.
Cashman's long term contracts and the organization's inability to develop and promote young players have destroyed the team for any forseeable future. Re-signing Judge to watch him decline would only add to that. In a few years we will miss even the watered down playoffs, which may finally force Steinbrenner to take action. Boone will be let go, while Cashman will be kicked upstairs to some nebulous post. Will Steinbrenner finally bring in competent baseball people and empower them to effect change?
Well, yeah, we can dream, can't we?
Agree this was a particularly fun read.
I especially liked "DON'T COME TO MY HOUSE WITH ZIP TIES."
Nicely topical.
Holding down the Yankees payroll is not only Hal's wet dream but that of every baseball team AND Rob Manfred.
Let's not forget about the annual WWE-style $ 20.00 belt the commissioner gives to the team most able to suppress player salaries. See below.
https://twitter.com/MarcCarig/status/1111599711478259716
El Duque, I agree that this list accurately depicts what Tampa would do. But I disagree with your last quip about HAL's dream.
Contrary to what you'd expect from a descendent of Ebeneezer Scrooge, HAL will NOT go the cheap route. HAL will replace the salaries that expire with new ones that will equal or slightly exceed the old ones.
The Yankees haven't gone the cheap route since the early 1990's, when they tanked and had to rebuild.
HAL's goal is not to emulate the Rays. If that were so, this franchise would've won a championship in the last decade. HAL's goal is to keep the status quo, keep the ball rolling. Keep payroll steady. Avoid taxes. So he'll spend some money this winter. The team will barely make the playoffs next year. And then get kicked out in the first or second round.
Hammer, you mean next year will be like every other year?
Ugh.
I'm not so sure about Hal being Scrooge..
Payrolls 2022:
2 New York Mets $259,080,090
3 New York Yankees $250,828,357
Now we can argue about HOW the money is spent...that's highly debatable...
Funny as the piece was, I think Hammer and ranger both make valid points. Which is what is so baffling about HAL, a riddle, wrapped inside a mystery, inside an enigma.
Call it The HAL Conundrum (the Cashman Conundrum is the fact that even if he does dump the useless big salaries he's taken on, he will always trade those players for even worse and more expensive ones).
HAL is trying to do a much more difficult balancing act than the owners of Tampa Bay, who are just parasites eager to suck a profit out of the revenue sharing provided by so-called big-market teams. (Florida is pretty fucking big, in reality, but never mind, MLB doesn't truck with reality.)
The sweet spot HAL has identified for his profit margins, and for getting along with his fellow club owners, is to always contend, while rarely if ever winning it all. That will keep the fans coming out and tuning in, it will keep the sportswriters mostly on his side, and it will keep the money flowing for himself AND for those goniffs who own teams like TB.
Then, Everybody Loves Hal.
The trouble he will find is that, even with 40 percent of teams making the playoffs, this is ultimately unsustainable. It will come crashing down soon—and sooner rather than later, if Judge walks.
Riddle me this, true believers . . . .
IF Judge walks, will he still hit strikes hard?
Probably let most of the players walk like the Yankees will do.
If Tampa is so fucking smart, how come nobody goes to watch them play? It's NOT just, "well the stadium sucks". At least part of the reason is that fans never have a chance to fall in love with a player. Imagine if Mr. Weiss had traded Mantle when he was thirty because of Branch Rickey's philosophy of "better a year too early than a year too late"? I have to wonder how many Yankee fans of our generation wouldn't be Yankee fans right now in that timeline. People have to fall in love with their icons, even though the end result is an "old" man who can't hit the fastball taking up resources. The relationship between fan attendance and franchises is an emotional tide that builds through the years, but can just as easily recede. When the tide goes out it can take decades to regain those fans. Nothing is as black and white as statistical models would have you believe.
Very true, Kevin. And the reason that undercapitalized people uninterested in baseball own teams such as the Rays is because MLB makes it possible.
They don't HAVE to do well, or develop iconic players to bring in fans. They get great chunks of revenue sharing money—ultimately provided by fans like us, of teams that are trying to win (at least most of the time).
A rational business plan would have been to make sure that all owners have the cash to truly compete, and then hold them to that—maybe instituting a spending floor, if you're going to have a ceiling.
But, MLB would rather have a bunch of grifters and parasites sitting around the boardroom. Hey, it wasn't much different back in the day.
The owners have always been hard core businessmen. To borrow a line from Rick, it's the cut-rate parasites that I hate.
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