Monday, December 5, 2022

Don't Fear the Ninth Year.

 

All right, show of (invisible, electronic) hands here:

How many of you out there in the dark regret our 2009 World Championship?

What, nobody? In fact, you remember it as the last time you felt unmitigated joy over our favorite baseball team?

How can that be? What is wrong with you? 

Don't you understand that that title was won only through the decision by your New York Yankees to sacrifice further titles for years to come???

Think back, back to the hazy days of October, 2007, when the agent of archfiend Alex Rodriguez announced, during the dying moments of the thoroughly forgettable, 2007 World Series, that A-Rod was opting out of his Yankees' contract.  

This was depicted as something akin to a war crime by MLB and its innumerable sycophants in the sporting press. But A-Rod soon came back to the fold, in exchange for a new, 10-year contract, at the then low, low total of $275 million.  

It was ridiculous, of course. Sure, A-Rod had won his third MVP award in 2007, but he was already 32, and a constant disappointment in the postseason. 

Was Alex going to be the same player by the end of that contract, 10 years later? Of course not. And even the Yankees' front office, that Fortress of Obliviousness, knew this was so. The real hope was that Alex would shatter the all-time home-run record—already invalidated by Juicin' Barry Bonds—and keep the turnstiles spinning.

Well, things didn't quite work out that way—to put it mildly. A-Rod gave us, at most, three-to-four years of play at the high level he had established, before his career dissolved in a welter of suspensions, injuries, and a farcical PED investigation waged by Rob Manfred, the Inspector Clouseau Javert of MLB.

You'll see no tears for A-Rod here. But if you'll remember, that little window of greatness that remained for Rodriguez—drug-induced or not—included leading our Yankees to the 2009 championship.

Hey, I'll take it. 

Look, the truth is that all ballplayers decline. Their peak year is, on average, reached by the time they are 28—and sometimes much earlier. Nearly all big free-agents deals acknowledge the fact that the player in question will be a shadow of himself by the end of it.

So what?

Say Aaron Judge goes to the Giants and leads them to another three championships. Are we going to gloat if he's having a terrible 2031? Are we going to happy if he "only" leads them to one World Series champagne fest?

No, we will not. 

For those of you who really think the Yankees are going to "rebuild" if they let Judge go, I can only point to the last time they got outbid by a small, left-coast city for a regular all-star. 

After they let Robbie Cano jog off to Seattle, did the Yankees institute a bold new, rebuilding plan?

Only if you consider signing three aging, declining players—Brian McCan't, Beltran, and Hurtsbury—"rebuilding." You can expect the same this year, as the Yanks dangle before us the idea of trading leading prospects for a 27-year-old, .262 hitter.

There was, to be sure, an argument to be made for getting rid of Judge and trying to rebuild. That argument should have been made and resolved last year about this time. 

One of the key ways teams with real front offices rebuild is to deal their existing assets—older players they don't intend to retain—for younger starters and prospects. If the Yankees were serious about rebuilding, they should have traded Aaron Judge for younger players last season. 

They did not. Instead, with their first priority being—as always—the Steinbrenner family's bottom line, they decided to bet that their leading asset would get injured or have a mediocre season. They lost. They need to pay up—or lose that asset for nothing.

Will Aaron Judge be close to the player he is today in 2031? No, he will not. We will care—if he has won us a championship along the way? I, for one, will not. Nor will I care if he has "merely" played outstanding baseball for, say, 4-5 years of that time. 

The only person who should care is Hal Steinbrenner's financial advisor.

Face it: the alternative to re-signing Aaron Judge is not a great rebuilding program. It's not the signing of two or three other, outstanding free agents who will lead us to victory. The alternative to re-signing Aaron Judge is still more money added to the billions already controlled by an enigmatic, unsmiling Floridian who has never shown much interest in the New York Yankees or any of us, their fans.

Don't fear the ninth year. Don't fear the Reaper, either. It will come for Aaron Judge's career, as it will for all of us. In the meantime, I'd like to see him play in pinstripes.








19 comments:

  1. Mets sign Verlander 2 Years $86M...

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  2. Hurtsbury is a nice one.

    Did he put his uniform on in the hurt locker? Or was that just the place he read box scores, i.e, baseball activities?

    I expect mets magic to work on Verlander. He'll finally suck.

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  3. We suck the big one. George would not have let this happen. We could’ve had Verlander and judge and maybe somebody else. And they still would’ve made money. And PS, we could still have Montgomery. I hate these assholes.

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  4. The Phillies and shortstop Trea Turner have agreed on a contract, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN. Turner will make $300MM over 11 years with a full no-trade clause, according to Kiley McDaniel of ESPN. --- mlb trade rumors

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  5. There will be no headline deals from the Yankees except Judge, one way or the other.

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  6. Cashman has new 4 year contract w/Yanks...

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  7. Rumor about Verlander was Yanks didn't offer third year...

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  8. At least the Yanks have wrapped up their GM!

    https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/12/yankees-extend-brian-cashman-general-manager.html

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  9. Aaron Judge will announce his decision on Wednesday...

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  10. Only four years?

    There’s gotta be an ineptitude vesting clause that locks in an additional ten years

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  11. I'm old. I remember what it was like watching Mattingly (in his healthy days). Not a lot of great pitching.

    1989, the team awarded 97 starts to the following quintet: Andy Hawkins, Clay Parker, Dave LaPoint, Greg Cadaret, and Walt Terrell (according to baseball-reference.com). Erik Plunk (!) got 7 starts, too. Also in the mix: Tommy John, Candelaria, Chuck Cary.

    Team went 74-87.

    Donnie Ballgame hit .303 that year, with 191 hits; drove in 113 runs.

    Question for you, Hoss, is: Do you wish such frustration and futility on US and Judge? Because that's what's coming if they sign him.

    And also -- if they don't.

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  12. I'm done complaining.

    Four more years of Cashman. Fifty year old pitchers getting 86M for two years. Guys signing 11 year contracts... It's all just too irrational for me.

    I'll watch when I watch but I just can't bring myself to care enough to care.






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  13. The New York Yankees announced a four-year contract extension for Brian Cashman on Monday. He'll remain their GM and senior vice president through 2026.

    "The latest offers are from 2 teams, the Yankees and the Giants, both for 9 years and above $300 million now, and potentially from two different teams, the Yankees and Giants," MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reported Monday afternoon

    It doesn't matter whether we sign Judge or not. We still won't progress under current leadership. You can take that to the Bank.

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  14. My father was a fine and gracious man. Very intelligent and humble. H e was the youngest of 11 in an Italian family, yet his older siblings always came to him for advice. Owned his own business after getting a degree after WWII.
    I had to watch him intellectually decompose over the last 6 years of his life with dementia.
    The feelings that I had as I lived through that are the closest I can compare to watching my Yankees fade into the good night.
    Fuck CASHMAN AND HAL.

    You wish that you could do something but you can't

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  15. Signing Brian Cashman ahead of Aaron Judge is an insult to every Yankee fan in existence.

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  16. Joe FOB, you answered your own question—as I suspect you know! :)

    I don't expect much of anything out of this or any Yankees team for the foreseeable future. But just as I always enjoyed seeing Don Mattingly hit, even on those miserable Yankees teams of the late 1980s-early 90s, I'd prefer to have at least one great player on this Yankees team.

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  17. I didn't expect HAL to sign Verlander, more's the pity (How many damned times can we pass that guy up?)

    BUT...in the "glass-half-full" category:

    —It's good Verlander is out of the AL.
    —It's good Steve Cohen is making clear that he still intends to go for it with his Metsies, something that will provide the only possible pressure on HAL & Co.: in their wallets.

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  18. Hoss, you're spot on about the Judge situation.

    Some Yankee fans seem bothered by the idea of giving a player 400M, 500M. They think it's too much money for one guy. They believe, inexplicably, that this franchise can spend the money in better ways and re-build a better team. Today's Cashman re-signing puts the torch to such farcical thinking.

    The truth is that HAL makes that kind of money in a New York minute. A half billion bucks for HAL is basically chump change. And as we all know, not spending on Judge in NO WAY means that that money will be earmarked for anything better. It'll just go in HAL's pocket on the way to his bank accounts. He'll spend some money, no question about it, he'll keep the payroll pretty steady. But it'll be spent on a bunch of re-treads or a new Josh Donaldson or Joey Gallo. HAL knows how to maintain good press relations and drum up support for half ass moves.

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