If I gave you $196 million and told you that you could take that money and build a baseball team out of that money and get whoever you wanted, who would you get? If we take the bottom 10 teams in regards to payroll in baseball, take their best player at the eight field positions, pitcher and closer, who would we get?
Oakland A’s: Yoenis Cespedes (OF) $6.5 million
San Diego Padres: Chase Headley (3rd Base) $3.475 million
Houston Astros: Jose Altuve (2nd Base) $483,000 million
Kansas City Royals: Alex Gordon (OF) $6 million
Pittsburgh Pirates: Andrew McCutchen (OF) $708,333
Tampa Bay Rays: David Price (SP) $5.2 million
Cleveland Indians: Asdrubal Cabrera (SS) $4.55 million
Arizona Diamondbacks: J.J. Putz (CL) $4.5 million
Toronto Blue Jays: J.P. Arencibia (C) $489,600
Cincinnati Reds: Joey Votto (1st Base) $11.4 million
That comes to a total basic payroll of $43,305,933. That is only 22% of the $196 million that I gave you for the budget to begin with. That is quite the team that you have started with the players that are listed above. So what in the world did the New York Yankees spend $196 million on with their team?
They had 11 players that were each getting paid more than $10 million this season. Only three of the players named above made over $5 million. With all that money being spent, and all the high-profile players that are on the team, yeah they won their division, but they failed to get out of the ALCS after getting swept by the Detroit Tigers.
When you are in New York City and you wear the pinstripes, if you don’t win a World Series, then you have failed. You can thank George Steinbrenner for that mindset. So in the spirit of the current presidential elections that the United States are in the middle of, I have a five-point plan for the Yankees and how they can return to dominance by the 2014 season.
For this plan, we are going to assume the worst and their ace pitcher C.C. Sabathia is out for the season with Tommy John surgery. If you didn’t know about this recent development, you can find the article here.
1. Understand the Season Isn't a Failure If You Don't Win a World Series!
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that they can’t have high expectations, but nobody needs to go jumping off of the Brooklyn Bridge if they don’t get a World Series ring in 2013.
It is going to be a down year for the team. We saw a new team show that they have what it takes to compete in the AL East. The Baltimore Orioles don’t really have any issue with any of their big, young stars leaving because of free agency, so they will be bringing back pretty much the same team.
The Rays are going to compete as long as they can keep that pitching core together. The Boston Red Sox is also going to be in a rebuilding year with their new manager, new players, and new attitude (hopefully). Toronto is still a year or two away from competing in the AL East. I can see the Yankees placing second in the East and getting in the playoffs with a wild card win.
2. Re-Sign Potential Free Agents
Hank and Hal Steinbrenner need to step in and issue an executive order that they, no matter what, will re-sign the following five free agent players:
- Russell Martin
- Mariano Rivera
- Freddy Garcia
- Hiroki Kuroda
- Nick Swisher
Martin must be re-signed because there isn’t really another catcher better than him available on the free agent market that should be available at a reasonable price. Rivera must be re-signed purely because if you don’t you will have a revolt in the Bronx the likes of which you have never seen, not to mention that he is probably still a top-five closer in the game.
Garcia and Kuroda need to be re-signed because they are good pitchers and the Yankees don’t want to look for three free agent pitchers when they only need to sign one to replace Sabathia (who may be recovering from Tommy John surgery). Swisher is just the best right fielder that is available on the free agent market.
3. Get Rid of Alex Rodriguez
In order to get their roster in order, the Yankees are going to have to be willing to eat a lot of Alex Rodriguez’s contract if they hope to move him. He has five years left on his contract that total to $114 million.
His inability to even produce in the slightest way in the playoffs is just unacceptable for a player that is getting paid what he is. Here is what I would consider to be the perfect profile of a team for Rodriguez.
He needs to go to a team that is a smaller market team that could afford to pay $50 million of that money over the 5 years ($10 million a year). The team that he goes to will more than make that back through ticket sales from Rodriguez chasing Barry Bonds (only needing to average 24 home runs over the 5 years to beat his record).
I also think that Rodriguez does have a good head on his shoulders and has the ability to teach the younger players the game. The Yankees in return should be looking for a slew of minor leaguers and high quality defensive third baseman to take over for A-Rod. This is probably going to be the biggest thing that they do during the off-season that will have the biggest positive effect on the team.
4. Retire Derek Jeter's Number
I know what you are going to tell me about him not even being retired. Who says that a player has to be retired to have their number retired by a team? What will this do for the team?
The Yankees have the reputation for not caring about their players that come and go from the team. I know that it really doesn’t seem like much to retire a number, but to the players it is a huge honor.
Retiring the No. 2 will be pretty much a huge “thank you” to Derek Jeter for the service that he has given the team and the future service that he will provide while chasing down the career hit total set by Pete Rose. Let’s say that he plays another seven years (three as SS and four as DH), that is only an average of 137 hits each year. That’s very attainable.
Jeter is already the captain of the Yankees and a first ballot Hall-of-Famer. Might as well go ahead and retire the man’s number!
5. Spend This Year Getting the Talent You Want at the AA and AAA Levels
The Yankees are a very old team. They had their run of perennial dominance but that time is quickly coming to a close. Their older players can still play good ball, but at the end of the season, they are tired and worn out.
If you want to be a perennially dominant team again, you must focus on getting your farm system stronger almost than your big league squad. It might take trading some of your bigger name players like A-Rod, but it is worth it.
If you look around at businesses failing around the country, you see a change of one person at the top, then you see the people who are responsible for completing the day-to-day operations changed out with others who are willing to do the job.
With the Yankees we saw the managerial change, now it’s time to see the change in the organization from the bottom up. Drafting well and getting the right players in the minor leagues through trades and free agency is vital; especially right now.
Conclusion
I hope that you have enjoyed my opinion on what needs to be done to bring the Yankees back to dominance. With me being a Red Sox fan, it is the last thing that I want to see happen, but I do enjoy seeing the competition in the AL East continuing at a high level.
Every year we have the team in baseball that under-performs and underwhelms us throughout the year. Every year we will be going through those teams and picking them apart by giving our opinions on what went wrong and what can be done to fix the problems.
When it comes to the Yankees, they just lost their ability to hit when it mattered most. In the game of baseball, it doesn’t matter how good your pitchers are or how few runs they give up in their starts because even if they only give up 1 run, and you don’t score 2, it’s still a loss.
There is a way, statistically, to fix this issue and it’s called Moneyball. Why don’t you ask the Athletics how that worked for them this year? Yeah they made the playoffs, but they didn’t get much further than that. F
ixing a team has probably the most varied ideas and proposals that everyone and their dog think will work. Unfortunately, the only way to find out is by trial and error. Also unfortunately for the managers and coaches of the organizations, the owners don’t allow for trial and error.
They want to win and they want to win now.
