Quote:
Originally posted by Marmel
I am saying it gives teams like the Yankees an advantage.
But, just from the past year or two, look at these teams:
High Payroll, and they suck: Red Sox, Mets
High Payroll and they are good: Yankees and Braves
Lowpayroll and the suck: Detroit, Tampa
Lowpayroll and they are good: Oakland, Minnesota, Seattle
So while having an advantage is nice, it does not mean you are going to win, and not having that advantage does not mean you are going to lose. I think the only thing it does is give you a longer window of opportunity.
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The Red Sox won 94 games last year. I don't think that qualifies as "sucks".
As for the Yankees, you can talk about high-payroll teams. Then there's the Yanks. Their Payroll is almost 50% higher THAN ANY OTHER TEAM this year. Only about 5 or 6 teams even have half the payroll.
What can that do for you? Bid on Contrares, which has already been pointed out. How about Jeff Weaver when they already had 5 starters? Keep Sterling Hitchcock and his mega-salary around without batting an eyelash. Or picking up Lieber and paying him 3 times as much just to keep him around and see if he heals. Trade for Mondesi to see if he can fit in RF. There's a lot you can do with an extra $60 million that nobody has.
Don't get me wrong. Jeter is a good player. He does a lot of little "baseball" things well. He's probably a good leader. But he is vastly overrated. In the past 3 years, his slugging percentage among AL SS is most similar to Jose Valentin. I don't think Valentin is going to make the HOF.
At best, Jeter is the 3rd best AL SS in his generation by a longshot. He may only be the 5th or 6th best behind Tejada and Omar Vizquel, but that's arguable. If he plays for another 10 years and averages 150 hits a year, he'd be at 3,000 and a couple of hundred homers. That'd get him into the HOF. If he stops or fades out around 34 - 35 years old, he'd have 2,200 hits. Not good enough for a singles/doubles SS who's at best an average defender.
By the way, even Nomar may have a hard time making it. Too many errors and too many injuries. His stats may not look as good once everyone looks back on this home-run-happy era. A-Rods the only lock for it and only if he keeps this up a few more years.