As much as I like Arod, I hate Boras so I hope they stick to their guns. Somebody, once and for all, needs to cut him down a peg or two and the Yankees are the best team to do that. Believe me when I say every other owner in baseball is cheering the Yankees right now, even the one who will ultimately sign Arod. If nothing else this will change the playing field for Boras in the future.
IMO it would be in Boras's best intrest to get Arod signed as quickly as possible to highest contract possible. By getting Arod a 30 million dollar a year contract also raises the bar for other players represented by Boras.
Who was he going to start? it's not like he had options. 1 clutch hit against Boston(though everyone was involved in that collapse), 1 clutch hit against LAA, a cutch hit in game 2 against det and those series would not have come down to kevin Brown or jared Wright. ONCE AGAIN, Arod was not the sole reason we lost but he was the main culprit and no one was more responsible. How can you expect to win when your bet player drives in 1 run in 16 games? I don't believe they will and thye better not be. The guy didn't deserve a raise to begin w/ but ate least before he opted out they got money from texas, it would be insane to give him a new deal where the yanks had to pay him $30 mil a year. I think and hope they are smarter than that and will find a much better way to spend $30 mil a year.
Everybody would like them to spend that 30 million somewhere but where? There are no great starting pitchers out there. There are no quality RH power hitters unless you want to consider Andruw Jones and I don't. So where can they spend it? The problem is they will end up spending it on garbage and be committed to it for a few more years. That;s why they were more then willing to spend it on Arod and have that production in the middle of their lineup for the forseeable future.
You can't just look at this offseason, if we signed him it would be $30 mil a year. Maybe this crop isn't great but what about 2-3 years from now? what about trades? We tried to win w/ ARod for 4 years and it didn't work out, let's spend that money wisely. upgrade the pitching, get some good defensive players in here. Tying it all up in 1 player, a non-winning player at that, is not very wise.
Detroit announced yesterday they have no interest in Arod. They were one of the teams on the list. That put another needle in Boras's eye and eliminated a team he could lie about to other owners. It will be interesting to see if any other teams follow that lead.
2-3 years from now we won't be paying Giambi 24 million a year..or Damon 12 million or Pavano 10 million or Mussina 13 million or ____ pick whoever you want to fill in the blank. Clemens 18 million is already gone and maybe Pettitte's 16 million too. That's why it didn't matter if we paid him now. Giambi, Clemens, Pavano and Damon don't need to be replaced at all so that saves 64 million alone.
We'll also have to start re-signing some younger guys and not having that $30 mil on the books gives us much more flexibility if we want to make a move down the road. Having his money off the books along w/ those other players will be a great thing. We don't have to spend it all, we find mroe bargains, more team players- we don't need superstars that are just about their individual #s. We had a dynasty in the last decade b/c we had a great TEAM. We really didn't have many stars and the stars we did have were team guys. That changed the last 6-7 years and not just w/ARod. I want the yankees to build teams again, I want the focus to be about winning and not HR records.
I agree with most of that. I would like to get under the cap and screw every other owner in the league. They will also have at least another 100 million a year in revenue from the new stadium to boot. With that 64 million I mentioned above and Arod's 25, Mussina's 13 and Pettitte's 16 we reduce the payroll after next year to well under 100 million and not many people available worth spending any of it on. And that assumes we sign Rivera and Posada or it will be even more.
Given the decisions that the Yankees front office has made, I think every other team would be drooling over their payroll dropping under $100 million. A big part of the reason they have such a high payroll is that they have made a TON of mistakes and have to live with the bad contracts. As it is they sign guys to $18 million+ deals who don't live up to it, imagine if they start signing players who are less talented to smaller deals? Yes, the payroll will go down, but so will the win total.
I keep thinking about this. Boras convinced him that the Yankees would stay in it even if he opted out. That is typical of Boras's arrogance and ego. Arod may be really pissed right now. I'm also thinking about the teams that can afford him. No doubt there are several. But most of them, Boston, Mets, Angels will have to start paying their young players in a couple of years or lose them. This is what happened in Texas and they couldn't afford to keep anybody and ended up a cellar dweller because of it. Do any of those teams really want to have a 200 million dollar payroll 3 years from now? Actually more because of the luxury tax. Add another 20 or 30 million on top of that. This is what Boras has to face now with the Yankees out of it. And any team signing him will have to give him at least a 10 year contract.
Haha..that's one way of looking at it. Another is that they spend the money wisely instead of on aging superstars. Then the win total goes up.
Im sure losing guys like Pavano, Giambi, Clemens,Igawa and Mussina will cost us a lot of ball games I dont think the Yanks wont spend the money its about being smart with it and not making rash decisions
Yeah, I hope Henry is "drooling" over all of them and signs them all to long term contracts (with a raise).
Well, when you replace them with guys like Kyle Lohse and the other trash on the free agent market, suddenly those guys start looking a lot better. Except Igawa. He'd look bad next to a retarded blind amputee.
I dont want that POS back. If we resigned him, he wold we blamed for everything that goes wrong w/ the Yanks (worse then before). You made your decision, you knew we would not have renegotiate if you made it. You were so eager to opt out that you couldnt even wait for the conclusion of the WS
Or how about replacing Clemens w/ Kennedy, Giambi for any average first basemen who makes no more then 6 mil, Moose w/ Hughes or other farm prospects and waiting for a good viable option at vacant positions to present themselves?
Actually, a lot of teams are interested in trading for Igawa. He is a cheap 5th starting alternative for a lot of teams. I hope the Yankees can get a decent middle reliever if they decide to move him.
