Well, for the first year in about five years, Billy Beane didn't do anything right around my birthday. Instead I sat around and waited for the A's to hopefully seal the deal with wishy-washy Furcal.
Instead the Yankees went out and spent about $424 million on arguably the best free agents on the market. Teixeira, Sabathia and Burnett all Yankees and a big F U to the rest of MLB. It used to be Crazy George Steinbrenner but now it's Nutso Hank. I'd normally complain about it but the truth is that money hasn't bought the Yankees anything in a long time. So it's not a definite that the Yankees are going to win anything in 2009.
Still if the press is to be believed, and I always use that caveat since I know that the press doesn't always report things with accuracy, the Yankees went anywhere from $10-15 million beyond what the Red Sox were offering Teixeira. They were ultimately bidding against themselves. I've had people argue with me, including Lew Wolff, that teams like the Yankees are good for baseball. It's much easier to say that when the Yankees haven't won anything. But I still think that a team that spends like that is not ultimately good for baseball even with the revenue sharing in place. How does a team like Oakland have a chance to ever sign a talent like Teixeira if the Red Sox and Yankees are the only two teams that are in that stratosphere? Hell even the Angels, which is essentially the West Coast version of the Yankees and Sox dropped far out of that one.
Still, I'll just argue that I still think baseball needs a salary cap. It will never happen, but I love what it's done for other sports like hockey and football. Yes, you can still have dynasties emerge, but it seems like everyone has a chance. Everyone will use the Tampa example of a team that is in a horrid market that has risen from the ashes. The problem is that it took the Rays years and years of wallowing in those ashes and getting tons of remarkably good draft picks in order for them to do their phoenix impression.
Listen, I know that it's never going to happen. Selig and company would never want a salary cap and salary caps are initiated from frustrated owners. I just sometimes need to state the obvious. I hate the freaking Yankees and the system in baseball blows.
