Seems like we’ve heard that for the past 8 years now. While the Yanks are now sporting an all-star team (again) — and I certainly wouldn’t bet against them — everyone knows there are no guarantees in baseball…

And perhaps Yankee in Chicago was only joking about “giving the Yankees the World Series trophy now”, but it’s that kind of arrogance that pisses off the rest of baseball fans (which you already know).

Revenues aren’t a static thing. Do the Yankees start with an advantage because they play in New York? Sure. But you gotta spend money to make money.

Rivera could blow a save as he did in game 7 the 01 WS or games 4 & 5 of the 04 ALCS (and lets face it, you’re up 3-0 with Duque, Moose, Lieber & Brown on tap, I’d still take those odds). Sabathia or Burnett could get hurt, like Wells did in game 5 of the 03 World Series, or be ineffective, like Wang in the 2007 ALDS.

1995 & 2004 should be lessons that nothing is guaranteed the Yanks in the postseason.

And sure, all owners get a large capital gain when they sell, but are you seriously suggesting that the Twins do not make an annual profit? I’d like to see some evidence for that.

I don’t see it as people, yankee fans, being mad about the signing, but me for example as not ascribing any kind of benevolence to the Steinbrenners or mystical “Iwannabeayankee”-itis to players.

They all took the most money on the table. I don’t know about some of you, but $12 million is a lot of scratch and it represented essentially a 5% pay increase to Teixeira. He didn’t take it out of the goodness of his heart, if he wanted to stick it to the Red Sox he would have taken less or equal money to play for the Yankees

Carl Pohlad isn’t making billions of dollars from the Twins and simply pocketing the money.

It’s simple, team A has revenues of $225 million/yr, team B has revenues of $50 million/yr.

Team A spends $200 million on player salaries and $15 million on coaches/staff/overhead, etc.

Team B spends $40 million on player salaries, coaches/staff/overhead, etc.

Both have a $10 million/yr profit. One owner is lauded and the other despised. Could Steinbrenner just field a team with a $50 payroll and make a $175 million profit, yeah, but it won’t do wonders for the product he’s selling (see previous owner CBS) or revenues. Pohlad isn’t pocketing $175 million a year and claiming the poorhouse. They all make their money on the backend when they sell the franchise.

Team owners of sports franchises are in one of the most lucrative crony businesses out there. I don’t care for any of them and I’m certainly not defending them. But the point is that the Yankees’ revenue likely exceeds any other team’s by a ridiculous amount. But you can’t say that Pohlad is a jerk for not spending his personal wealth that he earned outside of baseball on the twins so that they can have a $150 million dollar payroll. And you especially can’t attribute any kind of moral high ground to any team ownership group with regards to their finances without seeing the books and the actual numbers.

Bob Klapisch had yet another piece just recently documenting Girardi’s awkward management style last year. All that I’m saying is that Girardi’s ability to lead a veteran all-star team with many fragile egos and very high expectations will be an important subtext in 2009.