1. Big money closers are rarely worth the money they are paid, Mo or otherwise. Thus it would be very difficult for anyone to live up to Mo’s four year, 40 million contract.

2. More generally, it is unlikely that any of the Yankees’ big-money contracts will be worth it. But this, I think, misses the point to a degree. I have been fully convinced that, for example, Posada would never be “worth” his four year contract, but I still think that it was a good signing at the time. Indeed, I think of it a s a very expensive three year contract spread out over four years. If the team gets three productive years out of him, well done. A fourth year is gravy. Similarly, I for one am not too worried about A-Rod’s age 40 season. The team overpaid to keep him; this will very likely pay off for the next few seasons at least. Worry about five years when that time is more proximate.

The Yankees have the type of resources to overpay for veterans (both in dollars and years), and this is as acceptable strategy so long as the contracts are kept manageable. In other words, they cannot afford to stack too many of these essentially backloaded contracts at the same time. This off season is a perfect example: Giambi’s big contract, which was probably “too long” , ran out in time to sign Sabathia and Teixeira, both of whose contracts are probably “too long.” The Yankees are fortunate to have enough resources to juggle the back ends of these contracts; if they are clever, they can do so almost perpetually.

[3] Mo will not live up to his deal because closers are so vastly overrated in general. Still, I agree with your main point that Mo will come the closest to meeting *expectations* throughout the length of his contract.