I don’t think anyone questions that the Yankees benefited tremendously from the period when good baseball people (not the people inside GMS’ head) were allowed to do what they did so well. It was an ideal mix – skilled baseball people, still backed by a deep wallet, but in this case, a wallet forced to remain at arm’s length.

So while I think the later version, post “the return” was not a match for that ideal, I still think we were looking at a relatively positive equilibrium. You had big-spending George, pride dictating he would never be outspent George, but slightly chastened George, able to exist at least within a push pull relationship with a General Manager who was more on his game than not (Cashman), or, at least, was still in a phase where his pitching signing disasters were fatal only in the second season, or were counterbalanced by a few good pitching signings that had been made on the cheaper.

Cashman obviously had trouble working with GMS from time to time, but that there was a tension, at all, in that mutually held rope suggests to me that this was not pre-banishment George.

I think the concern right now is that we may have an owner with an equal inclination to be meddlesome, but one who will not commit bottomless resources to the team, one who does not tie pride to not being outspent, but instead ties pride to some sort of fiscal sanity, which he may turn out to be not all that good at. Through it all, one hopes Hal has not lost sight of the reality that a lousy product, or even a product that is clearly and “unbridgeably” separated from a higher tier of teams (read: this means teams they don’t really even have a shot at in the playoffs) is probably fatal to the Yankee financial equation.

And all of this may be pinging back and forth off of a General Manager who doesn’t currently have his eye on the ball, or after surviving GMS, has lost the will to care all that much about going through the roundabout squabble wars.

This may sound alarmist and may be alarmist, but I am slightly alarmed.

It’s a tremendous leap of faith at that kind of dough when the league is gunning for your assets so they can “maintain a competitive balance” (read: keep badly run and/or nearly insolvent teams from contraction) and you have to both add youth and lower payroll, all the while satiating the populace who you conditioned to expect a World Series every season.

I have a thought: how many championships can we actually attribute to George’s overwhelming influence and decision-making, versus the baseball people he hired (particularly when he was away from the team and/or obviously hands-off)? I say George peaked early in his ownership during the 70′s and proceeded to wreck havoc after that until he was banished, then after witnessing the magic that happened in his absence peak and then wear off in the late 90′s-early 2000′s, he went back to being the bull in a china shop until he became sick and could no longer run the team in any official capacity. We have a tendancy to give the man too much credit for the team’s success on the field; he was a businessman first and enlarged the Yankees as a brand, but his evaluation of baseball talent is way overblown. Throwing the most money at the best player on the market doesn’t mean you know talent any better than the average fan, and it doesn’t even guarantee that you’re getting the best advice in return. George was a legend in the business of baseball and did much to bring financial prosperity to the team and even the league, but he was never a baseball god from my point of view.

Mo on the other hand…

It pretty much has always been that way, even though in recent years there has been more talk about budget.

So I don’t expect us to be over bid by the Texas fucking Rangers ferchissake.

Then it goes back to they didn’t really want him or rate him that high. And as you said, it’s a crap shoot.

$250m… signed to age 41.
It ain’t as bad as the Crawford contract, but it could be bad.

Dice-K has posted a 9.6 WAR in 5 years, at close to $90m. This year doesn’t look too good so far. He will end up being a terrific bust. Is Yu better? Much better, me thinks.

However, how can you bash Cashman over Pavano and now Pineda, yet insist Yu is worth the money…. especially considering our farm and future budget?

Again, there is a LOT of crap shoot to this.

Night just got much better.

Hatred is a small warming flame, but a flame, nonetheless.

Darvish is a big boy. MLB size. And he looks fit. I suppose the question is how long will his arm last.

Whatever happens with him this year, it’s going to be exciting, and I just wish we didn’t have to watch it happen in fucking Texas.