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as in the baseball team, not all the nice yankees on the base. How can anyone enjoy what`s happening in baseball right now? The yankees have thrown out $423.5 Mil for 3 baseball players in the last couple of weeks....3 guys who play baseball....almost 1/2 billion dollars...its insane...it literally makes me despise the game at the professional level so much so that i don`t think i can be bothered to spend any amount of time following it anymore
7/17/95-Craven
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I used to like the Yankees (Jays have always been/will be my favorite team)...but the way they've been throwing money around the last few years makes me sick, and the contracts they handed out this past week are ridicouls. With ARod & Jeter, they now have the 4 highest paid players in the MLB.
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I understand that the game today is heavily rooted within it's past, it's history, it's legends and it's glory. I get that. I understand the tradition, and it being the 'Great American Past-time'. But every other major sports league changes frequently (the NHL, annually). I can understand the hesitancy to alienate the hundreds of thousands of fans who cling to that prized mantra. Ah, tradition.
Really though, I think the game would be far more exciting, and far more profitable for both the league, the individual teams, and the broadcasting entities if they simply implemented a couple of modifications. Amongst them: a $120-$150 million salary cap would be enviable. Not only would that create a more level playing field (no pun intended), but it would produce an incentive for teams like the Jays in the $70-90 million salary range to perhaps consider additional investment with confirmation that the team as a whole would likely (based on market value) be as competitive as the AL East monsters. It would also encourage a stronger emphasis on AA and AAA development (cheap talent).
Secondly, I can't for the life of me fathom (except for the aforementioned projection of the 'tradition') why they don't implement a playoff format akin to that of the NBA, NFL, and NHL. Simply make each division's top two teams eligible for the play-offs along with two wild-card teams. Cut the season by 16 games. Start the play-offs in mid-September. On a purely broadcast revenue basis the league would win. Twice as many playoff games (which generally have a far higher broadcast audience) and you don't risk losing the broadcast audience and ticket sales for a team who would 'traditionally' be play-off longshots, or outright lame-duck participants in August, or sometimes as early as June.
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As much as I dislike the way the Yankees throw money at players like drunken sailors, a salary cap (a prudent financial move, btw) would never work because the player's union would never allow it to happen unless the owners guarantee 60 percent or more of team revenue going towards players' salaries. Since the gate money (and TV revenue) is a team's lifeblood, the owners will not want to do that unless they get a hard cap, which if I'm mistaken, doesn't actually exist in the NFL, NHL or NBA.
I'm a traditionalist when it comes to baseball so I think das_hips's playoff suggestion, while interesting and plausible, not the best way to go. The long grind of the season, all the road games, etc, is what separates the men from the boys. The Yankees, cursed be thy name, actually had good grinders (Bernie Williams, Scott Brosius, Paul O'Neill) that helped pick up the pieces when the overpaid pretty boys were in a slump.
The Yankee management may think that overpaying for top talent will win them the World Series that their fans and city seem to demand as their yearly due, but it doesnt mean that it is a done deal. I tend to think that enlarging the field of contenders as das_hip suggests will dilute the quality of the playoffs. The NFL has a shorter season, so theoretically, a 9-7 or 10-6 team can get all the way to the Super Bowl if they play good at the right time.
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"I'm lovin' it"
now, all that's left on the agenda for the offseason:
acquire Mike Cameron, or sign Raul Ibanez...
sign Pettitte or Sheets.
later haters.
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until there is a salary cap, i am never, ever attending another MLB game again. book it.
