GO FOR 2

Ah the New York Yankees, they’re the quintessential polarizing sports team. You either love the Yankees, or you love to hate them. Honestly, I’m the latter, but I’m going to do my best to look at them objectively here.

Right now, the Yankees are 39-32 and tied for second place in the AL East, 5 games back of the Boston Red Sox. That doesn’t sound so bad, but its a little more complicated than that. The Yankees are tied with the Jays, who have been playing surprisingly good ball, and the Yanks are only 2 games ahead of the Rays who also have a loaded roster. That leaves the Yankees only squarely ahead of one team in the AL East, the lowly Orioles (and there’s only a seven game gap there). As far as trying to argue that the AL East somehow makes this situation different, don’t bother, you’re wasting my time. Its a solid division, sure, but these teams aren’t that amazing and they certainly aren’t untouchable juggernauts. The Rays just got cleaned out at home by the surging Rockies, the Jays lost 2 of 3 against the bottom-dwelling Nationals, and the Red Sox lost back-to-back games against the Marlins and the Braves.

The Yankees currently have deeper issues as well. There’s the entire A-Rod saga: he used performance enhancing drugs, he had the hip problem, he came back, now he’s too ‘fatigued’ to play. You have the ace CC Sabathia who has tendonitis in his pitching arm, this is very serious because he’s been carrying a bullpen that has underperformed all year. You also have the coaching issue, whether firing Torre was the right move or not (it wasn’t) now there’s an issue with Girardi. The mysterious Steinbrenner clan hasn’t touched Girardi or hitting coach Kevin Long yet, but that in no way means they’ll make it through the season.

Ok, fine, so you have a team that is playing ok ball, still competing for the division, and has some pretty standard MLB problems. What makes the Yankees so special? The name, the history, the completely undeserved swagger? Well, yes, but its mainly the payroll. The Yankees have a 2009 payroll of 200,449,189 million dollars, more than 50,000,000 dollars more than any other team in baseball.

Its not just this year, either. The Yankees have had a league leading payroll for a long time now. It was 218.3 million dollars in 2007, and 182.8 million back in 2004. So over that 5 year period how many world series have the boys in pinstripes won? 0. How many AL pennants? Still 0.

In fact, the last time the Yankees won an AL pennant was in 2003, and the last time they won a wolrd series was way back in 2000 (when the payroll totalled slightly less than 95 million). So more than 100 million dollars in payroll increases over only 9 years, and basically nothing to show for it? Well, the Yankees did have 2 world series appearances, but when you’re pouring out money in a city with expectations, this just frankly isn’t enough. 

Meanwhile, the Arizona Diamondbacks, Anaheim Angels, Florida Marlins, and Philadelphia Phillies have all won a series since 2000, and only the Phillies are even in the top HALF of the MLB team payrolls. Likewise, the St. Louis Cardinals have two appearances (one win), and the Colorado Rockies have one appearance since 2000 – neither team is curently in the top 15 in MLB payroll.

So, maybe the huge bankroll helps you get into the playoffs, maybe it helps bring home some division crowns. It clearly doesn’t guarantee you a trip to the series, and it arguably doesn’t even increase your chances. But at the end of the day, its all about the championship, and peeling off more bills than anyone else clearly doesn’t help you bring one home. Whether the pinstripes make you beam with pride or gag and vomit doesn’t matter, two things are simply undeniable…you can’t buy your trophy, and noone with the last name Steinbrenner is ever going to figure that out.