{"id":740,"date":"2009-02-09T13:46:02","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T18:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/?p=740"},"modified":"2017-06-20T09:17:29","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T14:17:29","slug":"maybe-money-does-buy-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2009\/02\/09\/maybe-money-does-buy-happiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe money does buy happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commentary<\/strong><\/p>\n

With America’s economy in shambles, most Major League Baseball teams decided to keep their wallets in their pockets during the offseason.\u00a0 Of course, the New York Yankees had to buck that trend.<\/p>\n

The Bronx Bombers shelled out $423.5 million to pitchers C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett and first baseman Mark Teixeira.\u00a0 That’s an entire stimulus package given to three men.\u00a0 Don’t forget about the new $1.3 billion Yankee Stadium that opens up this spring.<\/p>\n

The Yankee organization isn’t hiding their desperation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sabathia has pitched 494 innings during the last two seasons.\u00a0 At that pace, his arm will fall off before President Obama’s first term is up.<\/p>\n

The move that continues to make me shake my head is the signing of Burnett.\u00a0 The Yankees committed $82.5 million over five seasons to Burnett.\u00a0 Elbow problems have plagued Burnett’s career.\u00a0 Only twice during his 10-year career has Burnett reached 30 or more starts.\u00a0 Also, Burnett’s issues with his control are memorable.\u00a0 During his no-hitter in 2001, Burnett walked nine batters.\u00a0 Proof that he has stuff, but can his throwing elbow avoid destruction?<\/p>\n

The signing of Teixeira made the most sense for New York.\u00a0 He brings a career .290 batting average to the Bronx, driving in 100 or more runs in five consecutive years.\u00a0 Along with gold-glove caliber defense, the switch-hitting Teixeira provides the Yankees with a productive and reliable middle-of-the-order bat.\u00a0 The best part of all this:\u00a0 for the one-time price of only $180 million.<\/p>\n

So after spending nearly half of a billion dollars, will the Yankees buy themselves a World Series title?\u00a0 Last I checked, money does buy Carl Pavano but not World Series rings.<\/p>\n

The payroll continues to escalate along with the age of the team.\u00a0 Organizations like the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays have decided to field younger and faster players.\u00a0 New York resembles the complete opposite: old and slow.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong.\u00a0 The Yankees will contend for their divisional crown and will be favored to win it all.<\/p>\n

Since New York’s last title in 2000, seven teams have won the World Series and only one organization had lifted the trophy with a payroll of more than $100 million (Red Sox 2004, 2007).<\/p>\n

Listen up, Yanks.\u00a0 When your 2008 opening day payroll of $209,081,577 buys you a third place finish, and the Rays with an opening day payroll of $43,745,597 win your American League East, it’s a bit embarrassing.<\/p>\n

Good luck buying your way out of your next mess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commentary With America’s economy in shambles, most Major League Baseball teams decided to keep their wallets in their pockets during the offseason.\u00a0 Of course, the New York Yankees had to buck that trend. The Bronx Bombers shelled out $423.5 million to pitchers C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett and first baseman Mark Teixeira.\u00a0 That’s an entire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1272,1395],"class_list":["post-740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-joseph-stueve","tag-sports-commentary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-bW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":742,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions\/742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}