You might have noticed that the New York Yankees have not played any post-season games and are not scheduled to play any post-season games this month. You probably know why.
Loyalists will say the Yankees didn’t make the playoffs because of catastrophic injuries to Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson. That’s one excuse. I have a different one:
The Yankees planned for next season before they played this one.
General manager Brian Cashman, who did not return telephone calls over the course of a week seeking comment, was so intent on meeting Hal Steinbrenner’s orders and so obedient in fulfilling his desires that he let productive players defect, leaving the Yankees short of players who could have filled in for the injured.
Russell Martin and Nick Swisher, meanwhile, went to the playoffs while the Yankees went home. Martin was especially instrumental in helping Pittsburgh get where the Yankees wanted to be.
To think that the Pirates were able to outbid the Yankees is mind-boggling, but that’s what happened. The Pirates offered the catcher a second year, which Cashman was unwilling to do because the second year would be 2014, which the Yankees had designated the year of the tax threshold.
The magic figure for the payroll that year is $189 million. If the Yankees exceed that threshold, they would have to pay a 50 percent tax on the amount over $189 million because of their tax history. However, if they are under $189 million, they would not only avoid paying any tax in 2014, but they would also see their tax rate for 2015 fall to 17.5 percent as the graduated tax rate would start at the beginning.
Admittedly, the Yankees would benefit in a major economic way if they stay under the threshold next season, but to the Yankees of George Steinbrenner’s days losing a chance to win it all wouldn’t have been worth the tax savings.
These, though, are not George Steinbrenner’s Yankees; they are Hal Steinbrenner’s Yankees, and it’s not a case of like father, like son. In fact, read this transcript of an alleged conversation between George and Beelzebub.
Beezy: George, what’s going on with that kid of yours?
George: Whaddya mean? It’s not his fault all those guys got hurt.
Beezy: I know that. In fact, that was my doing. I just wanted to test the kid. I wanted to see if he was made of the same stuff as you were. The two of us deserved each other, one a born liar, the other convicted. Two peas in a pod. But the kid doesn’t have what you did. The company’s revenue slips a little, and he’s ready to panic and send your team into the dumps.
George: Yeah, he must have gotten that from his mother.
I doubt that Hal Steinbrenner or Cashman or any of the Yankees’ brain trust anticipated dropping into the dumps before putting their austerity plan into effect. But given their also-ran status, they are initiating it from weakness, not strength.
They didn’t anticipate the problems they would have, even without the injuries. The Yankees have a serious age (old-age) problem, and Cashman seemed to ignore its approach. The core of the roster was old: Mariano Rivera 43, Andy Pettitte 41, Derek Jeter 39, Ichiro Suzuki 39, Hiroki Kuroda 38, Alex Rodriguez 38, Lyle Overbay 36, Travis Hafner 36.
CC Sabathia, at 33, is not old chronologically, but this year he pitched as though his arm was weary from all of the pitches he has thrown in his career.
Rivera and Pettitte are retiring, having said their emotional good byes the last weekend of the season. The status of Rodriguez is unknown as he fights his 211-game suspension in baseball’s grievance, although to hear his lawyers bellow you would think they are engaged in the trial of the century.
Jeter’s status is also uncertain. It’s not every season that a player goes on the disabled list four separate times, but that’s what Jeter did this year. As remarkable a player as he has been, it would not be surprising if he came back and not only played but played well. It would also not be surprising if he came back and discovered he was finished.
Teixeira, who will turn 34 just after next opening day, isn’t quite in the old-age category, but he continues to recuperate from surgery for a wrist injury that limited him to 15 games last season. Jeter played 17.
The Yankees seem to be basing their ability to get below $189 million on the number of players who are coming off the roster as players become free agents. Of 189 players eligible for free agency, 16 are members of the Yankees.
All of then, however, are not big-contract players, and the Yankees will have to try to sign some free agents to fill holes.
“They have so much to replace and they have a lousy farm system,” said a person long involved in baseball. “I don’t see how they can make that” – $189 million – “a guideline. They have so much work to do to even to have a chance of making the playoffs. Under or over 189, I’d bet they’ll go over 189. They have so many holes, so many who can’t help.”
Mention of the farm system was interesting because the Yankees’ is unproductive.
That’s another of Cashman’s failures. He has been the team’s general manager for 16 years, and the Yankees have never developed a decent, let alone good, farm system during his tenure. Rivera, Pettitte, Jeter and Jorge Posada, the so-called “core four,” preceded him, and players like Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes have failed to develop as expected.
In fact, Chamberlain’s failure, I suspect, can be traced to the Yankees’ treatment of him, their procrastination over whether he should be a starter or a reliever and moving him back and forth between the two assignments. It’s a general manager’s responsibility to make that decision and not to make it differently every year.
It’s ironic that Casman has to slash the payroll because he has benefited from the Yankees’ perennially gargantuan payroll. I have long said Cashman wasn’t operating on the same payroll level as most of his counterparts with other teams, and now he will find out they have been dealing with for years.
Now that I have written that sentence, I have to admit quickly how silly it is. A payroll of $189 million doesn’t exactly fall into pauper territory, or that of the Pirates or Athletics either. Except for the Yankees, the only team with a payroll of $189 million or higher has been this year’s Los Angeles Dodgers.
The last time the Yankees were under $189 million was in 2004 when they closed the season with a $183 million payroll, nevertheless No. 1 in the majors.
TALE OF THE GAME 7 GANG
The name of the old baseball movie with Ray Milland and Paul Douglas was “It Happens Every Spring.” This is about how it happens every Oct.13.
What happens is the rebroadcast of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. It’s not just any rebroadcast; it’s a special public event held at the section of the left field fence over which Bill Mazeroski’s home run soared for a game-ending10-9 victory over the New York Yankees.
“That’s the defining moment of every sports event I’ve ever gone to,” said Herb Soltman of Pittsburgh, president of the Game 7 Gang, the group that makes sure it happens every year on the anniversary of the game.
Soltman, a retired 78-year-old businessman, was talking on the telephone Saturday, the day before the annual event. The weather was warm and sunny, and Soltman was hoping for similar weather for Sunday. After all, who wants to sit or stand listening to a baseball game in Schenley Park in the rain, even if at the end the Pirates win the World Series.
“In 1985,” Soltman related, “Saul Finkelstein was having a bad day. He had a cassette recording of the game, and he took it to the wall and sat there listening to it.”
A little publicity spread word of the rebroadcast, and fans began joining Finkelstein.
“I heard about it in 1992,” Soltman said. “I was on the road and heard about it on the car radio. I made a U turn and headed for the wall.”
With crowds increasing to about 200, a group of the fans decided they should have a name and a leader. They chose Game 7 Gang as the name and Soltman as president.
In 2000, the 40th anniversary of the historic home run, Mazeroski himself showed up. “At about 1:45,” Soltman recalled, “a white limousine pulled up, and Maz and Nellie Briles got out.
On the 50th anniversary, Soltman said, the crowd was an estimated 1,500 to 1,700. More players showed up, too, including Dick Groat, the Pirates’ 1960 shortstop and National League most valuable player.
At some point, Groat got up to leave, Soltman recounted, saying he had an appointment he had to keep.
“You’re going to miss the best part of the game,” Soltman said he told Groat.
“I saw it,” Groat replied and left.
The rebroadcast, Soltman said, has attracted fans from all over the country, including, California, Colorado , Texas , Illinois and New Hampshire. And one of the things he’s proudest of? “We have never had a rainout,” he said.
MONEY BALL IT IS
Now that the post-season is down to a precious few, it is obvious that the low-payroll teams can go only so far and then get out of the way and let the rich kids go the rest of the way.
The Yankees and the Phillies, with two of the top three payrolls, are home licking their wounds, but the Dodgers, the Red Sox and the Tigers, the other three of the top five, remain in the playoffs.
The poorest payroll team still in the running for the World Series is the Cardinals, No. 11.