Many argue that with the retirement of Derek Jeter, the Yankee dynasty is officially over. The dynasty was a truly amazing run that begun in 1993 and arguably was over by 2012, though even the last two years they won 85 and 84 games respectively. What is described as Yankee mediocrity is kind of different than what is considered mediocrity by other clubs like the permanently mediocre NY Mets.
"The Mets are seen as up and coming this year and when have they won as many as 84 games? 2008, the year before the last Yankee WS ring. The Mets haven't even had a winning season or even 80 wins during that period. Yet, they are the team on the upswing and the Yanks are the team in the doldrums. In 2008, the Mets blew their second big lead with a few games left to play in as many years. Another big choke."
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-age-of-new-york-yankees-medicority.html
Still, you have to wonder if the Yanks are in danger now of becoming just another baseball team.
"An organization at a different sort of crossroads is the New York Yankees. With the retirement of Derek Jeter, the Yankees are finally closing the curtain on the last of the extraordinary group of homegrown players they developed in the 1990s (following Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera). It was this core, more than their obvious payroll advantages, that led to five World Series titles and two decades of contention. They sort of contended the past two seasons, winning 85 and 84 games, but there was a fair bit of luck involved – they were outscored both years."
"GM Brian Cashman now presides over a $210 million payroll largely taken up with bad contracts, and his ownership seems committed to holding the line on payroll until some of these contracts can be discarded or expire. Heading into the offseason, many observers doubted the Yankees would stick to their guns, but they did, passing on the high-priced players they usually pursue, instead making comparatively lower-risk moves for Andrew Miller, Didi Gregorius and Chase Headley. Besides his budget constraints, Cashman is also being influenced by his own growing analytics department, which is pointing him toward undervalued players like Headley."
"The Mets are seen as up and coming this year and when have they won as many as 84 games? 2008, the year before the last Yankee WS ring. The Mets haven't even had a winning season or even 80 wins during that period. Yet, they are the team on the upswing and the Yanks are the team in the doldrums. In 2008, the Mets blew their second big lead with a few games left to play in as many years. Another big choke."
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/03/on-age-of-new-york-yankees-medicority.html
Still, you have to wonder if the Yanks are in danger now of becoming just another baseball team.
"An organization at a different sort of crossroads is the New York Yankees. With the retirement of Derek Jeter, the Yankees are finally closing the curtain on the last of the extraordinary group of homegrown players they developed in the 1990s (following Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera). It was this core, more than their obvious payroll advantages, that led to five World Series titles and two decades of contention. They sort of contended the past two seasons, winning 85 and 84 games, but there was a fair bit of luck involved – they were outscored both years."
"GM Brian Cashman now presides over a $210 million payroll largely taken up with bad contracts, and his ownership seems committed to holding the line on payroll until some of these contracts can be discarded or expire. Heading into the offseason, many observers doubted the Yankees would stick to their guns, but they did, passing on the high-priced players they usually pursue, instead making comparatively lower-risk moves for Andrew Miller, Didi Gregorius and Chase Headley. Besides his budget constraints, Cashman is also being influenced by his own growing analytics department, which is pointing him toward undervalued players like Headley."
"For Yankees fans under the age of 35 or so, this is new territory. Contending is not out of the question – the American League East is not what it once was – but Cashman shuffling pieces around hoping to win 88 games is not what we have been accustomed to watching. And if ownership remains committed to its payroll limit, next offseason will be more of the same – none of the big contracts expire until after 2016. For now, the Yankees are left hoping for some bounce-back from players like Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia."
So what comes next? The Yankees’ farm system is improving, no mean feat considering how they never have high picks, and have often lost their first-round picks for signing free agents. Fans waiting for another “Core Five” will be disappointed – that group was a rare occurrence – but getting some lower-salaried production out of their system is what will allow them to go out to the market in a couple of years without breaking the bank. In the meantime, they are asking for time."
http://www.hardballtimes.com/the-2015-season-preview-in-pursuing-pennants/
It almost makes me buy into a particular piece of ideology I hear sometimes: The Yankees have lost the will to win. If George were here you'd never see this.
See, Steinbrenner, would never have permitted the Yankees to become just another baseball team. Now, the team acts like Nelson Doubleday, owner of the Mets, who cares about nothing but saving money and making a tidy profit. After all, with today's revenue sharing, the incentive to build a winner is actually less-you're guaranteed a certain amount of revenue. The last thing the player's union should allow is revenue sharing of ticket revenue, incidentally. If there much be revenue sharing it should be done with tv revenue-as this has little to do with players' salaries.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/predicting-major-league-baseball-salary-growth/
Of course, all this Steinbrenner nostalgia is more than a little ironic if you remember history-and I actually do even as I'm tempted to feel nostalgia. As a Yankee fan, I always saw George as a pain in the ass. The good thing was that he would spend the money-whatever it took-to build a winner. He seemed to care about the Yankees winning as much as any fan. That's the part that I'm tempted to miss now.
Yet, when his son's basically retired him back in 2007, I tended to see this as a good and fine thing. After all, all the money would still be there but there'd be no George firing managers for losing minor league games to the Mets, accusing Lou Pinella of stealing office furniture and putting too much pressure on the players and manager. I for one, am not a big believer that you want to put undue pressure on a team to do well. I would probably agree that some players may need more pressure than others-some may need pressure, while others need to feel little if any-overall it's just absurd to put as much pressure as he did on the team.
When his boys finally canned him in 2007 it was after George had threatened that if the Yankees don't win their playoff series-that they ended up losing-then Joe Torre-who'd only won 4 world series, including 3 in a row between 1998 and 2000-and had taken the team to 2 other world series, and many more division titles, would be fired.
Of course, the team did win-the Yanks had a truly astonishing dynasty starting in the early 90s that went on for 20 years. So maybe George did know what he was doing? However, to make this leap forgets what actually happened. When he took over the team in the early 70s, he took this proud franchise that had become 'just another baseball team' after 1964. From then till 1973 when George came in, the team wasn't necessarily awful, but just wasn't that great. All I know, and as a fan all I care about, is that the Yanks became the Yanks again, winning 2 world series, 3 pennants, and 4 division titles between 1976 and 1981.
In 1978 they had what was unprecedented-a rally from 14 and 1/2 down to beat out the Red Sox and win a second straight championship-amazingly this in a season that Billy Martin was fired and Bob Lemon came in the middle of the season. That was the Yankees under George Steinbrenner.
In the 80s, things fell off. Again-by the standards of most teams the Yanks were far from bad; they won 90 plus games most seasons and contended, but after losing the 1981 WS to the Dodgers, they usually ended up being the bridesmaids rather than the brides. Steinbrenner was always willing to open his checkbook, but often he seemed to spend it in the wrong places.
Then true tragedy struck. The team actually had a losing season in 1989 and in 1990, they lost 95 games which were the most the team had lost since 1913. Most Yankee fans were like me-we blamed George. Saturday Night Live did a sketch where Yankee fans watched news reports hoping that he might die in some way.
On Seinfeld, George Constanza-another George-launched into a hagangue about how Steinbrenner has 'made our New York Yankees a laughing stock'-and somehow this got him a job with the Yankees.
Many felt that Fay Vincent had somehow gone beyond his authority in throwing Steinbrenner from the game for 2 years, but as a Yankee fan, I welcomed the decision-for whatever the reason; I mean who cared?! We had some peace and respite from the meddler. Then came those amazing prospects from the Yankee farm team; for those who make a big deal out of the Yankee financial advantage, remember the foundation of the dynasty was from the farm team while Steinbrenner was out.
Then when George came back he was still George, but he seemed somewhat changed. Before he had changed managers more than he changed socks but after he returned he was Captain Hook anymore with managers. True, he did fire Buck Showalter after 1995, which hardly seemed fair with all his success with the team the previous 3 years-though even 3 years was a long time for one manager with Steinbrenner. But somehow Joe Torre lasted 12 years.
The truth is, it's obviously preferable to have ownership with the most money it's not by itself any guarantee and we've seen countless flops of teams with money. Money isn''t the only factor-in football, the two richest owners have often been quite ineffective-Jerry Jones and Redskins owner Dan Snyder.
Still, I still worry. Does the current Yankee ownership realize-as George did-what it means to own this franchise and that you have extra responsibility in owning it? Let's hope so.
P.S, Though I loath his moral posturing on steroids, Bill Madden has a good looking book on Steinbrenner.
http://www.amazon.com/Steinbrenner-Last-Baseball-Bill-Madden-ebook/dp/B003GYEH1U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428076389&sr=1-1&keywords=george+steinbrenner
UPDATE: In reading Madden, what's interesting is that it seems to show that lightning indeed struck twice when looking at Steinbrenner's record. When the Yanks really got good in the 70s, it was mostly during the time that he was preoccupied with an indictment for illegal campaign contributions to Nixon-he also made some to some leading Democrats so he just wanted to feel like he had 'influence.'
So the Yanks became great both times when he was suspended from the game. So the winning formula seems to be Steinbrenner is a great owner-when he's suspended from the game for a year or two.
UPDATE: In reading Madden, what's interesting is that it seems to show that lightning indeed struck twice when looking at Steinbrenner's record. When the Yanks really got good in the 70s, it was mostly during the time that he was preoccupied with an indictment for illegal campaign contributions to Nixon-he also made some to some leading Democrats so he just wanted to feel like he had 'influence.'
So the Yanks became great both times when he was suspended from the game. So the winning formula seems to be Steinbrenner is a great owner-when he's suspended from the game for a year or two.
