Hoenn Champion
I know he didn't deserve the loss, but the one run he allowed was because of an error he made.Originally Posted by TheWatersGreatGuardian
Also, the Rays helped Sabathia break a career high in home runs allowed in a game with 5. Rays are looking good recently, and Yankees are sliding a little bit. Hopefully this keeps going until October.
play a game with me
Not really. It only looks like the Yankees have been sliding a bit since they went up against the Red Sox and they haven't done too well against them. Besides the recent Boston series, the Yankees haven't lost a series since before the All-star break. They've split a few but they have only lost that one.
pirate detective
Hoenn Champion
Maybe I exaggerated, but the way ESPN was talking about Mariano Rivera and the Yanks, made them seem like they were losing 5 in a row.
There it is.
I hate it when ESPN makes a huge deal about someone having a bad spot here and there. Mariano Rivera has had tough stretches like this in his career before. He'll pull through. And so will the Yankees, who will probably win the AL Wild Card.
Legendary Trainer
Or it could be possible that the sun is setting on Rivera's MLB career. He is no exactly young anymore. This may be one of the reasons why the Yankees gave Soriano that dumb contract and gave a divison rival their first round pick, to have a closer to take over for Rivera when he retires.
btw there really is no "probably" about the Yankees winning the wild card. The Rays front office slashed payroll big time this year and didn't really spend any money to try and shore up the bullpen. For the Rays to overtake the yankees for the Wild Card, the Yankees would have to utterly implode. Its a sad state that baseball is in imo. Unless you are lucky enough to be a fan of a big market team, your team only has a small window to win a world series before your stars that have come up through your farm system become too expensive and the big markets come offer them contracts that the small market team can't hope to match.
"What good is it for a man to gain the world, yet forfeit his soul?"
There it is.
Luckily, I have the excuse of being born in New York to be a Yankees fan. I moved to the Philadelphia area when I was 6. But you're right. I highly doubt that the Yankees will implode, but I disagree with Rivera being in the twilight of his career. The guy's been too clutch throughout his life. He'll bounce back. Every great pitcher has a bad streak of 3-4 outings where they just don't have good stuff.
Legendary Trainer
This doesn't stop a pitcher from getting older.
At least you were born in new york and are supporting your home team. Many yankee "Fans" here in Flordia that I have met don't have a connection to new york. They follow the Yankees because its an easy team to follow. Being a fan of them doesn't require them to go through many bad years where they can't brag about "their" team. I guess it makes them feel important or something.
You give the smart Rays FO a payroll of the Yankees or Red Sox, and I bet the Rays have a ring by now. They almost got one with a 40 million dollar payroll.
"What good is it for a man to gain the world, yet forfeit his soul?"
There it is.
Yea, but it's kind of hard to imagine the Rays continuing with their Moneyball-esque tactics if they had the kind of money that the Yankees, Phillies, or Red Sox had. When you have that much to spend, it'll probably get spent, whether it backfires or not. (see: Carl Pavano.)
Legendary Trainer
true. But it would just be nice to be able to keep a player we have watched develop from the minor leagues, to an MLB star, instead of having the evil free agencey take them from us
Curse you scott boras and all those like you :P
"What good is it for a man to gain the world, yet forfeit his soul?"
There it is.
Scott Boras=Genius. How he managed to get teams to pay A-Rod for two 10 year contracts worth a combined total of $524 million is beyond me. The guy's really good at what he does, but does he really deserve over half a billion dollars? Apparently Boras can convince teams to think so.
_
Come on now. You signed Longoria to a long-term, team-friendly contract almost as soon as you called him up and as such, you have a guy who is 26 and who is a top 5 AL third baseman in his best years under team control until 2016 and making no more than $11.5 million in even the most expensive of those seasons, a figure of which he's worth every penny.
Carl Crawford aside, is there really anyone else in your illustrious 13-year history that the Rays developed, brought up, watched blossom into stardom and then lost to free agency or sent away in a pre-free agency trade that the team would really have been better off for continuing to have on the roster?
Jade Star Trainer
Go Red Sox! I hope they win the division, but I literally see them having no chance in the post season against the Phillies. I think they could get by any team in the AL, but not sure about the Phillies.
Diamondbacks are looking good. Didn't think they'd be beating the Giants.
Watch out for the Angels in the AL West. It's Texas' division to win or lose.
While the Red Sox and Yankees do spend a lot of money, a lot of their team's success (especially this year) has been coming from either home grown talent (Ellsbury, Pedroia, Lester, Gardner, Cano, etc) or minor free agent signings (Colon, Garcia, Nova, etc). So while they spend a lot for players like Texeira, A-Rpd, Crawford, and Gonzalez, their success comes from cheap minor deals or home grown talent. I know it's amazing that Colon and Garcia are so successful, but they didn't spend a lot for them. Goes to show money isn't everything especially when both teams don't win year to year. Rays are the best money-managed team in baseball (in my opinion).
Last edited by adam1990; 14th August 2011 at 2:54 PM.
play a game with me
Thome hit 600 home runs. Hall of Fame here he comes.
pirate detective
Legendary Trainer
Home grown does factor in to it. But I seriously doubt the Yankees would have won it all in 2009 without the mega money they spent on Burnett, Sabathia, and Texeira in the offseason. and I doubt the Red Sox would be as good as they are this year without the mega bucks they spent on A-gon.
IMO its just not right for 1 team to be able to simply outspend the competetion.
"What good is it for a man to gain the world, yet forfeit his soul?"
_
Except for where Posada, Cano, Jeter and Cabrera were all regulars in that year's lineup and were all completely homegrown.
Furthermore, Nick Swisher was acquired with pieces from their farm system (and not even very good ones at that) and Alex Rodriguez, as much as their money allowed them to trade for him and keep him, was also acquired for Alfonso Soriano, another player they developed.
So that's four regulars - catcher, second base, shortstop, center field - from their farm system and another two - right field, third base - traded for using pieces from their system.
And that's completely ignoring pitching. Some dude named Mariano was also a homegrown product. Of the the four starting pitchers who pitched consistently over the course of the reason, two of them - Joba and Pettite - were Yankee products, though if you really wanted to, you could argue Pettite was one of their "mega money" acquisitions, since he did return to the Yankees as a free agent from Houston.
You ever notice how these "THEY BOUGHT A CHAMPIONSHIP!!!" arguments, as far as simple roster breakdowns, don't usually hold up to scrutiny?
Except for where there isn't a thing truly stopping any other team from spending the exact same amount of money.
Pro sports are a business. Pro baseball is a business. The Yankees are a business, and relevant to this discussion, they are a business that operates in a way that gives them the money to bring in the assets they need to be more successful. It's that simple. What's "not right" is the claim that they're doing anything wrong.
Last edited by BCVM22; 16th August 2011 at 10:36 PM.
Legendary Trainer
I did say homegrown factored into it, but without the free agents they got that year, especially Burnett and Sabathia, there is no way they win the world series.
and you seriously think a small market team like the pirates, rays, etc, could afford to sign those players? No way. Thats my point. Small teams can't afford to go out and sign the superstars the big ones do.
No its not against the rules, but yes the playing field is uneven in the MLB. Its one of the only sports without a cap.
"What good is it for a man to gain the world, yet forfeit his soul?"
There it is.
I absolutely agree. However, 600 home runs isn't what it used to be, because 3 people- Bonds, Rodriguez, and Sosa- did it with the use of PEDs. The other 5 however- Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Griffey, and Thome- are some of the greatest power hitters of all time. Griffey definitely gets in. I think Thome should, but realisticly, probably not on the first ballot, because the number isn't what it used to be.
_
You could make that argument, but we've just established that for as many high-priced free agents as they bring in, they populate the roster with almost as many traded or homegrown players.
Sure they could. It would cripple their payrolls, but they could.
The only one of the four majors, actually, but that's neither here nor there.
The point is that as much as you protest the inequality of the playing field (and as much as you may even have a point to some degree), the teams simply are doing nothing wrong by spending their money as they see fit.
So the rest of the teams have two choices, as I see it: they can either sit around and complain about a handful of teams spending a ton of money, or they can draft well, develop well and produce well between their system and whatever mid-level free agents they need, and in any number of cases, end up producing a roster perfectly capable of going toe-to-toe with the big spenders.
Were you complaining about the New York/Boston payroll(s) when the Rays won the division two of the last three seasons?
Legendary Trainer
Exactly, they could, but its not practical for them to do so (cripple their payroll)
and the Rays have given me my best years as a tampa bay baseball fan, and was imo, an amazing accomplishment. however, herin lies another problem. As you saw, The Rays could not -practically- afford to keep the major players that won those division titles. Teams like the Rays have a small window to win once their talent develops before the players become too expensive.
"What good is it for a man to gain the world, yet forfeit his soul?"
_
Funny thing about that. I asked this--
--and got no response from you.
Who, exactly, is it that you felt you lost from the 2008 and 2010 teams - due to their first free agency, either arrived or impending, to be more specific - that would be that much of an asset to you this year?
Crawford, absolutely. No arguments there. Who else? Longoria is still on the roster, and still playing on that tremendously team-friendly, long-term contract the Rays signed him to almost as soon as he came up. Zobrist is very productive; he's still there. Same with Upton. Who else is it that's missing?
I'm not going to lie - I went down the Tampa Bay roster for the last five years or so and there weren't really any names besides Crawford that jumped off the Retrosheet page at me.
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