No, I don't think that describes the 1996 to 2001 Yankees at all.

I think that more typically describes the 2004 to 2013 Yankees, which were successful for sure, and ultimately once, but I wouldn't describe that era as the Yankees at their best. Murder's Row and Cano was good and fine, but all of us Yankees should remember how fickle baseball can be.

THIS is the fallacy sports fans get fooled by. That the Red Sox success is just going to repeat itself if they have largely the same roster next year.

Sometimes teams just have good years and it doesn't mean the same results will repeat themselves year after year. If this were the case, or even common, we'd have more dynasties in baseball, which are in fact, rare.

I don't think you should assume a fan is frustrated just because he has high standards. I definitely enjoyed watching the regular season. I like many of the players and there were many fun games. And I enjoy discussing the team critically. That said, I did taper my expectations because I thought it was just a one-year luxury tax reset. If we pass on all the top players this off-season, I'm not really sure how I'll approach next year as a fan.

Bonn1997 wrote:

No, I don't think that describes the 1996 to 2001 Yankees at all.

Let's not glorify their methods those years. They did outspend the league. They never started a season with just the 7th most expensive roster.

Not suggesting otherwise. But the spread was not as pronounced and the methods were somewhat different. The beginning of the Giambi era did mark the beginning of Steinbrenner exerting more influence.

The disparity became more pronounced but the postseason results went the other way. As I posted previously, you eventually begin subjecting yourself to the laws of diminishing returns.

THIS is the fallacy sports fans get fooled by. That the Red Sox success is just going to repeat itself if they have largely the same roster next year.

Sometimes teams just have good years and it doesn't mean the same results will repeat themselves year after year. If this were the case, or even common, we'd have more dynasties in baseball, which are in fact, rare.

There is some truth to that though I do think Houston's pitching staff is inherently superior to ours and I think that would replicate virtually every year. Is the goal just to be roughly "on par" with those other teams? In that case, we're behind but not terribly behind. Or is the goal to be ahead of them though?

That's the one thing, however, that can't be addressed with payroll, at least alone. Corbin is maybe the only real pitcher you can just spend on that will move the needle and he's not biting into Houston's advantage that much.

And even Houston's hold is somewhat tenuous. McCullers just had TJS, Keuchel and Morton are FAs, Verlander and Cole will be next year and who would be surprised go see some regression out of ANY of those pitchers this year or next?

I don't think you should assume a fan is frustrated just because he has high standards.

Well, let's be clear here, fans don't have "standards". A standard isn't a preference or a desire in a vacuum. A standard is actionable.

If an employee doesn't meet your standards, you fire him or her. If a meal doesn't meet your standards you send it back and/or stop eating it and probably stop going to that restaurant. If a mobile service doesn't meet your standards you probably switch carriers.

Some fans talk about having "standards" as if its somehow a positive reflection on them and its not. It's vapor at best and self-delusion at worst.

Knowing that, I stopped pretending years ago that the Yankees could do anything and I'd stop being a fan. I don't consider complaining on the internet a reflection of a standard.

That's fine if people enjoy discussing the team critically. Understood. But again, we got to stop pretending being a Yankee fan and/or being a Yankee fan dissatisfied with anything less than a world championship and outspending the field is a skill or accomplishment.

That said, I did taper my expectations because I thought it was just a one-year luxury tax reset. If we pass on all the top players this off-season, I'm not really sure how I'll approach next year as a fan.

And yet, despite tapered expectations, they were an awesome team. 100 wins is an objective accomplishment. They just ran into history in the making.

And their baseline remains a young, awesome team with room to grow and improve.

The difference between me and some other fans is I don't consider recognizing their talent and their accomplishment in 2018 as a shortcoming on my part. I don't think being a fan with higher (actually non-existent) "standards" and considering 2018 a failure or disappointment makes anyone a superior fan. I gave up that nonsense years ago.

Bonn1997 wrote:It IS an actionable standard. The action is that I will stop watching and financially supporting the team if they don't meet my standards, like I've done with the Knicks (not comparing the two organizations overall by any means). For a one-year luxury tax reset situation with a young lineup, last year was a success. If 3rd best in the league is the peak or a maintained plateau, it will be a disappointment though.

That's fine. If you actually stop being a fan/follower I would have a tremendous amount of respect for that.

Last year was a success by any historical standard, without any qualification. They won 100 games over 6 months. The 1996-2001 Yankees topped that once, and included a 92 and 87 win team.

Sometimes great is just objectively great, same way Jacob DeGrom was just objectively great, despite being unimpressive in some ways we measure MLB success.

If the team wins 100 games a year every year for the next decade, any "fan" should sign up for that right now, regardless if sometime during those 10 years some other team(s) wins 102 now and again.

As I say, this is where this misplaced pride some fans have for having "standards" screws with their head. It misses the forest for the trees.

The forest is the Yankees were a great baseball team in 2018. Its a shame some fans can't recognize that.

Knickoftime wrote:
Last year was a success by any historical standard, without any qualification. They won 100 games over 6 months. The 1996-2001 Yankees topped that once, and included a 92 and 87 win team.

Again, you're the one not getting it. A Yankee historical standard is 28 WS wins. You don't mention winning the whole enchilada at all in your posts. You mention winning 100 games, like the Red Sox should have been happy with that if they didn't win the WS. Yankee fans don't measure results by success in the death march of the regular season and count the number of seasonal booby prizes they can think about year after year.

Knickoftime wrote:Sometimes great is just objectively great, same way Jacob DeGrom was just objectively great, despite being unimpressive in some ways we measure MLB success.

If the team wins 100 games a year every year for the next decade, any "fan" should sign up for that right now, regardless if sometime during those 10 years some other team(s) wins 102 now and again.

As I say, this is where this misplaced pride some fans have for having "standards" screws with their head. It misses the forest for the trees.

The forest is the Yankees were a great baseball team in 2018. Its a shame some fans can't recognize that.

You're standing in the regular season meadow, not even in the playoff forest, staring at weeds and calling them trees. It's funny, I wonder if you really understand the meaning of pragmatism. Prattling on endlessly about regular season wins while stating that 'every' and 'all "fans" should be signing up for 100 wins and the World Series rings are just an afterthought for the simpleminded who just don't get it. Amazing.

Pragmatists normally measure value by success. In case you've forgotten, MLB success is not defined by ultimately losing. It's defined by getting that shiny thing with all the flags on it.

Pragmatically, Yankee fans have lots of those things. Lots more than lots of other franchises combined. As a Yankee fan, my measure of success is not wins in the regular season. Did I enjoy watching Donnie Baseball hit all those home runs in a row? Sure did, at the time. Do I give a crap now? Nope. Did I enjoy an 87 win team winning the World Series, yup yup. Do I give a **** that they only won 87 regular season games? Nope nope.

The Yankees were still fun to watch in 2018. They also didn't even qualify to be the first place losers. Is it a possible that I can enjoy the Yankees but still think they need to win the WS every year to be successful? Yes, that is the singular right of the Yankee fan. Cubs and Marlins and Mets fans can live fulfilled baseball lives achieving regular season glory and a few playoff wins every decade or so.

Knickoftime wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Knickoftime wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:It IS an actionable standard. The action is that I will stop watching and financially supporting the team if they don't meet my standards, like I've done with the Knicks (not comparing the two organizations overall by any means). For a one-year luxury tax reset situation with a young lineup, last year was a success. If 3rd best in the league is the peak or a maintained plateau, it will be a disappointment though.

That's fine. If you actually stop being a fan/follower I would have a tremendous amount of respect for that.

Last year was a success by any historical standard, without any qualification. They won 100 games over 6 months. The 1996-2001 Yankees topped that once, and included a 92 and 87 win team.

Sometimes great is just objectively great, same way Jacob DeGrom was just objectively great, despite being unimpressive in some ways we measure MLB success.

If the team wins 100 games a year every year for the next decade, any "fan" should sign up for that right now, regardless if sometime during those 10 years some other team(s) wins 102 now and again.

As I say, this is where this misplaced pride some fans have for having "standards" screws with their head. It misses the forest for the trees.

The forest is the Yankees were a great baseball team in 2018. Its a shame some fans can't recognize that.

They had a great regular season, yeah. That said, they went *into* the season with a roster that was predictably worse than Houston's and probably just on-par with Boston's. If they do that every year, that's not my standards for the Yankees. (I'm not saying that with pride. It's just a description of my expectations.)

Okay, so genuine question.

What's your alternative?

You say you'll stop being a fan of the Yankees.

Are you a fan of baseball? Are you going to stop following the game of baseball because the team you follow doesn't spend more than everyone else?

Are you going to adopt a new team that also doesn't spend more than everyone else, which seems like a lateral move. Or are you going to migrate to following the highest spender each season?

Or are you going to follow baseball without any rooting interest?

None of these options seem to have any upside to me. You say you might un-fan yourself, and I'd respect the conviction of that, I just don't get the point of it.

They have no salary cap constraints after all. And we do know from past years that the Yankees should have sufficient profits to be able to outspend every one else. They're not a poor team that just can't afford a top 5 payroll.

We don't really know anything about the Yankees finances.

And at the end of the day, I like baseball and the Yankees play baseball well. Have for the last 25 years, in a really unprecedented fashion.

I keep that in perspective. As a fan, they're treated me well.

I'm just not that big of a fan of payroll.

Depending on how the team does, I will either enthusiastically watch and be willing to spend some money on the team or spend more time on other hobbies. I've found many things to fill the time I used to spend on the Knicks. (No, not another team, though.)

It's not payroll itself that I'm a "fan" of. It's knowing that the team is doing everything possible to win. You've mentioned the marginal return on investment with each additional dollar spent. That's generally true but it is still *return* on investment. Putting together a $250 mil team (basically matching Boston) by grabbing some combination of guys like Harper, Corbin, Keuchel, Machado, and more (maybe 2 of them) might give us a 30% chance of winning the world series, while grabbing none of them might put us at more like 15%. It might give us 4 or 6 more wins. So there IS return on investment. It's not gigantic but it's very unlikely that the investment actually makes the team worse. You have to go into each major investment knowing that there's a chance it won't work and that you'll have to regard the investment as a sunk cost and play a less expensive superior player instead. The Yankees generally have been willing to do that though. If you have that attitude, you can make it very unlikely that you'll actually win fewer games making an investment in a top player.

There's really no benefit to fans from the team passing on top FAs. There's really no reason for me to be more excited about having Greg Bird than Bryce Harper at first base (if he's willing to move).

Bonn1997 wrote:Putting together a $250 mil team (basically matching Boston) by grabbing some combination of guys like Harper, Corbin, Keuchel, Machado, and more (maybe 2 of them) might give us a 30% chance of winning the world series,

No it won't not even close.

Not counting the WC losers, 8 very good teams enter the postseason and match up in short series, and baseball proves on any given week, the worst teams can win a few games against the best. That's the nature of MLB.

NO team will ever have anything approaching a 30% chance to win the World Series.

There's really no benefit to fans from the team passing on top FAs.

Sure there is. History teaches us top FAs are more often terrible investments than not. You want Yu Darvish's contract right now? Cabrera's Cano's? Pujol's? Heyward's?

In a vacuum in which you just spend over your bad investments with more likely bad investments without consequence, maybe that's true. But given the LT, not to mention 40 and 25 man rosters, seems a little naive to suggest is never a bad thing to write a big check.

I'm sure the Cubs and Mariners and Angels and Tigers and a dozen other teams would like do-overs.

There's really no reason for me to be more excited about having Greg Bird than Bryce Harper at first base (if he's willing to move).

For me there is.

Bonn1997 wrote:So the Astros and Red Sox shouldn't have spent $20 to 30 mil per year on Verlander and Martinez? Or is the difference that these are shorter contracts? In that case, we shouldn't have acquired Stanton? I'm not saying sign every top FA. I just don't want to pass on every one either. Clearly, there needs to be a lot of careful thought about which are worthwhile. I'm not sold on the idea that none are though.

I think if otherwise successful GMs like Epstein and Dombrowski and Cash could narrow down the good ones vs the bad one, and avoid the bad ones, I think they already would have.

If NOBODY is good at it, maybe it can't be done?

That said, I'm not advocating NO FAs. Corbin makes a lot of sense. I was merely in context responding to your assertion that "There's really no benefit to fans from the team passing on top FAs."

Bonn1997 wrote:

Knickoftime wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:So the Astros and Red Sox shouldn't have spent $20 to 30 mil per year on Verlander and Martinez? Or is the difference that these are shorter contracts? In that case, we shouldn't have acquired Stanton? I'm not saying sign every top FA. I just don't want to pass on every one either. Clearly, there needs to be a lot of careful thought about which are worthwhile. I'm not sold on the idea that none are though.

I think if otherwise successful GMs like Epstein and Dombrowski and Cash could narrow down the good ones vs the bad one, and avoid the bad ones, I think they already would have.

If NOBODY is good at it, maybe it can't be done?

That said, I'm not advocating NO FAs. Corbin makes a lot of sense. I was merely in context responding to your assertion that "There's really no benefit to fans from the team passing on top FAs."

The only cost to the fans is if the team artificially self-imposes a salary cap. Doing that means they don't understand the idea of a sunk cost though. You need to treat each new investment as its own investment. If signing another player to a $20 mil per year contract will bring in $30 mil in revenue, you have to do it whether you've already spent $80 or $280 mil on the rest of the roster. The sunk cost doesn't determine if the next free agency signing will pay off. If they don't understand that, we are in bigger trouble.

You strike me as a very reasonable person, so I have some genuine questions:

If $20m will bring in $30m, regardless of any existing payroll conditions including luxury tax calculations that greatly increase the cost of that $20m that farther you get past $206m, then why doesn't everyone (much less anyone) do it?

The Dodgers, who keep falling short season after season curtailed spending last year.

NO Major League team follows this model.

So what do you think is the more likely reality here, that a.) that the ownership and front offices of ALL 30 ML teams don't understand this; or that b.) they understand their finances better than you understand their finances?

Bonn1997 wrote:

Knickoftime wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Knickoftime wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:So the Astros and Red Sox shouldn't have spent $20 to 30 mil per year on Verlander and Martinez? Or is the difference that these are shorter contracts? In that case, we shouldn't have acquired Stanton? I'm not saying sign every top FA. I just don't want to pass on every one either. Clearly, there needs to be a lot of careful thought about which are worthwhile. I'm not sold on the idea that none are though.

I think if otherwise successful GMs like Epstein and Dombrowski and Cash could narrow down the good ones vs the bad one, and avoid the bad ones, I think they already would have.

If NOBODY is good at it, maybe it can't be done?

That said, I'm not advocating NO FAs. Corbin makes a lot of sense. I was merely in context responding to your assertion that "There's really no benefit to fans from the team passing on top FAs."

The only cost to the fans is if the team artificially self-imposes a salary cap. Doing that means they don't understand the idea of a sunk cost though. You need to treat each new investment as its own investment. If signing another player to a $20 mil per year contract will bring in $30 mil in revenue, you have to do it whether you've already spent $80 or $280 mil on the rest of the roster. The sunk cost doesn't determine if the next free agency signing will pay off. If they don't understand that, we are in bigger trouble.

You strike me as a very reasonable person, so I have some genuine questions:

If $20m will bring in $30m, regardless of any existing payroll conditions including luxury tax calculations that greatly increase the cost of that $20m that farther you get past $206m, then why doesn't everyone (much less anyone) do it?

The Dodgers, who keep falling short season after season curtailed spending last year.

NO Major League team follows this model.

So what do you think is the more likely reality here, that a.) that the ownership and front offices of ALL 30 ML teams don't understand this; or that b.) they understand their finances better than you understand their finances?

None of the above. The Yankees have a much larger, more affluent fan base than any other team. The same player that brings in $30 mil/yr for the Yankees must bring a tiny fraction of that for the Pirates.

I'm trying to be open-minded, but you're still suggesting some sort of insight into the Yankees finances. So tell what the Yankees can afford? "More" has no value in this discussion. In order to speak definitively about what they can or cannot do you need to have definitive figures.

So what are they?

And what data are you basing a $20m free agent (which isn't that much of a free agent) assuredly generating $30m in revenue singlehandedly coming from?

Specifically?

Bonn1997 wrote:You're taking the example way too literally. The only point was that if the Yankees understand sunk costs, then there is minimal to no long-term effect on the fan if a big FA signing goes badly. It will not affect the profitability of future FA signings. So you still do a future FA signing if there's a good chance it will be profitable and hold back if there's a poor chance. That should be the case whether your previous off-season signings went well or poorly.

Literally is the only thing that matters. Your non-literal example assumes there is no limit to return on investment or no point of diminishing returns, that the Yankees can simply keep escalating payroll upward without regard to level or limit, regardless of circumstance, and net a positive return.

You simply have no grounds to make this assumption and on top of that seem to ignore the punitive luxury tax reality. That the Yankees would be taxed dollar-for-dollar past a certain level.

Your not-too-literal $20m/$30m example is very different when it's literally $39m/$30m (at your example of a $280m payroll).

On top of that, the concept of sunk costs is pretty simple, particularly untethered from any actual revenue concerns as you've cited it. I don't get why fans need to suggest the yankees front office doesn't understand the premise. Why does the discourse have to be dragged down by stuff like this.

So many Yankees fans seem to genuinely believe the Yankees literally don't understand how much more profitable they could or should be. Its mind-numbing.