jrodmc wrote:What is the value or utility of rooting for one team over another?

None.

Other than a completely personal one.

Which is the whole point.

Now your turn to answer:

What is the value or utility of rooting for one team over another?

What is the value or utility of your perceived higher level of expectation other than your image of yourself?

jrodmc wrote:Your first answer was my point. Rooting/fandom is a personal preference.
Not sure why you continually need to assign perceptions and values to someone else's personal preferences.

Then your point is you are a hypocrite. It was you, not I, who criticized me for recognizing that winning 100 games in an achievement and indication whoever wins 100 is a VERY good team.

As you correctly identified, I am a pragmatic fan. But you went on to critique my personal preference.

Uhh, bro, these are really great and pragmatic outlooks on baseball if you don't happen to be a Yankee fan.

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.

You aren't speaking for your personal preference, you were speaking for Yankees fans. You choose to favorably compare yankees fans to fans who just personally prefer to root for other teams.

So I choose to point out how self-defeating that preference is. That your personal preference is perpetual disappointment.

In any context, I feel comfortable telling someone who "expects" something that has no better than a 10-15% of happening to happen and will be unfulfilled if it doesn't they don't seem to understand math. Attaching that "expectation" to any sports team doesn't change the math.

I see actual major league players, who have a talent beyond any of us and actually contribute to a team's success, wildly celebrate just qualifying for the postseason, and then celebrating a wildcard win.

If the players recognize those things are achievements and worth celebrating in September and October, I think I'm on safe ground recognizing then as achievements worth celebrating in November.

Unless you believe you have higher "standards" than Aaron Judge and Didi Gregorius.

I was having a baseball discussion about how good the 2018 Yankees were and their level of talent headed into the 2019 season. YOU interjected to tell me what the objective standards (dumb ones) of Yankees fans are.

NOW confronted with the ramifications of these "standards," now it's just a "personal preference."

Thank you for making my point for me.

jrodmc wrote:Agreed, but all I'm seeing from Cashman is they want pitching and middle infield; the outfield apparently has no room for Harper. Hopefully we get Muchado; they were peppering Boone yesterday on ESPN 98.7FM for his opinion on "players that don't hustle on routine groundouts"

You want Kluber or Cykel? Since we can't get both

Bonn1997 wrote:A few quotes from an insightful article

Former 'Evil Empire' Yankees Now Backing Down in MLB Free-Agent Money War
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2809992-former-evil-empire-yankees-now-backing-down-in-mlb-free-agent-money-war
Once upon a time, the New York Yankees were the perennial bullies of the MLB offseason. The big spenders. The Evil Empire. These days, the Bronx Bombers' bottomless budget is more fairy tale than reality.

In the 2018-19 offseason, New York was supposed to open its wallet wide for any number of glistening free agents, including superstars Bryce Harper and Manny Machado...is this a world where the Yankees aren't interested in generational talents such as Harper and Machado in the midst of their primes?...

The scion of George Steinbrenner is tepidly saying the team will spend as needed. But read between the lines, and it's clear the franchise would like to remain below the luxury-tax threshold in perpetuity. At the moment, New York ranks ninth in MLB in committed payroll for 2019, per Spotrac.

Now it's on to MuchoNoHustle-O...

Bonn1997 wrote:

jrodmc wrote:Signed Happ. Not sure I'm overly thrilled with this rotation, but I guess it will have to do for next year. How the frick long can CC keep pitching? LMAO.

Now it's on to MuchoNoHustle-O...

We had a good team that was clearly third best in the AL. Maybe things will change but it doesn't look like the Steinbrenners feel any urgency to be better than third.

https://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/david-lennon/greed-never-sleeps-on-yankees-death-star-1.24508457

Au contraire, Mr. Bonn; "The Death Star is still active" Cashman making sounds like a bid for Harper is not out of the picture. 2009 actually was long ago, even for Cashman.

And now we're paying Beltran as a consultant! How can you think the Steinbrenner's are going cheap???

The 2004 team reinvested roughly 85 percent of its revenue into player salaries while the 2018 version, based on some crude calculations, reinvested less than 30 percent, less even than the Tampa Bay Rays.

A whopping $550K for a Tulo reclamation project is not getting us anywhere.

jrodmc wrote:So we get Britton and Happ, and let Robertson go.
If we swing and missed on Muchado and stand looking on Harper, I'm going to have to agree with you Bonn.

A whopping $550K for a Tulo reclamation project is not getting us anywhere.