Tanaka is a Yankee!

[BSN07]

Scouts also raved about Dice-K having some magical pitch that could both strike out batters and cure cancer. All of the hype surrounding his coming to Boston was like the second coming of Jesus Christ. We all know how that turned out. I've seen this story before, and it ends with a minor league deal in Cleveland. How's Hideki Irabu doing? Or Hideo Nomo? Or Dice-K? Or Kaz Matsui? Kurt Suzuki? Akinori Iwamura? It's possible that Tanaka will end up being as great as everyone seems to think he will, but the weight of Japanese star's history is stacked against him. I'm not guaranteeing that he will tank, but temper your hilarious expectations of glory with reason. The Yankees are tossing one of the most inept defensive lineups I've ever seen out on the field in 2014, backing up a pitching staff full of guys who have either A: Never pitched a season in the major leagues, B: Faded quickly down the stretch last season, or C: Gained enough weight to qualify for their own seat on the United Nations council.

lol gold

[Bellhorn04]

Something tells me the Yankees won't let him pitch in the WBC. That's what probably destroyed Dice-K...nice that he got 2 MVP awards though.

[rjortiz]

I don't understand the Sox fans who take glee in the Yankees overpaying for a player. It doesn't stop themfrom spending and they still got the player.

Overpaying players limits how much damage they can do with their budget in future years. Paying top dollar for the decline years of Teixeira, Sabathia, and Jeter hurt their chances at re-signing Robinson Cano. Had they not been bailed out by MLB with the A-Rod suspension saga, they probably would have been unable to sign Tanaka. However, I think this only applies to blatant overpays by the Yankees. $15 million isn't $15 million to the Yankees. They can throw those out there like they are $10-$12 million range.

$pankees and budget, what a joke! This is why I hate them, and they can't loss enough as far as I'm concern. They can make one bad roster decision after another and they just buy their way out of those. They will pay ARod a %&it load of $$$$$$$ to go away and that is their way of dealing with a bad signing. I knew all along that the 189 million budget was a bunch of crap. A Sox championship means that the $pankees throw a ton of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ at any FA that is breathing during the following winter. We can only hope that they paid ace money for Irabu 2.0!

I wonder what you sound like to a A's fan. I know they are spending a lot of money, but a $18 million difference in payroll isn't enough for you to whine about, and it certainly isn't enough to have them called the $panks. I'm going to start calling the Red Sox the Red $ux from the perspective of a Rays fan every time the Red Sox sign a free agent, or make a trade. After all, the difference between the $ux and the Rays is far greater than the difference between the $ux and the Yankees.

Hate the Yankees all you want, but could you come up with something more clever than $panks? If you absolutely have to use it, could you limit to once every 100 posts? I haven't seen a post of yours where they weren't called a nickname a 12-year-old would be proud of. I'd probably be less bothered by the nickname if there were a bigger gap between payrolls. It's really hard to feel sorry for a team whose payroll is $180 million.

I'm just going to hope and pray the Tanaka turns out to be the next Dice-K.

I have a feeling. A good feeling. He is not going to do well in the US. Correct me if you actually look it up, but from what I've seen, around 1 out of every 5 Japanese pitchers who come over here have maintained success. Tanaka may have a good rookie year, as hitters try to figure him out, but it will get increasingly harder to be a constant force on the mound. I still think that Darvish will fall at some point. Investing in Japanese pitchers is too much of a risk to get involved in. The Yankees certainly have the wallet to get screwed on this one, and they had to take the chance to try and improve their pitching staff. Although, one thing that will help Tanaka is having Kuroda on the team. Kuroda provides the veteran presence, who can certainly relate, coming from Japan to a big market himself in LA, and speaks fluent Japanese, presumably one of the few in the clubhouse. Kuroda should serve as Tanaka's personal pitching coach in a sense, but that won't necessarily translate to good things.


Now that that's over, how's everyone been?

1 out of 5? I can think of Okajima, Uehera, Iwakuma, Nomo, and Darvish, and Okajima is a stretch. I wonder who made the flop list besides Igawa, Matsuzaka, and Irabu? I'm not doubting the validity of your claim, but if there's 5, or 4, if you don't count Okajima, we would still need 13 more pitchers to make the claim true. I can guarantee that there's going to be a lot of pitchers we've never heard of. This is why that 1 out of 5 claim is not a good argument. It assumes that Tanaka has an equal chance of success as all other Japanese pitchers. Most of them are probably not very good, so you have to assume that Tanaka has a higher chance of success compared to Koichi Taniguchi.

Jim Bowden threw out Dan Haren as the best comp for Tanaka, which seems reasonable (although I acknowledge that he has question marks). If that's what Tanaka turns out to be, then he'll definitely be the top pitcher on the staff next year. Certainly not the number four.

Haha, not exactly the greatest source.

It's probably worth pointing out that since Tanaka is the guy that puts the Yankees over the tax threshold, and their tax rate is 50%, he is effectively going to cost them about 33 million this year, and that doesn't factor in the revenue-sharing-disqualification thingamajig. Here is a link to their payroll figures, which don't include about 11 million in player benefits that also counts toward tax.

http://mlbreports.com/2014/01/22/tanaka-pay/

That's a little disingenuous. He shouldn't be penalized because he's the last player to sign a contract. You could figure out what his real adjusted salary after the luxury tax if you wanted to do the math.

I would even consider trading him in July in exchange for a player at a spot that we really need. Curious to see how he will develop over the course of the season. Worst case scenario is having Victorino in CF, Nava in RF, and Gomes in LF, with Sizemore off the bench. I would take that anyday.

There's so many things wrong with this post.

You want to create a hole in RF, to fill some other mystery hole on the roster? Plus, you want to trade a top prospect with 6 years of team control left? Plus, you want to play Daniel Nava in RF full-time, who is supposedly not a hole in RF. The only way this would remotely make sense is if that Bradley was traded for Stanton, and you just forgot to write Stanton as our RF.

[Thunder]

Are you talking about trading JBJ?

Yes, unless he has a great first half of the season at the plate. Right now, I feel like he's a little overhyped, which has brought down his game a bit.

[User Name?]

Scouts also raved about Dice-K having some magical pitch that could both strike out batters and cure cancer. All of the hype surrounding his coming to Boston was like the second coming of Jesus Christ. We all know how that turned out. I've seen this story before, and it ends with a minor league deal in Cleveland. How's Hideki Irabu doing? Or Hideo Nomo? Or Dice-K? Or Kaz Matsui? Kurt Suzuki? Akinori Iwamura? It's possible that Tanaka will end up being as great as everyone seems to think he will, but the weight of Japanese star's history is stacked against him. I'm not guaranteeing that he will tank, but temper your hilarious expectations of glory with reason. The Yankees are tossing one of the most inept defensive lineups I've ever seen out on the field in 2014, backing up a pitching staff full of guys who have either A: Never pitched a season in the major leagues, B: Faded quickly down the stretch last season, or C: Gained enough weight to qualify for their own seat on the United Nations council.

There's enough common sense in this post to supply TalkSox for about two months, considering the quality of posting from the resident Yankee fans and the people who doubt that BC's piss has magical ML- team building qualities.

[rjortiz]

Yes, unless he has a great first half of the season at the plate. Right now, I feel like he's a little overhyped, which has brought down his game a bit.

You do realize that your new lineup would make our OF defense substantially worse? Bradley would have to be absolutely horrendous with the bat to justify that switch, and even at that level Gomes would probably have to be hitting .300/.400/.500.

[User Name?]

Yes, unless he has a great first half of the season at the plate. Right now, I feel like he's a little overhyped, which has brought down his game a bit.

That is incredibly short-sighted. And how can him being "overhyped" (which he isn't) bring down his game? He struggled for about a 10th of a season last year. So have many great players like Pedroia and Trout in their first cup of coffee at the MLB level. You're making absolutely no sense.

[jacksonianmarch]

Spending now only limits NY if they let it. They have operated under a fixed budget for two years now, only to find that we don't give a shit if Hank and Hal save money. We care if they win. If the Yanks made the playoffs last yr, then this budget would be in place right now and we'd suffer through a lost season. But we've already had a lost season and the lost revenue from that is still stinging the Steinny's.

[jacksonianmarch]

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/33/...es_334613.html

Just an idea of how the Yankee money making machine works. While we're hearing about all these teams signing deals with Fox or whomever, the Yankees own a third of their network and brought in over $430 mil last yr from the network alone. Their annual revenue from ticket sales is over $300 mil and they also have a hospitality service raking in the dough. The tix and merchandise are subject to revenue sharing, but the fact that they're generating $800 mil plus a year in revenue means that they can continue to pile on the contracts. All I ask is we don't do another ARod deal. No more deals with 5+ years of dead money. And this offseason, the only contract that really scares me in terms of age is Beltran as he's around the age of complete decline.

[User Name?]

Jacko, the revenue presented from the YES network is not perceived by the Yankees franchise alone. That number is a lump sum that does not represent the actual value the Yankees receive, which is a fixed sum that escalates on a yearly basis. Check your sources before posting.

[User Name?]

And by the way, in the very same website you linked to, they have a 427 million figure as the Yankees' total revenue, so how does your 400 + 300 figure add up? Seriously, at least read through it before you post the link.

[User Name?]

http://itsaboutthemoney.net/archives...%80%99-budget/

This article is a bit old, but details the reality of the Yankees financial situation, and sheds light on how hilariously misinformed some members (i am looking at Jacko and SoxSport) are regarding the actual way the Yanks' revenue stream works. Most of the money come from ticket sales, not the other way around.

Roughly 2/3 of these revenues — $397 million — come from ticket sales and Stadium luxury suite revenue. (This revenue has increased dramatically in recent years — the Yankees were “only” earning $157 million in ticket sales in 2005, and $52 million in 1997.) Other amounts come from local TV payments (around $65 million – more on that later), MLB TV and licensing (estimated at $30 million in 2007), concessions, sponsorship and advertising (estimated at $30 million in 2007), local radio and “other”.

I get there's a lot of "guessing" done in the article, but the overall money distribution and overall TV money is in line with what other publications (including Forbes) estimate as the TV revenue.

[jacksonianmarch]

I read Forbes a bit wrong. The $300 mil from the YES network was total. The Yankees only see $65 mil a yr. But seeing as the Steiny's are part owners of YES, it makes no sense for them to renegotiate their TV deal as more money would have to move into the revenue sharing pot. The fact that NY has operated at a loss but their franchise and network's worth have skyrocketed gives you an idea as to how much they're actually getting paid. This conglomerate is making money hand over fist. And post season runs are incredibly profitable. Hence, the spending is not likely to end any time soon

[User Name?]

A lot of their current money also comes from the parking structures negotiated during the NYS construction. It was initially a bust, but has become a gigantic cash cow for the Yankees. Read up on it. You'll be surprised.

[Thunder]

Ha! Tanaka says he chose the Skanks because they appreciated him the most. No, you chose them because they offered you the most money.