Dipre

The situations are similar on the surface, but think about this: The Sox actually had the chance to trade Ellsbury for Granderson, and balked, beause Granderson is more expensive, and might've interfered with their other plans because of luxury tax issues. Tigers wanted Ellsbury, Bucholz for Granderson The Sox could've also traded Bucholz for Granderson, and went out and got Javy Vasquez, but it doesn't make sense for them financially, and would have cost prospects to get him. It always comes down to "making sense financially". The constraints on other teams are different than the ceiling on the Yankees. Also, it's impossible to deal only with facts when talking about a hypothetical situation in which another team manages to acquire both Granderson and Vasquez.

I don't think the Bay situation and the Matsui/Damon situation are comparable, and here's why: The fact that the Yankees wanted flexibility from the DH spot and they were likely to not bring Matsui back was floating around for some time, and as for Granderson, i read somewhere that the Yankees has been trying to acquire him since last year, so maybe my opinion is skewed because of it. In my opinion, the Yankees had a plan to get younger and more athletic, and neither Matsui or Damon were part of that plan, hence the "not necessity" part. Let's not call it a luxury, but a plan of action. As for Bay, the Sox were weary of his knees, and they couldn't get him to accept a conditional clause, they didn't plan from before to move on without him, but realized that they likely would have to.

We can agree to disagree on that. The Yankees could have kept Matsui and Damon. They chose to let them walk. They didn't have to replace their number two and number five hitters, they chose to replace them.

Actually, both. The fact that they've reached their ceiling for now, and also about the advantage. Look, i know it's not like it used to be with the "no limit" mentality, but still, that's a lot of flexibility to play around with. As for the Granderson and Vasquez acquisition, i don't think you can look at them as stand-alone, if you do, then your argument would be absolutely correct, but you have to look at off-seasons in a vacuum, because when you make the comparison, you have to look at the process of roster construction in a vacuum. A lot of the smaller-market teams lose a lot of the flexibility they gain through FA departures in the Arb process, and some can't make such commitments to one or two players, because they have other needs to fill. The Yankees, even with a ceiling, can overlook a great deal of the process while also working without the worries of the salary cap, which also stops other bigger-market teams like the Sox or Phillies. They have a limit, but the limit is higher. I'll say it again, Cashman's offseason was very good, but having flexibility helped him achieve it. About the prospects, some of those not-so-fantastic prospects are bargaining chips or potential bench players other teams would have wanted to keep so they can fill needs without having to spend a lot of money. That's a rule that teams like the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies don't play by.

What are you talking about? It's like you don't read. Let me put it to you in three, easy-to-read points: Point A: The Yankees made the trades not because they needed to replace players A or B, or were in dire need or player C, they made them to improve the roster, that is fact. However, when you take into account the need aspect of it and realize that, for instance, the Cards had to re-sign Holliday, and the Sox had to get an impact player after losing Bay, you realize that for the Yankees, these are roster "tweaks" not needs , said tweaks cost them both money and prospects, and it's a luxury other tams can't afford to have. While you spout that $27 million is not such a big deal, more than 50% of the league doesn't have much more than $27 million to spend, hell ,some teams don't have much more than $27 million in total payroll. See, your opinion is inadequate because you're trying to turn it into a Sox-Yanks comparison, which it isn't, it's a Yanks-league comparison, and it's never once been said that the off-season was bad, just that or that he blatantly overpaid, but that other teams might not have been able to fit both transactions into their payroll or muster the prospects to pull it off. But you don't process what you read. Point B: This is not an attempt to bash the Yanks off-season, which was excellent. I'll reiterate it so your butt stops hurting. Point C: Unless you can come up with a logical scenario where at least 75% of the league has the luxury of playing around with $27 million in an off-season (showing restraint, mind you) maintaining an unbiased, consistent thought process (you can't) then it's obvious their spending power helped them achieve said excellent off-season. It's not the be-all, end-all, specially with the trades, but it helped. I'll ask again: How many teams in the league can play around with $27 million in any given offseason? Five, six? I'm not saying they're the only ones that have that advantage, but they have it, that they have the riches in terms of prospects is just icing on the cake. Agree on the last point.

The issue is the advantage the Yankees have because of money. The fact that you acknowledge that by not being able to have X amount of money to play with, other teams have to get creative and create more enticing prospect packages is clear indication of that advantage. Let's say, for argument's sake, 20 teams could have used both Vasquez and Granderson, but out of those 20, only five had the money and prospects required to pull off both deals. Those five teams have a clear cut advantage over the rest of the playing field. I'm not saying it's only the Yankees, but given that they always have the biggest monetary advantage in the league, then that helps further uneven the playing field, because by already being over the luxury tax, they can easily set a flexible "ceiling" and stick to it or expand it as they see fit. Money gives them an advantage no one else can emulate when it comes to the FA market, trading, and the Int FA market. I don't see why the claim is so outrageous.

They have a budget, but they don't have as many constraints as the other teams. As stated before, it's difficult for teams to have 20 million to play with. And that's the point we differ in, even at the offset of the offseason, if faced with the decision between giving up money and prospects, or only money, teams will usually go for option B.

Again, you're making it up. There simply wasn't much buzz when Almanzar signed either. In fact, i think the person buzzing about him the most (per the aforementioned thread) was you. Insider info lol.

My head hurts now.

So now Granderson is a "franchise" CF? Ok. For the record, i'm not saying Granderson is a bad player, he's a very very good player, but franchise? Come on. I'm also not criticizing the moves, so i have no idea what exactly the above post adds to the discussion, because the value of the moves is not being discussed, since everyone has pretty much agreed that they improved the ballclub. This adds nothing to the actual discussion which has to do with other team's ability to spend resources to acquire players through trades like the Yankees.

Not after signing Lackey and Cameron. Because they operate under cap restrictions, unlike the Yanks.

The problem is that when a team has ownership issues, they usually try to refrain from spending massive amounts of money, specially on single players. Not to mention the Dodgers are going to have lots of other needs to fill, and even though an top-echelon SP is always good for a team, throwing $20+ million at one when you're having ownership issues and also need to fill a numbers of holes via the FA market doesn't make much sense.

Most of the teams in the league don't have nearly 20 million dollars of payroll flexibility even after losing some of their players. But don't concentrate on the cool amount of money only. What about the prospects? See, this is the real hold-up of the issue. And this point has been ignored to this point. The Yankees, could have, for around the same amount of money, kept Matsui and Damon. So no, Granderson was not a necessity, but a move to get younger. You can possibly make that argument about Vasquez, but his salary, while affordable, is not cheap, and they had other options. But not only did they spend a similar amount of money, they sent over a number of prospects. The real advantage is in being able to create a combination of both, while absorbing full contracts that gives them a two-pronged advantage. 1) Allows them to lessen the actual amount of prospects needed. 2) Since money is not really an object, the only real hold-up comes with which prospects are going to be sent the other way. It's not that simple when other teams who have to face a budget crunch want to make these types of transactions. While in 2009 Cashman had to work with some restraints while pulling off these moves, he quite simply had more financial and personnel flexibility to make the moves he made. If that doesn't make a GM's life easier when trying to trade players, i don't know what does.

Allow me to illustrate what i mean: Let's take the Saint Louis Cardinals, for instance. They were a team that after losing Rick Ankiel and Joel Pineiro to FA, could have had a use for both Granderson (they're starting Colby Rasmus in CF) and Vasquez (Brad Penny, seriously?). They re-signed Matt Holliday. They signed Penny. They still have gaping holes in CF and SP, but just don't have the money to budget in the "cheap" contracts of Granderson and Vasquez. Why? Because they don't operate under the same premise of "budget" that the Yankees have. No one does. I don't understand why the claim is so outrageous. I could make a similar analysis for 15-18 other teams who needed an OF and a SP, but didn't have the money or the money/prospects combination to get both deals done. Why? Because everybody else operates under a different budget structure than the Yankees. That's the reality of it. 17 million dollars and a group of prspects is solid gold to most teams.

Vasquez is still just the #4 starter. And Granderson was a move made to get "younger". They didn't "lose" Matsui and Damon to FA. They let them walk. Completely different scenarios.

I'm going to go ahead and ask for either of Y228 or Gom to come up with a plausible scenario where other teams, after addressing their own needs and taking into account arbitration raises, can have the luxury of adding both Granderson and Vasquez without taking money back, and giving up talent on the same scale the Yankees did.

Plus the prospects. If it's just money, then we might agree, but that's the real issue. For other, lesser teams, parting with talent and further tightening the budget is quite simply a risk they can't afford to take. They also signed Nick Johnsonn, and made a bunch of other (albeit smaller) transactions that is chump change for them but would've really weighed on a smaller-scale team.

Now if you could learn to read and conceptualize, things would be so much easier. Let me spell it out for you, so you can understand it: The Yankees went out and got Javier Vasquez and Curtis Granderson not because they needed them after their WS victory, but rather to tweak the roster. The Sox lost out on Bay and needed a counter-move, in came Lackey and Cameron, who were neccesities instead of luxuries. The word in bold being the key. Now, after getting Cameron, Lackey, and sorting out the rest of the roster, do you think the Sox could have managed to add the salaries of Granderson and Vasquez without going over the luxury tax and completely s***ing on themselves? I don't think so, because it wasn't possible. Logically, of course. Logic. Look at how pretty that word is. Only the Yankees can afford to take gambles on a the lefty part of a platoon and a guy who got his ass kicked for years and makes a ton of money to slot in the #4 (#4!) rotation spot.

Epic trolling is epic.

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said anything about absorbing a bad contract. I talked about absorbing the entire contracts of Curtis Granderson and Javier Vasquez without asking for any financial aid from the other teams involved and how not many teams (probably no other team) can do that while retaining their own talent, signing FA's (even if they're cheap) and handling Arb issues.

No. He's a consistently stupid, annoying troll who likes to bait. His actions seem like, for example, what you're doing right now, which constitutes a measure of trolling and baiting. I suggest you quit that while you're ahead.