Hoplite

The front office went out of their way to hire Bobby V. How is that not somehow reflective of them? You should check Geoff Baker's history (the writer of the Seattle story), he made similar allegations when he was in Toronto. Seems like a guy eager to make a name for himself.

That's not true, there was plenty of dysfunction with Bobby Valentine and less than nice things said about John Henry. Even Tito, who rarely says a negative thing about someone talked about Henry trying to make the team "sexy" to sell tickets.

No I'm not. They were incredibly lucky last year to not be under .500 by at least 10 games and so far they don't look like a significantly better team. Even if you account for Teixeira and Jeter.

There were some pretty dysfunctional articles written about the Red Sox. I remember one from a former employee that was similarly critical of Lucchino, and was categorically denied.

@ProfessorParks 3h The @RedSox farm is so much better than the #Yankees farm that I would encourage NY fans to drink heavily for the next decade. @ProfessorParks 2h @JohnBotelhoSJ Sanchez is Yankees top prospect; would rank in the 4-6 range for Sox. No other Yankee would crack RedSox list.

Girardi's such a good manager that Cano said he didn't want to play for him.

Have to give the Yankees credit for their innovative five man platoon at the DH position. Maybe in 10 years they'll make a movie about it with Brad Pitt.

I agree with seabeach, we were just as dysfunctional a year ago. We were on our second GM and our third manager in the last two years and had just lost 91 games. The narrative on the ownership was that they were meddling and clueless and Luchino was basically the devil.

They'll be lucky if they're over .500.

Unless Middlebrooks suddenly learns plate discipline, I don't see any reason to expect him to improve. I think most of our improvement will come from the bottom of the rotation (Dempster was terrible outside of April) and the bullpen (we blew something like 25 saves and Uehara only blew 3).

Cherington said today that he's done with the "heavy lifting" and is now in "opportunistic mode" where he'll look to upgrade the tweak the roster and move a player (presumably a pitcher) if he's presented with the right offer. I assume that means that we won't be adding any more big name free agents, but that's fine. According to second order wins, we should have won 100 games last year. We're replacing Ellsbury (5.8 WAR) with JBJ (projected 2.1-2.9 wins according to Steamer or Oliver) and Salty with AJ (1.6 WAR difference according to the same projections). That would make us a roughly 95 team. There are players you could point to who are likely to decline, and disasters like Hanrahan, Aceves, Ciriaco, etc. who you can point to that we'll be likely to avoid.

The Yankees had no business winning 85 games last year, they were outscored by opponents and had a second order win-loss record of 71-91. In order to be competitive, they have to improve by almost 20 wins. So far, they’ve lost Cano (6.0 WAR), Pettitte (3.2 WAR), Rivera (1.5 WAR), Hughes (1.4 WAR) and Granderson (1.4 WAR) to free agency and retirement and added Ellsbury (5.8 WAR), Brian McCann (2.7 WAR) and Carlos Beltran (2 WAR) for a net gain of -3 WAR. The last time Jeter was healthy, he was worth 3 WAR, the last time Teixeira played 100 games he was worth 2.7 WAR. Now we’ve arrived at a net WAR of +2.7. Even if you subtract every negative contributor to their WAR last year (assuming they won’t be dragging the team down next year), that’s another 6.8 WAR. Nowhere close to 20 wins. It doesn't even add up to 80 wins.

Who cares? They have no rotation or bullpen.

Sounds like some teammates asked the Red Sox to increase their offer, the Red Sox upped their offer by $2 million and Napoli took a discount to come back knowing that his teammates went out of their way to ask that he come back. All of the work the front office did to create an enjoyable atmosphere in the clubhouse is paying dividends. Chemistry doesn't win games, but it sure helps when players like Pedroia, Victorino, Napoli and Lester are willing to leave money on the table to play for us. Red Sox have approximately $6.5 million left to spend, but they also have six starters and eight relievers. They could free up another $13-14.5 million by trading Dempster or Peavy. The Diamondbacks are reportedly looking for a veteran starting pitcher and they have two shortstops. We could trade Dempster or Peavy for Didi Gregorious or Chris Owings and we'd have our bench player. That would give us the salary to sign Choo (if his contract demands are reasonable) or Hart. If we sign Hart, we could trade Gomes and free up another $5 million. If the Dodgers get really desperate we could trade for Kemp, but I'm not crazy about the idea. Jackie Bradley Jr. will be fine. But just in case, I'd sign an elite defensive player like Tony Gwynn Jr. to a minor league contract as insurance. There's plenty of salary room to continue to improve. And we have plenty of trade chips both at the major league level and in the minors. The Winter Meetings haven't even started yet.

Pedroia's contract is looking better and better... It helps to have a fun, competitive team. Pedroia, Victorino and now Napoli all took discounts to come here or stay here. Lester recently said he'd do the same.

Breaking News: AARP agrees to sponsor 2014 Yankees.

I love this so much. The Yankees just gave up another draft pick to sign a 2 WAR 36 year old to a three year deal.

I don't see how anyone could possibly think the Yankees are going to spend more than $189 after they traded for Wells and Soriano and let Cano walk. Every single thing they've said and done for the last year indicates that they'll be under the luxury tax. If this was about putting the best team on the field, they would have signed Choo. He's a much better player.

Awesome. This is one of the worst possible uses of their money. At this point, I think they realize that they aren't going to be competitive without Cano and Tanaka and they're just signing the biggest name free agents left to try to sell tickets.

Awesome. Let's take a moment to enjoy just how screwed the Yankees are.

They've also recently paid off Safeco and gotten a new TV deal.

Mariners actually aren't that far off from being competitive. They have good players to build around (King Felix, Iwakuma, Ramirez, Paxton, Seager, Farquhar, Franklin, Miller, Zunino, Montero and Almonte. Almonte especially really blossomed last year after the Yankees traded him. They have one of the top farm systems in baseball to make some trades and they have a ton of money to spend. Forbes lists them as the 12th most valuable MLB franchise and they only have $30 million committed to next year.

Ellsbury was purely a PR move. Hank and Hal are businessmen, they aren't giving up $50 million to go over the cap. This is just to try to distract fans from the fact that Cano is headed to Seattle.

Yeah, I don't think this forum's for me...

Third base, back end of the rotation, bullpen. Middlebrooks was worth 0.3 WAR last year, Steamer projects him to be worth 2.5 next year. In the first half Webster and Aceves made a combined 13 starts and were worth -.7 WAR. Peavy's projected to be worth 3 WAR next year. And it took us a while to sort our bullpen out, we blew the fifth most saves in baseball and Koji only blew three.