Re: possible reason arod signed early?
 

Also, the Yankees really could not give two [censored] where they rank in terms of dollars spent for wins. This deal will make their spending "less efficient" but will increase their chance of making the playoffs/winning the WS pretty damn significantly over the next couple years, and that is all that matters. They barely made the playoffs this season, losing a 10 WARP player would be devastating. There is not some "correct" efficiency of spending. You can laugh at them for spending all that money when they don't win or call it stupid, but if that is their preference it is their prerogative to spend their money.

Re: possible reason arod signed early?
 

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Also, the Yankees really could not give two [censored] where they rank in terms of dollars spent for wins. This deal will make their spending "less efficient" but will increase their chance of making the playoffs/winning the WS pretty damn significantly over the next couple years, and that is all that matters. They barely made the playoffs this season, losing a 10 WARP player would be devastating. There is not some "correct" efficiency of spending. You can laugh at them for spending all that money when they don't win or call it stupid, but if that is their preference it is their prerogative to spend their money.

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the attitude of "the Yankees can spend whatever they want, it doesn't matter" only works until they actually hit a spending limit and/or Hank & Hal decide they are happy just being rich.

if you look at the Yankee payroll the last 3/4 years, it hasn't increased very much at all. they may be close to their limit

of course, the new stadium will change things to point

Re: possible reason arod signed early?
 

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if you look at the Yankee payroll the last 3/4 years, it hasn't increased very much at all. they may be close to their limit


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I read an article a couple years ago that claimed exactly this. In fact it went so far to claim the yankees needed to win the WS each year to turn a profit. (I doubt they'd need to win, but an early exit in the first round cannot be a good thing)

Re: possible reason arod signed early?
 

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if you look at the Yankee payroll the last 3/4 years, it hasn't increased very much at all. they may be close to their limit


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I read an article a couple years ago that claimed exactly this. In fact it went so far to claim the yankees needed to win the WS each year to turn a profit. (I doubt they'd need to win, but an early exit in the first round cannot be a good thing)

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This doesn't take into account the fact that YES is worth more than the Yankees now. Its true that the Yankees lose money on the baseball operation side of things most seasons, but they still make a killing.

Re: possible reason arod signed early?
 

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[ QUOTE ]
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if you look at the Yankee payroll the last 3/4 years, it hasn't increased very much at all. they may be close to their limit


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I read an article a couple years ago that claimed exactly this. In fact it went so far to claim the yankees needed to win the WS each year to turn a profit. (I doubt they'd need to win, but an early exit in the first round cannot be a good thing)

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This doesn't take into account the fact that YES is worth more than the Yankees now. Its true that the Yankees lose money on the baseball operation side of things most seasons, but they still make a killing.

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the truth is that nobody outside of the organization really knows how much/if they make

Re: possible reason arod signed early?
 

Well YES is worth several billion dollars and had 340m in revenues last year, and I believe the Yankees own a majority share in it. I'm not sure exactly how much, I know goldman sachs (and possibly the nets?) has a minority share.

So no one knows how much they make a year, but given that this current multi billion dollar asset didn't exist several years ago, they have to be in the black. Unless I am misunderstanding something.

Re: possible reason arod signed early?
 

Yea goldman sachs and the former owner of the nets also own pieces.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/01/news...ion=2007080206

Its true to say that people don't know how much the Yankees make in total revenue, but I think its safe to say they make money, not lose it.

Re: possible reason arod signed early?
 

I really love the "A-Rod came crawling back" spin..lol.

Imagine that your GF leaves you saying she wants a bigger diamond than the one you want to give, and you say, "if you leave me NOW, we are done. Period."

Then you and your girlfriend get back together, and she has a bigger diamond than the one she had from you before.

Now while she's flashing the ring, try selling the story to your buddies that "she came crawling back," and let me know how that goes over.

I don't care whether it was A-Rods' or Boras' doing, the undenable fact in that the all powerful Yankees got owned. They said if you leave us now you leave us for good, and then they came back to the table, swallowed their pride, (ate the Texas $$) and signed A-Rod.

Re: possible reason arod signed early?
 

By the same logic you could say that because at the start of the Arod free agency discussion Boras made comments about Arod being worth 350/10, he got owned.

The Yankees made a lowball extension offer trying to prevent Arod from hitting the open market which would have the added benefit of getting the 21m of Texas money. Just because the FO "said" they weren't going to negotiate if he opted out doesn't mean they 100% meant it or it wouldn't still be a beneficial signing at a higher price. They wouldn't have a very big chance of getting Arod to sign the lowball extension if they came out and said they would still negotiate after, would they? They were 100% forced to act like it was a "take it or leave it we aren't coming back to the bargaining table after this" offer. Even if there is a very low chance of it working (Boras is too good an agent to leave that much money on the table) it is in many ways a freeroll. So saying the Yankees just got totally owned is ridiculous.

Now considering how little success Arod had when he opted out and hit the open market, did the Yankees make a mistake by not sticking to their guns and seeing if they could have brought him down from 275/10? Possibly, I don't know.

Everyone trying to judge who won or lost is going to come up short of being accurate, and probably will just base their answer on whether they like or dislike the Yankees.

Re: possible reason arod signed early?
 

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Well YES is worth several billion dollars and had 340m in revenues last year, and I believe the Yankees own a majority share in it. I'm not sure exactly how much, I know goldman sachs (and possibly the nets?) has a minority share.

So no one knows how much they make a year, but given that this current multi billion dollar asset didn't exist several years ago, they have to be in the black. Unless I am misunderstanding something.

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a couple points:

without knowing what the network costs to run, revenue doesn't mean much.

the estimate given in the above article says $136 million translated into cash flow.

in addition, the Yankees only own 36% of the network, according to the article.

in 1998, the Yankee payroll was $68m; it's now over $100m higher than that, annually. the qoute in the article says the team may need to sell their stake in YES in order to have enough cash to run the team. they've spent over $1b on the new stadium (though that will pay off nicely, eventually)

a quick glance would say they've been spending the YES money , though as I said none of us really know