Thank you, Scott Boras
November 15, 2009, 10:15 pm by iYankees · 2 Comments
From Nick Cafardo (Boston Globe):
There will always be teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets, who will go after a player they desperately need and won’t be afraid to offer a big salary. Even teams like Seattle, Milwaukee, and San Francisco will be aggressive to make sure they don’t miss out on the players they want. But so many others will bottom-feed.
Boras also makes a good point that there are some teams content to make the playoffs two or three times over five or six years, teams that will never go the extra mile for the franchise player to put them over the top. He points out the Yankees were the one team that made the commitment last season, and they won a championship.
Ever since the Yankees won the World Series, there have been a number of pieces written about the team’s offseason spending and the way in which they supposedly “purchased” their championship. Now, I can’t argue that the Yankees didn’t spend a lot of money in order to win this year, as that would be a false argument. However, what I can do, and what Scott Boras does here, is view the spending through an honorific lens. This perspective, which most Yankee fans seem to employ, sees the team’s willingness to spend as a willingness to “go the extra mile” in order to ensure victory. Essentially, when compared to other ownerships, the Yankees just want it more than any of the other teams.
That’s the way I see it and Boras, although paraphrased in Cafardo’s piece, captures the point of view well. It’s not that the Yankees can spend it so they do; instead, it’s that they want it—i.e., a championship—enough to actually spend it.
Photo by Harry How/Getty Images
