Red Sox-Yankees rivalry reaches ridiculous heights

Still, the Sox and Yankees are in much better position to hold onto that homegrown talent when their contracts start going up and up. Lots of teams produce great talent from their systems, but how many of them lose their players after a few seasons?

If the Royals had produced Rivera, Jeter, and Posada (ok, that might be expecting too much), I doubt they'd stay with the organization for a dozen years.

 

Except mine was correct, and not the usual ill-informed kneejerk reaction from fans of small-market teams.

Rays just signed Evan Longoria for at least six and, potentially. as many as nine years.
Carl Crawford is in the midst of an affordable long-term deal with the Rays.
D-Backs just signed Chris Young for five years with an option for the sixth.
Rockies just signed Troy Tulowitzki for six years with an option for the seventh.
Grady Sizemore is in the midst of an affordable long-term deal with the Indians.
Fausto Carmona just signed a long-term deal with the Indians.
Miguel Cabrera just gave up his first six years of free agency (at monster rates, no doubt).
Curtis Granderson just signed a five-year deal with an option for a sixth.
The A's have signed a ton of players to afforadble deals over the years (Chavez, Haren, etc).

Some teams (the Marlins) will never try to keep their young players. And some clients of Scott Boras will almost never be allowed to go long-term and forfeit arbitration and FA years. But far more often than not, teams can lock up their players long-term, and long before they reach free agency.

 

And only Carl Pohlad being a cheap miserly bastard kept the Twins from signing Santana.

Sorry. I just have to say that from time to time.

 

You'll get no argument from me about Smilin' Carl (that's an old Reussism, right?)

 

Fixed.

 

Actually, pern, you can't really blame Pohlad for that (though, if you want to, be my guest).

Ortiz was injury-prone and a tease (hey-o) with the Twins...he had one 20-homer season, reached 400 at-bats just twice, never came close to hitting .300 and had a K/BB ratio of closer to 2/1 than 1/1 in parts of six years with the Twins. no one--not even the Red Sox--figured he'd end up the beast that he is. Don't forget the Sox had BOTH Jeremy Giambi and Shea Hillenbrand ahead of him in 2003 and that Ortiz wanted a trade before he finally got a F/T job with Hillenbrand's trade.

 

Where the hell is Shea Hillenbrand these days anyway?

 

No, I know. In fact, I often mention how the Red Sox lucked into him when Sox fans point to the genius of Theo Epstein.

However, it's fun to point it out to Twins fans.

 

Your confidence in your own opinions is impressive. Misplaced, but impressive.

Wonderful. Those teams get to keep one or two players. They don't get to keep everybody. The big-market teams don't have to make nearly as many hard choices, or take gambles like the one the Rays just took with Longoria.

The Rockies had to go through a rebuilding cycle before they could get to the point of locking up young stars.

Detroit does not belong in the discussion with low revenue teams and you should know that.

As usual, you keep sliding the argument away from the points that don't work for you.

Seriously, how many franchises in Major League Baseball could win a World Series while saddled with as many bad contracts as the Red Sox had last year? A small handfull of teams are able to spend through their mistakes rather than being crippled by them.

You brought up the example of the Rays. What happens if Crawford falls apart and Longoria tanks? Can Tampa Bay just spend on replacements or will the franchise have to suffer until those deals are off the books?

Anybody who approaches this discussion reasonably has to admit that the Yankees and Red Sox could survive such failures much more easily than most of the other teams in baseball.

 

This thread is the poster child for www.threadjack.com.

 

Yes. And they've been able to do it throughout baseball history.

: : :

Now, will you STFU about this already? Bring back the old thread or something. But goddammit, everyone understands your point and ... gasp ... some of us are OK with that. The game's fine the way it is. You don't agree, and we don't care.