$208 million dollars

This is the # that most Yankee haters bring up first to describe what they hate most about the yankees. This, after all, is the Yankees payroll, $84 million dollars more than 2nd and greater than the bottom five teams in baseball combined.

While this number might piss us off, there is a number that is equally if not more hatable: $54.4 million.

Keep in mind this #, 54.4 million, and take a look at the ten bottom teams in baseball salary wise.

21. Oakland: 55,869,262
22. Texas: 53,891,258
23. Washington:48,581,500
24. Colorado:48,107,500
25. Toronto:45,038,500
26. Cleveland:41,830,400
27. Milwaukee:40,234,833
28. Pittsburgh:38,133,000
29. Tampa Bay: 37,975,067
30. Kansas City:36,881,000

You will notice that most of these teams find themselves at the very bottom of baseball's food chain. The Royals, Pirates and Rockies are perennial losers and dont seem to have any real future in sight.

Then, there are the Indians and A's at $41 mil and $55 mil respectively. Going into 2006, there arent two scarier teams in all of baseball.

Still, anyway you look at it, the better teams are often the teams with the most money.

So now, lets go back to this #, 54.4 million dollars.

No, this is not the amount of money the yankees pay their infield: Thats around $50 mil when you factor the part of A-Rod's salary the Rangers are paying.

No, this is not the amount of money the Yankees pay their opening day starting pitching staff: Sorry folks, that # hovers around $65 mil.

No, this this is not the amount of money that the Yankees almost paid to buyout Jason Giambi's remaining 4yrs, 82 mil on his contract.

And sadly, no, this is not the money that Hideki Matsui dropped at late night Japaneese whore houses (something he is apparently famous for).

So, what in god's earth does this # mean?

54.4 million dollar is the amount of money that the Yankees paid players NOT to be on their postseason roster. Thats right, our beloved bombers have more money that they are invested in players not to play, than nine teams have invested in players that they pay to play.

Below is the list of post season out casts aka "Dead Money":

Kevin Brown: $15.7
Carl Pavano: $9.0
Jaret Wright: $5.7
Steve Karsay: $5.0
Mike Stanton: $4.0
Felix Rodriguez: $3.0
Paul Quantrill: $3.0
Javy Vazquez(money paid in the Randy Johnson deal): $9.0
Total: $54.4 million (Thats a whole lot of pitching)

Note: this # does not factor in Bernie Williams' $12.3 mil salary which proved worthless in his final season in pinstripes

There are three reasons that this # pisses me off more than anything.

1. The most obvious of them all. No other team could survive a season like this.

Any other team in baseball can hardly recover from the loss of one key player and almost never with the loss of two. Look at the A's this year with Rich Harden and Bobby Crosby(combined 2005 salaries:$1.1 mil)

But $54.4 million dollars in unused contracts: That is $7 mil more than the White Sox and Cardinals combine to pay their starting rotations.

That is more mistake than the NBA salary cap and roughly twice the NHL cap.


2. With all this "dead money," Brian Cashman is considered a smart executive: This is actually the part that I wanted to highlight most in this blog.

See there is no telling how much, if any, control Brian Cashman had over the Yankees. Clearly, George Steinbrenner's hard on for big names drove the Yankees to pay $26 million dollars this season for Randy Johnson. So there are two ways to look at Cashmen.

1. He did nothing except listen to Steinbrenner
2. He made more decisions than people think.

If the first scenario is true, then Cashmen hasnt proven a thing. He is not a genius executive that all baseball teams should covet. Instead, he is an overpaid pawn.

If the second case is true, then Cashmen is a moron.

Say what you will about Aaron Small or Robinson Cano. If Aaron Small was this good, why wasnt he a Yankee 10 years ago. And yes Cano, and Chien Ming Wang were good. but does a .320 OBP or a 4.02 ERA really scream messiah, or is this possibly the case of an over hyping new york media (see Friday's blog)

Even with these players, if the Yankees were Cashmen's mess, than these players dont make up for $54.4 mil.

3. My third problem relates a lot to the 1st and 2nd problems and deals with my beloved Mets and their late gm, Steve Phillips. Steve Phillips, the mets gm that led them to the 2000 world series, was driven out of town just a few years later.

After 2000, to further improve the Mets he acquired Kevin Appier(who he later turned into Mo Vaughn), Robby Alomar, Roger Cedeno and Jermey Burnitz.

Truth is, none of these moves really worked. Appier pitched pretty well in his first year but was overpaid (4yrs, 42 mil) and needed to be moved. Vaughn never fully healed from knee injuries, Alomar was passed his prime and Burnitz, he just wasnt very good.

Steve Phillips quickly became public enemy #1. (Little is talked about how he drafted David Wright or was the Gm when they signed Jose Reyes.)

I hated him. You hated him. Everyone hated him. And for good reason. He had driven a world series team into the ground...He took on $40 million dollars of bad contracts and the team could not recover.

Wait a minute

40<54.4

and Brian Cashmen is the most coveted exec for this winter's GM vacancies.

What all this shows is that the Yankees financial situation makes them nearly invinsible. They can fail more than 1/3 of baseball can afford to succeed and still pay more salary than any team in baseball.

They still pay over $150 mil in postseason contracts and that does not even factor in the late season trade for Matt Lawton ($7.75 mil) .

Basically, the Yankees can be the biggest morons in baseball, which they are, and still make the playoffs every year.

This is just one more reason for Yankees2000.

Vaya con Dios,

Sippy Momo