If Only Cash Won Games
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By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
The New York Times
Published: October 26, 2003
nytimes.com
WHO gets the blame for not winning a World Series?
The question seems ridiculous, unless you're in the Yankees' universe, where success and failure are determined by championships.
The Yankees are on a franchise-wide griddle. By their own standard, they should be.
They spend more money on players than any other team in Major League Baseball. At one level, this is good. But it also makes being mowed down by a low-payroll team like the Florida Marlins seems all the more dramatic.
The Yankees have a payroll estimated at nearly $157 million, as against just over $52 million for the Marlins, a 3-to-1 ratio that did not translate to the playing field in the World Series.
Brian Cashman, the Yankees' general manager, dismisses as foolish the notion that their payroll — the highest in baseball history — should guarantee winning, season after season, World Series appearances year-in and year-out.
"Payroll has nothing to do with it," Cashman said Friday. "We're the only team with the highest payroll in the division that winds up in the playoffs. If payroll had something to do with it, then in the American League West the Seattle Mariners would have won it, or the Texas Rangers. In the National League West, the Dodgers would have made the playoffs. In the National League Central, the Cardinals would be in the playoffs. In the National League East, the Mets would have been in the playoffs. In the American League Central, the White Sox would be in the playoffs."
Cashman continued: "If payroll had something to do with it, the Marlins wouldn't be here. Bottom line is: The great thing about baseball is just because you might have an $11 million pitcher on the mound, a guy who is making $500,000 on the opposing mound could still win that game. Payroll really doesn't translate."
Andy Pettitte earned about $11.5 million this season, while the opposing starter in Game 6 last night, Josh Beckett, earned about $1.7 million.
"Payroll leaders didn't make the playoffs," Cashman added. "If payroll mattered, what are the Marlins doing here?"
The more poignant question for Cashman is: How did the Marlins beat up on the Yankees?
Cashman's feet have not been publicly held to the fire. Yet. The principal owner, George Steinbrenner, did chide him during the season by praising Theo Epstein, the Boston general manager, for assembling a powerful team. Of course, if the Red Sox had lost the way they did with Steinbrenner as owner, the organization, from Epstein down, would have been showered, and not with praise.
In six seasons as general manager, Cashman has presided over three World Series championship teams. These Yankees are only the fourth team to win at least three straight. Here's the problem: Two of the others were Yankee teams that did even better. The 1949-53 Yankees won five straight championships, and the 1936-39 Yankees won four straight.
Wealth does matter, and Cashman knows it.
"Wealth means you have more chances to retain your players, more of a chance to play in all available markets," he said.
The Yankees brought in Hideki Matsui from Japan and José Contreras from Cuba.
"But that also means you have a lot more opportunity to make mistakes," he added. "Look at the last five years which payrolls were high and how many losses there were. There was a team this year that lost nearly 100 games with a payroll of $100 million. How did that happen?"
Cashman was alluding to the Mets, who lost 95 games this season.
For all the money at his disposal, Cashman failed to build a bridge between his starting pitchers and Mariano Rivera, baseball's greatest closer. Instead, the Yankees have relied on superhuman outings from its starting pitchers — two of whom are 40-plus years old — to get to Rivera. Otherwise, they have had to ford streams and ride rickety boats across rough waters to reach him.
The Yankees also do not have a legitimate leadoff hitter and have not had one in the seven years Joe Torre has been their manager. They have no one like Boston's Johnny Damon or Florida's Juan Pierre, their nightmare in the Series.
Maybe the Yankees should buy Pierre. Maybe they should buy Miguel Cabrera, the young Marlins infielder-outfielder. They should eventually bring Beckett to New York. While they're at it, why not buy Montreal's Vladimir Guerrero and put him in right field?
Being the Yankees is like being king of the United States: a grand but incongruent distinction. The Yankees have sealed themselves in a lucrative but suffocating archive. The manager, the general manager and even the owner, for that matter, operate in the long shadow of history. They work in a museum filled with black-and-white photos of men wearing pinstripes from eras long past.
The reality is that nobody else in baseball is trying to build a dynasty. Most try to assemble a winning team for the short run. They unload high salaries and reload with hungry, young and cheap talent. The formula has worked: just look at the Yankees' most recent postseason tormentors: Arizona in 2001, Anaheim in 2002 and Florida this year.
The lesson of the past three seasons is that there are some things money cannot buy: heart, hunger and desire. |
