Going back and reading Hal’s comments, he thinks they can put out a championship caliber team without being as high as they have been in recent years.  I happen to agree.  He did say that lowering the payroll was a goal but he didn’t say anything to even hint that putting a championship caliber team wasn’t still also a requirement or, if he had to choose one, which it would be.  He didn’t even say he didn’t want to use the Yankees money as an advantage to outspend other teams.  He just seemed to think the gap between the Yankees and #2 was larger than it needed to be. 

My guess is if he had to choose one, he would probably fire Cashman and try to get in someone that he felt could develop a winning team for a more reasonable price.

“Me and my family”...

[1] “Going back and reading Hal’s comments, he thinks they can put out a championship caliber team without being as high as they have been in recent years.  I happen to agree.”

But don’t you think that to put out such a caliber team they would have had to stick to purely baseball criteria in a disciplined and sustained way and forgo temptations and dabbling?  It may be too late for that.  Now, for example, they will be be putting $30+ million a year (incl some milestone money) into A-Rod’s contract which was clearly more motivated by marketing and name recognition (maybe badly thought out marketing but that is a different matter).  They can’t do top baseball AND marketing splashes AND fragmented management AND lower salary levels.

[2] Aye rilke. I thought Hal was the educated one. I destroy the english language daily on this here blog. “Me and my family” would have earned me an asskicking by the bad sisters of no mercy any year after the first effen grade.

[9] “I think I understood or believed from discussion here that they only need to be under the cap every three years or maybe every third year.”

Rilke: Being under the salary threshold once every three years will “reset” the luxury tax back to the lower level.  For the revenue sharing rebate it seems that you will need to be under the threshold every two years (but everyone points out that they need to see the CBA to know the specifics). 

But I continue to look into this and frankly I am beginning to think that the CBA is a big smokescreen for a management change of heart (as per SD’s point).  When you actually run the numbers there may be NO compelling financial changes arising from the new CBA.

[1]  So Hal thinks he can avoid repeats of his own mistakes, like signing Soriano and the A-Rod extension, if only Cashman were out of the way?  That’s how you bring fresh perspective to the family business!

Seriously, I go off the grid for one day and all of a sudden the Yanks are a two-game-over-.500 team and also for sale?  Paging Michael Eisner!  Sell high!

ETA:  I see Hal is throwing his own brother under the bus for the A-Rod deal.  What a country!

Wow. MLB.tv is really effed up today. So bad, I can’t even find the game. I presume the game thread is hidden, too.

Me and Bobby McGee.

Good enough FOR me and Bobby McGee.
Object of a preposition, perfectly good English.

My family an I. My family and me own self. mo theaghlach agus muid féin a. Got the last one from an uncail in his 60’s. He texts!!

Looks like I’m wrong about Little Pettitto so far. We’ll see.

For some reason, my brother got to sit right behind Will Smith’s mom last night. The KC pitcher, not the Fresh Prince.

Hal has no intention of signing just like MJ had no intention of coming back to basketball after 1993.

Now I’ll obviously be wrong about that, too, and Hal will own the Yankees to the ripe old age of 125.

Who’s there? It’s me.  It is I.  My english teacher told me only English teachers and prudes use the latter.  Me and Bobby McGee think Tex is busted.

[4] “I destroy the english language daily”

I grant you poetic license to do so, in the unlikely event you don’t already have it.

OTF is wanted by the grammar police in 61 states.

If the NYDN blindsided the Steins with this story, them denying is a matter of course. It keeps their ducks in a row and doesn’t queer any negotiations they may be embarking on. If they sell by November, they can always say “well, in MAY we weren’t selling, but by August, we got a Johnny Fontaine offer.”

I put more stock in the NYDN’s anonymous sources than in the Steins’ chirping. Even for the News, I’m guessing this story didn’t pull front and back without going through several rounds of editorial fact-checking. Or whatever passes for fact-checking in NY sports tabloidom.

If I was the Steins, having escaped inheritance tax and having $3b dancing in front of my eyes would be awfully tempting.  Fuck’s sake, I dance like a bear for 50 cents tossed at my feet on the way to a 2 dollar well shot every night.

[15] Your confidence in the rigorousness of the fact-checking procedures of the News may be misplaced.

“Bubba Crosby is our centerfielder.”

Turning down $3 billion would be pretty difficult.

And maybe they could sell the team to a friend of Bud Selig so MLB would make decisions go the Yankees’ way! Then again, if that happened, it would of course be the year that Selig actually retires.

[19] That might be a worthy tradeoff.

Granderson’s three run home run game on Yankee Classics right now. In case you need to lose faith in Phil Hughes again. (7-6 Yankees, Hughes still in).