Yankee Prudence

"Hal Steinbrenner" by Paul J. Bereswill

Living in New York for most of the past decade, it's easy to pick up the rhythms of the metropolis's professional sports teams. It's well known the Yankees have changed since the heyday of George Steinbrenner's wild spending on free agents. His sons have run the team with what seems like a bit more financial restraint, although their spending spree last winter completely contradicted the mantra from the prior two offseasons ago, to get under the luxury tax number. Instead, they signed Jacoby Ellsbury, Masahiro Tanaka, Brian McCann, and Hiroki Kuroda.

Word out of New York is that they are done spending big dollars this winter and will not pursue Max Scherzer. As Ken Davidoff writes: "Steinbrenner didn’t speak like an owner expecting to add another big piece to his club". I'd challenge anyone to find that sentence in a newspaper last century. I'd love to see it, in fact.

Let's take a quick look at front office game theory. Should the Yankees just say they're in on Scherzer so the price tag goes up? Or, is it worth it to them - in an effort to keep salaries lower across baseball - to say they are out of it and hope Scherzer doesn't set any records? If Scherzer gets close to $200 million from somebody, will it wind up costing the Yankees more for a different free agent in the future?