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Drilling down on Roy Halladay
Posted by: | CommentsWhen it comes to pitchers on the block, the Yankees are always a likely destination simply because, for the last 15 years, landing pitchers has been the team’s modus operandi. They acquired David Cone in 1995, David Wells after the 1996 season and Roger Clemens prior to 1999 campaign. In the 2000s, the names — Javier Vazquez, Randy Johnson — kept coming but with less success, and just a year ago, the Yankees nabbed CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett out of the clutches of free agency.
So we arrive in the winter of 2009-2010 with Roy Halladay seemingly filling the role Johan Santana played in 2007-2008. Already, the Yankees have been rumored to be interested in Roy Halladay, and the new Blue Jays’ GM Alex Anthopoulos seems both willing to ship off Halladay and willing to send him to an AL East competitor.
The parallels to Santana are obvious. Halladay is one of the American League’s top five pitchers, and as he has aged, he’s become a smarter and better pitcher. Over the last two years, he’s 37-21 with a 2.78 ERA and 414 strike outs in 485 innings. He has thrown a whopping 18 complete games over the last two years. As a comparison, the Yankees’ entire pitching staffs have thrown just four complete games in that same span.
Similar to Santana, Halladay is playing out the last year of his contract, and the Blue Jays are unlikely to resign him after 2010. Furthermore, as the Twins were in 2007, the Blue Jays are living through their first off-season under a new General Manager. While Bill Smith inherited a healthy organization, Anthopoulos has his work cut out for him as he tries to compete with the big guns of the East while uncoupled Toronto from a few bad contracts.
So what, then, would a potential trade partner expect the Blue Jays to want, at least initially? For Anthopoulus, trading Halladay will be a defining moment of this off-season. He’ll be trading one of the best pitchers to throw in Toronto and big crowd favorite at a time when the team is hurting for attendance. He’ll need to recoup that investment while stocking up for the future. In that sense, I don’t see him settling for a package as weak as the one Minnesota received for Santana.
If I were a betting man, I’d guess that Anthopoulus would initially ask for Jesus Montero. At that point, Brian Cashman would hang up the phone. But the point remains: Toronto will need an impact, near-can’t miss prospect to give up Halladay right now. Since the Doc has but one year left on his contract, a team acquiring him may have to give up just one prospect, but it will be a costly one. Would Austin Jackson get the job done? Would the Yankees feel comfortable trading him? Does Toronto, as many others do, feel Jackson’s stock is low right now?
In writing about John Lackey last week, Joe mentioned how Halladay is a desired piece potentially available next winter. That, of course, is where the Yanks found themselves with Santana, but Johan never hit free agency. Brian Cashman will have to ask himself if he wants Halladay enough to pay in prospects and later in cash or if the team is willing to chance it and wait. Josh Beckett and Cliff Lee loom large in 2011 as well.
Right now, this is sheer speculation and the framework for a discussion on Halladay. The rumor mill is quiet in advance of the Winter Meetings, and teams are waiting to see how the market shakes down. When the Hot Stove warms up, Halladay will be front and center. Let’s see how the Yanks approach a big-name pitcher this time around.
Mayweather, Yankee Stadium loom for Pacquiao
Posted by: | CommentsAfter his Saturday night victory over Miguel Cotto, Manny Pacquiao basked in the glow of his seventh title in seven weight classes. Behind the scenes, the wheels began to turn for a Pacquiao fight against Floyd Mayweather, and if all goes according to plan, the venue for the fight could be none other than Yankee Stadium, reports Greg Bishop. According to The Times, the Yankees are “interested in hosting a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight next spring.” Nothing can be formalized until the two boxers agree to fight each other, and even then, the Yankees would have to make a compelling case for hosting the fight in the new house.
In September, the team first expressed interest in hosting a bout in the Bronx. When Pacquiao and Cotto gathered there for a press conference, we used the opportunity to explore the history of boxing in Yankee Stadium. A Pacquiao/Mayweather headliner would pack the new joint, and Fack Youk would love to see the fight in the stadium as well.
In the shadow of the new house, local business suffers
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Stan the Man’s Baseball Land sits across from the old Yankee Stadium. (Photo by flickr user DustonThomasJohnston)
During the build-up to the opening of the new Yankee Stadium, team officials touted the economic benefits it would bring to the South Bronx, and many of Yankee-centric merchants lining River Ave. supported the stadium. Even with its smaller capacity, the new stadium would attract more people to the area and thus, they reasoned, business would boom.
As the World Series drew to a close nearly two weeks ago, that economic reality was far from the truth, and in Year One, the new stadium had a negative impact on local businesses. As The Times, the Associated Press and WNYC all explored during the playoffs, sports stores and other businesses lining River Ave. have seen sales drop by nearly 20-40 percent this year.
“Many people who thought that their business would be greatly increased have not experienced that,” Ramón J. Jimenez, a South Bronx lawyer and community activist, said to The Times. “I think a lot of people are disappointed.”
The reasons for this downturn in sales are numerous. First, the bad economy has led consumers to curtail spending. Second, the Yankees averaged nearly 8000 fewer fans per game this year than last. Even with eight additional home games in the playoffs, attendance totals for 2009 were still lower than they were for 2008.
More important though are the amenities in the new stadium. The old Yankee Stadium was not a shopper’s paradise. It featured a few cramped souvenir stands, few dining options and concourses that made heading straight to the seats an attractive option for all fans. The new stadium features 125 concession stands, 56 souvenir shops and multiple dining options. It was designed, as all new stadiums are, to be a self-contained economy. Get your hat, get your t-shirt, get your beer and your fries and even your Porterhouse steak all right here.
Many aren’t — and shouldn’t be — surprised by this turn of events. Neil deMause culled reactions from those who had foreseen this unfortunate impact. “When you look at this new generation of stadiums, they’re little walled cities,” Robert Baade, sports economist said. “They’re trying to capture as much spending as possible inside the stadium, and that really works against spillover to the neighborhoods. Why go out into the neighborhood if you can get everything you want right there?”
Others — such as Joyce Hogi — noted that, earlier in the year, the police had barricaded the streets so that people could not cross to the businesses. A few weeks into the season, though, the barriers were gone, and by the end of the year, businesses weren’t suffering as much.
As Yankee Stadium heads into Year Two, merchants will nervously await the economic reality of it for Year Two will be the true indication of impact. One River Ave. vendor during the World Series noted that the Yanks sold the on-field World Series patch hat in the Stadium for $50 while merchants outside were willing to accept $40. (Editor’s Note: The same cap was available at the Yankees Clubhouse store and online for $35.) If the economics of merchandise continue in this vein, equilibrium will soon be restored, and the losses would represent a one-year dip as fans recover from the novelty of a new stadium.
Maybe we Yankee fans should make more of an effort to visit those River Ave. merchants and give them some business. They are, after all, a colorful part of the Yankee experience in the Bronx, and we should be mindful of them as the Yankees fortify themselves with a new stadium and the monetary benefits of it.
Thoughts on the economics of buying the World Series
Posted by: | CommentsWhen the Yankees won the World Series two weeks ago, the team set a rather dubious record. No longer were the 2007 Boston Red Sox the most expensive team ever to win baseball’s championship. With an estimated payroll around the $201 million mark, the 2009 Yankees shattered the previous record by nearly $60 million.
Of course, with these numbers as irrefutable proof of some devious Yankee scheme to take over baseball, analysts and fans outside of the city have accused the Yankees of buying a World Series championship. The economics of baseball, they say, are broken, and the Yankees are the prime example of it. In New York, we finger teams such as the Marlins ($36 million) who pocket nearly as much in revenue sharing as they pay their team as the real economic villains of baseball, but that just might be wishful thinking.
So for the first post in a series I plan to unveil as the off-season goes on, let’s explore the Yankees’ spending. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, sports economist and Smith University professor Andrew Zimbalist states that the Yankees did not buy a World Series. Noting that 20 of baseball’s 30 teams have made the playoffs since 2004, Zimbalist says that payroll accounts for only approximately 15-30 percent of a team’s success. The other factors, he writes, “include front office smarts, good team chemistry, player health, effective drafting and player development, intelligent trades, a manager’s in-game decision-making, luck, and more.” Many of those factors are related to wealth, but more on that later this off-season.
Even if the Yankees’ payroll helped them this year, Zimbalist says, it might handicap them in the future:
Imperfect though it may be, baseball has a system, and the Yankees play by its rules. Its success this year depended significantly on the acquisition of pitchers A.J. Burnett and C.C. Sabathia, along with first baseman Mark Teixeira. But the Yankees did not sign these players to one-year contracts (though the team did sign pitcher Andy Pettitte to a one-year deal).
Mr. Sabathia was great in 2009, but he is signed through 2015 when he will be 36 years old; Mr. Burnett through 2013 when he’ll be 36; and Mr. Teixeira through 2016 when he’ll be 37. Many of the team’s other stars are also signed to long-term contracts. Third baseman Alex Rodriguez is signed through 2017 when he will be 42 and catcher Jorge Posada through 2011 when he’ll be 40.
It’s possible that the positive correlation between payroll and success the Yankees experienced this year will turn into an inverse correlation. After all, player performance tends to wane with age. But these players have contracts that require the Yankees to increase their annual pay in the years ahead. Those salaries will weigh on the team’s ability to acquire other players.
As you chew on those statements and the aging horrors that may await us, take a peek at this rough sketch of reinvestment strategies among baseball teams. Khoi Vinh of the blog Subtraction has explored the way baseball teams in 2009 reinvested their 2008 earnings on the field and found that the Yanks’ reinvestment rates were near the top and that, especially in the playoffs, reinvestment rates determined success (and winning percentage). Of the eight playoff teams, none reinvested a larger percent of their earnings than the Yankees did, and no other team, obviously, reached that 11-win mark.
And so I leave you with some initial thoughts. Maybe the Yankees’ spending came as close to guaranteeing a World Series win as is possible within the framework of baseball’s economics, but the team may pay a price for it later. Furthermore, the Yanks are simply playing by the rules of the economic game, and if the rest of baseball thinks it is broken, they will have to fix it. For decades, though, baseball has tried to bring down the Yankees, and nothing has succeeded. I wouldn’t put money on an economic sea change any time soon.
Stadium demolition permit approved
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That photo — that heartbreaking shot inside of the House that Ruth Built — is the latest from Tom Kaminski in Chopper 88. The WCBS AM man in the sky flew over Yankee Stadium this week and snapped some shots of the crews hard at work. The stadium is slowly emptying out, and in a few months, it will start to come down.
Meanwhile, New York 1 featured a story yesterday about the wait in the South Bronx for the parks. I’ve covered this angle of the new stadium extensively, and the New York 1 story focuses on community resentment. The destruction of the stadium will be complete by the summer, and the replacement parks will open in 2011. Although neighborhood activists are still upset, this timeline has been in place for the last 18 months. Still, the South Bronx will have suffered through five years without adequate parkland, and the Yanks will be starting their third season in the new stadium when the parks finally open.
Finally, the destruction of the building is an official fait accompli. Two weeks ago, the Department of Buildings approved the full demolition certificate for the old stadium. If bureaucratic paperwork is your thing, take a peak at the filings. We’ll have more on the old and new stadium as we continue to wrap up the 2009 season over the next few weeks.
U.S. economic growth and the Yankees’ World Series wins
Posted by: | CommentsUnfortunately, during the crush of the World Series, I missed this tidbit the first time around, but it’s never too late for some rosy economic news. In the waning days of the World Series, Andrew Leonard at Salon explored the reality that a Yankee World Series win brings with it an average GDP growth of five percent. So not only is our horrible endless nine-year ring drought over, but that the recent economic recession should be over too, right? After all correlation always implies causation no matter how tenuous the connection between the two events may be.
On Matsui’s knees and free agency
Posted by: | CommentsAs free agents go this winter, Hideki Matsui could be a valuable one for a team in need of a DH. At his age, he won’t demand a long-term deal, and as we saw this year, when healthy, he can still hit. But make no mistake about it: Matsui is a DH.
In an excellent piece about Matsui’s medical history, David Waldstein talks with Scott Rodeo, the doctor behind Matsui’s knees. Although Hideki and his agent Arn Tellem say he could still play the outfield, Dr. Rodeo isn’t so sure about that.
Basically, Matsui’s knees are ticking time bombs. He has to be monitored continually and could need another procedure to remove loose cartilage from his knee. To rehab, Matsui must strengthen the surrounding leg muscles, and he will probably get microfracture surgery after he retires. According to the doctor, to do so now would cost him a full season of rehab. With this medical history in mind, Rodeo would not be too comfortable with his patient roaming the outfield:
Rodeo operated on Matsui’s arthritic knees a year ago. With careful supervision by the trainer Gene Monahan, he monitored Matsui’s progress throughout the season, helping him to be at optimal health for the postseason.
Now a free agent, Matsui is scheduled to see Rodeo again soon. A magnetic resonance imaging test will probably determine whether Matsui needs to have the procedure repeated. Either way, Rodeo said, Matsui could play some outfield next year.
“I think that he will probably be able to do it up to a point,” Rodeo said. “If he plays four or five games a week out there, it might start to bother him. There’s probably some level he can establish where he can play two or three days a week, but not four or five. My sense is that if you put him out there every single day, he might get into trouble.”
Meanwhile, last night at the Joe Torre Safe at Home gala, Matsui again reiterated his desire to stay with the Yankees. For the Bombers, it’s a nearly perfect situation. Matsui wants to stay and would probably be willing to settle for a reasonable amount of money. The team could sign Matsui to a short deal, and he wouldn’t need to play the outfield. Coming off of a 131 OPS+ season in which he only DH’d, Matsui can just hit and also rest those knees.
Even if the Yanks opt to let Matsui walk, he should still be viewed as a DH. Any team planning to place Matsui in the outfield would be incurring a significant amount of medical risk. He was the third most productive AL DH last year and could extend his career by giving up those dreams of returning to the outfield. I know the Yanks want to get younger and more versatile with their roster construction, but letting Matsui walk would be a mistake this winter.
Root, root, root for their old team
Posted by: | CommentsWhen the Yanks won the World Series against the Phillies a mere 10 days ago, Yankee fans all over breathed a collective sigh of relief. The team had finally beaten down the ghosts of 2001, 2003 and 2004 and the lack of pitching depth in the years after.
In a sense, this year’s victory let Joe Torre off the hook for his lack of postseason success over his final years as a Yankee. Our lasting postseason images wouldn’t be Jeff Weaver pitching in Florida before Mariano Rivera, A-Rod’s batting eighth in a playoff game or midges swarming Joba Chamberlain in Cleveland as Torre stood idly by. Rather, we can toast Hideki Matsui, A-Rod, CC, Andy Pettitte and, of course, Mo. We could feel confidence in Joe Girardi and look back fondly on the Joe Torre Era while recognizing that it probably had to end when it did, if not sooner.
The divorce, though, between Torre and the Yanks was an ugly one, and it followed a decade-long tradition of ugly divorces between the Yanks and their coaches. Don Zimmer had a public split with George Steinbrenner; Mel Stottlemyre continually felt undermined by the Yankee brass and left on bad terms. Torre and the Yanks engaged in public battle over their one-year offer following 2007, and no one felt too good about it.
But time — and World Series wins — heals all wounds. Speaking yesterday at the annual Safe at Home gala, both Torre and Zimmer revealed that they were rooting for the Yanks to beat the Phillies. Torre called it “surreal” to watch his Yankee friends playing in the Fall Classic. “To watch what they’ve done with Joe Girardi at the helm really made me feel good, even though I’m supposed to be a National League fan and all that stuff,” he said. “When you’re as close to these guys as I’ve been for all these years, I was just really pleased for them.”
Torre spoke at length about his trepidation at facing the Yankees. He and Derek Jeter have a tight bond, and it would have been weird, to say the least, to see Torre managing to get Jeter out. Still, the Yanks head to Los Angeles next June, and those games should make for compelling baseball.
Zimmer, who has known Joe Girardi since the Yanks’ manager was a rookie with the Cubs in 1989, was even more emotional in his support for the Yanks. “I was pulling so hard,” the Rays’ adviser said. “I spent the first 10 years he was in the big leagues, we were together. Joe’s quite a man and a very good friend of mine. I was happy for him and I was happy for the Yankees.”
In a way, now, the ball is in the Yankees’ court. The team should retire Joe Torre’s number 6, and they should have Zimmer — and all of the rest of the dynasty-era Yankees — at the ceremony. It sounds to me as though Torre is more than willing to thaw out this relationship, and it’s only a matter of time before the Yankees do too.
Late-night reading: Aroldis Chapman, profiled
Posted by: | CommentsThe winter sports team in New York are making it hard to forget about baseball season. After tonight, the Knicks and Nets are a combined 1-18, and the Giants and Jets are mediocre at best right now. So for those of you jonesing for a late-night baseball fix, check out Ronald Blum’s interview with Aroldis Chapman. The New York-based AP sports writer sat down with the latest Cuban defector to talk about baseball. Chapman discusses walking away from his life in Cuban by simply exiting a hotel in Rotterdam and his experiences watching Game 6 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium.
With the Hot Stove still to warm up this winter, we haven’t heard much about Chapman. We know what he can throw, and we know that he has visited with a good number of teams. We don’t, however, have a sense of the dollars or years it will take to sign him, and rumors have ranged from $15-$50 million. I don’t expect the Chapman talks to heat up until the Winter Meetings next month in Indianapolis, but when they do, you can bet that the Yanks will be right there in the thick of things.
Jeter hard up for the dough
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Just a few hours ago, we were talking about low-level rumors concerning a Derek Jeter contract extension. Later in the day, pictures emerged that showed Jeter could really use the dough. As you can see, he’s been reduced to begging for money on the streets of Coney Island. And his hair grew out since last week.
Nah, I’m just kidding you. Derek’s filming a movie. The film, called The Other Guys, stars Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell as two cops who, in the words of The Post, “are permanently benched after Wahlberg’s character wrongly shoots Jeter in the leg after seeing him walking around with a bat.” Jeter plays a future washed-up version of himself.
Click here for a rather amusing photogallery of scenes from the movie shoot. With that scraggly long hair and oversized puffy coat, Derek has never looked better.
