Archive for News
Hal Steinbrenner confirms 2014 austerity plan
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(Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
It’s been more than three months since we first heard about the Yankees’ intentions to get under the $189M luxury tax threshold in 2014, but now we finally have confirmation from ownership. Hal Steinbrenner spoke to reporters briefly this morning, making it clear that talk about the austerity budget isn’t just for show. Courtesy of Marc Carig and Chad Jennings…
“The [$189M payroll] in two years is definitely a goal of ours,” Steinbrenner said. “We’re not too far off. We’re going to have a very similar payroll this year to last year, but I think we have a better team. Somewhat of an accomplishment I guess, on paper anyway. We’ll see. But yes, that 189 is a real number, and we’re going to be shooting for it.
“I’m a finance geek, I guess I always have been. That’s my background. Budgets matter and balance sheets matter. I just feel that if you do well on the player development side, and you have a good farm system, you don’t need a $220M payroll. You don’t. You can field every bit as good a team with young talent. When you consider (Manny) Banuelos and (Dellin) Betances and some of the pitching we have coming up with (Ivan) Nova and (Phil) Hughes and (Michael) Pineda, next year, when one of those two or both of those guys are up, we’re going to have the kind of young pitching we haven’t had since … I don’t know when the last time was.
“Luxury tax is an option; it’s a personal option. We do it. We go into it knowing exactly what we’re doing. Being the only team that does it, I’m just not convinced we need to be as high as we’ve been in the past to field a championship caliber team … I’m looking at it as a goal. But my goals are normally considered a requirement. Is it a requirement with baseball that we be at $189M? No, it’s not a requirement. But that is going to be the luxury tax threshold and that’s where I want to be.”
I sense a collective freakout coming on, but I think Hal laid things out well. He didn’t say they were unwilling to pay the luxury tax (they obviously are), just that they feel they can win a championship without paying it. We all know he’s right, we it happen almost every year.
Dave Pinto had a great take on the whole austerity budget thing, saying the Yankees essentially want to become “the Rays with money.” That means develop a core from within, then use the payroll advantage to add high-end free agents/trades strategically rather than necessarily. It’s exactly how the late-90s dynasty was built. It would make the Yankees crazy dangerous, but it’s much easier said than done.
The team’s current payroll is somewhere in the $225M range, so getting it down to $189M in two years will be no small feat. Shedding the Rafael Soriano, A.J. Burnett, and (sadly) Mariano Rivera contracts will account for roughly $39M in savings alone, but it’s not that simple. Robinson Cano is due a substantial contract extension, both Nova and Pineda will be arbitration-eligible by 2014, the trio of Nick Swisher, Curtis Granderson, and Russell Martin will either have to be re-signed or replaced, and so on. It’s doable, but it won’t be easy. The club seems very committed, however.
Report: Ten-team playoff format a “go” for 2012
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"The system will help the Orioles make the playoffs." "LOL. Good one Bud." (Reuters/Mike Segar)
The new Collective Bargaining Agreement has already changed baseball in many ways, but the biggest change will apparently be put in place this season. Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the new ten-team playoff format is a “go” for 2012, with an official announcement possibly coming tomorrow. He cautions that the decision is not yet final, but it will definitely happen. Tomorrow is the soft deadline for the two sides to hammer out the details and implement the system.
Under the new system, the three division winners in each league will automatically make the playoffs while the two non-division-winning teams with the best records will meet in a one-game playoff. The winner of the one-game playoff will then play the division winner with the best record. Unlike the last 17 seasons, two teams from the same division will be allowed to meet in the League Division Series round thanks to the new CBA. The regular season ends on October 3rd this year, so I guess the one-game playoff will be played on the 4th with the LDS rounds starting on the 6th. That gives the team that wins the one-game playoff time to travel without giving the division winners too much time off.
The new system places significant importance on winning the division, which has immediate impact on the Yankees. Just last week Brian Cashman admitted that the team wasn’t trying to win the AL East in 2010, instead settling for the Wild Card and opting to get healthy in September. With the new system, settling for one of the two Wild Card spots means you’re forced into a one-game, winner take all situation, and no one wants that. It will make for crazy exciting baseball as a fan, at least until your favorite team has its season end in that one-game playoff.
I don’t like the idea of an entire season coming down to this one-game playoff, but what’s done is done. I’ll be interested to see how the new system impacts the trade deadline though. With more teams in the running for playoff spots, there figures to be fewer non-contenders and thus fewer teams selling off pieces. At the same time, the race to add those few available pieces will be greater because there will be more teams looking to boost their playoff chances. Could make for a real hectic July, not to mention the August waiver trade period.
Ultimately, it all comes down to money. The new system allows the league to promote the game and make some additional advertising revenue while owners get a better chance at some playoff revenue. Attendance should increase as well, particularly late in the season. Some clubs that had little chance at the postseason (like the Blue Jays, for instance) can now dream of October baseball. September races should be a little more interesting, at least in theory. The Yankees have a great team and one good enough to win the AL East again, but the safety net is no longer in place.
Cashman Speaks: Scandal, Mo, Sabathia, More
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Duke Castiglione cares not about your personal bubble.
Happy pitchers and catchers day. Joe Girardi was/is late for a scheduled meeting with the media because of a lengthy flight delay, but Brian Cashman did hold court with reports. Here’s the round up of the news and notes…
- “It’s not going to affect my job,” said Cashman when asked about his divorce and stalker, calling the situation “very difficult.” He doesn’t believe his job is in jeopardy. (Dan Barbarisi)
- Cashman confirmed that Mariano Rivera will be late to camp. “What am I going to do? He’s Mariano Rivera,” said the GM. “He’ll get his eight innings in … He knows what he needs to do.” (Bryan Hoch, Pete Caldera & Erik Boland)
- CC Sabathia and Cashman had a conversation about the left-hander’s weight soon after he signed his new contract extension. Cashman called it a “healthy dialogue,” and the conversation included Girardi and head trainer Steve Donohue. Sabathia lost 10-15 lbs. this winter (though David Waldstein says it looks like more) and will focus on maintaining it throughout the season. (Marc Carig & Boland)
- Michael Pineda will not start the season as the number two starter, with Cashman citing his need to improve his changeup as a reason why. My prediction? He’ll be the four on Opening Day, which is completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things. (Boland)
- Andruw Jones will report to camp before the rest of the position players because he’s working his way back from offseason knee surgery. He had a small tear repaired and played through the injury last season. (Carig)
- Brad Meyers, one of the team’s two Rule 5 Draft picks, hurt his shoulder lifting weights over the winter and will be behind the other pitchers in camp. He was a long shot to make the roster already, and this certainly didn’t improve his chances any. (Carig)
- Not surprising, but Cashman said they want a left-handed hitting DH that can play some outfield. Raul Ibanez is reportedly the top target, though Cashman didn’t mention him by name. The GM also said Eric Chavez‘s return is not a sure thing. (Hoch)
- Last but not least, Cashman admitted that the Yankees weren’t trying to win the division in 2010. They decided they were better off winning the Wild Card and focusing on getting healthy in September. (Hoch)
(Photo via Mark Feinsand)
In Boston, a move toward digital ticketing
Posted by: | CommentsI’d be hard-pressed to tell you the last time I had a real ticket for a Yankee game. It might have been toward the end of 2010 when a friend of mine scored a pair in a corporate giveaway, and before that, who knows? The tickets I get through StubHub are all of the digital variety, and the few I’ve ordered straight from the source come as PDF files as well.
These 21st Century e-tickets, though, bring with them a decidedly 20th Century problem: You need a printer. Usually, when I’m going to a game with some friends, we spend the afternoon figuring out who has access to a printer and who’s printing which ticket. These are some serious First World problems, I know, but it’s something technological innovation should have figured out by now.
Up in Boston, the Red Sox seemingly have but with some twists. For Upper Bleacher seats at Fenway, the Sox will now be offering digital tickets. Instead of scrambling to find a printer with ink cartridges, the Sox are going to allow entry via the swipe of the credit card that originally was used to purchase the tickets. No more printing — and no more selling these seats on the secondary market.
“Over the past 10 years, we have intentionally held the price of the Upper Bleacher seating category at $12 per seat in order to provide family-friendly pricing options for Red Sox fans,” Red Sox SVP/Ticketing Ron Bumgarner explained. “The downside of keeping these low price points is that these tickets sometimes end up on the secondary ticketing market at significantly marked up prices. By requiring the primary purchaser of the tickets to attend the game through this Digital Ticketing Initiative, our hope is to gradually eliminate those purchasing these specific tickets solely for the purpose of resale, and instead get these tickets into the hands of fans and families all over New England.”
On the one hand, this move adds a level of convenience to purchasing tickets. On the other, it may skirt scalping and resale laws by limiting what one who purchases a ticket is allowed to do with the ticket. They don’t, however, plan on offering these types of tickets for every game. Certainly, the Red Sox should be applauded for trying to keep seat prices at a reasonable level, and I would imagine more teams will follow suit if this effort is successful.
Ultimately, Major League Baseball should be eying a move toward digital ticketing that some airlines are using. Most people carry around Internet-enabled phones that can display scannable bar codes. With such technology in place, we’ll never need a ticket — printed or otherwise — again. We’re not there yet though.
Biz Briefs: ESPN games, Legends Hospitality, Roger Waters
Posted by: | CommentsNotes! Everyone loves notes!
For Yanks, first half features three three ESPN Sunday Night Baseball games
ESPN released yesterday its slate of Sunday Night Baseball games for the first half of the 2012 season, and the Yankees, obviously, will be a prime player. Shockingly, two Yankees/Red Sox games will air on the World Wide Leader. Those will be on April 22 and July 8 when the Yanks trek up to Boston. ESPN will also show the Bombers’ first Sunday night meeting with Albert Pujols and the Angels on April 15.
As ESPN reminds everyone, former Red Sox skipper Terry Francona will be replacing Bobby Valentine in the booth this season. It’ll be interesting to see how he handles broadcast duties during that April 22 meeting between the two long-time rivals. I enjoyed Francona’s work during the playoffs when he filled in for an ailing Tim McCarver during the start of the ALCS.
Dave Checketts to head Legends Hospitality Management
Long-time fans of the New York Knicks will remember Dave Checketts as the president of the team who oversaw their spate of deep runs into the playoffs in the early and mid 1990s. Now the chairman of the group that owns the NHL’s St. Louis Blues, Checketts will be joining Legends Hospitality Management, the joint venture amongst Goldman Sachs, the Yankees and Dallas Cowboys that oversees concessions and sports marketing. Checketts, according to The Journal, “envisions building Legends into an international sports-marketing and entertainment business that advises franchises on media strategy, financing and building stadiums, then helps sell tickets and suites and handles concessions.”
As long as he doesn’t pull the sports marketing equivalent of trading Patrick Ewing for Glenn Rice on Legends Hospitality, the company will be in fine hands.
Roger Waters to play “The Wall” at Yankee Stadium
Finally, I’ve saved the best for last: The Yankees announced yesterday that Pink Floyd songwriter Roger Waters will bring “The Wall” to Yankee Stadium this summer. On Friday, July 6, Waters will perform at Yankee Stadium. Tickets go on sale on Monday, January 30 at 10 a.m.
The Waters performance though is almost an after-thought compared with the teaser in the press release. “In the near future,” the club said, “the Yankees will make additional announcements regarding other major acts that will be performing at Yankee Stadium in 2012. Information will also soon be available about other sporting events that will take place at Yankee Stadium during the summer months.”
Via RAB’s Twitter account, we speculated that the additional announcement could concern Bruce Springsteen. The Boss is on the road this year, and while he’s in Europe for much of May, June and July, the Yanks are out of town from September 3-13. It would be the perfect time for a concert, and it’s hard to find an act as major as Bruce on the road this year. We’ll keep an eye on this one.
Cashman Notes: A-Rod, Andruw, Nakajima
Posted by: | CommentsBrian Cashman spoke to reporters earlier today, mostly about the experimental knee procedure Alex Rodriguez underwent in Germany earlier this month. Let’s recap the news…
- “He had recovered we felt fully from his [knee] surgery,” said Cashman, who confirmed that Alex also had the procedure on his left shoulder. “I think this is more about maintaining health going forward.” The GM said A-Rod has already resumed physical activity, and for some reason he’s working out in Boise of all places (h/t Don W). The procedure was apparently taped to ensure there was no funny business. (Mark Hale, Marc Carig, Will Carroll)
- “Nothing to report,” said Cashman about Andruw Jones, “other than I’m still talking to him.” A week or two ago we found out that the two sides hadn’t made much progress towards a new deal (Hale)
- One way or the other, the Hiroyuki Nakajima situation will be wrapped up by next week. The two sides have 30 days to hammer out a contract after the Yankees won the infielder’s negotiating rights in early-December, and that window closes either Friday or Saturday of next week. It sounds like Cashman is waiting to see what happens with Nakajima before pursuing a new deal with Eric Chavez. (Bryan Hoch)
Yankees to wear 1912 throwbacks for Fenway Park’s 100th anniversary
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(Photo via Baseball Hall of Fame)
The Yankees play in one of the newest ballparks in baseball, but next year they’re going to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of the oldest. They’ll be in Boston to play the Red Sox when Fenway Park turns 100 years old on April 20th, a century after they were in town when the place opened in 1912. Well, technically the New York Highlanders were there in 1912, since they didn’t become the Yankees until 1913.
The Sox will have all sorts of pre-game ceremonies to honor the place before the game, and the impossible to read Fenway Park 100th Anniversary Events site says that both clubs will wear 1912 throwback uniforms during the game. Reports earlier this month indicated that the Yankees had not yet agreed to wearing their old uniforms, but apparently the people at Fenway got the a-okay recently. A second throwback game between the Red Sox and Athletics is still tentative according to the Fenway site. The Yankees have not yet confirmed that they will be wearing the 1912 jerseys during the game, just to be clear.
Aside from various patches and whatnot, the Yankees have been using their current road jerseys since 1918* and their current home uniforms since 1936. The uniform above is the 1912 Highlanders’ outfit they’ll apparently wear during the game in Fenway Park, a rather generic uniform aside from the multi-colored socks. You can see the accompanying home uniform at the Baseball Hall of Fame’s site.
I do like that the Yankees have been using their uniforms for a baseball eternity, but the throwback idea is also pretty neat. What fun is having such a rich history if you can’t go back and re-live it from time to time? Plus you know the team will make money off this, those hats and jerseys will be up for sale before you know it. Like I said, the Yankees have not yet confirmed any of this, but I hope it’s true. I’m looking forward to seeing Mariano Rivera finish off the Red Sox 2012-style in 1912 uniforms.
* From 1927-1930, the uniform actually said YANKEES instead of NEW YORK across the chest.
Remember Hideki’s arrival as Darvish slips away
Posted by: | CommentsAll of the recent brouhaha over Yu Darvish, I got to thinking about Hideki Matsui. Unlike many high-profile Japanese players who made the jump to the states, Matsui hit the Majors as an unrestricted free agent. There was no blind bidding process and subsequent negotiation. Hideki was free to pick whatever team he wanted. It almost made sense.
For Darvish, the decision to push his team to post him was a calculated risk. As ESPN.com’s Patrick Newman and Eno Sarris showed (in an Insider-only piece) on Tuesday, Darvish probably could have made more had he waited a few more years. If his deal with the Rangers ends up being at an annual level of around $12 million, there’s a good chance he would earn more in the long term by returning to Japan this year and entering the States via bidding process. Teams wouldn’t have to pony over sunk dollars on a posting fee, and Darvish would stand to make all of the money from his contract.
Yet, the allure of guaranteed dollars is a tough one to resist. It’s why pitchers are willing to sign seemingly below-market deals earlier in their careers. The threat of injury lurks, and easy access to millions is too tempting to turn down. Darvish will sign a deal that locks him up for five or six years, but if he’s as good as advertised, he’ll cash in again in his early 30s. That said, he would be wise to sign a high-dollar, low-year deal with the Rangers and hit free agency at 29. Texas, though, would rather lock him up for longer.
Anyway, I digress. The erstwhile World Series MVP was my original focus. I realized a few days ago, as the Yanks continued through a silent off-season, that I missed Matsui. Now, I don’t believe the Yanks should bring him back, but I miss his presence in left field and his bat in the lineup. Bring back the glory days of Matsui, the player who hit .292/.370/.482 on the Yanks, and I’ll be happy.
So how anyway did the Yanks land Hideki? It was the more traditional path. By the end of 2001, Matsui’s name was bandied about as a future Major Leaguer. He was the highest paid Japanese player at the time, and the next stop for him would be the States. The first time the Yanks were tied to him arrived in August of 2002 when Jack Curry reported that Jean Afterman was scouting Matsui. Over the next few months, rumors of the Yanks’ interest hit the news. Would the Bombers land both Jose Contreras and Hideki Matsui prior to 2003?
Hideki was a new — and seemingly rare — breed of Japanese players. He used a quick bat to pull the ball and was a power hitter more in the American baseball mode. As the offseason wore on, both the Yankees and the Mets emerged as potential suitors for Matsui’s services. As the Yankees tried to determine if they wanted Bartolo Colon or Roger Clemens for 2003, they stepped up their pursuit of Matsui as well, and by mid-December, they seemed poised to land him for three years and $20-21 million. It was an easy negotiation and an easy deal. Godzilla came to New York.
Since Matsui’s arrival, no Japanese player has made quite the same impact on Major League Baseball. Daisuke Matsuzaka and, to a greater extent, Kei Igawa failed to deliver as advertised, and no power hitters or All Star position players in the Ichiro or Matsui mold have arrived on U.S. soil. Now, it’s Darvish’s turn, and in Texas, where the defending AL Champs are in bad need of pitching, he’ll get a chance to star. The whole world will be watching.
Girardi Notes: Rotation, Hughes, Nakajima, Burnett, Montero, A-Rod, Darvish
Posted by: | CommentsAll 30 managers meet with the media at some point during the Winter Meetings, and Joe Girardi just wrapped up his little press conference not too long ago. As expected, he was asked quite a bit about the Yankees rotation and whether or not he expects the team to acquire a starter.
“You always look to improve your club, but sometimes the asking price is too much,” said Girardi, “and if that’s the case, I do feel good about our rotation. [An acquisition] has to make sense for us. We’re not just looking for a one-year deal, we’re looking long-term as well.”
By long-term, he didn’t just mean signing a free agent for the next five years or whatever. “We feel we have some pretty good prospects in the minor leagues that are going to be able to help us this year,” he added, indicating that the club does want to have an opening for some of their prospect at some point relatively soon. Girardi didn’t mention them today, but he has brought up Hector Noesi, Manny Banuelos, and Dellin Betances as guys that could help the rotation next season earlier this winter.
Girardi went on to speak about the different look Freddy Garcia gives opposing batters compared to everyone else on the staff as well as A.J. Burnett‘s ability to occasionally dominate a game. “Part of it is Phil Hughes, how does he bounce back? Is he going to be able to be the guy we had in 2010? And if he is, to me that’s almost like going out and making another move,” said Girardi. “He can be really important to us. I do consider him a big part of our rotation.”
The skipper went on to dance around a question about concerns surrounding the conditioning of some of his pitchers, specifically Hughes and CC Sabathia. He likened Sabathia to David Wells, who used to joke that his conditioning was only a problem when he wasn’t getting outs. “I thought [Hughes] got behind the 8-ball because he got hurt, and he never really caught up last year.”
The audio file is way too big to upload at the moment, but I’ll get it up on here eventually. Update: Audio! Apologies for the sound quality, there were a ton of people there and some the questions came from far away.
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Here’s the rest of the stuff Girardi spoke about, the important stuff anyway…
- “This is about acquiring talented players to put them on our club,” said Girardi when asked about the recently kinda sorta acquired Hiroyuki Nakajima. “He’ll be asked to do a number of things, obviously, we will look at him. This is about acquiring talent, and we feel that we have a chance to sign a talented player.” He added that there’s room for both Nakajima and Eduardo Nunez on the roster, especially since they would like Nunez to become a bit more versatile.
- As far as the report of Burnett being on the trading block, “Is there necessarily truth to the report about A.J.? I can’t tell you,” said Girardi. “As I said, we’ll always try to improve, no matter where it is, whether it’s the bullpen, a spot in the field, or in the rotation. We’ll look at every avenue.” Frankly, I’m stunned he didn’t come out and say they were trying to dump him. Stunned I tell you.
- It’s possible the team could carry three catchers next year, namely Jesus Montero, Russell Martin, and Frankie Cervelli. Girardi made it clear that Martin is the everyday catcher, but they expect Montero to earn his spot in Spring Training and then get regular at-bats at DH. “We expect him to perform at a level where he helps us next year. We expect that.” Interestingly enough, Girardi said he’s brought up the idea of having Montero play first base, but developing him as a catcher remains the team’s goal. Brian Cashman later ruled out right field completely, so enough talking about that.
- Robinson Cano finished the season as the regular three-hole hitter against right-handed batters, though the batting order is something they’ll continue to evaluate going forward. That includes every spot, from leadoff right down to the number nine guy.
- “I don’t know about 150,” replied Girardi when asked about how many games he expects Alex Rodriguez to play. He did point out that Alex was playing well before the knee injury (.301/.377/.509 on July 1st), but they have to manage his DH days.
- Girardi hasn’t seen Yu Darvish in person, but he’s heard all about him. If the Yankees need to call up a young pitcher at some point next season, they’ll have no problem doing so if they feel they’re ready.
- As I reported earlier, the entire coaching staff will be back next season.
