Did you bring up one valid point?
What does it matter how Ichiro was performing in Seattle this year?
THAT is what the thread is about.
No, this thread is about a different thing depending on what point of yours is thrown in the bushes. It's about Cashman being a terrible GM. Except he isn't. It's about the Yankees having a dartboard all star team. Except they don't. It's about Gary Sheffield being a bad signing. Except he wasn't. It's about singing and trading for great players past their prime, except it's about signing big time free agents in their prime, except it's about Kei Igawa and Carl Pavano. It's about making a bunch of invalid points, then asking if someone else has made a valid point. It's about understanding the playoffs can be a crapshoot, but not understanding the playoffs can be a crapshoot. It's about not winning a World Series almost every year being a disgrace when your payroll is high, but also ignoring that the highest payrolls often don't even make the playoffs. It's about the changing game of playoff baseball where 1 game and 5 game playoffs maximize the crapshoot aspect of the postseason, and the increase in teams from 2 to 4 to 6 to 8 over the years does the same, but it's about simultaneously dismissing that to make the same simplistic point again. It's about an old ass team full of holes and flaws that suffered injury after injury somehow winning the most games in the AL, but it's about how that team is a traveling all star team that should've been penciled in for a World Series. It's about... not a coherent fukking thing.
For the last twelve years the Yanks have handed out massive longterm contracts to Tex, CC, Giambi, A-Rod.. the list goes on and on plus overpaying to keep their own..plus bringing in contracts via trades that nobody else wants... plus sweeping garbage contracts like Igawa's and Pavano's under the rug.. This is about the payroll and the fact that they have won a single title during this span.
The New York Yankees win their division almost every single year and continually compete for titles. Thee is no other team in the history of baseball who can say the same thing with consistency. They are their own measuring stick. They are also revenue generators who can afford to take on shytty contracts and who an afford to overpay their own players rathe than risk losing them. This is capitalism, not communism. Major League Baseball is a professional sport, not a game at recess. They've got a shytload of money, and they make a serious attempt to contend every year. That combination both allows for and leads to risk-taking and bloated payroll.
With a $200M+ payroll, They should make the playoffs.
Which is simplistic as it gets. No matter how much money you spend, there are a thousand different factors that go into a successful season. The second, third, and fourth highest payrolls didn't make the playoffs. Spending money doesn't get you an automatic contender. The Marlins had more young talent than the Yankees this year. They never were a threat. The Dodgers had the runner up in the MVP and the Cy Young winner, and added seemingly ever single available talented player on the market at the trade deadline. They couldn't make the playoffs.
The Jays and O's have been mediocre at best. The Rays had a 3-year run where they were solid and the Red Sox are the Red Sox.
Which is a really retarded way to say the Rays might have the best rotation in baseball, the Red Sox have been spending out the ass and have had their own veritable all star team, the O's won 90 something games this year, and the Jays would've had a real playoff shot anywhere but the AL East in 2 of the past 4 years.
They were the favorites in the AL coming into the playoffs this year, were swept by the Tigers and scored a total of 6 runs. But hey, they made the playoffs
There is no excuse for their performance.
Yes, they played horribly. And they lost to a team whose top two starters are better than theirs, and whose best hitter just won a triple crown, and who signed an all star free agent for $215 million in the offseason. They faced a team that underachieved in the regular season but had the two best players in the series, and they turned in a shytty performance. Baseball: where shyt like that happens.
It is their fault. Nobody else was going to give A-Rod that many years. The Yanks were bidding against themselves and they do it ALL THE TIME..
