Results tagged ‘ Minnesota Twins ’

An Article that really bothers me

I was scrolling through Buster Olney’s blog (must be an Insider to read complete blog) on ESPN.com, as I do every morning. Towards the end of his blog each day, he lists a number of links to interesting stories by baseball writers from around the country. There’s usually a few good reads in the bunch and today was no exception. I read a story about Matt LaPorta’s surgeries, how one writer thinks the Jays should sign Jason Bay and an article about the Mariner’s top draft pick, Dustin Ackley. Then, at the bottom of the page, I came across an article by Bud Shaw, of cleveland.com. The preview for the article on Olney’s blog was, “It’s hard to ignore the payroll of the Yankees’, writes Bud Shaw”. 

Now, I understand that as long as the Yankees spend money like they do, there will always be people that criticize them. However, my biggest pet peeve has always been the lack of intelligent thought that goes into most of these criticisms. You know what I’m talking about; the people that just bitch and moan about how “unfair” it is that the Yankees spend all the money and that the only reason they are any good this year is that they spent all that money on Sabathia, Burnett and Teixeira.
This brings us back to Mr. Smith. You can read his full article here, but I’m going to pick apart some of the most ridiculous aspects of his piece:

Joe Girardi is singing high praise of his Yankees as a Three Musketeers-style ball club, purring along in the American League playoffs on dedication, selflessness and hard work.

Yep. That’s them. Gutty overachievers.

So clearly this is sarcasm. How dare Girardi speak highly of his team when they just beat the poor Twins who don’t have as big of a payroll? There’s more…

The Yankees have managed to take everybody’s eyes off their prized payroll with the recent failures to win it all and especially with last year’s swing-and-miss. They’ve helped create the false perception that money really isn’t all that, that if you play your hearts out, you, too, can hold a ticker-tape parade.

Sure you can. Except you, Pittsburgh and Kansas City and . . .

So clearly the highest payroll in the game leads to a championship every year, no questions asked. Why even bother to play the games? I’ve got news for you, Pittsburgh and Kansas City have more problems than just how much money they can spend. There’s more…


Four of MLB’s top 10 payrolls are represented in the two league championship series, with the Yankees topping the list at more than $200 million. The Minnesota Twins, victimized by all that Yankee pluck and enthusiasm in the division series, spent $65.

Those poor Twins (that’s $65 million by the way). Too bad they aren’t owned by a super rich family who has more money than the Steinbrenner’s. Oh wait…they are? Well, maybe if the Yankees have so much money they could help out these small market teams so they can have more money to spend. Oh wait…they do (to the tune of $26.9 million luxury tax)?

(On a serious note, RIP Carl Pohlad. Though I do not agree with his reluctance to invest some of his riches into the Twins on-field product, I mean no disrespect to the late Twins owner.)
There’s more…



What the Yankees’ sweep really showed is that the talent gap was so grea
t, the Twins couldn’t overcome their mistakes. Think the margin for error may decrease even more when next time around they have to let either Joe Mauer or Justin Morneau go?

Maybe our friend Bud missed the baserunning clinic the Twins put on that cost them runs in Game 2 and Game 3? Or perhaps he is simply choosing to ignore that fact in favor of the ridiculous sentiment that the talent gap was far to large to have a competitive series? Although, given the fact that Minnesota led every game in the series at some point, I’m not sure I buy that. Let us also not forget that Nick Blackburn and Carl Pavano shut down the Yankee offense in their starts. It was the Twins bullpen that blew those games. And correct me if I’m wrong, but it was a fairly competitive series where the Yankees won (yes, because they had better players, I’m not in complete denial) because they pitched well, played good defense, got clutch hits and limited their mistakes. Poor Bud must have missed the actual games.
What if the Yankees had been the team that screwed up on the base paths? Think there would be any sympathy for them? No (and I wouldn’t want any). There would be a score of articles by people like Bud saying how $200 million can’t buy you the intangibles and that the Twins are a better “team”. The bottom line is the Twins didn’t play their best baseball. If they did, maybe they would have won at least one game. But they didn’t. And I know they would be the last one’s to make excuses about it.
Mr. Shaw presented no real facts or concepts in his article aside from the payroll numbers which can be googled in ten seconds. Opinion pieces are okay, but if you want anyone to take you seriously, give us a reason to share your opinion rather than reciting the same tired claims that every Yankee hater in the country has been screaming for the past decade.



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