In the current state of the world, there is an abundance of very real dilemmas that can’t be easily solved. However, some issues have a very simple solution: throw money at said issue. One such problem is a bad baseball team. It should be acknowledged that bad baseball teams (or any bad sports teams, really) don’t have to be bad. Injuries and generally unfortunate luck can of course get in the way, but most times, teams can can weather the storm by throwing money at the problem.
As the scholar Homer Jay Simpson once said, “Money can be exchanged for goods and services.” Or to put it in other words, give money to good baseball players and they will hit or throw baseballs hard while representing your team and leading them to win games. The more games the team wins, the farther they move from “bad.” It’s simple, and there are only two things required to accomplish that mission: 1. An abundance of money and 2. The “want” to win.
Alas, there aren’t many people who have both. I, for instance, really “want” the Yankees to win. I want them to win lots of games and I want them to win a World Series championship. As much as the New Jersey Devils fan in me loves the number 27, it’s not good enough. I “want” more. On the other hand, there’s Hal Steinbrenner. Most known for looking like he has no idea where he is, believe it or not, he also has an abundance of money. He also happens to own the New York Yankees. Unfortunately, he does not seem to care whether the Yankees win or not; he almost certainly doesn’t display a “want” for the Yankees to win.
It’s unfortunate because Hal owning the team and having boatloads of money would set him up very well to distance the Yankees further from “bad.” As they stand right now, they’re certainly not a bad team on paper, but they’re not a good team either. They’re fine. They’re there. The Yankees will definitely win games, and they’ll most likely win enough games to make the playoffs — especially in the new 12-team format — but it’s also likely that they won’t win enough games to hold up a championship trophy at the end of the season. And again, Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t act like he cares. In fact, he pretty much said as much.
“That’s my job every year, to make sure that we’re financially responsible. I’ve got a lot of partners & banks & bondholders & things like that I answer to. But at the same time, it’s always a goal to win a championship … We got a pretty good history of having high payrolls.”
— James Wagner (@ByJamesWagner) March 16, 2022
“It’s always a goal to win a championship.” It’s a goal. I’ve mocked the “George Steinbrenner is spinning in his grave” crowd plenty, but I have to imagine that if anything is actually going to solve the world’s energy crisis, it’s this quote from George’s son. For all his flaws — and there were plenty of flaws — George Steinbrenner made it known that year in and year out, the goal was to win a championship.
Is a team going to be successful 100 percent of the time? No, but he was always going to do what he felt was going to get them to that goal. I cannot imagine George Steinbrenner ever thinking “But what will the banks say?!” Therein lies the problem. For the current regime, winning a championship is nice but it is not the focal point.
Coming into this season, the Yankees had many needs. Shortstop, first base, center field, and another starting pitcher were the big ones. On the bright side, money could’ve solved a lot of these problems. Yet, both before the lockout and after it finished, fans of the Yankees waited eagerly as players like Corey Seager, Freddie Freeman, Carlos Correa, and Trevor Story came off the board as options. What did the Yankees do instead? They upgraded third base, made the catcher position more suspect, barely addressed shortstop, and merely maintained the status quo at first.
Although I’ve been an…
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