Yankees Spending Spree Sounds Very Familiar

With the Yankees latest deal,signing Japanese Star pitcher Masahiro Tanaka to a seven-year contract worth $155 million, his agent, Casey Close, confirmed to ESPNNewYork.com. This just adds to the massive amount of spending the Yankees have done in the offseason, already signing the likes of Jacoby Ellsbury (7 years, $153 million), Brian McCann (5 years, $85 million), Carlos Beltran (3 years, $45 million), Brendan Ryan (2 years, $5 million), Kelly Johnson (1 year, $3 million), Brian Roberts (1 year, $2 million) and Derek Jeter (1 year, $12 million). Of course McCann, Ellsbury and Beltran are the biggest names signed by the Yankees during this time period, and they don't have Alex Rodriguez contract on the books for this season, as he is facing a suspension, but still the Yankees have spent $475 Million on ballplayers.

I understand why the Yankees are doing this, they are unhappy about missing the playoffs a year ago. Same thing happened after the 2088 season. They missed the playoffs in 2008, then during that offseason went out and spent around $425 million on players. That year they went out and picked up A.J. Burnett (5 years $82.5 million), Andy Pettitte (1 year $5.5 million),  CC Sabathia (7 years $161 million) and Mark Teixeira (8 years $181 million), among a few others. That 2009 season the Yankees went on to win the World Series, their first title since 2000, and only the 2nd title of the new century!

Sure the Yankees have gone out and spent the money, and sure it may help bring them a title right now, but over the long run I'm not sure how much this helps the team. I understand totally wanting to win right now, every single team in baseball wants to do that. But what I think separates the Yankees now from the Yankees of the late 90's is the way they are doing business. What I mean is, the reason the Yankees turned in a dynasty team at the end of the century is they didn't spend all this money on talent, they built through the draft and their farm system. The team now has the money and is deciding to spend it all and not build a farm system.

Sure it could get them another title. Maybe it changes this time, five years after Hideki Matsui’s huge October and after John Damon changed everything one night by stealing two bases on the same play, and Sabathia looked, in all ways, like the biggest ace in the game. Maybe the new guys do for the Yankees what all the new guys with beards did for the Red Sox last season. But if they are trying to build another dynasty team this isn't the way to do it. Since the Yankees finished the 3 titles in 4 years, they have made it to the World Series three times winning once in 2009 (losing in 2001 to Arizona and 2003 to Florida). So sometimes spending money works out and sometimes it doesn't. Will it work in this case, only time will tell!