Our friend at Simon on Sports has been conducting a feature called "Blogging the Offseason" in which he asks a blogger from each team ten or so questions about the issues facing their respective organizations this winter.Today, he's covering the World Series participants and talked to Meech from The Fightins and Mike from River Ave. Blues. Last and probably least, he asked some know-nothing from another Yankees blog to chip in with his two cents.
In other news, the folks over at the always funny It Is High, It Is Far, It is... Caught are conducting a poll to determine the Yankee Blog of the Decade. For one reason or another, despite only existing for about a year, we are actually in third place. If you are so inclined, head over to the left hand margin of their site and show your support. Since you can select multiple blogs, be sure to kick some votes towards RAB and IIATMS as well since they are severely underrepresented as of right now. By the time you're done, the weekend will almost be here.
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Congratulations on the Q & A, Jay. Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteIt is also good to see that you're running strong at "It Is High" and should, especially compared to some of the other, but lousy, blogs in its list. I hate to trash some blogs, but Maureen the Yankees Chick, for one, is awful and lacking knowledge. A few others are at best occasional blogs. You, LoHud, and RAB are among the best out there.
Thanks a lot, Jason. There are some notable omissions on that list, your blog being one of them. If it wouldn't be a total hijacking, I'd try to do something similar here and put some time into picking out the best and most consistent Yankee-centric blogs (no Big League Stew or Circling the Bases or Joel Sherman as good as they are). It's still a cool feature on their part and it certainly feels good to get some recognition.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'm just dumb, but I haven't found an email address to send questions to the bloggers. Hope you read the comments.
ReplyDeleteMy question is: what do you think the odds are that Cashman's hard cap on this year's payroll is really as immovable as he's suggested? Maybe just a ploy to keep prices down a little bit so then he can swoop in on the free agent he might want?
Damian - You can find both Matt's email address and mine on the left side of the site under "Contact Us".
ReplyDeleteI don't believe there is a "hard cap" on the payroll in the sense that the Yankees can't go over a certain number ($200M or whatever). I think the front office is making a legitimate attempt at reducing payroll over time, which means not locking themselves into huge contracts for players like Jason Bay, Matt Holliday and John Lackey, who are not top-level free agents like Teixeira and Sabathia.
In reference to trades, Cashman has recently said that he'll give up anyone if it's for the right player. As it applies to free agency, I think he'll make signing first based on whether or not he feels it's a good value before taking into account the number they had in mind for their payroll. Let's face it, the Yanks can afford to pay anyone out there, but they are trying to behave more responsibly by their own volition. This is different than other teams who will lose money in the future if they spent too much on free agents.
I believe they are waiting in the shadows not as a ploy, but because they aren't very interested in the guys that are available at the prices they are asking for. However, you're right in that by staying out of the negotiations, the Yanks are keeping the prices down.