Weekend Pissing Match Round Up

The 2009 Yankees have taken to passing around a replica WWE Championship Belt to the player of the game after each victory, and the wrasslin' mentality seems to be taking hold. In a week that saw the Yankees face the two teams that the media loves to portray as their biggest rivals, we saw three separate "feuds" play out through the media.

First up is Joe Girardi and Brad Penny. Penny started the series finale on Thursday. A-Rod came to the plate in the first inning with two outs and Derek Jeter on third base. Penny came way inside on the first pitch, came back with a strike, then plunked A-Rod on the third pitch. I thought it was intentional and I didn't have a problem with it. There have been plenty of plunked batters between these teams in recent years. Joba has drawn the ire of the Sox in much the same way that Pedro used to with the Yankees. I figured this was coming.

Back at the Stadium on Friday, Joe Girardi was asked if he thought Penny hit A-Rod on purpose, He responded in the affirmative. Penny fired back on Saturday saying he could "give two f---s" what Girardi thinks and criticized Girardi for waiting to get back to New York to say anything about it. Chances are Brad Penny isn't even with the Sox by the time these teams meet next in August, but I'm sure we'll see a few more guys wind up in the dirt.

Also coming out of the Yanks-Sox rivlary is Twittergate, in which John Henry intimated that the Yankees are cursed by Mark Teixeira spurning the Sox and signing with the Yanks. This apparently pissed Teixeira off and he spouted off to the media about it a bit. For the record, Twitter is stupid; I see no point to it at all. Oh, and be sure to follow Fack Youk on Twitter.

I peg Teix as the prototypical Boras client. He's like roboballplayer. He plays well; he wears a constant look of intense focus; speaks to the media entirely in cliches and platitudes; and of course, took the contract with the greatest dollar amount. So I find it somewhat surprising that Teix rocked the boat twice last week, with Henry and in confronting noted drunk Rick Sutclife regarding an accusation he made about Teix and A-Rod tipping pitches. I can see him taking issue with the Sutcliffe thing because in that he has a former player accusing him of impropriety between the lines. But Henry? Just let it go Mark. Why give him the satisfaction?

I guess I had Teix figured wrong. Last week's incidents come on the heels of his outbursts earlier this season directed at Carlos Gomez and Vicente Padilla. Teix is getting booed in Baltimore for not signing there; he's booed in Boston for not signing there; and he'll likely be booed in Atlanta and Anaheim later this year. I suppose he should be thankful that the Nationals' series is at home. Keep booing him people; we'll probably see Teix tear off someone's arms and beat him to death with them before the season's over.

Last but not least is the well-documented Brian Bruney/K-Rod flap that nearly resulted in a good-old-fashioned donnybrook during BP Sunday. I completely agree with everything Brian Bruney said. K-Rod is an asshole who celebrates every save as if he just closed out the seventh game of the World Series by striking out the clean-up hitter with the tying run on third. He needs to tone his act down or have it toned down for him.

That said, Bruney was out of line. He offered up his opinion completely unprovoked after his rehab appearance in Trenton. Right or wrong, there was no need for him to say it. By the time he made it back to the Stadium, it was a big story, as it proceeded from Mike Ashmore to Pete Abraham and mushroomed from there. K-Rod claimed he didn't even know who Bruney was. The media got more fodder from both post-game. Then, K-Rod, who must have figured out who Bruney was overnight, had some choice in-your-face words for him during batting practice Sunday. Which in turn, kind of proved Bruney's point that K-Rod's a bit of a hot-headed prima donna.

Got all that? Let's hope this week is a little more uneventful. With any luck, the guys didn't spend their off night watching Monday Night Raw and coming up with ideas for this week's battles.

"the MT curse?"

John Henry came up with a new one on Twitter last night...

the MT curse?

Oh, I get it, you sniveling douche... It's the curse of Mark Teixeira!

#1 - Why is John Henry on Twitter? Doesn't he have a comely lass with luminescent locks colored like the deepest of night to tend to? The fact that he has a Twitter account (with a fucking caricature for an image, no less) really speaks to the kind of ego this guy has. "Draw ME a picture of ME. No, make the eyes more beady! Exxxcellent! Now I can pair this with an endless amount of personal updates about where I am eating dinner, whine about pitchers hitting MY players, or dispel rumors about what things I plan to buy with MY untold fortunes!"

#2 - How does this necessitate a curse, exactly? Every player who ever turned down more money than the Red Sox were offering (which, oh by the way, almost never happens) means the team they sign with is cursed? How about the Curse of Johnny Damon or the Curse of A-Rod? It's all bullshit, but at least those two make some sort of sense.

It's funny to me that there is still all this whining coming out of Boston about not getting Teixeira despite the fact that Youkilis is having an outstanding season, the Sox are 8-0 against the Yanks and are in first place by two games. Imagine if they were floundering and Youk was hitting like Papi?

The fact remains that the reason Boston didn't offer as much for Teix is because they didn't need him as badly. They have a great first baseman in tha Youkstah. Stop acting like jilted lovers, you guys dated for like a week.

A Look Back at the Off-Season

Since the Yankees seemingly can't beat the Red Sox on the field, let's take a look back at the last time the Bombers bested the Olde Towne Team - the 2008-2009 off-season. After kicking the tires on CC Sabathia, presumably to drive the price up for the Yankees, the Sox made a real push for Mark Teixeira, only to have him surprisingly sign with the Yankees after some shrewd and stealthy negotiating by Brian Cashman.

The Teixeira signing capped an unbelievable off-season spending spree for the Yankees. CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, and Mark Teixeira were 3 of the top 4 free agents on the market (Manny Ramirez being the other). When all was said and done, the Yankees had committed 20 years and $423.5M to the three players.

Predictably, and perhaps somewhat deservedly, the Yankees took a lot of heat in the media and from the other clubs for spending what amounts to roughly the gross domestic product of the entirety of sub-Saharan Africa, and doing so in the midst of the country's worst economic crisis in more than seventy years. However, the Yankees operated within the context of the rules and were essentially leveraging the significant financial resources they have at their disposal.

Meanwhile, after losing out on Teixeira, the Sox made a series of lesser moves. Now I'm not one to believe that there's a media bias against the Yankees or towards the Red Sox. But, the way that the Sox off-season was framed as smart and economical in opposition to the Yankees gluttony was more than a bit hypocritical. Let's look at the Sox off-season moves with economic data courtesy of Cot's Baseball Contracts:

• John Smoltz signed 1 yr, $5.5M, with potential bonuses totalling an additional $5.5M

• Brad Penny signed 1 yr, $5M, with potential bonuses totalling an additional $3M

• Takashi Saito signed 1 yr, $1.5M, with potential bonuses totalling an additional $6M

• Josh Bard signed 1 yr, non-guaranteed. Reported value $1.7M, with an additional $0.8M bonus potential

• Junichi Tazawa, signed 3 yrs, $3.3M

• Rocco Baldelli signed 1 yr, $0.5M, with potential bonuses totalling an additional $7M

• Mark Kotsay re-signed 1 yr, $1.5M, with potential bonuses totalling an additional $1M

• Jason Varitek re-signed 1 yr $5M

All told, that's $23.3M guaranteed with bonus potential of an additional $25M. That's a drop in the bucket compared to what the Yankees paid out, but the potential $47.25M in 2009 for the Sox isn't all that far off from the $64.5M (signing bonuses included) the Yankees will pay their three free agent signees in 2009. These are some good high risk, high reward signings for the Sox. But what did they get for their money?

• In Smoltz and Penny, two pitchers coming off injury who combined for 122.2 IP in 2008 and a combined 5.43 ERA in the NL. Smoltz has yet to pitch; Penny has been average at best. And it's heavily rumored that Penny will soon be flipped for prospects.

• In Saito they picked up a good reliever who has been very effective in his career, but who has also been beset by injuries. So far this has worked out pretty well.

• Josh Bard, who the Sox traded very early in the 2006 season when they realized he couldn't catch a knuckler, had an even shorter stint this time. He was cut before Spring Training was over, leaving the Sox on the hook for $283K of his salary.

• Tazawa, who was signed through a potentially improper loophole in the Japanese system, is pitching at AA Portland.

• Baldelli has a lengthy injury history and has spent time on the DL this year. Ditto for Kotsay. Together they give the Sox two talented, but highly injury prone, back-up OF/DH/1B types.

• Varitek is 37. He hit .220/.313/.359 (73 OPS+) last year. He's doing better this year, buoyed by a SLG over .500, but his AVG and OBP are below league average.
  
  

Now the John Henry ownership group has done a tremendous job of squeezing every last penny out of the Red Sox brand and decrepit (charming?) Fenway Park. And good for them, it's remarkable that they've done so and it's commendable that they reinvest that money back into the team. However, before John Henry shoots his mouth off, making comments like "we have to be even more careful in deploying our resources"as he did in the wake of losing Teixeira, he might want to consider how few teams in MLB could afford to take on one or two of the above contracts, let alone all eight of them.

The Sox aren't some poor small market team. They may not have the financial resources of the Yankees, but aside from the Mets, Cubs, and possibly the Angels and Dodgers, no other MLB franchises can match the financial clout of the Red Sox. Perhaps the media should keep that in mind next time they want to laud the smart, shrewd signings made by the Sox this past off-season.