Twenty Fackin' Dollahs

This image just showed up in my inbox and since we have hardly posted anything around here lately, I can't just let this sort of easy content slide.

Youk's charity "Hits For Kids" is trying to make their fiscal year-end goals and have evidently stooped to defacing the currency of the United States of America. Despite this illegal behavior, it really is a good cause, so please donate if you can.

Either that or print out this bill and try to sell it to a Red Sox Fan. Just tell them it's like a regular twenty dollar bill, except othah people wickedly undahestimate how it factahs into the economy and it's way fackin' gritty-ah.

How Good Is Too Good?

Good morning Fackers. Yesterday, when I first heard about the Javier Vazquez trade, I had an inescapable, reluctant sort of a feeling. I knew the trade was one that would make the Yankees a better team next year without question, but I wasn't excited about it by any stretch.

It was unfortunate to see Arodys Vizcaino get sent to Atlanta just days after he been placed in the top half of the Yankees' top 10 prospects by both FanGraphs and Baseball America, but that wasn't what was bothering me. I had no particular attachment to Mike Dunn, so his loss certainly wasn't it. You don't want to part with a homegrown switch-hitting center fielder like Melky Cabrera who is only 25 years old and has already put in four years for the Yanks, but I don't think I'm going to miss him that much either.

Who we got back wasn't the issue. I don't expect Vazquez to have a year that in any way resembles his dominance in Atlanta, but he'll go a long way towards rounding out the Yankees rotation. What happened during his previous tenure in Pinstripes doesn't bother me at all.

The Braves were looking to unload payroll and the $11.5M Vazquez was making was the next best thing to dumping Derek Lowe. Regardless of what Mark Feinsand's source told him yesterday, this trade was a salary dump to some extent and I think that's what made the deal seem so uncouth. It's not to say that it wasn't a move that made sense for both teams - the Braves had six starting pitchers and the Yankees had four center fielders - but something still feels wrong about it.

The Yankees just won the World Series and they added a pitcher who was among the four or five best in the National League last year to be their third or fourth starter. With CC Sabathia making $23.5M, A.J. Burnett $16.5, Andy Pettitte $11.5, and now Vasquez another $11.5, their top four starters will make $62.5M in 2010, or more than the A's, Pirates, Padres and Marlins spent on their entire teams last year. Sure, the Yanks' total payroll bill for next year will probably come in somewhere near $200M, but staying close to that massive, arbitrary number isn't exactly something to be proud of.

Spending a ridiculous amount of money is nothing new to the Yankees - in 2005, they paid out $85M more than their closest competitor - but it's not as much the dollar amount as it is the players. Now that the Bombers are allocating those resources efficiently, it's hard not to understand how much money $200M actually is. Throughout the middle of this decade, the Yanks were continually paying the likes of Jason Giambi, Randy Johnson, Gary Sheffield, Jose Contreras, Jaret Wright, Carl Pavano and Hideki Matsui far more than they were worth. Now survey the current roster. It looks pretty damn lean by comparison.

I know that it's borderline irrational for a Yankees fan to feel any sort of guilt about the amount the team spends. They make a ton of money - some of which comes from me - and if they don't spend it on players, it's just going to be sucked up into a corporate vacuum, never to be seen again. The more they spend on payroll, the more enjoyable it is going to be to watch them on any given day during the season.

And perhaps that's the issue. Maybe this is just an offseason problem. As the summer moves along and the season develops, it's likely that the Yankees won't actually be as good as they are on paper right now and it won't seem as unfair that they have assembled an absolutely ridiculous collection of current and former All-Stars and future Hall of Famers. Even if they win 110 games next year, they are still going to lose at a 32% clip. Given that a 94 win team loses 42% of the time, it doesn't seem all that different over the long run - one game out of every 10.

Everyone wants their team to be awesome. But I think people want to see their team come together and exceed expectations rather than attempt to live up to impossibly high ones. Ideally, you'd like your team to be better than others by virtue of something other than their relative willingness to shell out tens of millions of dollars. Being a bona fide Goliath doesn't take away from the satisfaction of winning a World Series, but it tempers the enjoyment of every step along the way.

As it stands, the 2010 season will end in one of two ways: an expected victory or a major failure. So while the moves the Yankees have made this offseason have ensured they have a better chance to win a World Series coming into the season than they have had in quite some time, they have also guaranteed that they will have more to lose than ever before.

The Yankees' Business Acumen Knows No Bounds

Keep this in mind next time you hear the Fenway Faithful start to get lippy:

New York Yankees team ownership revealed Tuesday that the phrase "Yankees suck," one of the most popular chants in sports, was trademarked by the 27-time World Series champions prior to the 1996 season, a business strategy that has earned the team close to $100 billion over the past 13 years.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records show that every time an individual chants, shouts, or writes the words "Yankees suck," the New York Yankees organization earns at least $2.15, an amount that escalates depending on repetition, volume, and whether the phrase was used during a national broadcast.

And that doesn't even count towards revenue sharing!

A Fine Fall Day

("Not going to school on Wednesday, going to the World Series")

Good morning, Fackers. It's a fine one to be a supporter of the New York Baseballing Yankees, wouldn't you say? According to the folks over a LoHud, the Yanks didn't hold much back last night. It's alright, they've got almost three full days to shake it off.

Fittingly, a sloppily contested game replete with dubious managerial moves topped off a series that might be remembered for both of those things. The only thing missing was an egregiously wrong call by an umpire. The "fundamentally sound" Angels had Vlad Guerrero picked off of first base on what should have been a routine play in the 3rd and made two errors on plays when the Yankees were handing them outs in the 8th inning.

As for the managing, the questionable decision making began in the 4th inning. Following singles by Nick Swisher and Robinson Cano, the Yanks asked Melky Cabrera to sacrifice them over to second and third. I know what Girardi was thinking. Pass the baton to Jeter and hope he singles home a few runs. But Saunders was on the ropes and looked nothing short of terrible. Timely hitting was the only thing between the Yankees and a sizable lead at that point. I can see that move in the later innings or against a dominant pitcher, maybe, but to do it in the 4th inning against a guy in Saunders who had been pitching terribly to that point doesn't make sense.

If you look at this run expectancy matrix, you'll see that a successful bunt in this spot would have even decreased the Yankees chances to score exactly one run, increased their odds of plating two or three but decreased their odds of having a bigger inning. The way Saunders was pitching, I wouldn't discount the possibility of the latter.

So despite Girardi's best efforts to avoid delivering the knockout blow, the Yankees still loaded the bases for Johnny Damon who drove two home, and re-loaded them via a single from Teixeira for A-Rod. Mike Sciosica left (southpaw) Joe Saunders in to face A-Rod with the bases loaded in the 4th inning. At the time, Saunders had faced 21 batters and allowed 11 to reach base (with one of the 10 retired coming on a sac bunt). That's who you want facing the other team's best hitter with the bases loaded in an elimination game? Saunders of course walked A-Rod on an incredibly close pitch, forcing in a run.

I disagreed with the way Joe Girardi's chose to pull his starter as well. After getting Howie Kendrick to line out, Pettitte gave up a single to Juan Rivera on a pitch that was high but over the middle of the plate. At that point, Pettitte had thrown only 99 pitches and induced 9 ground balls. He was one pitch away from getting out of the inning but Girardi went to his bullpen for David Robertson. Oh wait, no he didn't. Phil Hughes. Err, no. He went to Joba Chamberlain for some reason known only to him. Ostensibly because he believes that it's still 2007.

Girardi had apparently already made up his mind that he was going to use Mariano Rivera for 6 outs, so why did he pick Joba over Hughes? Or Robertson? We were told this week that there was nothing wrong with Hughes and that it was a simple mechanical issue. Robertson was solid during the regular season and perfect in the postseason. Joba has been neither of those things. He's given up 5 hits in 2 2/3 postseason IP and was not effective when last seen as a starter. What makes Girardi think that he's the guy you want in when the game is on the line?

Of course, Girardi also tried desperately to give away outs in the 9th inning when the Yankees were leading by 1, not once but twice, however the Angels simply wouldn't let him.

But hey, all's well that ends well, right?

I personally had a pretty sweet day as well. I played in a golf tourament at a Donald Ross track called The Sagamore in Lake George, my team won by 4 shots, I took home longest drive and won the 50/50 raffle (and didn't donate it, sorry Bolton Booster Club!). I got home a little bit after first pitch and Big Willie Style had taken the liberty of setting his TV up on a table beneath the 46" so we could watch the Yankees and Giants at the same time. It came at the expense of the internet and therefore active Twittering, but it was a necessary trade off.

Only the top TV had the audio on, so we flipped to the Giants game on when there was action and the Yankees were at commercial (Black taco! Apparently blue corn tortillas are black now. Who knew?). At one point, within about 20 seconds of each other, Hakeem Nicks lucked into a touchdown catch on a crazy deflection for the Giants and Johnny Damon rapped an 2 RBI single for the Yanks. It was worth the trouble just for that.

The Giants were mounting a possible game-tying drive that got derailed when Ahmad Bradshaw fumbled struggling for some extra yards. You can't win 'em all, and that was pretty much the only loss I took yesterday.

I'm Calling BS [Non-Sports]

Apparently this little lady is auctioning off her virginity for $3.7M. I submitted a counter offer earlier today of "a dinner at Planet Sushi and a complimentary cab to the airport" but I haven't heard back.

Miss Dylan, from San Diego, California, USA, said she was persuaded to offer herself to the highest bidder after her sister Avia, 23, paid for her own degree after working as a prostitute for three weeks.

She said she had had a lot of attention from a wide range of men, including "weirdos", "those who get really graphically sexual about what they want to do to me" and "lots of polite requests from rich businessmen".

"Weirdos", huh? You don't say... (gasps) I would guess only the most normal of people would be looking to spend an actual fortune for about a half hour with you just because you claim to have never had sex before!

Miss Dylan said she did not think it was particularly significant to be willing
to sell your virginity and insisted that she was happy to undergo medical tests
for any doubters.

Not "particularly significant"? $2.5 MILLION BRITISH POUNDS IS SIGNIFICANT. You make Indecent Proposal seem like a bargian.

I know there are people out there with a lot more money than I have ($273.43 - it was an expensive weekend), but why on God's green earth would anyone pay that much to have sex with someone one time? I honestly don't believe her.

In light of this story, Fack Youk contributor Big Willie Style is also auctioning off one night of paradise with him. Only sexy ladies need apply. The bidding will start at 10,000 internet dollars.