DID HAL HAVE A CHANGE OF HEART?

Maybe Hank and Hal Steinbrenner are finally coming to their senses. Maybe they are tired of being a target on a dartboard. Maybe I am going to win the lottery and just put an end to all of this talk. Well, the last one is the least likely to happen, but either way.....it looks like that mandated payroll plan could be more lenient now. Maybe.

I'm going to speculate here, because it's what I do. Not always well, but I do it. I have to wonder if this is the awakening of Hal in a post George "the Boss" Steinbrenner world. After a long tradition of not opening the lines of communication to extend a soon to be free agent, suddenly we hear that the Yankees and Scott Boras are talking. Read that HERE.

I like the sound of that. It at least makes comforts me a little to know that after a rather disappointing off season they have not forgotten what is important to this team. Robinson Cano is important to this team, and losing him would hurt a lot. I know there wasn't a lot of free agents to go get this year, but to see no moves made and talking about cutting payroll at the same time does not compute to us. We have been ranting about it all off season.

So, now that this big payroll strategy does not look like it will be as profitable as the Yankees once thought maybe Hal is going for option B. Read what Ken Rosenthal reported about the payroll strategy HERE in case you missed it. So maybe....just maybe, Hal didn't read all of the fine print involved in this. You should always read the fine print, right? Well maybe after looking at all of the numbers he realizes it just doesn't make sense. The 15 larger markets would no longer be able to increase their profit sharing margins in the same way and by 2016 they will be completely ineligible. Maybe now he realizes that pinching pennies won't guarantee him the end result he had in mind and it only makes fans cranky.

Speaking of fans being cranky, if you are trying to increase the revenue perhaps it isn't a good idea to pull the rug out from a fan base who is used to spending money. Change happens, we get that....but not overnight. If you don't like change to begin with, doing it this fast isn't going to make things any easier. So now, maybe this off season has frustrated some fans enough to not spend as much of their hard earned money on a seat in Yankee stadium and instead are staying at home. Not to mention that if the Yankees don't invest in putting a championship caliber team on the field, there will be no postseason revenues at all. That is more food for thought.

And how about the retail sales? Jerseys aren't cheap. So if you don't invest in the team some fans may stop spending the money on extra novelties. I have to wonder if Hal is starting to realize that money talks for us, too. Baseball is a business, but just like an unhappy shopping experience if you don't feel like you are getting the best experience you cut back. The fans affect the business just as much as the checks that get cut to pay the salaries. It works hand in hand.

I don't want to jump ahead of myself here because I won't believe this new theory until I see it, but suddenly it looks like the story is changing here a little bit. Time will tell. What do you think? Did Hal have a change of heart or did he realize that the payroll plan just wasn't that strategic? Comment and share!

--Jeana Bellezza, BYB Writer and Editor

Twitter: @NyPrincessJ



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