OH GOOD. NOW WE'RE COMPARING TANAKA TO AROD

Joel Sherman is the king of the provocative.  You can't fault the guy, he does it better than anyone... in fact, he and Bob Klapisch are a tie in my eyes. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the thread that suddenly runs through newly acquired Masahiro Tanaka to Alex Rodriguez and the big splash Alex made in the Bronx in 2004.  Suddenly... Tanaka is a bad idea... and Joel Sherman is a Debbie Downer...

Sherman writes in his NY Post piece today in reference to the ARod signing 10 years ago and Tanaka now:

"...The Yanks essentially held a group high-five. They not only had snared the best player in the game at 28, but had pulled him away from the clutches of the Red Sox. The theme was that they had Ruth-ed Boston yet again, assuring another eight decades of misery in New England, more parades in New York.

George Steinbrenner hailed this “a big, big one,” calling it another Reggie moment, praising Rodriguez as “an outstanding young fellow.” The general manager then and now, Brian Cashman, used the word “ecstatic”... 

 ...the Yanks have scouted Tanaka for several years, including every one of his home starts in 2013. Their analytics department broke him down mathematically and saw no shot at Kei Igawa II. Every overturned stone screamed the righty is uber-competitive, drawing favorable comparisons to Hideki Matsui and Orlando Hernandez for poise and self-assurance even in strange environs.

And he is 25. Boy did the Yanks love that. A chance to get the full prime of a player they project — whatever Cashman’s No. 3 public proclamations — as a top-of-the-rotation cornerstone.

So they acknowledge, yet mostly dismiss the other stuff. The absurd buildup of so many innings already in Japan. That he never has worked every fifth day. That he never has worked regularly with the bigger MLB baseball. That he never has faced lineups like he will face now. That you never know how $155 million truly will impact anyone or the fame or the pressure or the failure that is inevitable on such a stage...“This is big,” Cashman said. “This would make The Boss proud. This is Yankees big, this is Steinbrenner big.”

Now look, there's a much bigger picture to all of this.  Sure, thanks for stating that the Yankees big signings haven't always worked out Joel. No kidding. I mean, we all know that... Ken Phelps ring a bell?

Randy Johnson? Need I go on? The fact of the matter is, you never know what you're going to get.  Who knew that CC Sabathia would win 20 games for us 2 years in a row while AJ  Burnett would shit the bed?  Who knew Hideki Irabu would be one of the worst signings of the Yankees' history.  Who knew ARod would have been the biggest disappointment ever. You can all tell me you did now, but did you really then? Back then, the signing of ARod was a great idea and you know it.

Truth be told, when the Yankees signed Alex Rodriguez, they netted the biggest fish in baseball at the time. Not only that, they saw the All-Time home run record finally coming home to the Bronx. ARod was going to do it. Little did they know, or maybe they did, that PEDs would be a problem and the end for ARod.  Sure, he's now a disgrace years later, but teams don't know until the team is in it.

 Enter Masahiro Tanaka, a signing the Yankees HAD to make.  Why? Because if Tanaka became Yu Darvish Part II with another club, Yankeeland, the fans, would have never forgiven them. We're Yankee fans... After last season, there was absolutely no excuse why Hal, Hank and company shouldn't sign every big name free agent out there.  It was now a necessity.  If the Yankees didn't do anything this off-season, there would be a mutiny; Fans not going to the ballpark, not watching the Yankees, not wanted to spend on a loser.  The Yankees needed to prove to the fans that we're winners... hence the spending.

Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann and Tanaka we all on the table, and you know what? The Yankees over spent, but trust me when I tell you, that if Masahiro Tanaka shits the bed, the Yankees, and us fans will need to suck it up because we believed the hype and rolled the dice.

But there's 1 more part of this, that Sherman refuses to address... What if Tanaka saves the Yankees?  What if he IS actually good and that workload on his 25 year old arm doesn't affect him? What if we become champions again? Will Sherman eat crow and say he was wrong, or will he just carelessly continue to write negatively and throw it the Yankees way?  He'll ignore it... because that's what he does. All I'm saying is it's way too early to insinuate that the Tanaka signing won't work... we haven't even started Spring Training man!

Let's wait and see what happens. In the end, the Yankees needed to do something, and yes, they overspent, but they did it to better the team and they did it for the fans... because last season was an embarrassment... and in Yankeeland... we can't have that.

On a side note... anyone want Joel Sherman becoming the Mets beat writer? I vote yes...

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