This is a nice Christmas gift though! It just goes to show you that some people are not happy no matter what you get them. Buy someone a Fitbit, but they want an Apple watch instead...that sort of idea. The Yankees just paid for an elite pitcher and gave us all the best Christmas present and well....not everyone is excited.
Personally, I think Mike Francesa complains a lot but I can understand his initial reaction. Forget about the Stanton deal. That's done and over with. Unnecessary? Okay, but we can't change it. As for Cole, I am not THRILLED with the contract structure BUT it may not be as bad as Francesa seems to think it will be.
The Yankees signed CC Sabathia to a $161 million, seven-year deal before the 2009 season and he was also 29 years old. He stayed with us for 11 years, not all of those years was he an ace-level pitcher but it worked out well for us. We got a championship in his first season and a veteran leader for years after. He's a beloved Yankee likely bound for Cooperstown.
Several other pitchers before Cole have signed big contracts. The Nationals just re-signed Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer, Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander all signed big deals. None of those deals were busts or crippled their franchise. You could call the David Price deal close to a bust. The Red Sox would be happy to trade him if they can find an interested team but they would never give back the championship he helped them win in 2018.
The money and years are not ideal, I'm sure we all would've liked this deal even more with less years and more money. Problem is that wasn't going to happen. The Strasburg deal reset the market and that was the new market value. We all need to remind ourselves that this contract is all about this first three to five years. The Yankees have all of the pieces to win another championship....or more than one. If the Yankees win the World Series earlier into this contract then they won't mind a couple of less productive years at the end of the contract. Cole will be 37 years old when the contract ends unless he chooses to opt out after five years for whatever reason. It's not the end of the world.
It will be interesting to see how this effects the Yankees willingness to spend money on guys like Gleyber Torres, Luis Severino, Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge when their time comes. I don't worry as much for guys like Judge, the Yankees can and should pay him.....but what about guys like Sanchez? This would be my concern more so then the money and years we just committed to Cole.
So can Yankee fans ever truly be happy? There's always something to complain about. It's either too many years and too much money or it's frustration that we let a guy walk. It's time to realize what just happened and accept it. We smashed the piggy bank and paid big bucks for Cole. We finally got our ace, we got an upgrade we needed.
Be thankful for your Christmas gift!
It will be interesting to see how this effects the Yankees willingness to spend money on guys like Gleyber Torres, Luis Severino, Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge when their time comes. I don't worry as much for guys like Judge, the Yankees can and should pay him.....but what about guys like Sanchez? This would be my concern more so then the money and years we just committed to Cole.
Be thankful for your Christmas gift!
To many years to much money , better take advantage and play in a lot of WS to recoup some money.
ReplyDeletePass on Maldanado and bring back Romine.Sanchez gets hurt to much for Maldanado to be a help.Need Betances back , he deserves the contract DRob got in Philly and Ottavino got from the Yankees.
Gardner , no more than 5 million with incentives for max of say 8 million .
Time to play Frazier and Andujar ,I know all about Gio but chances of him doing that plus Andujar hits a ton of doubles and does not k a lot.