Todd Jones, a former closer, now writes for the Sporting News. Apparently he isn't too happy with the Yankees' recent wave of spending.
Now that the Yankees have spent so much and have future Hall of Famers up and down their roster, they're supposed to win. Anything short of reaching the World Series will be a disappointment. That is no way to go through a season. Baseball turns into a job really fast when you strap such an 800-pound gorilla on your back the first day of spring training and carry it around during a six-month-long regular season (and perhaps into the postseason).I don't disagree with him. Spending $423.5 million on free agents automatically puts a giant target on the backs of the Yankees players. And in the mind of the Yankees, anything short of winning No. 27 is a failure.
At this point, the magic of being a baseball fan who doesn't root for the Yankees turns into cantankerous feeling toward those guys who make all this money. You look differently at them. They had better win every game.
I wonder if Yankees fans ever blush. What's so special about pulling for the bully at the end of the street who beats up on the smallest kid in town? What's cool is when you're rooting for a team that comes from nowhere. Most of us like the underdogs, and they still have their day in baseball, as we saw with the Rays this past season.
The Yankees should know by now that money can't buy a championship. You know, I have a feeling this won't turn how the Yankees are planning.
I also agree with what he says about the fans. It's only December, but as I think about this team, I realize that it will be somewhat hard to root for them. Would it really be fun winning the World Series after outbidding every team? I say this now, and my thoughts will probably change once the games start being played (we can't have it both ways - the team needed improvement, and this is certainly better than trading prospects away), but it's something to think about.
(H/T to Was Watching)
