Why There Will Never Be "Competitive Balance" When It Comes to the Yankees

If you listen to a lot of people in and around Major League Baseball, there's a lot wrong right now. Despite overall rising attendance, higher tv revenues, and an unparalleled spate of new ballpark building, baseball is in trouble--they say--because the competitive balance is all out of whack.

You've seen all the arguments and possible fixes before: big market versus small market, revenue sharing, changing the draft system, etc. But you've undoubtedly also seen the columns puncturing some of those ideas, too. Is Minneapolis a smaller "market" than Cleveland, Ohio? Is Tampa Bay? Should owners whose teams turn a larger profit because they run their businesses more efficiently be penalized by having to subsidize those who lose money? There is already revenue sharing in place, in which top teams like the Yankees and Mets are paying $164 million this year to the financially bottom rung teams like the Twins, who are getting $24 million but only spending $16.5 million of it on player salaries.

If the Twins were at the bottom of the standings this year, as they traditionally have been the past few years, you'd see people pointing to it as a typical example of how such a poverty-stricken team can't compete with teams loaded with high-priced free agents.

But the Twins are running away with their division at the moment, a full month into the season, so you just can't make that argument with them.

Then there's the fact that one of the guys responsible for their success right now, Eric Milton, came to them from the New York Yankees when Chuck Knoblauch requested a trade in 1998. Milton came in a package which allowed the Twins to unload Knoblauch's six million dollar salary as well. In Minnesota last week, Knoblauch got booed off the field--literally. But, Twins fans, do you think a team with a payroll trimmed down to $16.5 million would have kept him at his salary, anyway? Not too likely. The Yankees got a piece necessary to their success in that trade, and the Twins got a piece necessary to theirs while unloading salary, and thereby increasing the amount of revenue sharing money they receive. Hmm. this all leads me to believe that there's something more to "competitive balance" than "salary/revenue balance." In fact, I'm quite sure that when when it comes to the Yankees, they have at least one big thing other than money working in their favor.

Knoblauch was happy to go to the Yankees for one reason. He had become miserable in Minnesota after Kirby Puckett retired and the Twins appeared in a death spiral. He'd had a taste of winning in 1991 and he wanted more. Not more money, because after all, he came in a trade, not as a free agent. More winning. The Yankees seemed poised to do that, and that was a bandwagon any player would be glad to get on.

That's why, ultimately, there will never be "competitive balance" when it comes to the Yankees. When you have free agents weighing the money, the money is going to be similar most anywhere they go (Alex Rodriguez being the Texas-sized exception to the rule). The Red Sox would have offered Mike Mussina the same money as the Yankees. So would the Mets. But what the Yankees front office knows is that it's not just about the money. It's about history, Yankee pinstripes, and a competitive edge. As David Cone once put it, "magic and mystique and everything that goes with it." I.e. winning.

How many millionaires with incredible physical skills would, in fact, trade in some of that money in order to have a winning season, and get a ring? I'd bet a lot of them would. In fact, I would bet that if it weren't for the savvy of players agents, the Yankees would be lowering their payroll by convincing their home grown stars to stay on at cut-rates, just so they could stay with a winner. The Yanks, in fact, tried to lowball Bernie Williams in just that manner, thinking he wouldn't go elsewhere, and they got burned when his agent stoked the fires with the rival Red Sox and the Yankees had to come back with a top dollar offer to get Bernie to stay. Of course Bernie has never looked back and has gone on to be a super investment and a team MVP time and time again. You know Derek Jeter would have signed any long term contract they put in front of him, but his agent wasn't about to let him go for under "market value." While Steinbrenner stalled, Jeter's "market value" went up by several million. If the Yankees had been a bit quicker to lock up these two players, their current payroll (still one of the highest in the league, but not THE highest, for once) would be smaller than most of their other perennial postseason contenders, like Atlanta and Cleveland. The Yankees payroll would be lower if they could get away with telling agents once in a while how tapped out they are. But agents are all too quick to point out the gold mine Steinbrenner is sitting atop and, (rightfully) that the Yankees players should share in that wealth. But how many players would actually take less money in trade for the chance to win?

This fact, of course, exposes how hollow Alex Rodriguez' "reasons" for going to Texas were. If A-rod supposedly wanted to go with a winner, and if he wanted to keep his hardworking choir-boy image, he should have stayed in Seattle for a hometown discount. (That is, of course, assuming that Seattle would have been as good a team with him as they are without him...) Instead... well, you know what he did instead.

The free agent market this winter should be interesting. We may see Barry Bonds, having reached his 500 home run milestone in San Francisco, testing the waters. What team is going to pay the mercurial Bonds what he's likely to demand? The Yankees may be one of the few who can meet the aging-but-still-hitting Bonds' price, but if Bonds goes to New York you can bet what he'll say. That it was because he wanted his chance at a World Series ring. What about Jason Giambi? The A's don't seem to be having the frat party fun they had last year. Not only will Giambi be a free agent at the end of the year, he might find himself traded to a contender by July--the Yankee bench looks unimposing with the loss of Jose Canseco and Glenallen Hill. Could it be time for party-boy slugger Giambi to get serious and add his bat to the Yankee corporate attack? You can imagine the press conference already, can't you. "I just want to help the team win. I have a great chance here to do something I might never get a chance to do again in my career...."

Win. Be a part of something. Right now the Yankees have restored the shine and luster on their traditional image established by Ruth, Gehrig, Murderer's Row, Mantle, Berra, and twenty six World Championships. You hear it again and again: "This team knows how to win."

That's why even if the playing field were somehow leveled with regard to salaries and money, you would still see players gravitating to the Yankees. Even the early incompetence of George Steinbrenner in the front office couldn't destroy the fabric of the Yankees winning ways, though it did take some time for even The Boss to get with the program. Now that Steinbrenner, too, understands for himself what "the Yankee way" is, the Yankee juggernaut is once again rolling.

I'm not saying that I don't like to see plenty of strong opponents in the league, or that MLB doesn't need some changes. And I know that the current Bronx dynasty will eventually come to an end. But the history will always be there, and the attitude of confidence and mystique will always be under the surface, waiting for some special player or players to bring it out. Until another team can win a good dozen or two World titles, no matter what changes may take place in the name of "balance," that is one competitive edge the Yankees will continue to have.