Yankees sign Teixeira, Sabathia and Burnett... time to hate their guts again

2008 was a magical season in baseball, especially in the AL East. The biggest reason: the Tampa Bay Rays, the team with the lowest payroll in the division, beat out the overpriced Yankees and Red Sox.

The Yankees best option, it would seem, would be to concentrate on building a strong farm system, while signing the occasional young, high-cost, low-risk free agent. After all the Red Sox and Devil Rays are almost entirely built by a strong farm system (The Red Sox also have some high-priced talent on their roster.) And after all the great Yankees teams of the last 90s were built on a strong farm system (see Derek Jerek, Bernie Williams and Andy Pettitte.)

But the Yankees chose a different route: spend a lot of money on high-priced free agents to win now. This off-season they have spent over 400 million dollars on Mark Teixeria, C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. Granted Teixeria and Sabathia are just the type of free agents teams should spend a lot of money on. Both are young, durable and great players.

But there is something that feels wrong and soulless about just spending as much money as possible to win a championship. Maybe I'm one of those socialist squares that believe everyone should have a somewhat level playing field-- think the NFL-- and when one team spends this much money to win, it upsets my sense of justice.

And for the Yankees, the results of spending this much money has mixed results. After all after 2000, the Yankees employed a similar strategy to win championships. They signed Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Carl Pavano, Jared Wright and more. The results were mixed. Some had great years, but the teams never won a championship. I won't say it's because the team was a soulless mix of high-priced players only their to win championships, because I know that talent wins in baseball. But I think there is something nice about having a young exciting team who is learning to win together.

Anyway, I'll stop my bitching. The Yankees probably have one of the most talented rosters in the game and may very well win a championship, and if that happens their spending spree would have been worth it. But I know this, I'll be rooting for Tampa Bay Rays harder than ever next year.