Zero. That’s how many dollars the New York Yankees spent on major league free agents this winter.
Considering they’ve got MLB‘s second-highest payroll and a well-earned reputation for cutting cartoonish checks, that’s sort of a big deal.
What gives?
For one, New York is still recovering from a pair of recent spending sprees that added crippling payroll obligations and have yielded mixed results on the field. The first came in 2009 and the second in 2014.
The 2016 Yankees sit at 22-23 entering play Thursday, 6.5 games out in the American League East. They’re not sunk. They’ve won seven of their last 10, and the East is a wide-open division—even with the powerful Boston Red Sox pacing the pack.
But these Yanks are no one’s idea of a juggernaut. They’re a flawed, aging club clinging to the edges of the postseason picture.
There are reasons to be optimistic about the future, as we’ll delve into later. For now, however, let’s pose the question: Which of those spending sprees—2009 or 2014—had a greater impact on the club’s current misfortunes?
Or, to put it another way: If you’re a Yankees fan looking to hop in a tricked-out DeLorean and go back to change the future, for what year do you set the coordinates?
2009: Paying for a Title
After finishing 89-73 in 2008 and missing the playoffs, the Yankees needed to plug holes in the rotation and at first base.
They signed left-hander CC Sabathia to a then-record seven-year, $161 million deal, which was extended in 2011 to include $25 million for 2016 and a $25 million vesting option for 2017 with a $5 million buyout. We’ll cheat, though, and count that extension as a delayed piece of the ’09 spree.
They grabbed right-hander A.J. Burnett for five years and $82.5 million.
And they filled the void at first base created by the departure of Jason Giambi by giving Mark Teixeira eight years and $180 million.
In the short term, the moves worked swimmingly. Sabathia, Burnett and Teixeira combined for 15.9 wins above replacement (WAR) in 2009.
Along with a cast that included Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera, among others, the Yankees won the World Series.
So that settles the debate, right?
Only if you close your eyes, picture all that champagne and confetti and ignore the intervening years.
Burnett was mostly awful in 2010 and 2011, posting an ERA above 5.00 in each campaign before the Yankees shipped him and a wheelbarrow full of cash to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2012.
Sabathia remained valuable longer, eclipsing 200 innings and posting a sub-4.00 ERA in each season through 2012 before his performance cratered amid injuries and personal demons.
Teixeira, likewise, tumbled off a cliff of injuries and decline beginning in 2013, though he rebounded with a 31-homer, All-Star campaign last year.
So the Yankees got a title out of that 2009 splurge, but they also got years of mostly dead money that may well have prevented them from adding other pieces along the way.
Five years later, however, they again opened the wallet wide.
2014: The 2nd Spree
The 2013 Yankees, like their 2008 counterpart, finished above .500 at 85-77 but sat at home come October.
Pettitte and Rivera retired after ’13, Rodriguez was suspended for the entire 2014 season in connection with the Biogenesis scandal, and there were question marks all over the roster.
So New York did what it so often does: throw money at the problem.
Japanese ace Masahiro Tanaka got seven years and $155 million. Center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury was lured away from the archrival Red Sox and into pinstripes for seven years and $153 million.
Add five years and $85 million for catcher Brian McCann, plus three years and $45 million for veteran outfielder Carlos Beltran, and the Yankees committed close to $500 million to four players.
The results have been muddled at best.
McCann has provided 20-homer pop in each of the past two seasons, and Beltran has been productive when healthy.
Tanaka has frequently looked like the top-of-the-rotation stud the Yanks thought they were importing, but questions will continue to linger about the long-term health of his elbow.
Ellsbury, meanwhile, has landed somewhere between a disappointment and a disaster. He hit just .257 last season and was unceremoniously benched in the Yankees’ Wild Card Game loss to the Houston Astros.
The 32-year-old has admittedly shown signs of life lately, raising his on-base percentage more than 50 points since May 1. Considering his deal runs through 2020 and pays him more than $20 million annually, however, the albatross label is unavoidable.
Ellsbury‘s arrival also clinched Robinson Cano’s departure, as the All-Star second baseman inked a 10-year, $240 million deal with the Seattle Mariners that same winter.
That contract, too, could be an albatross before it’s over. But Cano has put up 9.8 WAR to Ellsbury‘s 5.2 WAR over the past two seasons and is having a resurgent power year with Seattle.
The Verdict and Looking Forward
There’s no question the Sabathia and Teixeira contracts have been a financial drag on the Yankees. Yes, the franchise has deep pockets, but they aren’t bottomless. Surely those dollars prevented New York from landing other impact free agents who could be helping the club win now.
On the other hand, the 2009 spree makes sense in context. The Yankees were a few pieces away from a title. They spent what it took to add those pieces, and—look at that—they won a title.
The 2014 spree, by contrast, reeked of desperation. The Yanks were a fringe contender at best, and their wild-card one-and-done in 2015 is the best they’ve managed despite those gaudy payouts.
Neither spree came without collateral damage, but that shiny Commissioner’s Trophy tips the scales toward 2009 as the better allocation of resources and 2014 as the biggest source of regret. The Ellsbury contract, in particular, figures to keep stinging.
OK, now some good news.
The Yankees have managed to build their farm system back to respectability, with top prospects like outfielder Aaron Judge and shortstop Jorge Mateo ready to make an impact in the next couple of years.
More essentially, a lot of money is about to come off the books. By the end of 2017, the Yankees will have likely waved goodbye to Beltran, Teixeira, Sabathia and A-Rod—and more than $100 million in annual payroll just from those four.
That cash can be repurposed in the ludicrously loaded free-agent class of 2018, which Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan described as “a collection of players so good it seems impossible one market could absorb them all at once.”
Here’s an incomplete but nonetheless eye-popping list of names that could be available: Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Josh Donaldson, Andrew McCutchen, Adam Jones, Clayton Kershaw, David Price and Jose Fernandez.
We’ll have to wait and see how much cash the Yankees shell out to one or more of those franchise-defining talents. But it’s a safe bet it’ll be more than zero.
General manager Brian Cashman teased as much in February when addressing the team’s lack of free-agent activity this winter, per the Associated Press (via USA Today): “That’s a reflection of obviously our current commitments, which are substantial. We’re really aggressive when we have a lot of money coming off.”
This is New York, after all, where there’s always another spending spree around the corner.
All statistics and contract information current as of May 25 and courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
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