Sunday, January 4, 2009

Yankees Free Agent Spending Not an Overreaction

Many people would consider the Yankees $423.5 million in free agent spending an overreaction to missing the playoffs for the first time since 1993, but in reality, its business as usual. However, this is really the first time the Yankees have been able to splurge in a good free agent market. The signings of Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright in 2005 were not quite on par with this years free agent market, nor was the acquisition of Randy Johnson that year any better. Pavano was considered a great free agent signing, but Wright was seen as a 5th starter, and many people had their doubts about Randy Johnson. This year, we've signed the cream of the crop. CC Sabathia the former Cy Young winner is in his prime, and even the oft injured Burnett pitched exceptionally well in the AL east last season, and might even be healthy. Though many are afraid that Burnett is the second coming of Carl Pavano, I think Burnett will prove more durable. Only time will tell. Then there's the Mark Teixeira signing. The switch hitting, gold gloving, 30 homerun powering first baseman. The last time we added a bat like his during free agency was probably Gary Sheffield, and we know what his bat did to our lineup. Basically, if the free agent splurge tactic is going to work, these next few seasons should tell.

In other news, we were on Pete Abe's blog the other day. The post was largely polarizing with people either hating it or loving it with few in between. One of my favorite examples of this polarization comes from these back-to-back comments:

"Very creative. Great job."

"extremely lame."

One person said we wasted 5 minutes of their life. The reading level of the viewers seemed to get better as the day progressed as later on someone said we wasted 3 minutes of theirs. I think a lot of people were expecting something about Xavier Nady's impending free agency or Mark Teixeira's gold glove defense, but our fear was that if we did something like that, though we may get a lot of people agreeing with it, our blog would just fade into the rest of the blogosphere and not separate us from the hundreds of other Yankees blogs. We do plenty of analysis here. Last year in January we did a player-by-player breakdown of everyone on the roster, and did a game summary after every game last season. However, we like to write our stories, and we prefer to take a humorous approach, which a lot of people seem to enjoy. We have largely gotten positive feed back, even though we understand that our writing is not for everyone. Despite the largely polarized reviews our story got, we had over 3000 page views that day.

By and large, we think it accomplished our goal. It gave a larger community of Yankee fans a sample of what we do, and hopefully has gained us some more viewers to the blog. We hope that some of these new viewers will comment here as well as one of the things we enjoy most is the baseball talk that goes on in the comments section here. Beyond that, 2009 should be a great year. Baseball will be getting started in just a few months, and until then, you can count on Respect Jeter's Gangster to fill the boredom in between.

14 comments:

Roberto E. Alejandro said...

This post just wasted 74 minutes of my life.

pkaushish said...

You guys are hilarious. That "extremely lame" dude must've been talking about himself. As one of your 19 Google Reader subscribers I'd like to say keep up the hilarious work you all do.

Roberto E. Alejandro said...

Thanks P, and welcome to the comments section. keep them coming b/c our self esteem depends on it.

Angelo Roldan said...

good stuff , you guys have to be some of the most creative bloggers I've read lol. I just started a blog hopefully I can make it pretty good. heres the link i hope you guys check it out http://thenextyankeesblog.blogspot.com/. I just started it, i still think its seems to common of a blog but I'll try to improve with time. Im a high school student hoping to do something like u guys do in the future.

Anonymous said...

I thought it was a pretty good post on Pete's blog. Maybe not the funniest thing I've read from you guys, but I got a good chuckle knowing that Pete's blog had some article about Kei Igawa threatening to punch George's horse in the face. Some people don't know how to laugh...

Anonymous said...
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Fernando Alejandro said...

Angelo, we added you to our blog roll. Writing about your favorite team is the best way to pass the cold winter months.

Bigjf, yeah, definetely not our best work, but it gave people an idea. After my brother wrote the emoticon interview, I was thinking that if he had done that a few days earlier, we could have used that. Oh well.

Roberto E. Alejandro said...

Don't blame me. I'm an artist, I have a process, you can't rush these things. It takes time, like a baby.

Anonymous said...

I've been meaning to congratulate you on your good show on the big stage. Hope it gets you more readers who'll enjoy you as much as I do.
At least you got your facts straight, unlike the Cash basher.
I think you're approach was right. A straight analysis piece would have got lost in the crowd, and, face it--just abut everything to be said has been said until ST starts. (Most of the blogs just quote Pete Abe anyway.)
I'll keep coming back!
Meanwhile, MLB Network has come pretty close to solving the problem of "500 channels and nothing to watch!"

Joe

Raven King said...

Humor is never having to explain why.

Fernando Alejandro said...

Joe, I was so looking forward to the MLB channel, I was ready to watch Larsen's perfect game, then I turn it on, and I don't get the channel! I think I may have to pony up the cash for it. It seems worth it.

Anonymous said...

Damn, Fernando! I think you owe your cable geeks a good screaming, obscenity-laden fit.
It's a free channel on DircTV, and it seems like it's designed to be a free channel.
I was a little worried, as at midnight on the 31st, that channel number still didn't show up in the channel guide, but when I woke up in the morning,there it was. (Better 'n Xmas!)
Yeah, the Larsen game was great, especially with Larsen and Yogi sitting with Bob Costas talking along with it.
The Ken Burns series starts tonight, and Friday is the '96WS. (Just highlights, dammit. They've done the '08 series in it's entirety. And some Sox games I haven't watched.)
Another fun series is top 9 players, position by position, all time.
Yeah--get on the phone. I check it even before I head for the 3rd Rock reruns.

Joe

Fernando Alejandro said...

I have DirecTV! I'm going to check again tonight. Maybe there was something wrong with the feed. If I don't have it, I'm calling.

Anonymous said...

It's on ch 213.
Look at "All Channels" not your programmed favorites lists.

But work on the screaming, obscenity-laden fit. If you have DTV, it's sure to come in handy sometime.

Joe