Don't wait in the weeds for Yankees to overspend.

(Sean Deveney): "The Red Sox and Yankees broke character and decided the price for Santana, in terms of contract and prospects, was too high.

• Which is odd, because the price is almost never too high for the Red Sox and Yankees.

• Bad timing for the Twins."**********************

It's not odd at all. Something is right in front of baseball writers and they refuse to see, so today's comment by Sean Deveney is in line with many of his brethren. Any hour of the night or day, international media celebrities can be heard saying the Yankees can and will spend endless amounts of money. I document this from time to time as the characterization isn't provable, but it's also not helpful to fans who want to be up to date.

• Everyone knows the Yankees have shifted their approach in the past few years, ie, that of giving up any number of prospects or home grown players to buy expensive free agents (or soon to be free agents). Also, MLB has instituted revenue sharing and luxury tax to make it impossible for the Yankees (or Red Sox) to spend indiscriminately.

The revenue sharing bill is $100 million this year for the Yankees. To add a player now, they'd have to add 40% of his salary in tax to MLB. The system is working. Teams need to take the revenue sharing and luxury tax money they get from the Yankees and use that to build up their teams. Forget them getting into bidding wars with the Red Sox. Those days have been over for 2 or 3 years.

• If there aren't enough good players to go around, contract some teams that Bud added. If that doesn't work, close down the Yankees. Then find someone else to complain about.

Reference article by Sean Deveney on SportingNews.com, "Santana Haul Not Worth the Wait for the Twins," 1/29/08

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