THIS is who the Yankees are. This is who the Yankees are most comfortable being.
They tried it cheaper and younger. That lasted fewer than 30 games, long enough for a strength and conditioning coach to get canned, Joe Torre to be threatened and George Steinbrenner to reclaim his inner madman. Roger Clemens ain’t young and he certainly ain’t cheap.
He turns 45 in August and by then he will be midway through a Yankees contract that will be paying him about $1 million a start. Clemens has always yearned to set financial records as yet another way to sanctify his historic greatness. So his salary, before it is pro-rated, of $28 million is no accidental number. It is $1 million more than Alex Rodriguez’s now old record of $27 million.
That both are Yankees is no accident either. Steinbrenner has always understood the value of star power not only in going after championships. The Yankees draw more than 4 million fans at home, set road attendance records, and light up the Nielsens because they are the baseball Beatles. There is constant criticism of the Yankee payroll, but there are two realities: 1) few teams, if any, can justify how much they spend better than the team that is drawing all those fans and making all this money and 2) despite the supposed outrage, fans vote with their dollars that they love having a mega-team around, even if it is just to love to hate it.
Yankees GM Brian Cashman was in the midst of trying to prove the Yanks could keep on winning without putting out as much star wattage or paying such a huge price. But it is just not in Steinbrenner’s DNA, and, therefore, it is not in the DNA of the team. This is an organization most comfortable doing what it did yesterday: making front-page news, fashioning high drama and spending dough.
Cashman was in the midst of trying to find out if the Beatles would be the same minus, say, a John Lennon. Steinbrenner, though, was more interested – as always – in seeing if it would all sound better if Mick Jagger were added to the regular cast.
Will it? Clemens should certainly be more prepared and better than the not-ready-for-primetime cast that has been schlepped out of Trenton and Scranton. His arrival will allow the Yanks to put Kei Igawa where he belongs, which is in the minors. He will be a good presence to have around for worthy youngsters, notably Phil Hughes. And his warrior persona should help fumigate the stench of the soft Carl Pavano.
However, in his five seasons as a Yankee, from 1999-2003, Clemens never registered an ERA of lower than 3.51, and he was 36-40 in age then.
The Yanks might be paying $1 million a start to watch five innings, three runs from a 45-year-old. Even Mick Jagger gets old.
But these are the Steinbrenner Yankees, which means their tolerance for younger and less expensive lasts as long as it takes to swell the DL. They met a month of injury by abandoning their fiscal prudence, a younger roster and their ideals since Clemens will be allowed to come and go as he wishes. They are the same old Yankees, most comfortable spending $28 million to try to get a 27th championship.