God forbid Pettitte should look after his own interests. When Paul Coffey left Edmonton, the entire city despised him. Because they let people with a puny morality tangled up with envy and unrealized desires -people like Joel Sherman – run their little emotional lives.

There’s nothing rational about it; a media which cannot hide its disdain for and envy of the professional athletes it covers takes every opportunity to revenge itself on them, turning everything into a morality play.

I guess Pettitte is supposed to genuflect because the Yankees “stood by him.” As pointed out, the player was under contract; the Yankees were just being smart – not loyal.

“Yankees support of Pettitte was a business decision. They needed him in the rotation last year. He went into ‘08 along with Wang as the only two guys you could reasonably count on for 200 league average or better innings. You notice they did not need Clemens and accordingly treated him like a leper.”

You’ll have to explain why the Yankees stood behind Gooden and Strawberry years after their playing days were over. The Yankees and George S specifically have a history of being loyal to those that earned their Pinstripes.

Andy P was worthy of standing behind, what he admitted to, while wrong, was an attempt to heal up and help his team. Clemens did it for glory just like Bonds.

LH relievers are tough to come by. They really like him and he is an effective pitcher when used properly.

Even in this marketplace, 4 million dollars per year for a solid bullpen contributor is not a lot money.

Moreover, if it didn’t work out, that’s not a bad contract to move after 2009.

I don’t see that deal as an “out of whack” deal in the current marketplace.

I don’t buy the argument they, “don’t know what they are doing”, when they acquired an under 30 first baseman for a third of the cost of Giambi in 2009, made the largest offer to a pitcher ever (CC), and didn’t offer arbitration to two guys who are on the downside of their careers.

I don’t see those decisions as being out of whack. Its not like they are making 4 year offers to the Carl Pavano’s of the world.

If nothing else, it seems they are learning from their mistakes of the past.

It’s been a very cold market so far. The players who have attracted by far the most attention are left handed relievers.

Based on what Jeremy Affeldt got I think the yankees read the market for Marte correctly.

Marte is much better than Affeldt. If he had hit the market I’d guess that a team like the Indians may have signed him as a low cost closer at around $6m/3 yrs.

I think they made the right move on Marte. I think they read the market correctly.

No indication that he was signed to an inflated price.

Guys like Dunn may be very reasonably priced compared to Tex.

That’s where value in this market may fall.

You’ll have to pay Tex according to the old market place. Dunn and Burrell look like they’ll get priced under current conditions.

Would Dunn accept at two year $28M deal?

Hard to pass that up compared to Tex at something like 8yrs/160-170.

The yankees may be light in hitting right now. But there’s going to be value in the market on productive second tier bats out there.

The market even for Manny may really collapse, particularly if the Angels do sign Tex. The Dodgers don’t seem serious about bringing Manny back.

I’m just not sure we can be so convinced we know what the Yanks are up to here.

If Abreu went to arbitration with the Yankees, his agent would probably ask for 18 million. Given the numbers he had over last season, especially in comparison with someone making 18 million (Andruw Jones for example), its not an unheard of number.

The Yankees would probably come in between 8-10 million. The arbitrator can only choose one number or the other in the process.

The Yankees probably figured they would lose based on the fact their number would be so low the arbitrator couldn’t possibly rule in their favor, despite current market conditions.

As far as the multi-year vs. one year argument, a lot of people in the game feel the “middle class” of player will get trambled in this climate.

For guys like Sabathia and Tex, they will still get multi-year offers. For others, its going to be challenging.

I don’t see AJ Burnett getting 5 years. Nor do I see Manny getting 3.

I think the only two guys who “score” in this marketplace (and that may change soon if they don’t get their deals done) are CC and Tex.

Everybody else will be fighting for the quarters on the floor, IMO.

What’s long term now? We don’t have a clear idea because the market’s not in equilibrium.

Who is to say a 3 year deal for many players won’t know be “long term?”

I think the Pettite and Abreu situations are analagous.

Pettite was the second highest paid pitcher in the game last year.

Arbitration was never going to lower that figure that much. It just wasn’t. It’s not a process set up to adapt to market corrections. The aribtrator’s aren’t economists – they aren’t guys who will read and project where the market is headed.

The yankees were not planning on paying Andy Pettite $16M this year.

I think they’ve wired that assumption into their budgeting. I’d guess that part of their offer to CC was based on the idea that they wouldn’t be paying Pettite as if he were one of the best starters in baseball.

The yankees were basically saying that they felt there was a large gap between the arbitration price for Pettite/Abreu and their likely price on the current market.

That spread made the risk of offering either arbitration prohibitive.

And in the case of Pettite – it was almost guaranteed that if he was offered arbitration he would have accepted as he’s only seeking a one year deal.

Teams announced pretty clearly yesterday that for many players they don’t believe that arbitration is a fair gauge of the market.

Given that they decided to pay the opportunity cost of losing picks in order to avoid the risk of paying players far above their current worth.