Congratulations to the 2009 World Champion New York Yankees!!!!!!!!!! GOD it feels good to say that again.

It’s silly to say that the Yankees’ payroll does not give them a competitive advantage in signing the best players. However, the Steinbrenners have chosen a business model — and a team construction model — appropriate to their situation. The Yankees are normally at a DISadvantage in the draft, and even on the trade market, because they’re generally at or near the top of the league (and they sign big FAs), and because they tend to have to overpay, because everyone knows their bank account is big. In other words, they’ve made a trade-off: Use a big payroll to win in the free agent market and accept that it hurts your drafting ability AND your trading ability (as it’s difficult to move players with big contracts). The Yankees sometimes make bad decisions with their money, as we’ve all seen many times — but that’s a risk of the strategy they’ve chosen.

Small-market teams cannot bank on the “spend a lot and the revenue will come” strategy, because, in many cases, the revenue opportunities are thin. However, there have been consistently good small-market teams that use a different strategy than the Yankees — draft and trade — with different trade-offs: Focus on player development, scouting, and stockpiling young talent to use as trade chips, while recognizing the risk that often the young talent can fall short. Their strategy makes them dynamic and flexible, while the Yankees’ money gives them some flexibility (though not as much dynamism, I’d argue).

My point here is that the Yankees’ payroll is a business decision, based on the situation the team is in — and it works. And while it’s an advantage in many ways, it’s not a pure advantage.

All that said, I would expect the changes in the game stemming from the tighter PED policy to help even things out a bit. It’s not that the Yankees have depended on juiced players (sure they’ve had their share, at one time or another), but that the prevalence of PEDs kept a lot of players in the game (and productive) longer, pushing up their contracts, and effectively flooding the market with free agent superstars. With the same number of teams bidding on fewer highly productive players that survive in the game long past their cost-controlled years, the expensive talent will be more spread around.

Anyway, on a different note: To anyone (that Philly writer) who thinks a championship doesn’t mean anything to NYY fans, because the team has so many, you couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve been a Yankee fan for more than 30 years. I still care about *every single game* and I hung on pretty much every pitch, this postseason. It’s not because I think the Yankees (or their fans) are “owed” a championship, but because it’s still thrilling to watch my team win. It’s ridiculous to think that a win one year makes a win the next less meaningful. The Phils won last year and their fans were burning for them to repeat. Even with 26 in the team’s history, this year is this year — and we want to win.

Hope you have a great off-season!

Classy guys, really. Thanks so much for all your efforts through the post season. You’ve proven lohud is here to stay and we will all be following closely through the offseason and 2010. THANK YOU Sam, Josh and Chad!! Great job.