Can the Yankees Afford Not Signing CC Sabathia?

By JOSH ALPER

Updated 3:18 PM EST, Fri, Nov 28, 2008

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There's an interesting article in today's Daily News about the Yankee pursuit of CC Sabathia. Anthony McCarron's central point, long-term deals for pitchers are risky bets that don't pay off, is well known, but he finds an interesting way of approaching it that's specific to this year's Yankee team.

He spoke with Vince Gennaro, who wrote a book called "Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in Baseball," about the position the Yankees find themselves in this season. A new stadium is opening, ticket prices are at stratospheric levels and the economy is lagging, which means the Yankees will have to do a lot to make people justify spending money to go see a baseball team. More to the point, they'll have to convince people that they are doing everything they can to win a World Series.

"The Yankees are the one team who has to err on the high side coming into this season," Gennaro said. "Once the novelty of the new park wears off - and at those prices, it might wear off quicker - they will have to deliver a product. People will have to feel like they are coming to see the Yankees, a team that is going to be in the postseason. The Yankees are sort of in a corner right now where it's probably not the worst thing if they took on more risk than they might want to."

It's kind of funny that you can look at the Sabathia signing in a similar way as the toxic mortgage investments that have helped fuel the economic downturn. If they do overpay for Sabathia and he falls flat, he'll be the baseball equivalent of one of those assets that the government is buying up all over Wall Street. He'd create a drag on the team's future, would erode the public's trust in the team's direction and would create an atmosphere of fear preceding any future signings.

They can't really afford to just sit this one out, though. They're just like the many investment firms who got into the mortgage backed securities business because they couldn't justify ignoring a sector, risky though it was, which was creating big returns. Sabathia is the one player on the open market whose acquisition signifies the Yankees mean business and if he signs elsewhere it will be seen as a failure by the Yankees, even if that perception isn't an accurate one.