Yankees: Are the they neglecting the larger picture?
By Ben Green
Getting Aaron Judge for just $622,300. What a bargain for the Yankees! But wait. Maybe they better put that cork back in the champagne bottle.
On Thursday, Yanks Go Yard editor and site expert Mike Calendrillo wrote an article titled “Yankees should buyout Aaron Judges pre-arbitration years.” Mike got it right. The subheading of his article says it all:
"“The Yankees use a sliding scale to determine the salaries of their pre-arbitration players. Hence, Aaron Judge’s 52 home runs are worth only 622,300 for the 2018 season.”"
Think about it for a moment. The 2017 unanimous Rookie of the Year and the face of Major League Baseball, Aaron Judge will be paid in a little more than half a million dollars this season.
Does that sound equitable? Not to me and I think not to anybody outside the hearing range of Yankees’ management.
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It is very apparent that the Yanks are being “penny wise and pound foolish” with their young stars. These are kids have friends, and hovering vampire like agents whispering in their ears every day, how underpaid and underappreciated they are.
Playing in the New York limelight requires more than talent — it demands an emotional maturity that very few young players have. Even proven veterans sometimes wilt under the pressure of playing in the Bronx.
No matter what anyone of these kids will say publicly, feeling like you’re undervalued and being used creates a particular kind of resentment that eventually will show up on the field.
Baseball is a business, and every team’s GM wants to save money to appease the ownership, and still put a contending team on the field.
Keeping young stars under control as long as possible with low salaries is a cornerstone of that business, but aren’t the examples of Paul DeJong and Mike Trout cited by Calendrillo, a better way to do business without neglecting the bigger picture?
The verdict about Judge: The Yankees should buyout his pre-arb years.
No matter what anyone of these kids will say publicly, feeling like your undervalued and being used creates a certain kind of resentment that eventually will show up on the field.
Next: The potential of the 2018 Yankees
Can anyone honestly believe that Dellin Betances was not at the very least distracted by his 2017 salary that ended in arbitration and embarrassment? That had to influence his focus on the playing field!