Hal Steinbrenner ‘solidarity’ is awful look for Yankees while Steve Cohen spends

Of all the bombshells that dropped on Tuesday, 24 hours prior to the labor deadline, David Lennon’s Newsday screed outshines the “two different baseballs” fiasco for Yankees fans.

After all, we’ve seen enough primetime games (Field of Dreams, 9/11 memorial) to know something was up without being condescended to by a Rob Manfred leak. It’s disgusting, but it’s a level of disgusting we’d already grown accustomed to.

Lennon’s piece, contrasting Hal Steinbrenner’s spending with Steve Cohen’s frenzy, seemed to confirm our worst fears about how the Yankees are being run and why they’re taking a conservative approach, letting Cohen be the outlier.

Of course, spending is the new Moneyball, and any team that breaks from the mold and doles out finances is entering an untapped market — see the 2021 Braves at the trade deadline.

With that in mind, it’s good to see our owner has his fellow owners’ backs ahead of an onerous, months-long debate about making the game fair for all (as the playoffs expand).

Slimy as it is, it seems Steinbrenner sitting on his hands is all a show of solidarity with his extremely wealthy brothers. Perhaps he thought he could get away with linking arms with his fellow gluttons, having no idea Cohen and the Rangers would splash all over his targets? Now, in two or three months, the Yankees might realize their owner took liberties that ruined any philosophy they’d attempted to work towards since resetting the tax.

Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner waiting for the new CBA has pushed the NYY back.

Simply have to see what that new CBA looks like. No motion until then! Except Corey Seager, and Max Scherzer, and Marcus Semien … and Mark Canha … and Justin Verlander … and Jacob Stallings … and on, and on, and on.

Perhaps this is an unpopular opinion (it’s not), but the Yankees owner should be a maverick. It’s a position held by a person who has chosen to purchase the New York Yankees, the all-powerful MLB team that should always be blending big spending with player development. It should not be a position occupied by someone content to hang back in the parlor room with the other 29 owners and plot the best way for everyone to save fat stacks of cash in this trying time of need.

Of course … Steinbrenner didn’t choose to purchase the Yankees, which is the most glaring problem here. He simply fell into solidarity. Meanwhile, Cohen, with no tethers to the rest of the fraternity, did what he saw as necessary. He watched a lockout approaching, and used his financial windfall to get top talent to commit before the drain got clogged.

Might there be “bargains” available after the lockout is resolved? Sure! But Cohen will spend there, too. He’s burning the candle at both ends, and will get a chance at more talent because of it.

Steinbrenner chose to wait, because he cares more about protecting his fellow owners than leading a spending charge. And the Mets owner operating the way the Yankees owner has a birthright to behave is a disastrous look ahead of the colder-than-normal winter months.

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