I think you are missing the fact that the Yankees were able to pay exorbitant amounts for extremely high-quality free agents. A-Rod makes $33 million, Mark Teixeira makes $20.6 million, Derek Jeter (who was home-grown but FA eligible) makes $21.6 million, A.J. Burnett makes $16 million, and C.C. Sabathia makes $15.3 million. I could go on, but that's enough to make the point. The Yankees are the only team that can afford to pay this many high salaries.

Just saying that both teams had an equal number of FA's isn't telling the whole story. You forgot all the home-grown guys who are FA eligible and signed FA contracts to stay with the Yankees and Phillies (e.g. Posada, Jeter, Rivera, Howard, Utley, Rollins), so even those numbers aren't right.

"Interestingly, while New York is often attacked for buying its success, both clubs drafted the exact same amount of talent on their World Series teams."

I'm not so sure the second part of that sentence follows the first. While the numbers of free agents might be the same or similar, the quality of the players acquired and the cost of acquiring them is quite clearly different. That is the crux of the claim made against the Yankees, not the quantity.

This Yankees club has to a much larger degree than the Phillies bought expensive free agents. Ibanez and to a lesser degree Feliz are the only big dollar free agents the Phillies have brought in. When you compare them to Teixeira, Damon, Sabathia, Burnett, Matsui, and A-Rod (who declared his free agency and was re-signed by the Yankees), well, there really is no comparison.

Alot of fans, particularly of low payroll teams, and I guess of the Red Sox, look at the overall payroll and say the Yankees are buying their success. Fair enough, but when you get into the details it looks more like the organization is willing to pay to keep players that have developed in their system and become all-stars, plus the ridiculous A-Rod contract (but he at least technically came in through a trade).

Plus the front office can make expensive mistakes (Kei Igawa) and essentially bury them, which is a real advantage. But they pick plenty of players off of the scrapheap, as shown in the post.

To me, a more interesting question is what makes a "small market" team. How big a revenue advantage do the Yankees get by being based in New York? They share the metro area with another team, and don't get much of a regional market.

Also, the Yankees' reputation seems to come from their 1921-1964 run of getting to the WS almost every year. But for most of that period they competed only against seven other teams in the American League, at least one of which, the Browns, was almost a minor league team. Front offices were much less professional then than now. They didn't just buy Babe Ruth from the Red Sox at the beginning of this period, they bought much of the rest of the roster, but they needed the Red Sox owner to be willing to sell.

I have to agree that this post completely misses the mark. You say these teams drafted the exact same amount of talent? No, they drafted the same amount of players. Big difference. They Yankees drafted Jeter, Posada, and 4 relief pitchers on the current roster (including Joba, and Hughes). The Phillies drafted Howard, Utley, Rollins, Hamels, Happ, Myers, and Madson.

I think it would make a lot more sense to use a player value statistic to determine how much "talent" was actually acquired through various avenues. I feel confident the Phillies drafting would come out a lot higher similarly to how the Yankees free agency group would come out extremely high.

Part of the reason for the Yankees success in the draft could be due their willingness to ignore the slotting recommendations, for which it seems that they have never suffered the wrath of MLB in any way.

Without the fear of MLB action, I would assume that at least a few more teams would be willing to go over slot, so that the Yankees would have been less likely to have the chance to draft guys like Hughes and Chamberlain.

I thought that the "Yankees buy their wins" mantra gained traction (ironically enough) in the 1980s. Steinbrenner had paid handsomely for free agents in the mid-70s, which got the team back on a championship track. He really accelerated this during the 80s, with Winfield, Henderson, Baylor, Kemp, and Jackson just a few of the big names he threw money at.

I always felt that the dynasty that launched in the mid-90s was sort of an antithesis of that, a team with a home-grown core of players (C-2B-SS-CF were brought up through the Yankees system) that had the complementary parts added via trades and free agency. I'm wondering if they're headed towards another stretch where they neglect the farm system for free agents and big names and wind up hurting themselves.

This should probably be combined with WAR, to show how much value the team is getting from various sources. I think the Phillies might win that one...

The financial advantage is real, of course. The equalizers are: 1) the randomness of baseball (development of prospects, injuries, "game of inches" and of course short playoff series); 2) the draft, though it's at least partly broken; 3) expectations that require the Yankees to go for it every single year; 4) luxury tax and revenue sharing.

I don't think those equalizers cancel out the Yankees financial advantages, but I do think they take a significant chunk out of it.

The Yankees of today wouldn't be able to draft Derek Jeter. He'd be off the board well before they picked (they sucked when they drafted him), even if he was asking for an over-slot bonus. There are several teams happy to go over slot.

The attempt to win every definitely hurts the FO's ability to plan ahead. Cashman barely managed to convince the Steinbrenners to avoid Johan Santana and wait 1 season for CC. Imagine him arguing that they needed to go through a strip down & rebuild that would result in several seasons of being uncompetitive. No way, Jose. That restricts the FO's options, and basically requires that they spend a ton of money chasing FAs. This can be counterproductive, even if the signings aren't straight up busts ala Pavano.

"The Yankees of today wouldn't be able to draft Derek Jeter. He'd be off the board well before they picked (they sucked when they drafted him), even if he was asking for an over-slot bonus. There are several teams happy to go over slot."

Sure, except the moment he hit free agency they'd be able to outbid every other team. I doubt that any half-way educated baseball fan believes the Yankees just spend and that's how they win, it's the combination of solid drafting, solid management and an insane financial advantage in a non-free market system that gives them the advantage every time. The article just muddles the truth, no other team can afford to buy/trade/keep so many established 4+ WAR players.

An interesting sidebar is that 6% of the rosters playing in the World Series came from minor-league free agency and Rule 5. Back in the day, I used to say--and I bet it's still true--that one could assemble a .500-level team entirely from those two sources, which are, in my opinion, much underused.

My real problem with this analysis is that it counts International Free Agents with the same weight as drafted players. The Yankees had very little to do with the development of Hideki Matsui and certainly did not groom him into the ball player that he is. Counting him as "drafted" by the Yankees is complete hogwash. More so, top international talent (players like Rivera, Cano, and Cabrera) will be found by the teams with the most resources invested abroad. The Yankees are one of the few teams that can spend outlandishly on foreign talent. Compare the international free agents that were "drafted" by each team. The Yankees have Matsui, Cano, Rivera, and Cabrera (all of whom played in game 2) versus Carlos Ruiz and Basterdo for the Phillies. One team has clearly had more success with international free agents (hint, its the team that offered Matsui 3 years and $21 million out of Japan). While the Yankees deserve credit for identifying good players in their draft slots (albeit paying them a bit higher than recommened), they do not deserve as much credit for a player like Matsui or Cabrera (who got 175,000 out of high school, a fair bit of money).

"While the Yankees deserve credit for identifying good players in their draft slots (albeit paying them a bit higher than recommened), they do not deserve as much credit for a player like Matsui or Cabrera (who got 175,000 out of high school, a fair bit of money)."

The Yankees evaluated Matsui and determined he was worth an initial investment of $21 million and 3 years out of Japan when he was a free agent...theoretically, any team out there could have matched or exceeded the value of that contract, but neglected to do so.

Obviously the story is a little more complicated than that, since one of the reasons why the Yankees signed Matsui to a favorable contract was their amicable relations with Matsui's old Japanese team (the Giants), although having the vision to cultivate those international ties are deserving of credit too, I think.

Also, high-priced international free agents are not guaranteed success - you still need to identify the premium talent *and* develop it successfully. Compare Wily Mo Pena, for example. Furthermore, the Yankees admittedly struck gold on Mariano Rivera, whom they signed to a contract for peanuts as a shortstop when they were in fact scouting his relative.

It's not just as simple as throwing money everywhere - which is why plenty of teams with high payrolls can still fall short year after year.

At the end of the day, there are a myriad of ways to develop a winning baseball organization, but ultimately the one thing that links them all together is the ability to properly leverage whatever resources and advantages you have against your disadvantages. Do the Yankees have a higher resource base than other teams? Yes. Do they leverage it effectively and efficiently? Not an unequivocal yes, that one, but you can still make a damned strong case for it. That still counts for something.

"I'm wondering if they're headed towards another stretch where they neglect the farm system for free agents and big names and wind up hurting themselves."

Not likely. If you want any further proof of the Yankees self-restraint since the organizational shift in philosophy orchestrated by Mr. Cashman at at the conclusion of the 2005 season, look no further than the situations of Mr. Santana and Mr. Sabathia. In the case of the former, Mr. Cashman resisted the quick-fix urge to relinquish a number of high-end, nearly major-league ready players (Tabata, Jackson, Hughes, Chamberlain, Betances among those discussed)in addition to a lengthy, lucrative high-risk contract. In contrast, he opted to sign a similar pitcher in the latter case who required an equally imposing contract, but not nearly the bounty in players (only a mere draft pick). Granted, there have been a few reaches under his watch, most notably the overpaid contract to the 32 y/o Mr. Burnett. Most troubling is when Mr. Levine or Mr. Hank Steinbrenner become involved in player personnel moves, as short-term interests then take center stage (see Mr. Rodriguez's 10-year extension, the Mr. Johnson, Mr. Brown, Mr. Sheffield acquisitions).
What generally separates the current Yankees from other teams in the bottom 2/3 of team revenues is their ability to retain nearly any player it chooses who has reached free agency. Aside from a period dating in latter part of the 1990's to the early 2000's, the Yankeees have been very successful in player development since 1991. They have developed such players as Jeter, Pettitte, Rivera (this was a result of efficient Latin American operations as opposed to a previously suggested bidding war), B. Williams, G. Williams, Posada, Lowell, Soriano, Cano, Hughes, Chamberlain, N. Johnson, Cabrera, Gardner, and number of others. Some were brought to the Yankees and some were used as trade chips. Their current minor league state of affairs reflects a system rich in catching and pitching products with less depth in position players, most notably middle infielders.
The point is that ALL teams have a mix of FA signing, internally drafted players, Latin American signees/developments, trade acquisitions, castoff/reclamation projects (see the Cardinals current proxy for player development), and some acquire via the lesser utilized sources of East Asia and increasingly Australia. In order to maintain a manageable budget and to avoid a graybeard roster, an appropriate balance of the internal development and the remainder must be met. The Yankees have more leeway towards the remainder (including the ability to take on more premium FA's), however, even they have limits. You can only sign one too many Pavanos and maintain financial flexibility. Unlike the Mets and Cubs who are foregoing player development for short-term fixes (thank you Mr. Phillips, Mr. Duquette,and Mr. Minaya), the Yankees, like the Red Sox, are aiming towards a self-sustaining approach fueled by an enormous internal inventory of players and augmented by the occasional carefully considered premium free agent.

Another overlooked aspect is how financials affect the ability of teams to keep their "core" guys.

This post credits the Yankees for having so much of its team built through the draft, but you can't credit them for Jeter, Posada, or Rivera after all these years. Each has had multiple opportunities to hit the open market, and for any other franchise at least some would have moved on. Essentially, no other team is able to pay as much in order to retain talent, so the Yankees should have more players remaining from drafts because they are more able to keep them.

It is ridiculous that anyone would argue that the Yankees vast spending ability does not convey them a huge advantage over other teams. That it took them this many years since their last Championship to get to this point, is a testiment to how hard (and random) the playoff system is today.

To argue that any team could offer Matsui $21M for 3 years is likewise ridiculous. $7M is a drop in the bucket for the Yankees, just 3.5% of a $200M payroll. For a small market team, that is probably close to 15% of their budget. Even for other top spending teams (roughly low $100M), that is still 5-7% of their payroll. They can take risks like Kei Igawa or Carl Pavano and if you take enough risks, you will hit a jackpot sometimes. Other teams would be hurt severely by spending goofs like that, while the Yankees can slough it off like rainwater, there's plenty more where that comes from.

I will give them credit for rebuilding from the draft and amateurs during their early 90's suck period when King George was kicked out of baseball and the baseball guys could do what they wanted and not have George looking over their shoulders.

But this year was plainly bought by them, no matter how you slice it. They would not be here today, close to winning if they were not able to spend $200M per year on payroll.