GAMMONS ON YANKEES: I hate the Yankees, and I've got a hunch ESPN's Peter Gammons, a longtime Boston resident, does too. But he makes an excellent point in today's column: the Yankees may be baseball's richest team, but they're also the smartest, and that's why they've been in the World Series five of the last six years. Not only do they use their revenues in a smart way (as Gammons points out, they've got almost no bad contracts), but they trade intelligently as well. Notice the Yankees' "top prospects" of the last few years that they didn't trade: Derek Jeter, Alfonso Soriano, Nick Johnson, Jorge Posada. And look at the "top prospects" that they did trade: Ruben Rivera, Ricky Ledee, Ed Yarnall, Jake Westbrook. Notice that all of the players they kept became core members of their championship teams, while the ones they didn't keep became nothing.
Posted by Stephen Silver at July 7, 2002 10:29 PM