That said, if anything, I think Casey Close may want to tamp down his rhetoric a bit. For all the talk about how the Yankees may or may not be insulting or devaluing Jeter, if anything the harshest words have come from Close. Everyone associated with the front office has acknowledged Jeter’s value to the franchise above what he does on the field, and the fact of the matter is that the Yankees have made Jeter an offer that is larger than what anyone else is likely to offer. I assume that Close is aware of that, so doing things like calling the offer “baffling” can’t do anything but hurt Jeter. It’s not going to get him a 5 year, $100 million deal by any stretch.
Ultimately, I think there’s a problem here of perception versus reality. I was talking to a friend the other day and reiterated that I thought it was crucial not to significantly overpay Jeter, to which he rather indignantly responded that they overpay everyone else, so why would they stop with Jeter of all people? He’s not a Yankee fan by any means, so I dropped it there, but had I been in a more Quixotic mood, I would have pointed out that, no, the Yankees actually don’t overpay anyone really. They overpaid A-Rod, yes, and that was a blunder and ownership now realizes it was a blunder. They might have overpaid Posada a bit by giving him a guaranteed 4th year, but he was coming off of a career best year in 2007 and there simply aren’t many catchers who can hit like Posada is capable of. In any event, the deal they gave him was certainly consistent with the market I’d imagine.
And that’s really the point, you can look at “busts” like Jason Giambi and Carl Pavano (who, incidentally, really didn’t get that large of a contract, though everyone seems to think he made $100 million or something) and conclude that they were overpaid based on results, but that’s not information available at the time of signing. In that context, the Yankees have consistently made offers more or less in line with the market value of the player at the time. I suppose you could hold up C.C. Sabathia as a counter-example, but that was a rather extreme case of the team having a severe need for the player, skewing the demand curve a bit. The only real exception to this rule is A-Rod’s current contract, and that’s a mistake the team seems intent on not making again, with Jeter or anyone else. And good on them.
The only thing that’s really irritated me about the whole thing is that the Yankees somehow owe Derek Jeter. And not just that they owe him some sort of a premium for being Derek Jeter, but that they must pay Jeter whatever he wants, because he’s Derek Jeter. This galls me a bit because, to put it bluntly, the Yankees have been very, very good to Derek Jeter. In salary alone he’s made $205 million from the organization. Add in his next contract and however much money in endorsements he wouldn’t have made playing anywhere else, and when it’s all said and done the Yankees will have made Derek Jeter some North of a quarter of a billion dollars over his baseball career, plus however much money he can parlay his personal brand into after he retires. And that’s not even counting the number of championships he’s won thanks in no small part to the talent he’s been surrounded with in the Bronx. I won’t go so far as to say that Jeter owes the Yankees anything, because he doesn’t. The Yankees compensated him very well over his career so far and allowed him to make more money off the field as well, and in return Jeter played Hall of Fame caliber baseball at a premium position and earned every bit of what the team paid him. It was the personification of a mutually beneficial agreement between the two sides, and now it’s time for a new one. But let’s be clear, neither side “owes” anything to the other beyond another mutually beneficial agreement, whatever that may be, and anyone who says otherwise, in either direction, is just being silly.
Finally, as Craig says, all this talk about the “Yankee brand” needs to stop. Just stop. Now. Derek Jeter is not the “Yankee brand,” the Yankees are the Yankee brand. Winning is the Yankee brand. Obviously the Yankees have a long and proud history that extends back well before Derek Jeter came on the scene, and will go on when Jeter is no longer a Yankee. It will have to, sooner or later. People don’t fill up Yankee Stadium in October or watch games on YES to see Derek Jeter, they do it to see the New York Yankees. That’s not meant as an insult to Jeter by any means, it’s simply a fact. The New York Yankees are the pre-eminent brand in North American sports. Babe Ruth himself isn’t bigger than the New York Yankees at this point. Jeter is certainly right there in the upper echelon of Yankee greats, and that’s part of what goes into the Yankee brand, but it’s the collective of those greats out in Monument Park, more so than any one individual, that makes the Yankees what they are. One day Derek Jeter will be gone. And people will still come to the Stadium, they’ll still buy Yankee merchandise, they’ll still watch on YES, and some of them will still live and die with the team.Because they’re the New York Yankees, and that’s what we do.
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