Isn't there a lux tax? So even if the Yanks have a huge bankroll. or the Red Sox...whatever....doesn't that mean that they spend a massive amount of money to other teams so they can but better players? I've heard many commentators say how much this tax has helped the sport and how poorer teams could now afford top tier players and the games are better to watch in general.
The supposed trickle-down effect of the so-called luxury tax is one of the great falacies of the defenders of baseball's high-spenders. By spending enough on their teams' salaries to incur the luxury tax, the high-spenders are also pricing the top talent out of the reach of other teams, even after they receive a small amount of luxury tax windfall. This is why all the top free-agent talent always ends up in cities like New York, LA, Chicago, and yes, Philadelphia. Their coffers are deep enough to not only retain their own home-grown talent, but to hire away anyone that any other market's team has managed to develop.
I think this whole..."the Yankees or (insert any team here) won because they have money" thing is really stupid. They still get beat. They still have to play their hearts out most of the time. The Phillies still played well and won some. I just started watching baseball on YES network about a year and a half ago and these high dollar teams do get beat all the time. This year it seemed like the Yankees had a few losing streaks that wouldn't stop.
No one's saying that the Yankees win every game, or even every championship. Part of it's the nature of baseball. Some days you're hitting the ball well, but you're drilling line-drives straight at infielders for outs. Other days you're hitting poorly, but they're falling for bloop singles and infield hits. There's enough chance involved that it's impossible to win (or lose) every game. But that's also why in baseball, excellent teams win 100 games, which is only a .617 winning percentage. Comparing that to the NFL, that's approximately a 10-6 record, which in some cases has you missing the playoffs, even with the NFL having four more teams in the playoffs than MLB. So saying that the fact that the Yankees (or anyone else) had a few losing streaks during the season somehow proves that their money isn't affecting their winning percentage is ludicrous. They're still winning far more than other teams, because they have the finances to hire away the talent from other teams.
It's also ludicrous to say that it's not appropriate for people to cite the way the Yankees (and other teams) spend money as a reason to dislike them. I'd like to propose this analogy (and I realize that, like most analogies, there are some holes in it which people can--and likely will--cite as being reasons to discredit the analogy. But I contend that the main concept of the analogy is still valid.):
I know that some members of this site compete in various car or truck shows. Some have shown off pictures of their vehicles and their trophies/ribbons. And I'm pretty sure that for most of these people, this is a hobby, a labor of love, into which they put a lot of time, and whatever spare money they can afford. They do the work themselves, they spend their own money, they build their own parts, and they know their vehicles inside and out. Most of them likely have a list of 200 things they'd like to do to make their competion vehicles even more fantastic, if they had the money and/or time to do it.
Let's say that for some reason, Bill Gates suddently decided that he wanted to join the show. He not only wanted to compete, but he wanted to win. So he goes out and hires all of the best talent available in the field of car shows, and pays them even more than top-money to work on this car full-time. He buys many of the top show cars out there--even ones that weren't technically "for sale". Sometimes he buys cars or hires people because he wants them working for him, other times he does it just to make sure they're not working for the competition. He gives them unlimited budget--they can spend as much as they want on anything they want, so long as when the car show is done, Bill gets to carry that trophy home.
And when the show is done, sure enough, Bill wins the trophy. Meanwhile, the guy who makes $40k a year, dedicates an annual budget of $2500 to his car, and works on it every other weekend for a couple hours when he isn't busy raising his family, comes in second place.
Seriously, who do you think is going to get the respect of the crowd at the car show? Sure, Gates has the best car. Sure, his team worked hard to make that car. Sure, the car was the result of a lot of hard work and teamwork. But as much as people are going to admire Gates's car, they're still going to have no respect for him as a car showman, or for that trophy as being anything indicative of his accomplishments in car shows. And it's absolutely ludicrous to fault anyone in the crowd for feeling that way, or for having more admiration and respect for the guy who came in second through his own sweat and toil.
