Time to be a Phoenix

[phairphunk]

We had it all.

I was hired by the New York Yankees just prior to the 1994 season to be their new General Manager. After years of slumping and failing, I was tasked with righting the ship of this great franchise and returning pennants to New York. Mr. Steinbrenner was on an MLB-imposed hiatus and the interim management was bringing in new baseball blood, and trying to keep expenses tight while he was away.

Success came, but not too quickly. My first year we won 94 games and failed to make the postseason. In 1995, we won two fewer games, but Baltimore wasn't as strong that year, so we won the division for the first time since 1981. We were bounced in the newly created Divisional Series, but the taste of playoff baseball fueled our desire to win more. In 1996 we had a monster of an offense, scoring over 1,000 runs. Our pitching faltered though, giving up almost 1,000 runs of its own, and the Yankees slumped to 86 wins - second in the division, second in the Wild Card race.

I vowed to make pitching and defense a greater priority. We drafted heavily with pitchers after that season and traded for a few veteran starters who our head scout thought were diamonds in the rough. Manager Buck Showalter's contract ran out and we let him go, bringing in Jim Leyland to help develop our young pitching staff. In 1997 we bounced back to win 97 games, the division, and made it through to the ALCS, where we again lost. I decided that I would stick with the pitching and defense formula, and let some older slow veteran players walk, but my budget was hamstringing any major moves I wanted to make.

Two things then happened: George Steinbrenner returned from his suspension and opened up the purse strings a little, and the Expansion draft, to acommodate two new teams, the Devil Rays and Diamondbacks. I left several of our more expensive, non-franchise type players exposed and it paid off, as they were all drafted away. Payroll dropped from 40+ million dollars to $24 million. I had my breathing room now. I signed Todd Hundley to replace Mike Stanley, and traded for Roberto Alomar, Mark Grace, and Bill Mueller to shore up my infield defense. I already had Omar Vizquel at short and extended his contract a few more years.

Our 1998 season started strong and stayed that way. I made some minor moves during the summer, trading away some of the less useful or slower players, and picking up old friend and former ace Jimmy Key to shore up our pitching in time for the playoffs. This played out extremely well for us as Key won 6 games down the stretch, and we surged to win 107 games that year. Key was dominant in the playoffs, and along with our nominal "ace", home-drafted Cory Lidle, we rampaged through all three rounds, winning the World Series easily. I won the first of my three "Executive of the Year" awards for that season.

I had no plans to stand pat with our championship team though. We drafted heavily in young pitching again, and made a flurry of trades to reenforce our defense while acquiring high OBP players. Gone was the slowly declining Albert Belle, in was Matt Lawton and young Mike Cameron. Mark Grace, a key member of the squad was signed to an expensive extension....then traded away for John Olerud. The biggest deals I made were extending the contract of our franchise player - Bernie William - to the most expensive contract in history (at that time), and making a big splash in the free agent market by signing Pedro Martinez to be our true "ace." Our young pitching staff had been excellent, but I still wanted a big game starter who could be completely dominant. Martinez would not disappoint.

Going into the 1999 season we had Hundley, Olerud, Fernando Vina, and Mueller in the infield, with Bernie Williams flanked by Matt Lawton and Johnny Damon in the outfield. David Justice was our DH, and the team started out strong. Damon scuffled here and there, and since he didn't really fit our team philosophy, he was traded for Rusty Greer mid-season. This was another exceptionally strong team, and we again won the division with 104 wins, rolling through the playoffs for a repeat World Series win.

Olerud, who had been signed to an expensive extension was shipped out that offseason along with Vizquel for veteran David Cone and former Yankee draft pick Scott Spiezio. Vizquel had a lost a step or two on defense, and that no longer justified keeping is weak bat in the lineup. Olerud was sent along to make room in the budget for me to sign Vizquel's replacement - free agent Alex Rodriguez, to the largest yearly contract in history. I continued wheeling and dealing to help the team's future outlook. Jeromy Burnitz was shipped out for Shannon Stewart. Hundley, who was by now a major liability behind the plate was shipped to Colorado for young Jorge Posada. Midway through the 2000 season, I decided to make a move for some more offense, to make up for Bernie Williams season-ending injury, and shipped out Greer for Sammy Sosa, who was leading the world in homeruns, and would go on to hit 62 (5 shy of Matt Williams 1995 record). We went on to our winningest season to date, racking up 109 games, but were shockingly swept in the ALDS.

Needless to say, I was NOT happy with this, and Sosa was the first one sent out the door, in a 3 way trade, for which I picked up JD Drew. The Yankees weren't quites as dominant in 2001, with Williams only seeing action in about a third of the season due to leg injuries (though he returned for the postseason) and a flurry of mid summer trades and minor free agent signings helped strengthen the team by adding Orlando Hernandez, Aramis Ramirez, and Damion Easley and Paul O'Neill to strengthen our bench. We dropped 12 games to only 97 wins, but it was enough to win the division. Both the ALDS and ALCS were hard-fought affairs, going the distance on both, before winning rather easily over the Dodgers in 5 games for our third Championship in 4 years. Leyland won his third Manager of the Year award, and all looked bright for the Yankees' future.

That fall, several key players were signed to extensions, most notably ARod to another record deal at 9 years and $150 million. It was a few days after Thankgsiving that disaster struck. Whether through a computer or clerical error, or whatever the cause is still being investigated, but our entire revenue from the 2001 season was wiped out [note: I somehow went an entire season with my ticket price somehow set at $0. Don't ask me how I never noticed!] Needless to say, Mr. Steinbrenner was FURIOUS, and slashed my budget immediately. I was ordered to "make it work" without a care of how. I immediately started trading expensive contracts. For some of them, Steinbrenner himself camped out in my office, surrounded by ledger books. He made simple trades - $5 million for league minimum, without even caring who the player we recieved was. For some of the larger contracts I had to involve multiple teams to make it fit into their budgets, but in the end I was able to remove every player we had that made over $1 million dollars with the exception of two: David Justice (who for some reason exercised his 10/5 right to veto any trade) and reliever LaTroy Hawkins.

So, here we are, the beginning of February. I have no money and a pile of random players who may or may not be worth a damn to assemble a team out of. Who knows if anyone is even going to show up at the stadium to see these guys play after what Mr. Steinbrenner did? Will we become baseball jokes forever, or like a phoenix, rise from these ashes. I have three "Executive of the Year" plaques hanging on my office wall, I guess it's time I see if I have earned them.