Sore Losers?

It appears that Sox fans have returned to their old cannon fodder, after suffering through four bitter defeats. The calls have been flooding in regarding the unfair competitive balance between the Yankees and Red Sox due to their differing payrolls. I even heard a new one today: had the Yankees not received tax payer money to help finance the new Yankee Stadium, then the Yankees would not have been able to afford the free agents that they signed. Sound like sour grapes to me, no?

While the Yankees' payroll of over 201 million is the highest in the league by quite a bit of money, Red Sox payroll of 122 million still ranks fourth amongth major league teams. And if we learned anything this weekend, it's not only how much money you spend but how you spend it.

Quite a bit was made this offseason about how the Red Sox spent relatively nothing on low price, high reward free agents (John Smoltz, Brad Penny, Takashi Saito, and Rocco Baldelli), whereas the Yankees broke the bank for the creme de la creme of the free agent market. While there is merit to what the Red Sox attempted to accomplish, sometimes what you pay for is what you get.

Now I'm not denying that the Yankees basically outbid every other team for the services of the top three free agents from this past offseason. But I honestly find it hard to believe that the Boston Red Sox, a team which sells out every game, owns it's own TV network, and appears to do quite well in the business of making revenue, could not afford to pony up some extra dough or go whatever extra yard was required to lasso in at least one major free agent. In addition, if adding on salary was such an issue, could the great Theo Epstein not find a way to shed some salary? If not, was that not the Red Sox fault for loading their team with big contracts for aging players who were either coming off of surgery (Mike Lowell), were oft-injured (JD Drew), or had seen major cuts in their production (David Ortiz)? Was it not the Red Sox fault that they broke the bank on a Japanese pitcher who had never pitched in the major leagues, whose arm seems to be hanging on by a string, and who wants out of town (I'd love to see the team that agrees to pay most of that contract).

If the Red Sox couldn't afford Mark Teixeira, maybe it was their own fault.