My philosophy is that you have to have a strong farm system to form the basis of your team from within by drafting the best players and signing the best international free agents. You then use the surplus for your bench, bullpen and to trade for younger pre free agent veterans where you don’t have anyone and after 2-3 years you let those younger veterans go free agent and scoop up the picks, all the while keeping your core intact and then adding to it or replacing it from those additional picks and more international signings.

Occasionally you sign a Type B free agent, grab a rule 5 or a non tender or add a Type A perfect fit free agent but you keep the core either by retaining, adding to or replacing your homegrown players by drafting and signing the best amateur talent in the US through the draft or the rest of the World by signing IFA’s.

This keeps you from having to settle for whoever happens to be a free agent every year, allows you to trade prospects for younger 25-30 year old established players and keeps your team young, hungry and motivated.

That’s my philosophy.

Pettite, Jeter, Posada, Gerald Williams, Andy Fox, Pat Kelly and Scott Kammenicki were drafted by the NYY.

Bernie, Mariano, Ruben Rivera, Mariano Mendoza and Mark Hutton were International free agents signed by the NYY.

In addition NYY farmhand Roberto Kelly (IFA) brought Paul O’Neil here and Sterling Hitchcock (draft) and Russ Davis (draft) brought Tino and Jeff Nelson here. Three NYY farmhands brought David Cone here.

So that’s seven drafted players on their 1996 World Championship Team, five International free agents and 6 players they either drafted or signed that were traded for 4 of their main contributors plus an undrafted free agent they signed.

All told 13 original NYY farmhands and 4 key pieces obtained by their farm.

There were also a few NON COMP free agents and a few other trades and only one Type A free agent (Rogers) they had to give up a pick for.

Bottom line 17 can be traced to their scouting and development.

And saying “well why don’t you write your own blogs” is just an awful response. That’s like me saying “well why dont YOU run for president”, “why don’t YOU start your own radio or tv talk show”, “why don’t YOU audition for that part if u think u can do better”, “why don’t YOU become a weatherman if u always complain about them”

Besides, as i’ve said here many time i’m a terrible writer and don’t have the patience to commit to writing blogs”. I’m a commenter not an author.

Inherent in every trade of an established player for prospects is salary relief AND quality of prospects. Not just salary relief.

The teams able to absorb a salary like Delgado’s for instance (15M) are small to begin with. Some of the teams able to take on that salary already have a first basemen, so the pool of teams that can both take on 15 M AND need a first basemen limits what offers a GM in that position can get. Looking at it this way Piazza, Leiter and Delgado performed way better for us than most of the free agents were were bidding for against numerous teams and allowed us to keep our draft picks.

Everyone knows that prospects aren’t a sure thing, that’s why you get more of them when you trade a veteran.

Dombroski was ordered to slash payroll. Do you think he wanted to ship Delgado and La Duca here? He would probably have loved to accept a different and better offer from somewhere else but he probably didn’t have anyone else that could both take on the payroll (20M) and had a need at both Catcher and 1B. At the end of the day he had to get rid of the financial commitment and take whatever he could get. That worked out a lot better for us than when we bid against other teams for free agents and then have to pay them more to get them to come here and give up our draft choices too.

Olerud was not a money deal. It was a trade to make room for Delgado. Mcilvaine bought low on a very talented two dimensional player who was in his prime (29) and would be playing FOR his last contract rather than on it.

Mcilvaine also knew the player very well since he had drafted him in 1986 (27th round) when he was the NY Met Scouting Director.

Santana did bring back 2 potential starting pitchers and a young CFer and he went to the NL instead of helping the NYY or BRS knock the Twins out of the playoffs. Calculated move, didn’t work out for them but when your dealing with another teams weakness you can frequently extract a very good player for some prospects, but you have to have something credible in your farm to do so.

When your bidding against other teams for a free agent (or under the impression you are) You are getting someone older, more expensive, with a longer contract which will typically be his last one. When your trading for a John Olerud, Piazza, Leiter your getting a younger guy, playing FOR his last contract. But you still need to have something to trade.

Big difference. That’s what the NYY, Boston and Atlanta do.

Trades of the sort we’re discussing here are frequently about saving money for the seller. Free agent deals are all about getting the buyer to pay as much for as long as you can get him to. The trade for a youngish veteran pays off the best in on field results due to his younger age and contract status and allows you to put money elsewhere to double the impact.

How many actually were and not just some guy they managed to get from some other team that drafted them?

In order for your philosophy to hold true ALL of those homegrowns had to be drafted by the Yankees.

And they were not!

The NYY did make some wise trades during this period and just like us with the Marlins were able to get much better talent than we gave up. They really only gave up a couple of highly regarded prospects (Russ Davis and Sterling Hitchcock for Tino and Jeff Nelson) Many of the trades were for players in their prime for minor leaguers you never heard of. Cone cost nothing. Kind of like what Mcilvainne was doing about the same time. Hayes they got for a PTBNL, Brosious WAS the PTBNL.

They also signed a fare amount of free agents, like Rains, Gooden, Boggs, Straw, Key but they didn’t give up any picks to get them and didn’t give them huge long term contracts either and these guys instead of being the core, had to fit in around the core. Big difference.

The NYY recent 15 years of success was built by the farm and international free agency and then added around by trades from the farm and filled in around that with free agents almost all of whom didn’t cost any draft choices at all.

In fact the lessons they learned in the 80′s have resulted in the NYY actually receiving back more draft picks they they have spent on free agency. From 1990-the present they have actually gotten back 3 more picks then they spent. That’s one of the reasons they have a consistently good farm system even drafting 25-30 every year. Of course going over slot allows them to get the best talent even at 25-30 but that’s organizational commitment.

Dude we got guys like Delgado, Leiter and Piazza because Florida was desperate to make a point to Miami and sold off their entire franchise for horse feed!

Your assertion only works if you have a dumb GM willing to make that trade!

really has nothing to do with our drafting ability nor to do with how good those players were. It is all about the TAKING advantage of an idiot GM who was more concerned with his Salary than the quality of his team!

Santana has been a very BAD move for the Twins. Why did they do it? Money mostly!
Olerud was another money deal, Toronto was not going to be able to resign him and opted to get another player they could keep. Olerud was at the time having major issues against Lefties. The change of location helped Olerud reclaim some of what he had but even that was not enough to warrant us keeping him.

What exactly are the numbers of a player to be named later?
How high in the draft is a PTBNL taken?

They developed 5 good guys on the farm (and I’ll bet many of them were not drafted and instead trades made.)
The rest of that team is all High Money aquisitions usually with a team that needs to shed payroll and didn’t care what Minor leaguer they got in return.

You sure to bash a lot, but haven’t seen you with the brass to write one. It’s much easier to critique then actually do….

Even the guys you draft who don’t pan out could always be turned into a Piazza, Olerud, Delgado or Santana and the one’s who do a Leiter or Hampton. How do you think we got those guys? Cause someone didn’t like our prospects? Sure Piazza, Leiter and Delgado were primarily salary dumps but we still had to give Dombroski something. Having something credible in the farm would have prevented us from signing Castillo and Perez. We didn’t so we sucked at 2B and one spot in the rotation and still had to pay 60 Million dollars.

Jeez. We could have gone WAY overslot EVERY YEAR for 30 years with that money.

Your just arguing to win your point, not for making and listening to reasonable points.

Comparing the waste of millions upon million of dollars every year to investing a million or so extra in top shelf quality instead of those who are just happy to sign for slot cause their less talented than the others.

Letting other teams get the best players while we get the guys who WERE the best players and then pay them the most and give up our draft picks is no way to field a winning baseball team.

What they had was 5 homegrown stars or superstars.

They also had a farm that allowed them to acquire younger veterans who weren’t on their last contract, that they didn’t have to over pay, that still had a few years of their prime remaining, that weren’t one dimensional, that didn’t break down, that fit into their core, not formed it.

Almost their entire team was either from IFA, the draft or traded for from the farm.

Just because that doesn’t fit in with your ideal doesn’t change the fact one iota. They learned by 1990 FA is a trap and to use it sparingly.

I have no idea why your bringing A-Rod into anything. Their farm is what got them him too and their resources allowed them to keep him but the NYY had already won 4 World Championships before he got here.

They had already gone to the playoffs (or would have if there wasn’t a strike) TEN straight years.

A-Rod was a part of continuing their success, not originating it. It had to start somewhere and it did. Right in the farm system.

Almost every single player in those early years was signed as an IFA or drafted by the NYY or traded for by prospects from the farm and only a couple of type A free agents.

What is the average playing time of ALL first round draft picks ever drafted.

It will be somwhere in the area of 6 months!

Drafting is no guarantee of getting a good player.
At least with the Free Agency you have some idea that the guy IS a major league player.

Less waste of money especially considering how you admit that you have to go overslot and over pay on a maybe to have any success!

ONE FIFTH of that team was homegrown and the rest were all bought and paid for, Yes SOME trades like for A-Rod where they didn’t pay a dime for quite awhile but now they pay full boat!

Sorry. The NYY that have been to the playoffs 15 out of the last 16 years and won 5 World Championships were built through the farm, either by keeping guys or getting guys with their prospects. True they were able to afford guys by using their finances but we could have done the same thing. We had to spend a lot more to get guys to come here, we also gave up 6 # 1 picks, four #2 picks and 3 # 3 picks since 1998 and our players were not only more expensive, they were also older and those older, post prime players is what has formed our core for the last 20 years.

Compare that to the players (and how they were acquired) that has formed the NYY core since the mid 90′s.

They tinker with free agency here and there but their early success was built entirely on the draft and IFA.