On the Field, the Yankees Are The Team of the Decade. Off It? The Red Sox.

by royalsreview on Nov 5, 2009 1:41 AM EST in News Comment 25 comments

Jayson Stark wrote about this last week, including all of the relevant information: in the '00s, the Yankees have the most regular season wins, the most postseason wins, the most postseason series wins, most World Series appearances, and now, they have tied the Red Sox for the most World Series wins.

So are the Yankees the team of the '00s? They really should be, yet I'm hesitant to fully commit.

When I think back to this decade when I'm older, I think I'll mostly think of the Red Sox.

The 2004 comeback against the Yankees, which suddenly transformed the most annoying fanbase in baseball to the most annoying fanbase in sports, is, love it or hate it, the sports story of the decade.

I never really cared for the faux-poetic angle to Red Sox Nation, but the overall presence of the story in American culture is undeniable. Coming on the heels of the 2003 classic ALCS, it was unbelievable sports drama. We're all tired of it now, but by the early '00s the Red Sox "pink hat nation" was born, Fenway became the toughest ticket in sports, Red Sox fans started invading visiting parks, the whole bit. 1918. The Curse of the Bambino. Bucky Dent. Intense passion became trendy, which in turn invited more passion. The Red Sox made being a diehard fan cool.

Then there was the front office. The Red Sox went from being baseball's versions of the Redskins or Knicks to being Oakland East, they combined big market dollars with sabermetric smarts. We take this stuff for granted now, but try to remember what it was like watching ESPN, reading baseball message boards, or listening to the radio in 2003. I can't tell you how many stupid arguments I got in on the old ESPN boards. Right now, there are mainstream columnists and reporters who are more sabermetrically advanced than Rob Neyer was back in the day.

And there was Theo. Today, everyone, in every sport, is following the Theo Epstein model, but hiring a low-thirtysomething with no real jock experience was pretty crazy ten years ago. We've even seen this idea extend to the coaching ranks, especially in football. We take it for granted now, but the idea of a Darryl Morey or a Josh McDaniels would have been seen as absolutely insane in the 1990s. Maybe you hire that guy as a consultant, but you don't make the guy from Harvard the actual GM. Not only that, but they actually hired Bill James!

So when I think about all that, this was the Red Sox decade. The world we live in, in many respects, they built. The site you are reading, was partially built by the Red Sox. Despite what so many inside the game said about our destroyed national innocence, the '00s were an incredible decade for baseball. Incredible. Being a baseball nerd became cool and the Red Sox story romanticized it to the extent that it became a reality. They weren't the only cause, but they were a major factor. The rise of Red Sox Nation found a perfect pairing with the technological changes of the decade, as it became possible to watch and listen to every game, no matter where you lived. The fact that this would be commercially viable is stunning when you look back and look at attendance figures from the 1980s or 1990s. Even at places like Wrigley or Fenway which we can't imagine would ever not be full were frequently just that, and it was normal.

Ideas and attitudes change. Its akin to the current outrage over the lack of a college football playoff. In the 1980s, there was just bowls and polls, and that was good enough. If the number one team played the number seven team in their bowl game and won, that was good enough. Then an idea formed that #1-#2 should play each other, if we could just get that, it would be awesome. And now, the new obvious commonsense is that this idea is laughably insufficient. No one knows who #1 or #2 should even be. Now, it must be settled on the field. We must have a playoff. And in ten years, we will demand a larger playoff. The point is this, although people have always loved baseball, they loved it in a different way before. I was there and in 1995 you didn't have to know the score of every game, as it happened, no matter where you were. If you were male, the expectation was that your interest in sports would have to be tolerated by your girlfriend, not that you would meet her at the game, hanging out in the bar area of the publicly funded stadium in your town. And on and on.

At the same time, the Red Sox demonstrated that the ideas that so many were now voicing online, on both sabermetric sites and saber-friendly blogs (as almost all were to some extent) could not only work, they could work with frightening efficacy. The Red Sox from 2002-7 featured some of the most relentless offenses of all-time and on the whole, showed that there's no answer for a lineup where everybody gets on base. (Of course, the Yankees had been doing that for years, but that message got obscured by people talking about the wrong things, like Joe Torre's professionalism and class.) In my mind there's some generic memory of Red Sox game on ESPN, a packed Fenway, with the home team up 5-2 in the third, men on for Ortiz, and the starting pitcher already at 70 pitches.

Finally, there was the Simmons corollary, as we might call it. The Red Sox went from being a team associated with choking to one that was glorified for being clutch. A tremendous amount of time was spent by the baseball media glorying in this fact and in the middle part of the decade we all began to obsess over the failings of Alex Rodriguez, the unclutch Goofus to the Gallant St. Big Papi. This was an absolutely inescapable story for at least three years and it colored everything. (As with so much above, you can see how this aspect overlapped with the coverage and mythology of another Boston team, the Patriots. Maybe it was just the Boston Decade.)

Not surprisingly, we didn't really see this coming. That's how history tends to work. The Yankees won the World Series in 2000 and through 2003, the standout moment of the decade was not the 0-3 comeback of the Red Sox, but the 2001 Series, a seven game classic which ended with a ninth inning rally by the home underdog and was played in the days following 9/11. The Yankees lost, but in many respects they were still the main story. The dynasty was defeated, but thanks to three insanely dramatic victories, the dynasty never looked better in the process. And of course, it was New York in 2001. I don't need to remind those of us over the age of sixteen how incredibly scary that time was. Serious people suggested that we take September 11th off the calendar altogether. Normal life seemed at once inappropriate and incredible. For the Yankees to be doing all this, with the Mayor in the front row reading a FDNY cap, was some combination of surreal and sublime.

Then the Angels beat the Yankees in 2002 (which spawned the counter-revolutionary decade, which was the Angels//Marlins/White Sox/Twins small ball loving but actually win with pitching trend), followed by the weird 2003 World Series, which at the time seemed like a gigantic upset by the Marlins. In 2009, it looks like just another random title by a random team, there's been a lot of that this decade. It also just looks like another Yankees postseason loss, which we learned to expect.

And so, we bookend what most would consider this decade with Yankees titles. For me, making the playoffs nine out of ten years is a clincher. Nevertheless, so much of the baseball culture that the '00s brought was tied up with the Red Sox, who dominated the middle years of the decade, who made fanaticism seem both poetic and hip, who helped vaunt stats into the mainstream, who launched a thousand blogs, who made MLB start making baseball gear for women, who changed the front office model for sports teams and on and on.

Now about those Royals in the 2000s...

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good stuff...

you’d NEVER really think of the yanks as the team of the decade, but they really were. Now, most influential and maybe the most interesting, gotta be the Sox. I hate the Sox though.

Fire Everyone

by billybeingbilly on Nov 5, 2009 2:20 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

The numbers don’t lie people, it may have been New York’s worst decade since the 80’s and boston’s best decade EVER, lol but face it,

New York Yankees

TWO chamionships, FOUR ALCS Pennants, SEVEN AL EAST Pennants

hands down, by a landslide

TEAM OF THE DECADE

choke on it beantown LOL LOL LOL

by GUINEAD1CK on Nov 9, 2009 4:29 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

nyy forever.

disclosure; i hate the red sux. that probably will color everything you read below but here goes.

interesting post. i think it entirely arbitrary but nevertheless logical to try and determine a team of the decade. it depends how you measure, and when you measure. is the decade 2000-2009 and over or is it 2001-2010 with one more year??

anyways;

#1. purely coincidental that in 2000 the yankees and lakers win titles, and nine years later, the yankees and lakers win titles. just symmetry or is there something more there regarding big markets and the gold standards of their respective sports?? as long as they don’t win every year, and they won’t, i think it’s a good thing.

#1a. purely a bonus, qb kurt warner came within one santonio holmes immaculate reception in this years super bowl of being the winning qb in 2009 with arizona nine years after doing so in st. louis.

#2. with all due respect to the red sux, and there decade of success, the yankees have been at this level since 1996, spanning a decade and a half. fourteen years of excellence beats seven every time. prior to 2003-2004 the model for every team who didn’t have the payroll and ego of steinbrenner’s yankees wasn’t the red sux or billy beane’s moneyball but the atlanta braves who’s run from 1991 to 2005 should never be forgotten. maddux-glavine-and-smoltz redefined what the value of a starting rotation meant to a team. if the braves had only had a consistent closer i have to think they win more than one lonely world series in that span and get remembered as one of the greatest dynasties of all time. the red sux have a ways to go to catch the braves.

#3. the rise of the red sux, and of the superiority of the american league is a direct result of the new york yankees. think about it. the braves were good. the cardinals had some really good years. the marlins won twice. the phillies are now very good. but none of them has become the focal point of their league, let alone all of baseball that all other national league teams try to beat. the yankees are.

if the yankees aren’t the yankees, the red sux don’t spend the kind of money they do, and need to think outside of the box be it seats atop the monster, the nesn cable network and all of those silly pink hats. without the yankees, the likes of the twins, tigers, indians and white sox don’t become the teams they have. neither do the angels. the mariners don’t win 116 games in 2001 without the yankees, and the a’s don’t have the same incentive to try something different, to resurrect their sagging franchise without the yankees. remember their 2000 and 2001 alds five gamers and jeter’s flip to posada cutting down giambi at the plate? i do too.

and you’re absolutely right, who can ever forget their 2001 world series with the arizona diamand backs. over time i bet the walkoff home runs in the ninth innings by tino and brosious get remembered more than louis gonzalez game winning single of the great mariano rivera in seven.

the red sux were still two years away from the idiots and three years away from 2004 at that point, yet the yankees re-establishment in the center of the baseball universe was complete. everything the sux did this decade, and every other team including the new york mess who spend money right and left and never seem to get it right has been in driect response to the gauntlet the yankees have thrown down. they are the gold standard because they set the standard by their relentless desire to win.

#4. the patriots success preceded the red sux with their super bowl in 2002. i’ll grant you that the red sux probably mean more to boston and new england than even the kennedy family, but nevertheless it was tom brady who made being a sports fan in boston, and a sports fan of boston long outside of boston cool.

bill belichick is univerally recognized as the best coach in football today, even if he is the most disliked. terry francona is among the better mlb managers, but not the clear favorite.

and when it comes to ownership, robert kraft is if not the model nfl owner, certainly co-equal with the rooneys. he’s a native new englander who parlayed his love of football as a season ticket holder into gillete stadium and what the patriots are today, the nfl’s most valuable franchise. the group that own’s the red sux are as corporate as they come and along with every other mlb owner are sitting in the long shadow of the steinbrenners and the yankees.

i’ve seen red sux fans and yankee fans march into visiting stadiums in equal amounts. their colors and accents are different but they both are east coast brash. the difference is the yankees have earned it, the red sux haven’t. forty pennants and 27 titles and their legacy beat a five or six year run every time. i live in southern california, so i’ve seen lots of transplants who carry their home town loyalties. and yes, like in every city, there are bandwagons. chicago fans are nice. midwestern nice. so too are fans from minnesota, wisconsin, indianapolis, cleveland, cincinnati and missouri. southern fans are fun to be around, like to drink a lot of beer and eat more than their fair share of food, even if i can’t understand their southern drawl.

east coast fans are different. they have an intensity that at times takes winning and losing too seriously. but they are loyal. philly fans border on meanness. boston fans think they are superior. new york fans are brash, but not offensive. i’ve bantered back and forth with yankee fans, and met fans at angel and dodger stadiums. red sux fans are a different breed. true red sux fans who are true new englanders and relocated are clingy among themselves. they aren’t interested in talking to fans of the opposing team even though they are the visiting team. i’ve seen this enough times to realize this isn’t just the rudeness of one or two people but a pattern. fair or not, this becomes the perception of them. show up and root for your team and have a good time, but be respectful. it’s common to see some fans of any and all teams act inappropriately because of drinking too many beers. it is unique to red sux fans who think they are all-knowing and holier-than-thou.

#6. and about those bandwagoners . . .
bandwagoners are not new. i saw some dude in the la burbs’ wearing a phillies hat a couple weeks ago when they were playing the dodgers. maybe he’s from eastern pennsylvania. then again, that hat still had the new era sticker on it. the point is there is nothing unique or special about having bandwagon fans. half the people who invade angel stadium for three days a year when the red sux are in town have never been to fenway park and don’t have a boston accent. these people aren’t sophisticated or intelligent or any other praiseworthy attribute that red sux fans like to appropriate for themselves. they are frontrunners, not a nation.

#7. and about their so-called nation . . .
last time i checked, a nation was a community of people with a shared identity, shared values and aspirations bound by common laws, norms, a language and culture. while i think it silly that fans of any sports team would call themselves a nation, to each his own. nation’s usually need an enemy or at the very least a rival to rally around. without such a focal point people’s own self-interest carries the day and the natural order of things means people do their own thing and go their own way. for the red sux and mostly their fans, that is the new york yankees. they need the yankees a whole lot more than the yankees need them.

again, recall the mid and late 1990’s when red sux nation was non-existant and the yankees battled the indians, the orioles, the braves, the mets, hell even the texas rangers. for fans and players of all of those teams, then and now, the yankees are the team you want to beat. the red sux aren’t. 2004 aside, the red sux entire identity is tied up with the yankees. that so many red sux fans attempt to validate their recent success by calling themselves the team of the decade is still proof of their need for validation and their insecurity complex regarding navy blue pinstripes.

#8. the red sux, for all their recent success owe it all to a group of players who are either gone, done or near done. pedro, schill, manny, papi, and beckett are the five that really stand out in my mind. the other, johnny damon, now a yankee. jeter, mo, andy and jorge posada are all yankee legends. so is joe torre. the yankees of paul o’neill, bernie williams, tino, brosious, davids cone and wells have all been replaced by robby, melky, tex, cc, and aj. you and i know that be it next year or two years from now the yankees will reload where they need to remain the yankees but the red sox future is not so certain and likely not sustainable.

#9. if you claim to be the team of the decade, then in addition to winning, you must have the player who defined the decade as much as anybody right? when i think of the best players from 2000-2001 three names come to mind; barry bonds (obvious), albert pujols (obvious) and alex rodriguez (obvious). none of them played for the red sux. red sux fans can’t call a-rod a choke artist anymore and are jealous that the yankees got him from texas after the sux tried oh so hard to in 2003 and couldn’t. who’d you rather have at third, alex or mike lowell? who’d you rather have hitting cleanup, alex or papi??

what distinguishes the red sux of 2004-2008 in my mind was the lethal combinatin of ortiz and ramirez. teixeira and rodriguez should be together for a similar four or five year span and in new yankee stadium produce numbers and incite fear in opposing pitchers to the same degree. tex isn’t yet 30 and alex has three great years left, four to five good years and six or seven overall. and he’ll keep climbing the all time home run record.

#11. much of the animosity red sux fans have towards the yankees, and a basis of their superiority was the fact that a-rod and other prominent yankees were on steroids. the revelations of manny and papi don’t exempt them anymore and burst their bubble as the pillars of baseball integrity. performance enhancing drugs are as much a part of baseball over the last 15-20 years as anything. the red sux aren’t exempt from that.

#12. roger clemens. whatever you think of him now, he’s still a hall of famer and one of the pre-eminent pitchers of the last quarter century. he goes in to cooperstown eventually, wearing NY and not B.

by SoCalCMH on Nov 5, 2009 4:29 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Yanks 1, Red Sox 2

Yet more (entirely unnecessary) proof that the system is rigged. I know it isn’t a popular argument among statheads but the two highest spenders are 1, 2. The system is rigged and it’s killing the game. It’s killing fans’ interest of the game. Many fans of 50% of MLB franchises including ours feel alienated when watching each postseason. I hope the next commissioner grows a pair and stands up to the players’ union and ends this travesty. I would withstand another 1, 2, 5, or even 10 years of striking if a fair system were installed.

Pardon the lack of grammar/sentence structure/etc. It’s late/early.

Get treated. Royally.

by Royals Nation on Nov 5, 2009 4:39 AM EST reply actions 4 recs

i disagree

october is all about having three quality starting pitchers, not four or five, a legit closer, and a hot bat. they’re expensive but not unattainable. sorry buddy, i’m not buying the unfair, woe is me line from fans, particularly from fans of teams with perennially low payrolls. last time i checked the royals played in the al central not the al east. your road to october goes through minnesota, cleveland, detroit, and chicago. none of them are anywhere close to the yankees when it comes to payroll. the twins are arguably the model small market franchise in all of baseball and have been since 2002. that’s no longer simply luck or good fortune but the result of good management, something the likes of the royals, reds and pirates sadly don’t have. no amount of salary cap or revenue sharing will change that.

by SoCalCMH on Nov 5, 2009 4:47 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

No one here is going to say the Royals have good management. However. . .

In the AL Central, the Royals may not play the Yankess (payroll 1), Red Sox (4), Toronto (12), Baltimore (22), and TB (29), but they do play Detroit (3), CWS (5), and Cleveland (16), followed along by

arguably the model small market franchise in all of baseball and have been since 2002

Minnesota—who, coincidentally, despite being the “model small market franchise” have only made it out of the first round of the playoffs once in the time discussed. So, the Royals may not have to beat 2 of the top 4 payroll teams to win their division, but they do have to beat 2 of the top 5. So, I’m not buying the AL East line that people throw out to defend the current system.

Teams like Minn, Cle, TB, etc. have to do everything just right to have a shot at the playoffs. Of course, every team should be trying to do “everything just right,” but doing so is a statistical anomaly. The Yankees and Red Sox simply buy what they want.

This has yet to take into account the Wild Card, which almost automatically goes to the loser of RedSox/Yankees. (Exceptions since 2003: TB does everything perfectly in 2008—Boston still the WC, Detroit in 2006). So, two of the highest payroll teams count on having a playoff spot pretty much sewn up from Opening Day unless some lesser team plays out of its mind.

Sounds fair.

(FYI-That’s the sarcasm font.)

Now, I don’t know how to fix the system. You’ll find fans of small market teams can’t agree on what “fair” is or what systems do work, but most will agree that the current system does not.

by BrRoyal on Nov 5, 2009 8:48 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

In other news

The Harlem Globetrotters won again. The Washington Generals mounted a fine effort though.

by Salty on Nov 5, 2009 9:41 AM EST up reply actions 2 recs

I Disagree

The Royals would have to triple their payroll to be up there with the Yankees, and that’s with the highest payroll in Royals history. It’s not woe is me, it’s not even playing the same game.

by TampaRoyal on Nov 5, 2009 3:27 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

ya know...it may be rigged

but until our organization is run well and we still cant win, we have no room to bitch.

The Yanks made FA signings and they got their moneys worth. We made moves, spending talent and money and we got worse.

In fact, since Dayton took over, we’ve doubled our payroll and not improved. With our regime operating as it currently is, we could have 200 million to spend and we’d still manage to fuck it up.

Fire Everyone

by billybeingbilly on Nov 5, 2009 5:30 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Free Agents

The Yanks have had plenty of moves that backfired, the huge payroll keeps it from crippling the team. Carl Pavano, Randy Johnson, by and large Jason Giambi. Those were huge contracts, but when they didn’t work out they just bought more and ate the contract. The Royals can’t do that. If the Royals could spend like the Yankees, Jose Guillen would have been benched and replaced.

by TampaRoyal on Nov 5, 2009 3:31 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The Red Sox are not number 2 in Payroll

They have consistently been around the 5 mark (6 this year). Meanwhile the Mets….

I’ll give you the Yankees, their payroll is a massive outlier compared to ANY other team. It’s unreal. But the Red Sox, really? I look at the Red Sox and see a team that yes, has a big (but not exceptional) payroll, but that also has an excellent front office team, who have a good “process”. And unlike Dayton’s, it’s a real one. They draft well, they trade well and they make mostly smart FA signings to supplement it. It’s not rocket science.

I think you will have a really hard time saying that Boston’s sucess this decade has been the result only (or even mostly) of their payroll flexibility.

by kcbottom9th on Nov 5, 2009 6:27 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

that payroll flexibility allowed them to sign manny and pedro...

most of their success is impossible without those two

but yes, they have drafted well.

however, the yanks have had posada, jeter and rivera through their minor league system, so you cant say they bought everything either

Fire Everyone

by billybeingbilly on Nov 5, 2009 8:35 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

They also took Mike Lowell and his big contract as a throw-in

when they traded for Josh Beckett (who was traded for payroll reasons). Granted, the Sox had the prospects to throw at Florida, indicating their successful process, but the point is they had the money to go get whoever they wanted from the pool of available talent.

by BrRoyal on Nov 5, 2009 8:52 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

i wonder if theo has forgiven himself for that trade yet

Fire Everyone

by billybeingbilly on Nov 5, 2009 9:05 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

That depends...

Do you have to forgive yourself for trading away an average SS with the bat of a first baseman?

Especially when you traded away Anibal Sanchez (2.7 WAR $1.2M?) and Hanley Ramirez (25.3 WAR $1.2M + 2009).

and got

Mike Lowell (13.1 WAR $30.5M + 2009) and Josh Beckett (18.9 WAR and $80.9M).

28 WAR for roughly $4.2M, or 32 WAR for $111.4M? I know what I’d rather have, but the Sox did win a title in 2007 with these 2 players. So does he regret it? Yes and no I would bet. Plus, he probably looked at it as a rental for Florida. They obviously can’t sign Hanley long term, so he’ll be back.

by AxDxMx on Nov 5, 2009 10:05 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

hanley's already signed long term to an extremely team friendly contract for 5 more years

09:$5.5M, 10:$7M, 11:$11M, 12:$15M, 13:$15.5M, 14:$16M

Fire Everyone

by billybeingbilly on Nov 6, 2009 5:09 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I bet they trade him after 2010

Jeff Loria paying a player more than $10M? That would be more impressive than the Yankees winning the World Series.

by BrRoyal on Nov 6, 2009 8:26 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

he paid uggla 5.35 this year and he's not even in the same league

i would be shocked if they dont hold on to hanley and build an awesome team around him for when the new stadium comes

Fire Everyone

by billybeingbilly on Nov 6, 2009 11:35 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Don't forget about the obscene money spent for Matsuzaka.

I used to work with an old man that told me. Son, every workplace has a dumbass, if you don't have one where you work, then I'm afraid you're it.

by Warden11 on Nov 5, 2009 5:59 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

And the Julio Lugo contract

that they ate.

by BrRoyal on Nov 6, 2009 8:28 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

so what?

the Royals had Beltran & Damon come through their minor league system 15 years ago too (not to mention getting Jermaine Dye in a non-salary dump trade). The fact that these guys came through their minor league system is meaningless. They are the only team that could’ve afforded to keep them all together (while adding superstar after superstar as well).

by trauty on Nov 6, 2009 5:20 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Just to be technical...

And because I know it will annoy Yanker fans to no end…

Technically, the decade and millennium begin on January 1, 2001. This would be because if you go back to the first year (mathematically speaking) it would be the year “1” not the year “0”. So, 1 – 10 would be the first decade, 1 – 1000, the first millennium, and so on.

That being the case, the Yankees won one world series in this decade and millennium and decade, the Red Sox have won two.

’Nuff ced?

by Don17881 on Nov 5, 2009 3:15 PM EST reply actions 2 recs

That's mostly true, but

standard convention is to talk about decades as “70s,” “80s,” etc. When people say the “90s,” they don’t mean 1991-2000. In the end it’s all an arbitrary division of ten years, but I would say that the Yankees have won 2 titles this decade, but only 1 this millennium.

Kansas City Royals: your 2006 and 2007 NL Central champions!

by mazoboom on Nov 5, 2009 9:52 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs