Pretty Nice Xmas Gift for Yankee Fans

So this is what happens when the Yankees miss the playoffs. They've now added first baseman Mark Teixeira to their lineup for 8/$180. Quite a pickup for the Yankees, and Cashman deserves some credit for what he's pulled off this off-season. Teixeira projects to have a batting line of about .295/.390/.550, and he's a switch hitter still in his prime who is pretty much a lock to hit 30 HR's. By all accounts, he's a plus defender, although that is somewhat expendable at first base. But this solves a lot of questions for the Yankees and most certainly makes them the favorites in the AL East next season (and on paper, probably the best team in all of baseball). This will (rightly) raise a bunch of questions about the competitive balance in baseball, but you can't really fault the Yankees for spending the cash they're bringing in with their new money-making machine stadium. You can fault them a bit more for the way their fleecing NYC taxpayers for that stadium, but they're no worse (except the numbers are a bit bigger) in that regard than pretty much every other professional sports team.

So yeah, this signing worries me in terms of what it means to the Yankees on the field this season - but it just makes everyone else (i.e. the Rays) that much more of an underdog, and therefore that much more fun to cheer for (and the Yankees that much more fun to cheer against). And can you imagine if the Yanks miss the playoffs again, given what they've done this off-season?