The Sports Beat

The Yankees are trying to outspend the Treasury Department this offseason. It’s simply amazing. After obliterating Johan Santana’s record contract from just last winter by backing up the vault and dumping $161 million on CC’s lap (a very big one, by the way), they now are in on AJ Burnett for close to $90 million, according to ESPN.com, and may go after Ben Sheets or Derek Lowe. Probably they’ll only sign one of the latter two if they change their names to BB Sheets or Rosie Perez Lowe (that’s a Kanye reference for all you keen readers).

And right about now it feels damn good to be a Sox fan.

Why? The Yankees are losing draft picks, investing inordinate amounts of money in questionable commodities for LONG PERIODS OF TIME, and doing so at the most injury-prone position. Now, granted no contract has been signed yet, but just for the sake of hyperbole let’s say the Bronx Bombshells convince AJ to put a pen to a pad of paper, the likelihood of him starting even 28 games a year over the next five seasons is lower than gas prices after this little economic meltdown we’ve been having. Throw the fact that CC Sabathia is about a hundred thousand trillion pounds (another Kanye reference) and has been overworked each of the past two seasons, and you’ve got yourself an uninsurable contract. Call him The Big Derivative.

If the Yankees manage to sign BB Sheets, look for them to repeat last season’s miserable injury-depleted debacle at least once over the next few years, and all the while with fewer draft picks to help supplement potential studs like JJ Chamberlain (he’s definitely one) and PP Hughes (he might be one).

Meanwhile, in Boston, the steady march of prospects continues on with Junichi Tazawa. And Red Sox fans rejoice.

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