When will the Yankees learn?

With the New York Yankees putting the ink on an 8-year, $180 million deal with switch-hitting first baseman Mark Teixeira, I wonder when they will learn that signing big name free agents doe not equal championships. I jokingly said after the A.J. Burnett deal that the Yankees should "cut the crap and just sign the entire country of the Dominican Republic."

Now the Yanks will owe north of $60 million to just 3 players. To put that in perspective, in 2008, at least Oakland ($48M), Florida ($22M), Washington ($55M), Pittsburgh ($49M), Tampa Bay ($44M), Kansas City ($58M), and Minnesota ($58M) had a smaller payroll to their entire team than New York has to Sebathia, Burnett, and Teixeira. In another perspective, the top nine money-makers on the Yankees: Sebathia, Burnett, Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Hideki Matsui, and Johnny Damon, will combine to make a combined salary of just over $159 million, which alone is more than any other team.

My point here is that just because you have the highest payroll in baseball doesn't mean you have the best team on the field. Take the Rays this year for example. They relied on their farm system and took rode their $44 million payroll and (most importantly) their TEAM CHEMISTRY on a run all the way to the World Series. Remember those 9 = 8 t-shirts? 9 baseball players working together equals one of the 8 teams that make the playoffs. Why don't the Yankees take that 2009 payroll that will probably be close to $225 million and hire someone to come up with a gimmick like that.

Final prediction: New York will return to the playoffs, but will come up short again to stay 0-for-the 21st century.