Berkman to the Bronx is business as usual
Lance Berkman(notes) used to talk with his former Houston Astros teammate Andy Pettitte(notes) about playing for the New York Yankees. Pettitte would wax lovingly of the adulation, the excitement and, of course, the diamond-larded rings that come with championships.
"It's one of the main reasons Andy went back to New York," Berkman said in June. "He was used to a certain standard of winning."
Never did Berkman attain that in his dozen years with the Houston Astros, which are poised to end Saturday when a trade sending him to the Yankees is officially consummated. The acquisition of Berkman to become designated hitter was the biggest on a Friday replete with chatter, rumors and deals at a busy trade deadline with a common theme: big boys buying big toys.
Between the Yankees getting Berkman (and adding $3 million of his remaining salary on top of their $206 million opening day payroll) and Philadelphia tacking Roy Oswalt(notes) onto its $142 million team, the Astros have unloaded two franchise players, one to each league's powerhouse franchise. The Los Angeles Angels swallowed Dan Haren's(notes) big contract in acquiring him from Arizona, and of all the teams chasing the Diamondbacks' other desirable starter, the soon-to-be-pricey Edwin Jackson(notes), the Chicago White Sox ended up with him. The White Sox and Angels rank seventh and eighth, respectively, in payroll.
This is not coincidence. This is not a trend. This is baseball, circa 2010. The have-vs.-have-not chasm that for the last 20 years has existed is as wide as ever, even with revenue sharing trying to artificially imbue the game with balance. Berkman waived his no-trade clause to join the Yankees because even though he's a born-and-raised Texan, he sees what's happening to franchises like the Astros, where they're slashing payroll and kowtowing to a sport with room for only a few alpha teams.
The reality of baseball today goes something like this: seven financial monsters – the New York teams, the Chicago teams, Boston, Philadelphia and the Angels – control much of the game's power structure with their financial might. Other teams will come in and out – Houston and Seattle dropped themselves and Detroit is likely to join soon, while the Los Angeles Dodgers eventually will return under new ownership – and the rest fall into two categories: the got-a-chances (Minnesota, St. Louis, San Francisco, Atlanta) and the say-a-prayers (Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Arizona and the patron saint, Tampa Bay).
Baseball, amazingly, seems OK with this. Its labor-relations situation is the most stable in American sports. Teams recognize their places in the hierarchy and rarely complain. There is too much money being made for anyone to fuss. Compound that with the fact that a well-run, low-payroll team can succeed – Tampa Bay ($72 million), Texas ($55 million) and San Diego ($38 million) all should make the postseason – and the air of competitive equilibrium remains.
Still, it's impossible to ignore the teams landing the biggest names. Aside from Texas swooping in to steal Cliff Lee(notes) out from under the Yankees – a Rangers team, remember, funded these days by Major League Baseball as its bankruptcy proceedings continue – the sort of players who make and break pennant races have ended up in the places with cash to burn.
How MLB handles the widening gap with the collective-bargaining agreement running out after the 2011 season will provide a fascinating look inside a business' problem that mirrors the country's. Will baseball continue to, in a term that frightened so many, spread the wealth? Or will it remain in a situation where the Yankees and Phillies and Angels and White Sox and their brethren rule the roost?
Because so many teams run themselves similarly today, a monetary advantage amounts to a philosophical advantage, too. New York can operate its player-development department like the Rays' – and then go out and get Lee or Berkman or pay nine figures for a free agent. The Yankees don't win because of where they are. (See: the Mets.) They win because they're on the intellectual level of other teams and compound it with a big, green hammer.
As wonderful as Adam Dunn(notes) would look hitting fourth for the Rays, GM Andrew Friedman built the team by not going for the short-term fix. To deviate from that takes a great deal of conviction that a trade within the next 24 hours won't somehow bite the Rays next year, or the year after, or in 2016. The Rays, like all other have-nots, run their team with a crystal ball.
Which is why despite far less talent to offer Washington, the White Sox remain the likeliest destination for Dunn going into Saturday's 4 p.m. ET non-waiver deadline. The White Sox don't think twice about the cost, about the prospects, about the future. They act in the now.
And that's just what the Yankees did in their python strike to get Berkman. He approved a trade to them early in the day and was theirs by nightfall. Back on that mid-June day, he was doing some waxing of his own, on what it was like going to the playoffs four times with Houston. Berkman is 34, and he knew there weren't many opportunities left, and if offered a promising one – well, divorcing himself from the only uniform he knew would be easy.
"You always chase the thrill of the postseason," Berkman said. "That's what grinding out these regular-season games is for. That's what it's about. I don't have to think about it right now."
Then he laughed. Figured there was no chance a team picked up the rest of his bloated contract – not even the Yankees.
"No way it happens," he said, "but I'd love it."
He should've known better. Baseball, circa 2010, made sure it would.
