Evil Empire Becomes Evil Retirement Home

A, rticle first published as Evil Empire Becomes Evil Retirement Home on Technorati.

One of the bleakest things known to this sport is swirling like a black cloud over Yankee Stadium this season. With five star players over the age of 34, the Evil Empire is dealing with the only thing they cannot buy. Time. And not just the Yankee's, plenty of teams have, and are, or will go through this stage of the sports cycle. You build up a team, you win, then it gets old and then you move on to building again. But it seems that the Yanks don't want to rebuild. They just pay the veterans more in hopes that it will somehow make up for the fact that they have slowed down. For example, those five stars I mentioned over 34, are making most of the money on the Yanks;

Alex Rodriguez(.266, 8 HR, 24 RBI) is 35 and the highest paid ($32,000,00/year) player in pro sports.
A.J Burnett(4-3, 3.99 ERA) is 34 and gets paid 16.5 million/year which is the 9th most of anyone over the age of 34 is paid.
Derek Jeter(.255, 2 HR, 12 RBI) is now 36 and getting paid 14,729,365/year
Mariano Rivera(1.80 ERA, 13-16 SV) who is 41 (the oldest, highest paid player) is earning $14,911,701/year.
Jorge Posada(.179, 6 HR, 15 RBI) is 39 and is making $13,100,000/year.
Add that up and you get:


$91,241,066 for five guys a combined age of 185 or an average age of 37.


Now for some perspective. The Cleveland Indians (the best team in baseball) have only two players over the age of 34, both make below the league average salary of three million/year. Orlando Cabrera (36) and Adam Everett (34). And I added up the age and salaries of the five highest paid
Travis Hafner(33) DH $13,000,000
Grady Sizemore(28) CF $7,666,667
Fausto Carmona SP(27) $6,287,500
Shin-Soo Choo(28) RF $3,975,000
Chris Perez RP(25) $2,225,000         

The five highest paid Indians earn $33,154,167 for a combined age 141 or an average of 28.2 years old. And they are first in the majors. I say it again. $91 million dollars!

It seems the Yankee's don't know how to let go of the past. Sure Rivera and A-rod are still playing above average, but are they really playing up to their contracts. And then there is Burnett, Jeter and Posada, who have been solid consistent performers and maybe even Hall of Famers, but they just aren't getting it done and are riding on reputation alone and are producing nothing for the squad.

This isn't unique to the Yankee's though. Former greats that don't know when its time to hang up the jersey, are everywhere. How about Brett Farve in the NFL, or Shaq in the NBA? These guys get paid like stars and play like bench warmers. How about Carlos Beltran? Do you think the Mets are having fun paying that massive $19,325,436 for a guy who has two bum knees and gave up the CF position "for the good of the team?" Or J.D. Drew (35) is getting $14,000,000 and has hit more than 25 homers twice  and only gotten above 75 RBI's twice. Really? 14 million for that?

I hope the Yankee's realize they are over paying over the hill players. It's nothing against them either, four of the five will probably be in the Hall of Fame and truly gave baseball fans fun baseball to watch. But it's over now, time to let the next wave take over.