Posted by Joe Hamrahi on Friday, November 6, 2009 at 6:14 am

I’ve been struggling lately with how to best articulate my distaste with the Major League Baseball economic system. It’s not so much the Yankees (although they’re a big part of it) as it is the massive imbalance that troubles me.

I know everyone says they’re sick of hearing about it, but take a look at the Yankees payroll over the past several years and prove to me there’s nothing wrong with this picture:

• In 2002, the Yankees spent $17 million more in payroll than any other team.
• In 2003, the Yankees spent $35 million more than any other team.
• In 2004, the Yankees spent $57 million more than any other team.
• In 2005, the Yankees spent $85 million more than any other team.
• In 2006, the Yankees spent $74 million more than any other team.
• In 2007, the Yankees spent $40 million more than any other team.
• In 2008, the Yankees spent $72 million more than any other team.
• In 2009, the Yankees spent $52 million more than any other team.

Now let’s look at the results over that period:

Notice the correlation between salaries and wins? Sure, the Yankees may not have won the World Series every year, but they did a damn good job of spending enough money to put themselves in an excellent position to do so.

Generally speaking, if you spend an average of more than $54 million per year over your closest payroll competitor, you’re going to field a pretty damn good team. The facts don’t lie. Sure, there will be an odd year here or there where you won’t destroy the rest of the league (and only win, say, 89 games!) because of injuries or luck. But, by and large, I’ll take my chances and be content averaging 98 victories per year and winning the division 6 of the last 8 seasons.

All this talk about how intelligent the Yankees front office is and what a remarkable job Brian Cashman did this year is a bunch of nonsense. Cashman hasn’t done anything different than he has the last 10 years. The only difference is that the Yankees didn’t get unlucky in a short series.

Cashman says he doesn’t care what people say about the Yankees buying a championship. He says people can talk all they want, but it’s the Yankees who have the ring. I wouldn’t expect Cashman to say anything different. He has to defend himself.

But while that’s nice and all Brian, it just emphasizes the huge chip the Yankees have on their shoulder. It reinforces the “I have all the money and will do whatever I want with it” mentality, even if it alienates half the league and allows only a handful of lucky teams each decade to get a real shot at a title.

In fairness, yes, the Yankees are playing within the rules. But they’re not exactly doing anything to help the league’s competitive balance…being the only team that even voted against a luxury tax.

In the end, the Yankess spent a ridiculous amount of money and won. Plain and simple. As I reminded people the other night while Twittering from Philadelphia, it dawned on me that with C.C. Sabathia pitching, the Yankees five infielders (pitcher included) cost a total of $105 million in 2009. Yes…that’s just the World Series infield (Per Cot’s Contracts: Posada – $13.1 million, Teixeira – $20 million, Cano – $6 million, Jeter – $20 million, A-Rod – $32 million, and Sabathia – $14 million)! To put that into perspective, that’s more than 23 teams spent on their entire roster in 2009!

That’s just startling to me.

I know some of you will tell me that the Yankees “only” bought CC and Tex. Jeter, Cano, and Posada are all home grown, and New York traded for A-Rod. That’s true, but the Yankees are one of only a handful of teams who can actually hang on to their home grown stars and not have to let them go (via free agency or trade) due to escalating salaries. I mean, would the Yankees ever allow guys like Johan Santana, Cliff Lee, Sabathia, Josh Beckett, A.J. Burnett, Matt Holliday, etc., etc…all bona fide all-stars…leave their club because they couldn’t pay them? I think not.

So the next time someone tells you this Yankee team was different…that Brian Cashman deserves so much credit and that this team had character and drive and a will to win…think again. They just had the money…as they always do. And until Major League Baseball actually addresses this problem, expect to see the Empire State represented in the post-season for many, many years to come.

For a more in-depth and professional analysis of the situation, check out Jos Posnanski’s great article over at SI.com, The best team money could buy.