[Conservative til I die]

Oakland has the best young rotation in baseball. If they leave for free agency, than the A's need to have more young arms in the pike. Teams have to find their own strategy to attain success. Play to your strengths. For the Yankees, name value, money, and the chance to win make it prime for free agents. Oakland as a small market team need to play to its strengths, good scouting, good drafts, and good minor league development.

[Mr. Mojo]

The Yankees main strength is having the best farm system in baseball, not their ability to nab prime free agents (although that's a close second). As I said in an earlier post, the vast majority of their best players were farm system guys. They use free agents to fill weak spots rather than to build a team.

Lost in (some) Red Sox fans' whining about the Yankee payroll is the fact that Boston itself has the 3rd highest payroll in the league.