George may have taken a backseat, but his legacy is splashed all over the back pages.

It was but a year ago that the Hot Stove bubbled over with rumor and speculation regarding Johan Santana with the Yankees smack dab in the middle of it.  Despite their seeming interest in both the player and the prevention of him going to the Red Sox, there were strong indications that the Yankees didn't want to foot the bill.  From a Tyler Kepner piece at the time:

For the Yankees, the $140 million figure would be compounded by an additional $56 million they would owe in luxury taxes, because they are still charged an extra 40 cents for every dollar they spend. Investing almost $200 million in Santana for seven years — and the prospects — is clearly too steep a price for General Manager Brian Cashman.

Times have changed and so has the payroll.  The Yankees have shed close to $80 million dollars this winter with the departure of Jason Giambi, Bobby Abreu, Mike Mussina, Carl Pavano, and possibly Andy Pettitte.  It's no surprise that they have gone into this winter hellbent on repairing what has been a tattered rotation for the last four or five seasons.  Problem is, using the free agent market is not the repairs they had in mind.

The Yankees have been drafting pitching heavy for the last few seasons in hopes of developing their own pitching talent.  This flies in stark contrast to Yankees past, where veteran pitchers were usually imported to fill out the rotation.  Andy Pettitte and Chien-Ming Wang are the only two pitchers the Yankees have kept in their rotation since their rookie seasons, and Pettitte broke in in 1995.

Pitching has become more costly and somewhat less reliable.  Smaller market teams started developing good young pitching as contracts for free agent pitching escalated in both years and salary.  How many of those contracts actually panned out?  Hampton?  Kevin Brown? Chan Ho Park?  Barry Zito?  Mike Mussina is one of the few big contract pitchers that can be labeled as "worth it."

Cashman saw this trend along with the Yankees failed returns on shorter veteran contracts and started drafting heavy in pitching, hoping to build a strong young staff from within.  The problem, as we all have learned over the last season, is that young pitching requires patience, a trait the Yankees don't allow themselves the luxury of having. 

And so we find ourselves in the winter before the 2009 season, licking the wounds of failed seasons by Philip Hughes and Ian Kennedy, fifteen games started by Sidney Ponson, and the second sequel to the Joba Rules: Inning Count.  Patience has worn even thinner with no promises going out to Philip Hughes.  By winters end, the only starting position for Hughes may be in Triple-A Scranton.

Yet, the Yankees are a few moves away from being a true threat in the most competitive division in baseball.  How many teams can recover from this type of failure?  The Brewers just lost out on Sabathia and have already started the yard sale.  The Oakland A's under Billy Beane have almost completely relied on young starting pitching, yet they haven't been able to fully recover from the decline and eventual disbanding of the Mulder/Hudson/Zito trio.

It was just before the 2007 season when GM Brian Cashman was talking of trying to lower the Yankees payroll.  That plan went out the window quickly in 2008 when the dream of three young starters disappeared with each injury.  Instead, the Yankees have gone back to the ways of Old George: throwing money at the problem.

There was optimism in Yankeeland when it appeared that Sir George was backing off of operations and Brian Cashman was taking the wheel.  Cashman always seemed less inclined to dispense outlandish contracts to questionable players.  The hesitancy to trade away the farm a la George in addition to giving a big payday to Johan Santana provided a glimpse of the Yankees maybe, just maybe, shedding the freespending stereotype that has dogged them since the mid-seventies.

Then Hank opened his mouth and swallowed whatever hope was left. 

In truth, there is little the Yankees can do right now but utilize their greatest asset.  The starting pitching was in complete disarray before the signing of Sabathia.  As it is, they still only have two and a half starters in Wang, Sabathia, and 160 innings of Joba Chamberlain.  They're trying their best to overpay AJ Burnett or possibly Derek Lowe, two pitchers whose contracts would be deemed failures by their final years.  There are rumblings that they may still keep their hands in the Teixeira negotiations.  Whether in earnest or simply to drive up the Red Sox price, the fact remains that they have yet to invest in their offense which showed significant decline in 2008.

It may have been a pipedream for Brian Cashman, the ability to operate a financial juggernaut like the New York Yankees like a middle market team.  The notion of developing from within while simulataneously carrying a "win now" mentality seems to be in direct opposition with each other.  The plan itself may have been doomed from the start.

Instead, Cashman is forced to turn his plan one hundred and eighty degrees, to embrace the free spending ways of Sir George during one of the most dire economic times this country has seen in decades.  Major League Baseball the organization has had layoffs as well as the NFL, yet here is a baseball team signing a pitcher for $61 million more than the next bidder while asking the city of New York to provide another $350 million in tax free bonds to finish what will amount to a $1.5 billion dollar stadium.

Fiscal responsibility and the Yankees have never made good bed partners, but to levy this type of financial assault on the sport only reaffirms everything that non-New Yorkers hate about the city and the New York Yankees.  Whatever sympathy was garnered from that scrappy 1996 team, or for Joe Torre and his brother Frank's perserverance through heart surgery, or the outpouring of support for the city that followed the attacks of September 11th, all of that is gone.  What is left is the bitter reminder of George Steinbrenner flexing his financial muscle, a legacy carried on now by his sons Hank and Hal at a time when some people hope to simply hold on to their jobs.

It's the Steinbrothers money and they have the right to spend it as they please. For those on the other side, in these times, that concept offers little consolation.