The Smokin Hank Thread

[Chris]

This guy is every bit the asshole that his old man was in the early days.

Let's hope it doesn't take him 20 years to learn to shut the fuck up.

Discuss!

[sean]

Jon heyman had a good line about Hal & hank on Twitter

ive decided hank and hal are a composite of george. hal is an excellent businessman, hank says nutty things.

[Chris]

I tweeted that Hank and Hal remind me of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito in "TWINS"

[9]

Hank is an ass clown.

[Jason Giambi]

Hank is an embarassment......

[Chris]

I love the fact that he's too stupid to realize that his rants about "communism" and "socialism" in baseball are actually counter-productive to the Yankees standard operating procedure.

If you're arguing AGAINST profit-sharing and luxury taxes then you are implicitly arguing FOR a salary cap .... the absence of a salary cap is the precise scenario that has allowed the Yankees to exercise their financial might over the past 38 years.

Dude is a fucking MORON!

[MSBNYY]

What are you talking about? A salary cap is not the opposite of a luxury tax.

[Chris]

No one said they were opposites.

What I'm saying is that if Hank had his wish, to do away with luxury taxes, then we're right back to square one with EVERYONE screaming bloody murder that the Yanks, Mets, Cubs, Dodgers have a completely unfair financial advantage.

The luxury tax is meant to combat those gripes. If no luxury tax, then the next logical solution is cap.

[MSBNYY]

I agree with him. Why should the Pirates take Yankee money, and pocket it?

At minimum, if there is a luxury tax, the team receiving money should be required to increase its payroll by at minimum, the amount of the luxury tax received.

And I don't think there should ever be a cap. I think the real solution is contraction. Back when there were 26 teams, there were fewer jobs, and the top players didn't have as many options. You had to play in places like KC or Pittsburgh. I think the demand for jobs would increase, and salaries would actually start to come down.

[Chris]

And I agree with you....partially.

These teams crying poverty and demanding kick-backs from the big market teams, should be absolutely required to use those funds to acquire talent....period. That's where the system fails.

But Hank is complaining about having to pay it at all, regardless of what the recipients do with it. If he doesn't want to pay it AT ALL, then, again, everyone will be crying for a salary cap.

With the system, as it is, Hank needs to shut the fuck up, pay his luxury tax, which allows the Yanks to operate under normal Yankee S.O.P.

[MSBNYY]

I get where Hank's coming from. Why should other teams who are doing a poor job running their teams, benefit from the teams that are spending to win? It's Yankee money. Not Pirate or Royal money. If anything, the Yankees are a big draw on the road, and help the opposing team in that regard.

[Chris]

Because the complaint is that New York, Chicago, L.A. teams have an inherent financial advantage - a larger pool of money to pull from, than the small market teams.

That's the argument and enough agree with it, that nothing you or I griping about mismanagement of funds will change anyone's mind.

So those are the parameters of the problem - the perception is that small market teams are less competitive due to lack of available funds, and NOT a function of their mismanagement of money.

With that given intact, there are two solutions: luxury tax or cap.

So again Hank - shut your mouth, pay the tax. The more you gripe about the tax, the more you'll drive the system toward a cap.

[MSBNYY]

My answer to that financial advantage complaint is "tough shit." Again, before they expansion, payrolls were all over the place. It wasn't the same teams at the top of the food chain, and the difference between first and last wasn't anywhere near as high as today.

I realize people like to cater to the weak, but that doesn't make it right. If you can't compete, you shouldn't exist. The big teams shouldn't have to carry the smaller markets. The smaller markets need to invest in their product and win.

Payroll doesn't guarantee success either, as other smaller market teams have shown. The Marlins have won twice while the Pirates always suck.

Let these teams fail and go out of business. The market will not let everyone go under. It won't just be the big markets because too many good players will be out there. The problem right now is too many jobs.

[Chris]

Balls... I hear you. But the fact is enough people have convinced MLB that small market's need financial help from the big markets in order to avoid a salary cap, so that's that.

That's what I'm saying - we have two option: cap or tax. Clearly the tax is the most beneficial scenario for the Yanks. So having said that, Hank should shut it.

Also, you can't really make an analogy between a free-market and competitive sports. In a free market, business doesn't NEED it's competitors to survive. Dell doesn't need HP to exist, in fact the exact opposite is true. But the Yankees need the Royals, Rays, Twins, etc.

[MSBNYY]

Don't get me wrong--I know the morons believe what they believe. I'm just saying that it's malarky.

The Yankees need opponents. They don't need 29 opponents. Baseball has proven viable with 16 teams. It has proven viable with 26 teams. But 28 and 30 teams is where the salary disparity kicked in. Not enough top level talent to fill all those jobs.

The free market would still work in baseball well. There is demand for MLB teams. The market wouldn't let EVERY team collapse. Eventually, smaller teams would benefit by getting better players from the dead teams, and they would start to win too. As big contracts expire, there wouldn't be a need to replace them with bigger contracts, and salaries would stabilize and slowly equalize. Contraction would be an indirect salary cap but a better one because it would be the free market causing it.