Battle of the Brands: Robinson Cano vs NY Yankees

Robinson Cano in Seattle
(photo: sfgate.com)

The New York area's sports pages were recently roiled over the contract negotiations between the New York Yankees, its star second baseman Robinson Cano, his agent Jay-Z, and the Seattle Mariners. After considerable back-and-forth, Cano signed with Seattle for $240 million. This move led to consternation in New York, as if the Yankees, with an aging, suspect lineup, had stepped off a steep cliff.

From a talent perspective, Cano's move from Yankee pinstripes is unquestionably a loss for the team that calls The Bronx home. However, the negotiations were more than simply about the money. I think what soured the Yanks on Cano was Jay-Z's ploy to make his first MLB client a personal brand. The Yankees, in that scenario, were a splendid platform from which to launch the Robinson Cano product. The baseball team, with its own brand indissolubly linked to its successful, high-profile players, would not have been able to control the Cano brand. The notion that a player would be bigger than the team -- clearly Agent Jay-Z's talent management goal -- was something the Yankees could not tolerate. (Jay-Z's wife, Beyonce, recently demonstrated the clout of a personal brand with her no pre-publicity, iTunes exclusive release album. Yes, I think the Yankees watched that development quite closely.)

Jay-Z
(photo: npr.org)

The Yankees had experienced the emergence of personal branding in the early days of its contract with third baseman Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod had his eyes on branding from the start of his move from Texas to baseball's lucrative Northeast markets. The Yankees were not alone in that situation. Many fans forget that the New York Mets seriously entertained signing Rodriguez at the apogee of his on-field success. At the time, one demand from the Rodriguez camp was a personal marketing representative for A-Rod. In essence, he would develop and exploit his personal brand. This business scheme would have been under A-Rod's control, and quite separate from his team's success and marketing drives. The Mets could not or would not swallow this negotiating demand, and eventually took a pass on A-Rod's services.

Alex Rodriguez
(photo: Wikipedia)

While times have changed since Alex Rodriguez explored ways to create a personal brand, the lust for branded gold has accelerated. This year, common stock is now available in selected NFL players. You can purchase 100 shares of Houston running back Arian Foster, for example. Enterprises such as the Yankees have kept a close eye on these developments; my guess is that personal brands could significantly and irrevocably disrupt the teams' revenue and marketing plans. For star-driven teams such as the Yanks, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Dallas Cowboys, personal brands are red flags. The Yankees just drew a line with Robinson Cano, so definitively that the team would willingly say adios to a tremendous, homegrown infielder at the prime of his career. The feeling was that "the Yanks didn't want to pay Cano." That's true, but misses the point. The Yankees are determined to maintain their brand. No player, not even Robinson Cano, could be permitted to be bigger than one of the world's great franchises, certainly not while on the Yankee roster. As for Jay-Z, the team sent a message: we don't need you and we don't want you. Tell your client to have a ball in baseball's version of marketing Siberia, far away from his natural Hispanic fan base, and even further from appearing in post-season play.

Hey, didn't Alex Rodriguez make his name in Seattle?

Damn Yankees

This is the season of the New York Yankees' discontent. The team, which began to look past its prime in last year's playoff struggles, distinctly looks old this season. A number of its marquee players are either washed up or in decline. The good, younger players can't quite carry the full load that comes with being on a Yankee team.

The biggest issue for the Yankees is the team's pitching. Mariano Rivera, the relief closer who is arguably the team's most important player, has barely worked up a sweat this year. The Yanks are relying on two very old, retread starters to give them innings. Ironically, they might be the team's most consistent arms. That's not a good sign, as baseball's season is a long one.

While the Yankees will snap out of their current, dreadful slump (as did their principal AL East competitors), los Yanquis may not have enough gas in their tanks to win more than 90 games. That means the team of Ruth, DiMaggio, and Mantle will be third in the AL East race. That means New York will be out of the playoff money, something of a fate worse than death in demanding Gotham.

The photograph shows the Mickey Mantle monument in Yankee Stadium's Monument Park.

Did Yankees Fall Off Cliff?

The New York Yankees, presumed front runners for the services of free agent pitcher Cliff Lee, were jilted by the left-handed ace today. Lee signed with one of his former employers, the Philadelphia Phillies, for more millions than most of us will ever see in a lifetime.

Lee's choice of brotherly love over Bronx cheer makes sense. The thirty-two year-old player is much more likely to thrive in the National League, where pitchers hit and the teams are far weaker offensively than in the opposing league. Lee joins a roster whose key everyday players are in the prime of their careers. He also bolsters an already formidable trio of starting pitchers, including two-time Cy Young Award winner Roy Halliday. In this way, Lee doesn't have to be the team's ace. He merely has to win a lot, as he did in Cleveland when his pitching partner was C.C. Sabathia.

For the Yankees, losing the Lee lottery might be a blessing in disguise. New York's most important players, except Mark Teixeira, are in their thirties. The elder statesmen, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada, are well past their prime. Andy Pettitte is ready to retire. One wonders how many more strong innings are left in the great Mariano Rivera's right arm. The Yanks' general manager, Brian Cashman, has skillfully tried to make the team younger while navigating a contender filled with aging stars. Lee's return to Philadelphia may make Cashman's goal of creating a younger, cheaper Yankee team easier to accomplish.

This coming season could very well signal a decline for the Yankees from their 95-win heights. They could finish in third place in the AL East, behind the Red Sox and Rays. The pitching just isn't there, at least on paper. However, it's not as if Lee's signing with the Phillies meant the Yankees fell off a cliff. This is a Yankee team with heart. It's interesting that the strongest notes of caution about the Yankees came from Boston. The Red Sox, even with their acquisitions of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, understand it's too soon to write off their rivals to the south. Far too soon.

Yanquis Go Home

The Texas Rangers knocked the Yankees out of the baseball playoffs the other day. The series turned out to be a mismatch, but not in the expected way. The Rangers shattered the New York team in all aspects of the game. The Yankees won two games, but never really looked like they were in the series.

What became evident was that injuries and age caught up with the Yankees. What was really amazing was that New York won 95 games in the regular season. Their best players, except a relatively young Robinson Cano, were hurt at some point during the year. The team showed a lot of grit, and manager Joe Girardi deserves credit for getting the team into the money season.

Girardi's best move was convincing Yankee general manager Brian Cashman to obtain pitcher Kerry Wood from Cleveland during the season. Girardi knew Wood when the pitcher was a Chicago Cub star and Girardi was with the club. Wood stabilized the Yankee relief corps, and carried the Yankees to the ninth inning and Mariano Rivera.

Perhaps the most telling detail of the Yankees' playoff demise was that the Yankees were often knocked out before Rivera had a chance to warm up.

For the Yankees, the so-called "Core Four" has reached its Waterloo. Rivera will be 41 years old next year. An aging Derek Jeter is clearly living on his reputation rather than his current performance. Alex Rodriguez is thirty-five and might be the only player in major league baseball this year to have over one hundred RBIs' and have an "off year." Andy Pettitte is ready to retire. While Cashman has made the Yankees younger, he'll have his work cut out for him this off-season. With all the fuss about Cliff Lee, the Yankees larger need might be younger position players.

In the meantime, Yankee haters have had their moment, courtesy of the Texas Rangers. However, there was no doubt Texas was the better team in American League championship series, and the team George W. Bush once owned will soon play in its first World Series.

(Pittsburgh) Pirates Make Millions

Who said piracy is dead? According to documents leaked to deadspin.com, the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball franchise made over $30 million last year. For years, the team's management has pleaded poverty, traded any player who would command a marginally high salary, and showed no commitment to improve its team.

Some of the Pirates' loot comes from revenue sharing, a scheme in which prosperous franchises such as the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox give small market teams some money. The notion is that the funds would be used to improve the small fries' talent pool and thus add more equitable competition to major league baseball.

The Pirate organization chose to keep the money, and essentially stiff its team's fans and sponsors. Major League Baseball is fighting furiously to shut the deadspin.com leak. However, this leak has as much life as BP's leak in the Gulf of Mexico. And for greedy baseball team owners, the financial documentation leak demonstrates their view of credibility parallels BP's perspective on the subject.

This leads me to the conclusion that Pittsburgh's team might be the most aptly named sports franchise in America.

Baseball's Dog Days

The fourth week of August is, in the baseball world, its "dog days." They're aptly named. It's this period in the baseball season when the sport's wolves prowl on their prey. The hot weather, the season's length, and the road trips wear down weaker teams, while the strong survive and prosper. Consequently, the statistics of good players accelerate in a desirable direction, as the New York Yankee second baseman Robinson Cano has recently shown.

This season, the American League has the stronger teams, the better players, the more prosperous franchises. While the Yankees have the best record as of this morning, they may not even make the playoffs. That is indicative of the competition, the quality of players on each contending team, and the demands of the schedule. I don't know who will win the three American League divisions, or the identity of the league's wild card playoff team, but it promises to be an exciting race. And that's something a baseball fan -- and I am one -- can get excited about.

Steinbrenner, New York's Impact on Sports, and a Personal Steinbrenner Story

The notice of George Steinbrenner's passing, mere days after legendary Yankee public address announcer Bob Sheppard died, reminds me of something my father told me. We were watching a Yankee game on TV when the Yankees were fielding bad teams. My father, an ardent Brooklyn Dodger fan, shook his head slowly. "It's not good now. You see, baseball needs a strong New York team for financial reasons. The good Yankee teams fill the ballpark, and the New York home gate means the visitors get a lot of money. It's usually money they need."

Major League Baseball, which has the amazing knack of attracting stupid owners and incubating dumb front offices, didn't catch on to this simple fact of sports economics for a long time. It took free agency to wake them up, and the owner who immediately understood how to exploit its competitive advantages was George Steinbrenner. The Cleveland native also grasped how New York's aura and the Yankees' heritage could be leveraged into box office dynamite.

When Steinbrenner started out with the Yankees, he followed the team on the road when they were in a pennant race. A few months after I graduated from the University of Wisconsin, my former roomate and other friends went on a cold autumn night to see the Yankees play the Milwaukee Brewers. As County Stadium was nearly empty, they got to sneak into the expensive seats and, eventually, near Steinbrenner, Yankee general manager Gabe Paul, and others in the Yankee entourage. Steinbrenner rooted hard for his team, as it was fighting to win a pennant. As one of my friends recalled the story, Yankee outfielder Lou Piniella tripped over the second base bag during a Yankee rally. Steinbrenner got upset: "Fuckin' Piniella," he growled.

Yes, Steinbrenner cared. He also made sure the County Stadium ushers didn't throw my friends out of the box seats. They were Yankee fans, and for George Steinbrenner, that mattered. A lot.