THE WATERCOOLER

QUESTION: Do you think the money the Yankees spend on payroll in any way diminishes their World Series championship? It seems many fans cry “foul” about the Yankees payroll. But don’t most fans want their favorite teams’ owners to spend as much as possible to field a winner?

JEFF GORDON
The high payroll absolutely diminishes the title. A team that outspends rivals by such an enormous margin should play in every World Series. Period. The Yankees can buy elite talent AND replace ineffective players on the fly AND buy quality replacements for injured guys. They can outspend their front-office mistakes and outspend any injury misfortune. They can keep spending all the way to the end of the season. The variables most franchises wrestle with from year to year don’t apply to the Yankees. The players still have to play, of course, but the Yankees should enter every postseason with the best team.

DERRICK GOOLD
Absolutely not. The money the Yankees threw at their lineup in no way diminishes their World Series title. It only gave them better access to October to win their 27th World Series. The notion that a championship can be bought in baseball is cliché and fiction. Big-budget payrolls only help a team like the Yankees avoid the cycle of competion we’ve seen from Florida, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, et al. The Yankees, Red Sox and, in some ways, the Cardinals defy the law of averages by spending enough to assure a place in the postseason. What they do when they get there has everything to do with how they spent their money, not how much they spent. All fans should want their teams to spend more, sure, but it’s much better to spend it more wisely.

RICK HUMMEL
Baseball had its best television ratings in years. People want to watch the Yankees — many to see them lose — but they are the best entertainment in the sport. The Yankees’ payroll was about the same as it was the previous season — of course, it was over $200 million.

DAN O’NEILL
I don’t think the Yankees’ payroll necessarily diminishes the World Series win. The Yankees have been baseball’s biggest spenders for many years, yet this is their first World Series win since 2000.

I think the picture is bigger. I think a lot of people feel anything the Yankees do is diminished because of their payroll budget. It certainly helps them be in position to contend on a regular basis. But if anything, in the big picture, the Yankees are living proof you cannot just go out and buy a championship. There’s more to it than that.

KEVIN WHEELER (Host of “Sports Open Line” on KMOX)
It doesn’t diminish what the Yankees players have done but it certainly illustrates how much easier it is for Brian Cashman and the Steinbrenners than it is for just about everyone else. They were unhappy with their team so they sign spent $340 million on Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia in their effort to win another championship. Must be nice.

Interestingly enough, the Yankees payroll was actually down $8 million compared to 2008. Also, under the luxury tax system in MLB, the more you spend the more you wind up handing off to other teams. The Yankees are going to pay $27 million in luxury tax for 2009 on top of their $201,449,189 payroll and by the time that check clears they will have paid $175 million in luxury taxes over the last 7 years.

What’s ironic to me is that so many Americans cry foul about “sharing the wealth” when those words are uttered within the political spectrum, yet that’s exactly the kind of system they want for their sports leagues. Interesting dichotomy, no? I like the “free market with limits” rules that Major League Baseball has compared to the strict spread-the-wealth-evenly systems in the NBA, NHL and NFL, but fans seem to gravitate toward those systems. I like the idea that owners in baseball can do whatever they want — as long as they’re willing to pay the price of doing business like the Yankees do.

The Water Cooler

Question: Who will win tonight’s Braggin’ Rights game?

Bryan Burwell
Missouri 79, Illinois 73. Tigers finally break the losing streak.

Bernie Miklasz
Missouri 78, Illinois 73. The Illini were bothered by Clemson’s pressure defense in a previous loss this season and a deeper Mizzou team can do the same.

Stu Durando
Missouri 76, Illinois 71. The Tigers will pester the Illini into too many turnovers and Illinois won’t be able to keep Carroll and Lyons off the offensive boards.

Jeff Gordon
Missouri 89, Illinois 84. If Leo Lyons and DeMarre Carroll stay out of foul trouble and make some free throws, they will make the difference. The Illini ought to handle the Tigers’ pressure defense, but containing Lyons and Carroll will be difficult.

Vahe Gregorian
Mizzou 75, Illinois 70. MU’s new-found depth and versatility snap eight-game losing streak to Illini.

Cameron Hollway
Illinois 88, Missouri 87. The Tigers are 3-8 in this game when ranked, and they’ve lost the last eight meetings. It’ll come down to the final play.

Kathleen Nelson
Illinois 78, Missouri 75: Illini get the advantage on the boards.

Tom Timmermann
Illinois 72, Missouri 65: Missouri’s talent has a little more growing up to do.

Mid-day news

The Mark Teixeira watch could end soon: He is said to want to make a decision by Christmas. The Angels say they are out. The Washington Nationals want to be in. The Red Sox are being coy and who knows about the Yankees.

This is no way to cover payroll: The Yankees are charging 25 cents for bleacher seats for exhibition games against the Cubs in April for the opening of the new Yankee stadium. That matches the price paid for the opener of the original Yankee Stadium in 1923. Grandstand seats will cost $1.10. Of course for the regular season can be as high as $2,500 a seat.

What does the BCS think of this? The NCAA granted a sixth year of eligibility to Texas wide receiver Jordan Shipley today. He had missed his first two seasons completely because of injury.

Things to ponder

Tim Cowlishaw at the Dallas Morning News wonders if the NFL is doing its part to help the Cowboys make the playoffs by changing the time of their game with the Eagles on Sunday. If early games go a certain way, the Eagles could be out of the playoff picture by the time they kick off against Dallas, which should certainly help the Cowboys.

Jason King at Yahoo Sports has an interesting tale of Texas basketball player Damian Jones and his family situation.

Stat of the day

26.9 million: That’s in dollars for the New York Yankees who had to pay that much in luxury tax because they exceeded baseball’s salary threshold of $155 million. All that for an 89-73 team that finished third in the AL East. Of course, the only other team to pay a luxury tax this year didn’t make the post-season either. That’s the Tigers who were charged $1.3 million.

THE WATERCOOLER

(Post-Dispatch columnists and beat writers share their thoughts on a question of the day.)

Question: Did the Yankees overspend for CC Sabathia?

RICK HUMMEL
For anybody else, I would say yes. The Yankees, no. With a new ballpark and huge ticket prices (they will be sold out every game), the Yankees have almost unlimited resources. They also haven’t been to the World Series since 2003 and haven’t won it since 2000. And what better way to move the Mets and K-Rod off the back pages than to sign CC?

DERRICK GOOLD
Yes. But when has that ever stopped them? It’s like Atlanta manager Bobby Cox said here Monday: “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.” That’s what the Yankees had to do.

BRYAN BURWELL
The Yanks probably did overspend on him, but when you’re basically negotiating against yourself, that usually happens. But here’s the bigger puzzle with the Sabathia deal. Does he really want to be in NY in the first place or is he only going because the money is so overwhelming? By all indications, that extra year at $20 million seems to be a NYC usage tax (he clearly was reluctant to go there and that extra money and length of contract was what it took to get him to sign). And that puts him in a delicate competitive predicament with Yankee fans, who are harsh and overly demanding anyway. It’s no exageration (well, a slight one) to believe that Sabathia will be expected by Yankee fans to produce nothing less than three Cy Youngs, three World Series rings and a couple World Series MVPs. I just hope he has the guts to deal with the ridiculous expectations that come with playing in the city. Not everyone can handle it.

JEFF GORDON
Yes, the Yankees overspent for Sabathia. The franchise can afford to overspend, but that doesn’t make it smart. CC is the ultimate workhorse, but he does NOT bring New York a classic shutdown postseason starter. New York could have purchased a couple of other high-end hurlers for that same price. And imagine what $161 million over seven years would yield through the traditional means of team building. For that kind of money, a franchise could clean up in Latin America and grab one of the Scott Boras pitching studs in each amateur draft (they usually drop to the big spenders). That money could allow a franchise to build the best-ever scouting network and flood its minor-league system with elite instructors.

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MIDDAY NEWS AND THOUGHTS

MARQUIS JAMMING UP MARQUEE DEAL: According to a report in the San Diego Union-Tribune, former-Cardinal and current-Cubs pitcher Jason Marquis might be part of the holdup in the Cubs getting Jake Peavy from the Padres. Marquis, who has been on the trade block for weeks, “has been the hangup” to getting the Peavy talks moving, the paper reports. The Padres want the Cubs to pay more than half of Marquis’ salary if they take him. Other clubs also are asking for a large discount.

Imagine that, Marquis finally doing something to help the Cardinals.

IT COULD BE WORSE: As Cardinal fans wait … and wait … and wait to see what GM John Mozeliak is able to get done at this week’s winter meetings, just remember that it could be worse. You could be a Brewers fan. Not only did the Brewers lose Sabathia to the Yankees via free agency, but they are likely to see the longtime pitching face of the club, Ben Sheets, walk away soon, too. That’s a heavy hit for any rotation. And the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the Yankees signing of Sabathia was the ulimate rude awakening for Brewers GM Doug Melvin.

I guess the Brewers got what they wanted out of their short-term “rental” of Sabathia — a playoff appearance. But for that brief postseason appearance the Brewers dealt über-prospect Matt LaPorta (coming to a Major League outfield near you soon) to Cleveland along with three other minor leaguers. On the flipside, as Class A free agents, Sabathia and Sheets will net the Brewers two high picks next June after they’ve both signed with other clubs. So there is that.

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A FEW THINGS TO PONDER

IF A TREE FALLS IN THE FOREST … If the Rams final two home games of the season (vs. Seattle Sunday and San Francisco Dec. 21) are blacked-out on TV because of an abundance of tickets remaining, will anyone notice? I don’t know how anyone can blame fans for not buying tickets. I’ve been to almost every home game this season and with the team often trailing by huge margins by halftime, the environment is miserable. And I’m getting paid to be there.

THE STEEN MACHINE: Folks let me know yesterday that they thought I was a little premature in judging Blues acquisition Alex Steen. Per my expectations, many of you correctly reminded me that Brad Boyes didn’t exactly burn it up upon his arrival with the Blues either. But that’s worked out OK. Then Tom Timmermann does an excellent piece on Steen in this morning’s paper that points out that the kid definitely has skills, but perhaps he just needs time to find his niche with his new team. Taking all of that into account, I’m calling myself out and taking a wait-and-see approach. And if he starts to light the lamp with some regularity at any point this season, feel free to remind me not to be so quick to pass judgment next time.

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STAT OF THE DAY

5.4 — That’s the yards-per-carry through 13 games this season for Carolina RB DeAngelo Williams. Questioned as an every-down back while splitting carries with DeShaun Foster the past two seasons, and still overlooked among the games’s elite runners, Williams has carried the ball 213 times for 1,144 yards and 13 TDs. For good measure, he’s tacked on two TDs receiving also. The scary thing is imagining Williams numbers if his teammate, rookie running back Jonathan Stewart, hadn’t siphoned off 141 carries (to the tune of 5.0 YPC and 8 TDs.)