Yankees Bust the Bank While Other Clubs Play it Cool in Free Agency

Why is former free agent Mark Teixeira smiling? Simple. His contract with the Yankees is worth more than what severalof the top spending clubs in MLB have spent this off-season, combined. An interesting bit of data surfaced by ESPN researcher Mark Simon via Buster Olney?s blog on Friday regarding the pace of free agent contracts this off-season (read Long-term contracts down significantly). As the title suggests, ?Contracts of three-plus years are down significantly from two years ago.? Simon has some interesting figures (highly suggest reading) that got me to looking into the numbers further. Remember, the free agency cycle is far from complete, but there are some trends that show that going the ?Yankee way? is no longer in vogue. Be it the economy or a change in philosophy, it?s a different world this year. As of 2/14/09 a total of 156 contracts have been reached with 217 players that filed for free agency in the 2008-09 off-season. Of those, 63 of them are minor league deals ...