TAMPA — The question came open-ended to John Farrell on Tuesday morning: What did you think over the winter as the Yankees committed massive contract after massive contract to new players, working diligently to erase the horror of their 2013 finish?
The Red Sox manager began his response with words that surely must have pleased his combative team president Larry Lucchino:
“They’ve got tremendous resources.”
“This division is going to be very difficult, top to bottom,” Farrell continued at George M. Steinbrenner Field, before the Yankees thumped the defending World Series champions, 8-1. “Teams might go about it differently, based on their own model. But I think from the outside, you anticipated some changes. To what extent? It remained to be seen. But [they have] a lot of new names, a lot of really good players.”
If you’re looking for a theme to this year’s Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, try this for starters: The Spenders vs. The Planners. At least, that’s the narrative the Red Sox would like to sell to you.
Farrell, unlike his boss Lucchino or his predecessor Bobby Valentine, doesn’t live to stir up trouble through the media. Nevertheless, his words Tuesday sure came off as tweak-y.
Asked which of the Yankees’ high-profile acquisitions struck him as the most significant, Farrell said, “I don’t know if there’s any one guy that stands out more than the other. I think the one thing that kind of jumps out is the pace at which they got Jacoby [Ellsbury]. As quick as they moved to sign him, that was the one thing. That offer obviously had to be so much greater than anything else Jacoby was fielding.”
Of course, virtually everyone in the industry thinks the Yankees went overboard with their seven-year, $153 million bid to swipe the injury-prone Ellsbury from the Red Sox.
Last month, Lucchino threw some fresh firewood on The Rivalry when he said, of his team and the Yankees, “We’re very different animals. I’m proud of that difference. I always cringe when people lump us together. Other baseball teams sometimes do that. They are still, this year at least, relying heavily on their inimitable old-fashioned Yankees style of high-priced, long-term free agents. And … I can’t say that I wish them well, but I think that we’ve taken a different approach.”
The Yankees’ 2014 payroll figures to be in the $200 million area, a considerable drop from recent years. The Red Sox will be at about $170 million. So the Yankees and Red Sox shop in the same aisle far more than either does with the AL East’s equally dangerous Rays, who will check in at around $70 million.
However, the Red Sox found religion after salvaging their 2012 last-place finish with an epic bailout from the Dodgers, who agreed to take the overpriced and unhappy Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez out of Boston. Signing seven free agents to relatively short deals the subsequent offseason, and seeing all seven of those free agents contribute to last year’s stunning title, gave the Red Sox the intellectual high ground. For now, at least.
On paper, the Yankees have made up ground on the Red Sox with the additions of Ellsbury, Brian McCann, Carlos Beltran and Masahiro Tanaka.
“I think they had a great offseason. Honestly, I think their lineup is super-deep,” Red Sox catcher David Ross said. “… They’re going to be a really good team. “
Yet it felt fitting Ellsbury wasn’t available for this Grapefruit League reunion, as manager Joe Girardi acknowledged the center fielder still feels something in his right calf. And Farrell also acknowledged, though he expected the Yankees to upgrade last winter, he didn’t anticipate their downgrade at second base.
“I know one thing: I’m glad we don’t have to face him 19 times,” Farrell said of Robinson Cano. “From across the field, he was the type of player you thought would be in one place for his entire career, as dominant an offensive player, dominant a player as he’s been. But you never know how things are going to transpire. I’m a little surprised he’s not in a Yankee uniform.”
Following a relatively quiet offseason, with Ellsbury, Stephen Drew and Jarrod Saltalamacchia departing via free agency and A.J. Pierzynski and minor-league free agent Grady Sizemore coming aboard, the Red Sox are still “well-constructed,” as one scout from an AL club put it. The Yankees might match them at the top end of the rosters, especially if Michael Pineda keeps moving forward as he did in Tuesday’s outing, although the Red Sox have fewer holes.
Of course, the Yankees do have those tremendous resources, so you can’t count them out. They know the only way to win back the intellectual high ground is to be the last Rival standing.