Yoshinobu Yamamoto was officially introduced as a Dodger on Wednesday, joining Shohei Ohtani as the latest superstar to be unveiled in Los Angeles.
Marc Malusis opened Thursday’s show lamenting how the Dodgers have taken the Evil Empire label from the Yankees, who are no longer seen as the team to sign with if you want to win now.
“The Yankees used to be that…it was important to George Steinbrenner to have stars in the Bronx,” Moose said. “There was a trust factor that this organization was going to go above and beyond to win. That is no longer the case.
“Everything we have seen written about the Yankees and why they failed, Brian Cashman was basically taking notes, and wanted to hold everybody and their mother accountable for what was being said, instead of looking within and understanding that the Yankees are no longer what they used to be.”
Moose says the game’s stars no longer see the Yankees as the team that’s going to respond to signing them by aggressively adding other pieces to build a World Series roster, and instead now try to be the smartest people in the room with the use of analytics and attempting to make savvy moves instead of simply flexing their financial might to sign the game’s best players.
“There is no longer that trust and belief that they’re gonna win now and win in the future,” Moose said. “If you take Yamamoto at his words, winning now and in the future is the most important thing to him…in the end, Yamamoto trusted the Dodgers more than anything else, that they were gonna do everything they could to win.”