Signing of Teixeira means all the pressure is on the Yankees

CHICAGO - Mark Teixeira to the Yankees? Ho, ho, ho. This is going to be fun to watch. Teixeira, along with fellow newcomers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, will carry to the Yankees to a World Series championship in the first season at the new Yankee Stadium or be part of the most disappointing team in baseball history.

Yankees led MLB with $222.5M payroll in ’08

It will be a calculated, heavily leveraged success or the kind of failure that explodes and takes careers with it, perhaps starting with unproven manager Joe Girardi and ending with highly respected general manager Brian Cashman.

You can't have the four biggest contracts in your sport and expect many "attaboys" for coming close. The Yankees always have a target on their back, but it has never been bigger than it will be in 2009 - a stunning development considering they didn't even make the playoffs in 2008, when East rivals Boston and Tampa Bay played for the American League pennant.

Teixeira, a switch-hitting slugger who joins the right-handed-hitting Alex Rodriguez in the middle of the order, had seemed bound for Boston. But the Red Sox failed to get him signed after a Dec. 18 trip to his home in Dallas. It turned out they weren't as desperate to counter the Yankees' addition of Sabathia and Burnett as agent Scott Boras figured they would be.

With Washington and Baltimore trying to land Teixeira, the Yankees ultimately couldn't help themselves. He was there for the taking, and they took him - to the tune of eight years and $180 million.

According to New York baseball oracle Murray Chass, Teixeira simply didn't want to play in Boston, and his wife didn't want him to either. He preferred New York, and Boras got him the chance to join the Yankees, where he will become what he seems to want to be: a supporting actor paid like a leading man.

Will Teixeira help the Yankees win? He should if he matches his 2008 totals, put up between Atlanta and the Los Angeles Angels: .308, 33 home runs, 41 doubles, 121 RBI. But in his first six seasons he has never had an impact on a team even reaching the playoffs, let alone winning under the pressure of October.

Cashman committed a combined $423.5 million for Teixeira, Sabathia and Burnett. The reaction throughout baseball was not favorable; Brewers owner Mark Attanasio called for a salary cap. The saving grace for the sport is that games are still won and lost with timely hits and execution on the field, not by throwing money at problems.

"I know we're supposed to be devastated by this, but we're not," Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon told the Los Angeles Times.

"It comes down to if you pitch well, you're going to stop good hitters. A lot of what we did last year was based on pitching and good defense. If we continue to do those things well, we'll be right there."

Shortly after he spoke, Maddon received his own gift: the addition of free-agent reliever Joe Nelson, who signed a one-year deal for $1.5 million.

You wonder if he was more sincerely pumped about his little addition than Girardi is about all the big-ticket ones he'll welcome to camp in February.