Snyder's Soapbox: If Hal Steinbrenner wants sympathy about Yankees' expenses, he has one simple way to get it

Welcome to Snyder's Soapbox! Here, I pontificate about matters related to Major League Baseball on a weekly basis. Some of the topics will be pressing matters, some might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and most will be somewhere in between. The good thing about this website is that it's free, and you are allowed to click away. If you stay, you'll get smarter, though. That's a money-back guarantee. Let's get to it.

As we get ready to give thanks this week during one of our best holidays, we should also make sure to pause and reflect on how lucky we are not be saddled with owning a Major League Baseball team. With few, precious exceptions (thank you, John Middleton), we often get to hear how bad these poor owners have it. 

The latest example? Hal Steinbrenner. Yes, the New York Yankees have it rough. Take it away, poor Hal. 

"I don't want to get into it, but that's not a fair statement or an accurate statement. Everybody wants to talk about revenues. They need to talk about our expenses, including the $100 million expense to the City of New York that we have to pay every Feb. 1, including the COVID year. So it all starts to add up in a hurry," Steinbrenner said this week.

Aww. Poor guy. 

He could show us with a detailed balance sheet, but he won't. I wonder why not? 

The family could sell to the team and make billions. But they won't. I wonder why not? 

While we're here, why doesn't he "want to get into it" and explain more? Hmmm.

We're going to continue to hear this from ownership, especially with the next collective bargaining agreement fight one year away. The owners, most of them at least, are pushing a narrative that they either "don't make that much" money or actually lose money each season. This is an effort to tamp down player salaries, notably via the implementation of a salary cap. It's insulting to hear billionaires publicly whine about not having money, but it just keeps happening.

The Dodgers repeating as World Series champions gives those owners a little extra push here, too, with that monster payroll. Not only do we not make money, but the league is no fair because the Dodgers won two World Series in a row!

"If Hal Steinbrenner wants fans and players to seriously believe that the New York Yankees aren't profitable, then he should open the books and prove it," says a source familiar with the situation. 

That's what it all comes down to. Ownership is pushing a narrative and wants everyone to blindly believe them. Many do. I don't know how or why we got a place where billionaires were able to convince millions of people of their plight, but unfortunately it works.

There will be people who read this and push back on me here. People will bring up politics. People will defend the owners as the "job creators" and say I have it all wrong. People will call the players greedy and say the league isn't fair. 

And I just can't fathom any of this. 

We watch the game for the players. They are the talent. No one is buying an owner jersey and staring all game the owner's suite. The players are the product and they have a shelf life of a career. Even the greats age out of it eventually. It just happened with Clayton Kershaw. The owners have a stream of income for however long they choose. And if they didn't, they'd get out by selling the team. 

Every single time an owner sells a Major League Baseball team, said owner makes a monster profit. We've seen it over and over. The Padres, for example, could be sold in the coming months. The team was last sold for $800 million in 2012 and is currently valued at roughly $2 billion.

Still, the line from owners will continue. And, unfortunately, a good number of people will continue to buy it and will instead make the players into villains. It's maddening. 

We can choose to be better. My choice is very simple here. Mr. Steinbrenner, I do not believe you. You have the ability to prove me wrong, so do it. I challenge you. Show me the Yankees' bottom line. I'm open to changing my mind about a salary cap if a bunch of MLB teams are losing money. So show me. 

You won't. No team other than the publicly traded Braves will. Because they're profitable, some of them remarkably so.