How The Yankees Single-Handedly Cured the Recession

By infusing large amounts of capital into the economy, or so it appears that way. Somewhere Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and President Bush are smiling. At least someone has money to spend during the holiday season!

SI.com is reporting that the Yankees are close to signing free agent pitcher Derek Lowe to a 4 year/$66 million dollar contract.

Once again, WOW.

I'm not big on reporting rumors, that's what the good folks over at mlbtraderumors.com are for, but this is absurd. For all of you counting at home, if this deal goes down, the Yankees will have spent $226 million dollars today on two pitchers.

Let's take that in for a moment, Two Hundred and Twenty Six Million dollars.

By the year, the combination of these two deals is roughly $40 million per season, which is more than the entire 2008 payroll of the Florida Marlins and almost the entire 2008 payroll of the division winning Rays. Anyone else think the economics of baseball are borderline ridiculous?

What's amazing is that the Yankees can still make another big move. With $80 million coming off the books after 2008, the Yankees are only half way through devouring through their new found cash. Mark Teixeira, your next.

While most of the baseball world struggles to regain their financial footing in this rough economy, leave it to the Yankees to blow every other offer out of the water. At whatever the price, the Yankees needed starting pitching, and they appear to have gotten a lot of it today.

More on this deal once/if it becomes official.