Yanks Make Rivera An Offer

The Steinbrenner kids certainly learned one thing from their father: How to spend money like drunken sailors at a Thai whorehouse. One day after shelling out [$52.4 million to Jorge Posada]—making him the highest-paid catcher in baseball—the Yankees are trying to make closer Mariano Rivera the highest-paid reliever in baseball.

The Yankees [offered Rivera] a three-year, $45-million deal, despite the fact that he’s coming off the worst year of his illustrious career. “He'd be by $4 million a year the highest-paid relief pitcher,” Hank Steinbrenner said Tuesday. “To say that's a strong offer would be an understatement.” To say it’s a dumb offer would be an understatement as well. Rivera turns 38 later this month, and is clearly on the decline.

The Hall-of-Fame closer finished the season with a 3.15 ERA in 71.1 innings of work. His ERA was 250 percent high than it was in 2005, when he posted a 1.38 ERA, and it skyrocketed from 2006’s 1.80 ERA. Not only that, but his innings pitched have decreased every year over the past four seasons. He’s nowhere near the dominant pitcher he once was, and in three years, when he’s 40, he might not even be good enough to beat the Pawtucket Red Sox, let alone Boston.