This wasn’t a signing or a contract the Yankees ever have had real reason to regret, even if age inevitably took its toll on the deal’s back end.
It was eight years and $180 million to Mark Teixeira in December 2008, and 10 months later the first baseman and his teammates were commemorating the Yankees’ first season in the new Stadium with the club’s first (and still only) World Series championship since 2000.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he showed up in 2009 with a couple of [other] free agents and we won the World Series,” Joe Girardi, the manager then and now, said before Friday’s 13-7 victory over the Indians in The Bronx.