Contrasting the Yankees and Red Sox, it seems like the Red Sox have more stars.

It seems like whomever the Red Sox continue to pursue, even if it is for their bench, the ballplayers tend to be good solid players. Their latest pursuit includes Rocco Baldelli and John Smoltz, It appears that trading Manny Ramirez has helped the Red Sox acquire more overall talent spread around the field, even when it comes to the bench.

As for the Yankees, after signing AROD, CC, and AJ Burnett, who combined will cost the Yankees over 65 million a year, it appears that they don't quite have the payroll flexibility to just sign solid players, especially for the bench. Certainly not as good as Rocco Baldelli or even a healthy Mike Lowell. Heck, the Red Sox are allegedly trying to acquire Hanley Ramirez! Perhaps besides losing Manny's contract, what has helped the Red Sox is the emergence of many fine young prospects from their own minor leagues, including young relievers that don't cost much money.

If a team has a payroll of 150 million or higher, that suddenly works out to 6 million per player, so if a team with a super high payroll avoids putting a large chunk of it into two or three players, they suddenly can put really good positions players all over the place, especially when that team also has players making the league minimum because they came up in their own farm system.