Fresh off their 2004 ALCS 4-game choking streak, the New York Yankees unleashed a cash flood on the free agent pitching market. Sort of a preemptive Heimlich.

The bombers gutted their starting rotation and dropped $60 million on free agents Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright. The crown jewel in their offseason tiara was landing Randy Johnson from the Arizona Diamond Backs for half of their farm system. How'd that work out for them?

Pavano fell apart like a lemon bought from a plaid sports coat wearing junk dealer, Wright underperformed and the Big Unit just wasn't AL material anymore. There's $106 million, burned in a barrel, the ashes flushed down a Yankee Stadium john.

Break out the matches and the plunger, cause Steinbrenner is doing it again. Only this time, it's a different Steinbrenner.

The New York Yankees signed free agent lefty CC Sabathia to a 7-year, $161 million deal Wednesday. GM Brian Cashman is closing in on a deal with free agent fireballer AJ Burnett and former Red Sox sinkerballer Derek Lowe. The prices on these two, $85 million/5 years, $66 million/4 years respectively.

Sabathia is one of the best pitchers in baseball, hands down, but when playoff time shows up, he doesn't. His career earned run average in the regular season, 3.66, the postseason, 7.92. It's like his ERA is a dieter who falls off the wagon around October.

Sabathia is presumably the new Yankees ace. He'll probably take them to a playoff berth, but once he does, they're on their own. He's a cabbie who drives his fare half way to their point B and kicks them out at a red light.

AJ Burnett is similar to Sabathia in his inconsistency. When he's on, Burnett is BETTER than the big lefty. Problem is he spends as much time on the DL as the mound, and when he is healthy, his performance is totally schizophrenic. He could make a lineup of sluggers look like A ball kids one night, then get knocked around like a journey man the next.

At 35, Derek Lowe potentially making $30 million more than he did in his age 31 free agency is a joke. It's a posterchild of the spend like granny at a flea market mentality championed by the Boss since he bathed Jason Giambi in cash that would contribute to his juice stash, and ZERO World Series.

8 years, hundreds of millions in bust free agents without a ring to show for it. They haven't even made it out of the first round since 2004.

Then they brought up Robinson Cano, Chien-Ming Wang, Jaba Chamberlain and Melky Cabrera. We thought the Yankees took the hint.

Then they built a new ballpark, busted out a calculator and figured they would have more money to play with than usual. Mix with a rookie owner eager to show up daddy, bring to a boil and presto, you have another near decade of championship drought.

I'm not saying free agent signings should be avoided like a franchise-killing plague, but they should be used a la the Red Sox formula: Mixed in evenly with drafting and trading.

The Yanks embraced the new MLB model of drafting well, locking up the young studs and building around them, then relapsed to bombarding the free agent market with cash bombs.

So much for building a champion instead of buying one.

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