Gassed stove
Maybe it’s a simple fact of decompressing from a World Series that ended just eight days ago, or just the increasing reaction of not giving a damn how much Player X is due to get for switching his shirt while the rest of America loses theirs, but so far, I feel like I want to invest in this baseball hot stove season about as much as I would stock in Circuit City.
It wasn’t always like this. Used to be a time when I looked forward to baseball’s offseason with nearly as much anticipation as Opening Day, a three-month period of picking up and putting down the pieces for the six-month-long chess match the following year, filled with fascinating signings, intriguing possibilities, and enough dubious decisions to fill the playbook of the Republicans’ 2008 presidential game plan.
This year, though, the prospect of having to hear Scott Boras’s name every morning for the next 90 days, give or take, has me ready and wanting to ignore everything surrounding the game until pitchers and catchers. Yes, Scott, tell me why Jason Varitek, who reminded Red Sox fans more of Damon Berryhill than the incumbent Boston captain, is worth a contract as ludicrous as the $52 million one handed to Jorge Posada. Explain to me how it is, exactly, that Derek Lowe can be “Bob Gibson-ish” in the playoffs, but more coincidentally how he’s done it twice with a contract on the line. And as far as Manny Ramirez is concerned, be ready when he tries to work LMontro into whatever deal he signs.
By the time the Yankees are done tossing cash at Ben Sheets and CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira gets his payday, and Ramirez signs some insane deal, around $1 billion will have been spent by baseball owners this offseason, an incomprehensible number for millions of fans in this day and age of a subterranean economy.
So, forgive me if I don’t want to hear Boras on a daily basis tell me why his first baseman client is worth $250 million.
Still, some see baseball as bullet-proof in the completely unstable economy.
“If you examine history,” Jeff Borris of the Beverly Hills Sports Council, told USA Today,” during the worst economic times, people spend whatever they can to entertain themselves. And baseball still is the cheapest form of entertainment.”
Oh. Thank goodness someone from Beverly Hills was on hand to deliver this much-needed information.
This is nothing new, for sure, the quiet whining about sports stars’ salaries and increased ticket prices in a world where hundreds of thousands struggle to feed and clothe their families. Coming off a season during which baseball celebrated yet another record attendance, it’s not like it’s exactly going to be more valid than ever before amongst the sport’s most ardent fans. And really, it’s not like the realities of the situation aren’t a new fathom. It’s just that while we expect Ramirez and Teixeira are going to find their paydays, we ought to shudder at the thought of Peter Angelos tossing $100 million at the likes of A.J .Burnett, thus tossing the pricing structure for players even further out of whack.
But there is another, perhaps somewhat new, reason to be disinterested in the free agent process of winter: If the 2008 season taught baseball fans anything, it was about the brilliant jobs that teams can do by building from within, a concept the Yankees have yet to grasp, and won’t this offseason either.
After all, the Tampa Bay Rays won the AL East and made it to the World Series largely on the strengths of their farm system. To a lesser degree, the Red Sox made the postseason thanks to what they’ve been able to build on their ladder of baseball talent, with high-priced free agents like J.D. Drew mixed into the works.
Sound free-agent decisions in the offseason are one thing.Tossing boatloads of cash at a numbers player (Alex Rodriguez, anyone?) who, gee, happened to have a career season at just the right time (Burnett, anyone?) is a foolhardy way to plan long-term for your baseball team.
Francisco Rodriguez is going to be paid some $15 million per season in all likelihood. Jonathan Papelbon might get a raise next season for a couple million. Which would you rather have?
The oft-injured Sheets is in for a big payday as well, yet he’s never won as many games as Jon Lester in 2008 (16). Lester made less than $500,000 last season. Which would you rather have?
That’s not to suggest the Red Sox should refrain from big-time free agent signings, and on the contrary, should be in on the play for Teixeira. But what they’ve built in the farm system has helped to limit the mistakes that all teams are apt to make on the free-agent market, when all players are overrated on the sales of their agents. Who’s the last big-time, long-term free agent signing you can think of that resulted in both on-field results and pennants? Ramirez, the first time around? That was eight years ago.
As much production as the Yankees have gotten out of guys like A-Rod, Mike Mussina, Johnny Damon, and Jason Giambi, it’s perhaps not coincidental that they haven’t won a World Series title since 2000, the season before George Steinbrenner opened the purse stings to ink Mussina to a then-gargantuan six-year, $88 million deal. Every year since has brought a new big-name free agent to New York, every season still without a title to show for them all.
And so we enter another season of overpaying for players, many of whom won’t come close to production enjoyed during their contract year. I’m interested to see whether or not the Sox keep Varitek around, of course. I just don’t want to hear Boras try and spew some set of numbers I’m supposed to believe have some semblance of truth to them. If the man thinks Varitek – at 37 next season – is worth four years and $52 million, I’m more afraid for the GM that believes him than for his overall sense of reality, which is quite obviously already cooked.
But now, for the first time in a long time, local baseball fans are beginning to remember the excitement of watching a club built from within, whether that be witnessing the blossoming of prospects, or enjoying the prime years of other players those same farmhands may bring back in return via trade. The only big free agent the Red Sox signed a year ago was their own – Mike Lowell. This time around, they’re not likely to feel forced into the bidding for Sabathia because they already have a lefty who won one fewer game than the big guy, and already has measurably more success in the postseason.
You want to talk about the ’09 prospects of Jed Lowrie, Justin Masterson, and Michael Bowden? I’m all ears. You want to break down Boras’ “book” defending the high price tag of Varitek? Pass.
It’s just difficult to listen to someone defend something so ludicrous in the name of getting him a paycheck that would make most baseball-loving citizens drool with envy. Only in America can you have an OPS of .672 and have your agent make you believe you you’re worth $12 million more than when you were good.
Oh, and someone tell Manny last we checked, gas was down, the deficit was up. Forgive me if I’m more concerned about that than if he cracks $100 million again.
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