This week starts spring training and it’s time to talk baseball. Looks like the Yankees and Rangers are about to announce a deal sending A-Rod to the Bronx for Soriano and someone to be named later. What do you think of this?
Yankees end: Great deal! A-Rod fixes that hole at third base after Boone’s injury and finally giving up on n’er-to-be Drew Henson. Don’t know who will be at second but who cares? Soriano is a great talent, but he refuses to play with any discipline at all and in the post season, turns into Chokeiano.
Rangers end: They save money. Get a new second baseman. Team goes downhill. Team gives away their best player since a certain future politician dealt Sammy Sosa.
The commissioner’s office and the players union still need to approve it. The PU stuck their nose in where it didn’t belong a couple of months ago. What are the chances of them doing it again? And failing that, hopefully the commissioner’s office will take some initiative and stand up to the Yankees.
Despite having the highest payroll in their division, the Rangers have come LAST in the AL West every season for the last four years. I’m not sure how much further downhill they can go. Maybe they’ve learned that high payrolls don’t always translate to winning season, especially if so much cash goes to one or two players.
As for the trade itself? Nothing new in the world of Moneyball.
The union interfered because the REd Sox wanted Rodriguez to take less money in return for nothing. They’re obligated to prevent the precedent of guaranteed contracts being not guaranteed.
Since the Yankees-Rangers deal apparently does not involve such a condition, they haven’t any reason to object to it.
And the commissioner’s office has no rationale for stopping it, either.
Sadly, we’re stuck with this increasingly ridiculous situation.
Oh, good heavens. I’m not a Yankee fan, but has anyone forgotten that the Yankees have not won a World Championship in the last three years despite their astronomical payroll? The season’s not over yet.
Let Steinbrenner spend, spend, spend. Let the luxury tax do its work, the low-income teams will get some extra payroll money to throw around, and we’ll have an exciting season and post-season like we did the last few years.
What I don’t get in this latest A Rod trade talk is how he’s automatically willing to plug the hole at 3rd for the Yankees,while in the Bosox deal he was pencilled in to bump Nomar out of his spot.
I think he would move to third for Jeter and not for Nomar.
If the luxury tax works, what is the problem? Yanks put into the pot, other teams draw out and get more competitive. The Yankees aren’t doing anything that the Red Sox didn’t try to do.
Part of the Commissioner’s job description is (was?) “to act in the best interests of the game,” and the Commissioner’s office was essentially given the power to do just that. Bud believes (or appears to believe, anyway) that anything that’s good for competitive balance is in the best interests of baseball. This, of course, isn’t good for competitive balance, and by Bud’s logic, isn’t good for baseball. There’s your rationale.
Now Bud has to actually act in accordance with his job description, and his track record in that area isn’t all that great.
I beg to differ. Jeter often makes spectacular defensive plays and is in no way “crappy.” He was definitely not up to his usual standard in '03, partly because of injuries. This is not to contend that A-Rod is not also excellent.
A-Rod definitely has the arm to play 3rd base. Jeter does not. Jeter is probably over-rated defensively but is still not a liability as shortstop. Rodriguez will make the transition as smoothly as Ripken did.
It is amazing how much I loved baseball growing up (in the late 70’s and 80’s) and even more amazing how much I hate it now and it gets worse and worse every stinkin’ year.
Harder? Perhaps. That’s a subjective judgment, based on issues of where you pick the ball up, what hand you throw with, etc.
But longer? Unless my elementary geometry fails me, assuming that SS and 3B are playing similar perpendicular distances from 3rd base path, the throw from 3B to 1B is always gong to be longer than the throw from SS to 1B.
