If a guy who bats .300 with power and is a good second baseman isn’t “fun to watch” I have no idea who is. What would make him more fun to watch? Juggling flaming torches?
Dustin Pedroia, for example. Someone who plays with passion, and hustle. Cano acts as if hustle is undignified.
When you’re as talented as Cano, as lot of those things look easy. I never had any issues with his effort. If he was 27 I’d probably be fine with that contract.
Scrappy white guys rule.
I never thought of Cano as dogging it.
Should I do one shot, or two?
Oh, two, please.
Meh, good riddance. He wasn’t a real Yankee, anyway.
Don’t get me started on Mark Teixeira…
What the heck does that mean? :dubious: He came up in the Yankees organization and was first signed by them in 2001. He’s been a Yankee his entire career. What exactly does it take to be a “real Yankee”? Are there any real Yankees on the team aside from Derek Jeter?
This talk of him not being a real Yankee, not playing with passion, not being fun to watch, not performing in the post season, all strikes me as being sour grapes. He was the best player on the team. I’ll be sorry to see him go, although I concede the Yankees were right in not offering the money he was asking for.
If Cano wasn’t a real Yankee, the Yankees had zero good players last year.
This could work out well for the team if they’re going to be more selective about their big signings, and they have several other needs they can fill with this money. But if they had $157 million/7 for Ellsbury and $170/7 million for Cano, they could have found, say, $210 million/8 for Cano and probably kept him. (And yes, that’s still overpaying, but it’s better to pay too much for a better player, is it not?) Cano’s significantly better and more consistently healthy than Ellsbury. That would justify the difference, and even if they couldn’t get Ellsbury for the remaining amount, they could have found other pieces. They had bigger needs than centerfield anyway. It looks like now they’re swapping Granderson and Cano for Ellsbury and Kelly Johnson, which isn’t exactly an upgrade. If they add Choo or Tanaka as well, you can at least see some logic.
And the Yankees have signed Carlos Beltran for $45 million over three years.
Not by himself, no. But this move by the M’s might be enough to convince Kendrys Morales to resign (we need him back in the outfield). If nothing else, this signing (if legit — the M’s haven’t confirmed it yet) sends a message that Seattle is serious about winning. We’ve had a hard time attracting big free agents, and this might help persuade Morales and others to come to Seattle. I’m a diehard M’s fan, win or lose, but I naturally prefer “win”. And it’s been a long damn time.
Really good commentary here, with which I fully agree:
Erm, at DH. Sorry. Beer.
Roy Halladay signed a 1-day contract with Toronto today and the retired as a Blue Jay. He’s only 36 but his shoulder is in bad shape and he apparently decided to hang it up rather than spending a year rehabbing.
He’s an interesting Hall of Fame case. His career was very short for a Hall of Famer, only 2700 or so innings, but for 10 years he was the best pitcher in baseball, an absolute machine from the moment he got back to the big leagues in mid-2001 through the 2011 season. His career WAR is in the mid-60s, the precise number depending on your source. That’s an extraordinary ten-year run; he was in effect more valuable in those 10.5 seasons than a lot of Hall of Famers were in his entire career.
Unfortunately, he got stuck with a team that was okay but not great for most of his run and then when he joined the Phillies they couldn’t make it to the World Series, but you can’t blame Halladay for it. He sure pitched his ass off when he did get a chance in the playoffs.
With only 203 career wins, though, he’ll need a few ballots.
He’ll have my imaginary vote.
I’d say Halladay gets into the Hall of Fame, no problem.
Speaking of getting into the Hall of Fame, the Veterans’ Committee has elected Tony LaRussa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre to the Hall of Fame. I’m not sure that Torre deserves it, I think that given those Yankee teams, Tony Muser could have won four championships. I’m willing to say he was a good manager, though, as he got decent finishes out of some early 80’s Braves teams that totally stank years before and after his tenure. Still, you know that he wasn’t getting into the Hall based on anything other than sitting in the dugout to watch a bunch of superstars ply their trade.
Marvin Miller has once again been voted down, and all the MLBPA leaders have absurdly hyperbolic statements decrying that fact. For example:
Marvin Miller did not contribute to the growth and prosperity of baseball. It made baseball pay more for labor. That’s a drag on growth and prosperity. I’m not saying he did a bad thing - the reserve clause was a terrible injustice - but Major League Baseball’s growth has been very much despite him, not because of him.
His is an interesting case (Halladay’s career). Some of those IP numbers are from some long-forgotten era. But like RickJay said, his career WAS very short by Hall standards. In fact, he’d have the lowest number of innings since Sandy Koufax, who we can all agree was a very special case.
I think I have to lump Doc in with the likes of Saberhagen, Cone, Wells and Rogers - great pitchers of their time, but just not quite good enough. Maybe I’m wrong - pitchers have undergone a really different way of evaluation these days. It was an amazing 10 year run there - is he actually more comparable to Pedro?
And you can see what a drag on prosperity it’s been: team values keep going up and up and up. Miller’s actions were responsible for a great deal of growth and prosperity for baseball players, and I think you could argue that if baseball players were still getting tiny salaries (relative to the NBA and NFL), those athletes would be playing other sports.
Halladay was better than Saberhagen, Cone, Wells, and Rogers but not quite as good as Pedro Martinez. (BTW, is he eligible for the HOF next year?) In terms of the HOF, what will hurt Halladay is the fact his productive years ended relatively early and before he could build up some key career stats. It will be interesting to see how the HOF voters treat Pedro and Curt Schilling because, like Halladay, they ended their careers with win totals in the low 200s (although I am aware wins are not as big a factor in evaluating a pitcher than they used to be).