Baseball

Enough already with the Joe Torre watch. Give me news, when it happens. Not, "no news today" as if that's actual news.

Fridge has an excellent post about the Yankees roster options.

I would like nothing more than to see Johnny Damon traded, and Torii Hunter put into left field. I love that guy. He'd be a most-excellent addition to the pinstripes. Matsui can DH, and give Hunter or Abreu the occasional night off in the field.

The cheap-ass motherfucker Pohlad, who owns the Twins, has some decisions to make, figuring out which of Santana, Hunter, Morneau, etc. to keep. He won't keep all of them, even though he's getting a nice new publicly financed stadium, which I assume he argued would provide the revenue streams necessary to field a competitive team. As in, one with Santana, Morneau, Hunter, etc.

Let that be a lesson to all you Steinbrenner-haters. He loves his team, and spends assloads of money on it. Yes, he has a huge revenue stream, given his market. But there were lean years, in which he put his own personal money into the team to cover deficits. Pohlad, who as an individual is worth billions more than Steinbrenner, and accepts revenue-sharing money in the form of the Yankees' "luxury tax" money, and is getting a free stadium, will not shell out the dough to keep that exciting team together. I only hope the "loser" in that negotiation is Hunter. Come on dooooown!

Regarding Torre? Eh. He's a good manager of people. Dealing with the NYC market as coolly and calmly as he does, and insulating the players as much as possible from management, is not to be underrated. But his pitching and bullpen management is horrific, and his loyalty to "proven veterans" and various unproven "his guys" leads to endless amount of questionable (and outright unquestionably bad) decisions. Can the new pitching coach be given full control of pitching changes? Probably not, politically. I say, bring on Joe Girardi. Today. Time for new blood. But if Torre stays, Steinbrenner (or his sons) need to get down on their fucking knees and apologize to Mel Stottlemeyer and Don Zimmer for the way George continually hung them out to dry, and beg them to come back.

As for A-Rod? This is up to him and Bor-ass too, but here's my math:

Let's use round numbers and say he wants 300/10. Fine. I won't get into any moral arguments about worth (but what about the teachers?) because that's not the point. He plays baseball. Baseball generates billions of dollars for the owners. That doesn't happen without players. The players should get as much of that fucking money as possible. To paraphrase the classic argument, "I don't deserve it, but the owners don't deserve it even more." Does anyone bitch about a movie star who makes $25,000,000 for one fucking shitty movie (maybe three months of work) that generates $600,000,000 in box office? Not nearly as much.

Anyway, back on point, 300/10. Who's going to pay that? The only real candidates are Yanks, Sox, Cubs, Dodgers, Angels.

The Yanks are absolutely justified in holding firm; if you opt out, we're out. But here's the easy solution: if they can agree on what A-Rod will get paid for the next 10 years, just tack on a 7-year extension to the current contract, so that it adds up.

Here's how I see an extension going (assuming 300/10):

2008 - 27
2009 - 27
2010 - 27
2011 - 31.3
2012 - 31.3
2013 - 31.3
2014 - 31.3
2015 - 31.3
2016 - 31.3
2017 - 31.3

He gets his 300 mil, and the Yanks "only" pay $289 of that because Texas is still on the hook for 21 million over the next 3 years. What does he gain by opting out? He just takes another team out of the running.

It's that simple. Agree on what he will make from 2008 through 2017. Subtract the $81 million due over the next 3 years. Divide that number by 7, and you get the yearly rate on the extension. What am I missing here?