Fishwrap Pyschoses - The Season is Lost if the Big Dollar Players Don't Get Signed
MAJOR BLOGS - 12.06.06 - There is a certain kind of psychoses amongst major league sports reporters... Mass delusional thinking, or just too many years being brainwashed by the mega deals of the majors. Much of the buzz around the big Dolphin hotel Christmas tree has been about this rumored deal or that. The teams are different in each little hive of smart guys, but notion remains the same: Unless the clubs pony up x-million to free agent player-y, their season will be lost before it even starts.For those of you who missed the Florida Marlins in 2006, including several million of you in South Florida, Jeffrey Loria proved once again that you can buy a bunch of very talented kids on the cheap and have them play better as a team than a lot of veteran clubs.
Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez, amongst others, were poo-pooed by the baseball elite, but they turned it on enough to be a contender that almost made the post-season. In 2007, with a few modest changes, they have a decent shot to make it into the NLCS.
This "It can't be good if it doesn't cost a fortune" thinking of the major league media is killing baseball. Just as the national political media should have stood up and asked a few questions before the United States rolled into Iraq, shouldn't someone up in the "big league" media begin to question why teams like the Red Sox would shell out $70 million for an attitude case like J.D. Drew? The 100 RBI season was nice, but he has generally been a half to three-quarter burner player most of his career.
You would think that the mountain of money stacked up under Drew's spot in the outfield would be enough to make him live up to the super-star potential and bat over .300 along with all those RBIs, but little seems to move J.D. from place to place other than his paycheck. Is he better than Trot Nixon, who will be replaced? Maybe.
Is Drew, at 31, better than some of the talent in development on the farm over the next five years? We'll never really know. John Henry has 14 million reasons a year to hold back a promising player from the farm system, or deal them away.
Some said that Ryan Howard would have trouble being accepted into a Philadelphia market which did really love Jim Thome. Howard proved that fans' love is fickle. Unlike Drew, who has yet to be 100%, Howard gave the Phillies 150% and fell just a small handful shy of smashing Maris' record in his rookie year. Now in Philly it's Jim who?
You can buy a lot of quality, hungry top farmhands for the jack that J.D. jacked out of the Red Sox. Perhaps its just laziness that keeps major media from looking down on the farm to fix a few problems that the major league clubs with lofty budgets like the Sox and the Yanks have.
Two years ago, the Red Sox were on the organic diet, and it yielded a spectacular bumper crop of great players that are doing other clubs a whole lot of good. This year seems to be the Twinkie Diet, with the club gorging on empty calorie, high dollar trades that get the rubber stamp from the fishwrap cognoscenti.
Out.
Brian Ross
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