Et tu, Jeetus? The annual GM meetings - baseball's version of college break at Daytona - begin today at DisneyWorld, and amid the Jello shots and hazing porn, there is talk that the Miami Marlins, or the Florida Marlins - whatever, Derek Jeter's new acquisition - is parading around Giancarlo Stanton on an elevated silken pillow, like pubescent Brooke Shields in the 1978 movie, Pretty Baby, which might have given us a clue about Hollywood's sensibilities towards pedophilia, if anybody back then had wanted to know.
One key to these five days of debauchery is whether the Martians will trade Giancarlo Stanton - MLB's greatest slugger outside of the Home Run Derby - for an Andy Phillips and two Domingo Jeans, plus a dump truck full of money, because Stanton's contract is the biggest pro sports boondoggle since Vince McMahon launched the XFL. Hence, Redsock fans - who know a thing or two about boondoggles, 'cause they've seen a thing or two about boondoggles - are giddy with hope.
Their acid-inspired fantasies go this way: The Marlins - desperate to shed a contract that runs 10 more years at $295 million - will take anything that majestic Boston offers them, as long as it comes with a nice plump check. If you look at Stanton - an injury-prone .268 career hitter, whose previous two seasons (27 HRs, twice) had made him untradable - you can understand why Miami wants out ASAP. The guy hit 59 HRs last year, and at 27, it's now or never to move him. Sluggers go south in a hurry, and Miami has seen enough to know it want to be seated comfortably in a chair before the music stops. So the question is simple: What would Jeter accept for Stanton, and would he - could he - undermine the Yankee hopes by selling the behemoth to Boston?
I hate to think of Jeter as an adversary. It's fundamentally wrong. He's still family, right? Last intro before Whitey on Old-Timers Day, right? But in recent weeks, he has raided the Yankee front office (farm system director Gary Denbo and an assistant), and the Rule 5 draft is coming fast. Surely, the Marlins know about every Yankee prospect currently stashed in some Brazilian rain forest league, and they'll pounce, once the selections begin. Okay, that's Chinatown, Jake. It's how the game is played. But here's a greater concern:
If John Henry - the Boston sugar daddy, who financed David Price ($157 million through '22), Pablo Sandoval ($42 million through '20) and Rusney Castillo ($36 million, through '20) without flinching - offers to accept the Stantonian whale, and even throw in a couple Pawtucketonians, will Jeter take the money and run... effectively stabbing his former team in the back?
All's fair in love and war. And this is war. Jeter owes us nothing, and his job is to run the Marlins. I GET that. Also, John Henry has shown no fear about running the Redsock payroll into the stratosphere. As a self-made zillionaire, he seems to realize that his money supply is closer to infinity than to zero, and that the more championships he wins, the less he will be remembered for falling on his yacht and being ambulanced to a hospital after the Popeye's fried chicken debacle of 2011.
Meanwhile, Prince Hal Steinbrenner seems to think he'll be judged in the afterlife by stockholders rather than fans. (Wait - let's stop here: I don't mean to beat on Hal; right now, things are going well.) If Hal lets Boston outspend the Yankees by a huge margin - and thus win the AL East in 2018 - the barbed wire whips will come out. And if Jeet trades Stanton to Boston, he damn well better bleed that franchise of talent, or his bronze plaque in Monument Park will grow a second skin of phlegm and mustard. Trade him to Philly or St. Louis, and noobdy will care. If Stanton goes to Boston, wow... With friends like that, who needs enemies?
Even family can turn on you. Jeter is dead to me now. Time to move on. Once he bought that team in the swamplands, he went over to the other side, which is everybody in my well-thumbed "Book of Paranoia." Your opening line is dead on - "Et tu, Jeetus?"
ReplyDeleteAnd yes on Hal thinking he will be judged more by stockholders than by fans. I said it last season - for the first time in my (arguably) adult life, I have wanted to see the team sold from the House of Steinbrenner to somebody who gives a flying rat's ass about real baseball. Take away Baby Hal's ATM. We need a fanatic at the helm.
He'd trade Stanton to the Red Sox for as little as Jackie Bradley Jr. He's a bitch who doesn't get over grudges. Sorry they didn't offer you a 7 year contract when you were 39, get over it.
ReplyDeletetesting one, two, three...
ReplyDeleteI dunno. Could it be that trading Stanton to the Sox will further inspire us to sign Otani?
ReplyDeleteAnd in any case, Stanton, with his injury history, does indeed have boondoggle written all over him. Might just be the perfect thing for the Carmine Hose.
Plus, let's remember, the Mets will surely be in the running for this potential franchise player. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Let them empty the farm and take on Stanton's bloated contract. I would love to see the redsocks get cleaned out by Jeter.
ReplyDeleteI HOPE THE SOX GET STANTON......
ReplyDelete....IF IT KEEPS THEM FROM GETTING HOSMER.
IF THEY GET BOTH?
WE ARE IN TROUBLE, (HAL WILL NEED TO TAKE IT DOWN TO DEFCON 4), AND HAVE HIS FINGER PLACED ON THE SPENDING BUTTON.
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