Days after adding Roki Sasaki, the best starter on the market, the defending champions announced yesterday they're signing Tanner Scott, the best reliever. (A 1.75 ERA, 22 saves last year.) Their roster, already the best in baseball, just added two potential all stars, and all it cost them was money.
Hey, distressed Yank fans, remember how that used to work? Back when our owner wasn't so poor? Back in the early 2000s, when the Bombers supplemented lineups with Mike Mussina and Jason Giambi (though, come to think of it, those teams didn't win a ring, did they?)
Look, anything can happen over a long summer. But from Inauguration Day, it looks as though the 2025 Dodgers have wrapped up the NL West, and they're awaiting MLB's greatest rivalry: Their seven game NLCS with the Mets. There are two marquee teams in baseball, and then there is everybody else. (By the way, that's us, everybody else.)
Look, nobody wants to hear a Yank fan complain about money in sports. I can hear the screams through the internet. HE'S whining about somebody buying a pennant? Remember when we used to be the bullies? Remember how people raged at us, frothing at the mouth - especially Redsock fans. Remember how much fun that was? Ah, those were the days...
While the Dodgers spent last week - well - spending, the miserable Yankees looked to wheedle a middling infielder from somebody, anybody, who would take Marcus Stroman off their grubby hands. Their goal was to cut $17 million from the payroll, due to a bum contract the Yankees signed last winter. If they can ditch Stroman, they can bestow another bum contract on somebody else, who they will desperately seek to trade next winter, right around now. The big wheel will keep turning.
Look, I get it that we should go easy on Los Angeles. The city is physically and emotionally scarred, and the Rams just lost a tough one. I hate to sound cynical, but the media has already latched onto that fat old lie - that a sports team can restore hope and love to an anguished city. It's a Hollywood trope. It's We Are Marshall, Remember the Titans, Brian's Song and even Pride of the Yankees. And it's bullshit. This is a world where Juan Soto will make $765 million, plus a luxury box, and Shohei Ohtani's closest pal lost millions while betting on games, and Ohtani skated. The Dodgers are not The Bad News Bears. They're a team of mercenaries owned by a billionaire oligarch, and even if they lose their first 10 games in April, they will still lead the NL West by 10 games in September. And the Yankees will continue to rest on laurels built a quarter century ago.
I wish the best for everyone who has lost a home - or worse. And come opening day, when the Dodgers hoist their championship flag, I hope it brings you some form of joy. But having been there, a long time ago, I warn you: In the end, you'll still be standing in a line, waiting for something that won't deliver. But you don't wanna hear it from me.
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12 comments:
Team by team, reporters baffled,
trumped, tethered, cropped
Look at that low plane, fine, then
Uh oh, overflow, population, common group
But it'll do, save yourself, serve yourself
World serves its own needs,
listen to your heart bleed
Tell me with the Rapture
and the reverent in the right, right
You vitriolic, patriotic,
slam fight, bright light
Feeling pretty psyched
AA, you have completely befuddled me.
Btw, Bleeding Yankee Blue has a post about a possible investigation into the Dodgers' financial shenanigans and possibly rigged landing of Sasaki. The Yankees are among the teams that are pressing Manfred to look into the Dodgers. Even if nothing comes of it, it's kind of interesting.
JM - It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine) lyrics - REM
JM - Interesting. The thing that makes it all so silly in a way is that an international free agent is just that, a free agent. He didn't need to do a fake dog and pony show and pretend to be having a real search. He could have just signed with LA. The money was going to be the same or too close to matter.
I think that the Mets, Yanks, and Blue Jays are pissed off that they wasted their time and money (and possibly hope) on a guy who was never gong to sign with them.
As I said above Roki was free to pick. He should have just done so instead of this manipulation of the media, the fans, and baseball. I'm glad the Dodgers will be investigated but, this is a team and a league that let Ohtani get away with big time gambling. So, if you're hoping for justice, don't hold your breath.
Great song, AA! Though I don't know about the "I feel fine" line anymore...
Two things on this. One: Doug, you're right...except that I don't think the Yankees were ever serious about signing him. That's one of the most frustrating thing. The Yanks continue to believe—or pretend to believe—that they are not in auctions for free agents. They seem to have a pre-set limit as to what they are going to offer, and don't do anything else, at any time, to try to get people to come here.
Thank goodness Judge wanted to stay in NYC, or he would be long gone, too.
Of course, it could all be a total fake, and if someone like Roki had said, 'Hell, yeah! I loooove me some Broadway!' I suspect the Yanks' best offer would have vanished.
Two, El Duque's fine post mentions the good old days, when we actually pursued leading free agents. Even then, however—probably because Cashface was already in charge—we didn't go after them the way LA is now.
I remember how, when Giambi came on board, he tried to sell the Yanks on Johnny Damon. The year Mussina was a free agent, Manny was on the market, too. Why not both? And why not sign Sheffield AND Vlad? Or Stanton AND J.D. Martinez?
I was for all that, at the time (and also for all sorts of really stupid grabs, such as Tony Womack), but...why not? I think the Yanks at the time were afraid that it would be too much, and MLB would come down on them.
But what do we have? Gee, LA figured out a whole other to manipulate the money, and went for it all.
Not our penny-pinchers. We get to watch Paul Goldschmidt on first when we could have had the Polar Bear, and I-Don't-Know on third. Great.
Lenny Bruce is not amused.
Oh. Yeah, wouldn't have known that in a million years. That was after they started mixing Stipe's voice so you could hear the words, too.
I won't, Doug.
I remember that I never thought the Yanks wouldn't re-sign Tino after a clutch 35 HR year. He was too good. But of course, Cash let him go and went for Giambi, who broke down when he tried to get off steroids. As soon as they signed Giambi as Tino's replacement, I told my wife, "This is really bad karma. Not keeping Tino is going to come back to bite us." And we had one ring in the time since.
Karma is a bitch, Cashie.
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