I like what is going on in baseball right now. The Winter Meetings are taking place and agents are talking to players and owners and GMs about big signings. The big names out there, Francisco Rodriguez, Mark Texiera, Manny Ramirez, CC Sabathia, all will get huge pay days. Big name teams all bidding for these guys; the Red Sox, the Dodgers, the Mets, and the Yankees. I find the most humor in the Yankees, though. They desperately want to be the team that breeds their talent in their farm system. The Rays are the best example of this. They aren't necessarily doing it as a strategy as much as they are out of necessity. When you pack 13,000 a night into your shitty stadium you have no money for the big name free agents. They want to rely on Chamberlain and Hughes, but they don't have the patience...or maybe they just don't have the scouts to recognize "can't miss talent". They overcompensate for these defficencies (lack of patience, bad scouting, lack of team chemistry) by over paying for "talent". Carl Pavano, Bobby Abreu to name two. They are the fat kid who is paying to have friends. They are a collection of great talent that will not win. The Yankees are not a team, but a mirage that big "names" go to, to get paid and when they get there they realize the fucked up; that the pressure was too much for them to handle and they realize they should have stayed in Milwaukee or in Oakland or in Kansas City.
Sabathia will be the same as the rest of them. He is getting 7 years 160 million, which really is 4 years 160 million because no one can expect him to be effective for 7 years. He is 28 and throws more pitches than anyone in baseball. He has never won 20 games. He got hot last year...very hot...in the National League, not the American League. I expect him to be a good pitcher for the Yankees next year. He won't be great. He is a hired gun who might not think its necessary to throw 9 hard innings anymore. With that kind of pay day it doesn't really matter.
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