Being Rich and Stupid

Now that our Boys of Summer are actually on the fields in Fort Myers, there’s plenty of people down there writing about it. I’m not down there yet (25 days and counting before I’m there, though!), so I’ll write about other stuff today.

Albert Pujols

I know I already wrote a full post on the subject a while back, but now that Albert Pujols has reported to the Cardinals’ Spring Training without a contract in place and has reaffirmed that the negotiations won’t resume until November when he hits free agency, it’s hard not continue drawing parallels with the Joe Mauer situation a year ago.

I know some people say one difference is that Mauer certainly would have had both the Yankees and Red Sox bidding for him on an open market, but that those two teams would likely not be bidding up the price on Pujols, since they both will have All-Star first basemen already on board with multi-year contracts. I’m sorry, but I don’t believe for a moment that, should Pujols actually file for free agency, one, or more likely both, of those teams wouldn’t make a serious play for the best hitter in baseball.

Boston has a ton of money coming off the books after this season (none of it regarding players they should try too hard to keep) and everyone knows the Yankees don’t have a payroll limit. Anyone who thinks that these teams wouldn’t go after Pujols because they already have first basemen under contract apparently hasn’t heard that the American League has adopted this new-fangled thing called a Designated Hitter. David Ortiz’s contract with the Red Sox is up after 2011 and they’d happily let him go to make room for Pujols; and last I heard, the Yankees were looking for Jorge Posada to be their primary DH. Hmmmm… Posada or Pujols… I dunno… that’s a REAL tough choice.

Here’s another thing I don’t understand about the Pujols deal. Why the heck would Pujols’ agent let him do something so stupid as to set a purely artificial “deadline” for reaching an agreement, like the “opening of Spring Training”? In doing so, he’s yielded the high ground to the Cardinals, who get to say, “we are willing to talk whenever Albert wants to talk”. They come off looking like the only reasonable parties while Pujols let’s himself get cast as the greedy jerk who’s trying to blackmail his mid-market ballclub.

The whole “I don’t want it to be a distraction” thing is bull. Does he really think nobody is going to talk about the situation all year just because he’s said he won’t negotiate? When he won’t answer questions about it, reporters will just keep asking his team mates about it (no distraction there, right?). EVERY series with the Cubs is going to be accompanied by sidebar articles written about the likelihood Pujols could be calling Wrigley Field home next season and that will happen whether the two sides are still talking or not. So why not keep talking? By the way, yes, I thought the same thing when Mauer’s side set a deadline of the end of Spring Training for reaching a deal last year. It’s just stupid, to me.

Stupid Owners

Speaking of stupid… I’m not sure whether anyone still is under the misperception that the wealthiest people in the world all got that way because they are inherently smarter than the rest of us, but if so, I think we can now officially put that theory to rest.

Sure, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are examples of people who had brilliant ideas and earned bajillions of dollars by bringing those ideas to the marketplace. But for every Steve Jobs, there’s also a Fred Wilpon. Whenever I even think for a moment about questioning the way the Pohlad family runs the Twins organization, all I have to do to feel better is spend 10 minutes reading pretty much anything written about these owners:

Fred Wilpon – Mets: Just when we thought he couldn’t make ANY decision worse than hiring Steve Phillips and Omar Minaya as GMs, we find out he also find a way to not only get swindled by Bernie Madoff, but also manage to get sued by the other victims (each of them a rich and stupid person in his/her own right, most likely) of Madoff’s scheme… and he could lose his baseball team as a result. By the way… hey, Johan, how’s that decision to force a trade to the Mets looking right now?

Jamie and Frank McCourt

Frank McCourt – Dodgers: Note to all owners… never let your spouse help you run your baseball team… even if she’s actually better at it than you are (in fact, ESPECIALLY if she’s better at it than you are)… and if you’re dumb enough to do that, don’t compound your stupidity by trying to throw her out over something as trivial as a little infidelity. After all, in Los Angeles, isn’t that pretty much expected?

Arte Moreno – Angels: Face it, we knew he was stupid when he gave Torii Hunter a deal that was worth twice what anyone else was offering, but to trade with Toronto for the privilege of taking over their payments to Vernon Wells is an even dumber move. If only the Twins had known they could have given Torii an absurd long term contract and just kept him for one or two productive seasons and then dumped him on the Angels for the last few years!

UPDATE… Miggy: In the comment section, AW appropriately inquires how I could do a “Being Rich and Stupid” post and not mention Tigers’ All-Star Miguel Cabrera. As I responded in the comments, I felt it was a sad situation and was inclined to hold off jumping on him immediately… hoping he’d finally get the help he needs. Then I read thisand this (via Baseball Outsider’s links)… and now, I’m officially ready to say, “Wow are you stupid!” Not so much at Miggy (though clearly he has behaved stupidly), but for now, assigning the label to the Tigers organization. They’re going to pay this guy $106 million over the next five years and despite his past and current behaviors, the first words out of the mouths of their GM and Manager are to reassure the fans that they want their All-Star drunk in camp as soon as possible and that he won’t miss any playing time. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d be more concerned with looking at how to make sure I’m not throwing money down a well for the next five years than whether he’s going to miss any time for the next few weeks. A little tough love might be in order here, but get the man some help, for cryin’ out loud.

A Couple of Non-stupid Links

I like Brian Wilson (the Giants’ closer, not the Beach Boy… well I like Beach Boys music, too, but that’s a bit off subject). Check out this Q&A with Wilson from Jon Wertheim at si.com. I think the Twins should trade for Wilson. After all, if you’re going to have two closers on your team, why not just go ahead and have three? And Wilson thinks a lot like I do… or at least a lot like I would like to think I would think if I were a Major League pitcher.

Joe Sheehan, also at si.com, might have had the best single line I read this week, in his article on the opt-out clause in Captain Cheeseburger’s contract with the Yankees: “Opt-out clauses are the most player-friendly part of baseball since groupies.” Hmmm… opt-out clauses and groupies… I really should have worked harder to develop a good sinking fastball when I was in high school. Ah well, probably too late to do anything about it now.

That’s it for today. Have a great weekend!

– JC

Late Night: Joe Mauer & Jimmy Fallon

For all those who didn’t stay up late enough to catch Joe’s late night TV debut, I thought I would pass it along. Quite frankly, this kind of thing is just as well watched the next day in my opinion.

But it is nice for the Twins to get a little national attention of the positive variety! And I love that Joe is called Baseball’s Anti-LeBron!

Off-season Photo Farewell

With all the off-season signings that took several of our Twins to other teams, we thought we would take a moment to bid a fond farewell with a little photo montage of some of our memories of their time with the Twins.  Obviously, for those that had been with us longer, I had a LOT more time to take pics of them.

Since we won’t get to see their adorable faces (or other features of choice) on the field this spring, here’s an opportunity for you to get one last look of Guerrier, Crain, Fuentes, Rauch, Hardy, Punto, Hudson and Harris in Twins uniforms.  We really do with you all the best with your new teams guys!

More Sunday Morning “Goofiness”

Since the baseball off-season kind of sucks for those of us who aren’t needing the vacation, I’m watching a lot of football.  Most of us seem to do some of that on Saturdays and Sundays lately.

So even though is a baseball oriented blog, I thought I would share a little entertainment in the vein of our current sports distractions.

Twins to sign new TV/radio deal… and Mauer, too?

I hadn’t seen or heard anything about this in any of the “usual” online sources for Twins’ news that I read rather religiously (doesn’t mean it wasn’t there… I may have missed it), but Peter Gammons had this little nugget in his mlb.com report on the Twins:

“… regardless of the weather, the Twins will realize a significant bump in revenues with their new park. They’re about to sign a new radio and TV deal.

‘It’s not quite a Seattle deal,’ said one club official, but another says it will put the Twins within ‘the top 8-10 revenue teams,’ giving them a higher payroll than the Dodgers.”

Seriously? Although I guess maybe the whole soap opera revolving around the divorce of the Dodgers’ owner might be inhibiting the Dodgers’ payroll and, if so, maybe it’s not as big a deal as it sounds. I just assumed the Dodgers probably were one of the $100+ million payroll clubs.

I suppose it’s foolish to hope this new TV/radio deal will mean I’ll actually be able to watch/listen to Twins games in Eastern Iowa.

In any event… now that they’ve got this TV/radio contract pretty much ironed out, maybe they can make some progress on another contract issue of significant interest to the fan base.

UPDATE: Those of you who actually live in/near the Twin Cities probably can opine about the reliability of “Common Man”, but Jesse over at TwinkieTown posted a link to Common’s podcast in which he claims to have a source with a “family member with the Twins” who says a Joe Mauer contract agreement will be signed by Sunday. Eight years @ $22 mil per year plus a couple of option years. Sounds a bit like one of those “friend of a friend of a friend who has a sister who dates the janitor” kinda things to me… but who knows? We can hope, anyway.

Better than a Good Day Anywhere Else

I’m a baseball fan, particularly of the Minnesota Twins. I’m not a baseball analyst or any kind of expert. Just a fan.

But apparently I’m a fan who’d like to share a few of her thoughts about the Twins with more people than just her baseball-loving friends and coworkers. The first thoughts I’ll be sharing are about our intro topic, the dreaded offseason.

When the offseason first arrives, it’s nice to catch my breath, especially after a whirlwind like what was the last week or so of the Twins’ 2009 season. And sure, when I’m ready to put the season behind me there are plenty of distractions that attempt to fill the void, like football or Christmas or the Winter Olympics, but as much as I might enjoy them at the time, they’re just not the same as sitting at the ballpark with a Dome Dog (*sigh*) in one hand and my scoring notebook in the other (this is not actually a feat I can accomplish — how can I hold a pencil and napkin too?), watching nine blessed innings of my favorite baseball team.

I always have big plans for the offseason because I have a lot of things I still want to learn (remember that part about how I’m not an expert?). Such as, how is it other people I watch games with seem to have some sort of innate ability to be able to tell what type if pitch was just thrown? How have I not picked that up by now? How does everyone but me remember minute details about seemingly every single game that’s ever been played? Sometimes I think that maybe if I can just watch enough replays during the offseason I might be able to have more intelligent baseball discussions, but I always end up too busy to try the experiment.

The one good thing about the offseason is that we have something to look forward to when the long, dark winter is over. Because as the saying goes, a bad day at the ballpark is better than a good day anywhere else. Especially when stuff like in the following photo happens (and pay no mind to the uniform; he’ll always be a Twin to me).

Doug M. 4/11/07

Rumor Addict!!!!

Hey Knuckelballs!

My name is Babs and I’m an addict…  Alright, as baseball fans, why are we so in love with the rumor mill?  I LIVE for hot stove news about my team.  I keep my eye out for news on other teams that might somehow change things in division competition.  I follow every player on my team on Twitter and when we add a new player, I add them.  Does Joe Mauer have a contract yet?  Do we know who is going to play 3B yet?  Did you see how excited Pat Neshek is to throw a ball?  I’m sure that the baseball writers are glad that we are like this because it keeps people coming to websites to keep reading even when there aren’t any games or scores to follow!  So when the Twin Cities rumor mill blows up because a sports reporter gets a little too excited that contracts are under discussion, is that a symptom that we are living with an unhealthy obsession?  Is it contagious???  I don’t know and most of the time I don’t care because I have a ready source of the news drug that fuels my addiction.  Of course, I think the obvious sensitivity to such over-reaction is most definitely a symptom of one thing – the off-season is TOOOOO long.  I’m hanging on by my fingernails until that first pitch is thrown. 

Of course, I don’t promise to watch the rumor mill any LESS once baseball season actually starts!  😉

A Crikket in winter

Rogers Hornsby is quoted as having said, “People ask me what I do in the winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

Thanks to the internet, we can do much more than Rogers Hornsby. We can debate and speculate. We can rant and predict future successes (or failures). We can praise and criticize. And we can laugh at the BitchSox (Mark Teahan? REALLY?).

Spring Training camps have opened and that means a new baseball season is close enough on the horizon to begin serious (or not so serious) discussions about the Twins’ first year of outdoor home games during the lifetimes of a significant number of their fans. (Alas, as one who was old enough to be a young fan when the Senators moved in to Metropolitan Stadium, I’m not among that number.)

Since we decided to make our thoughts on the “offseason” the inaugural topic for our brand-spanking-new blog, I’ve been trying to come up with something intelligent and yet witty to write on the subject. Sure, I have thoughts regarding JJ Hardy, Orlando Hudson, Jim Thome, et al, but those topics have pretty much been beaten to death by postings and comment section in the other 4,391 Twins-based blogs.

This, of course, is where one might ask us why we felt Twins’ Blogdom needed a 4,392nd Twins-based blog. That’s a fair question, too. But then you have to think about that word “need”. Of course, another Twins blog isn’t “needed”. But when three Twins fans like us have so much wit, wisdom, and imagination to offer, the answer becomes clear. Twins fans deserve, nay they NEED, the benefit of our combined wit, wisdom and imagination!

So, now, as I approach the word limit that Babs has imposed on me*, I struggle to summon all of my wit, wisdom and imagination and come up with something that adequately expresses my feelings about the offseason.

*as we begin this endeavor, this tells me two things about Babs. 1) she thinks I tend to get a bit “wordy” at times; and 2) she’s assuming the role of “sergeant-at-arms” for the blog… which could lead to some interesting discussions down the road.

Now, it has dawned on me that, being a blog, we aren’t subject to all of those pesky “ethical” standards that “real” writers are bound by. So I’m free to plagiarize what others have written about the offseason. And with 4,391 other Twins blogs to steal from, there’s no shortage of material out there. However, recalling what my college journalism professor taught us (yes, I was a journalism major at the University of Arkansas… for 6 weeks), “if you’re going to plagiarize, steal from only the best.” (Clearly, ethics weren’t a high priority at the Razorback School of Journalism.)

So with that in mind, let me steal from the Best. Twins. Blog. EVER. In the words of Batgirl (and I know they’re her words because I have a sweatshirt she sold with these words across the chest):

The Offseason Sucks!