RANT OF THE DAY
Blue Jays have done nothing this off-season to dispel their image as a second division team
The Toronto Blue Jays apparently finished second in the bidding for Japanese superstar Yu Darvish—or at least that is the public perception. The Texas Rangers bid $51.7 million to win the rights to negotiate with Darvish. There was a clear notion going into the process that the $51.1 million figure posted for Dice-K Matsuzaka in 2006 by the Boston Red Sox would be the starting point this time. Apparently the Blue Jays, if they did bid, weren’t listening.
Great post-season games and historic final day should push baseball into adding extra playoff round
Not only did three of the four division series go the distance but in each of those series the result was undetermined until the final pitch. If this doesn’t send signals to Major League Baseball that they must do everything possible to have more playoff games then there nothing will.
During baseball’s lengthy regular season the differences in depth culled from higher payrolls is clear —the Yankees can overcome injuries and poor performances much easier than any other team--but in a short series where one or two starting pitchers can make the difference, payrolls have far less meaning and importance. The Yankees with their $200 million payroll had a rookie on the mound in the decided fifth game of their series against Detroit, meanwhile their $16.5 million enigma, AJ Burnett, was on a very short leash in game four. Burnett actually made it to the mound only because game one rain was suspended for one day and forced both clubs to reach deeper into their rotation depth for a starter later in the series. The Yankees preferred to go with three starters for the series since they felt uncomfortable going any deeper, but the rain delay forced them to start Burnett. And in that game if Curtis Granderson doesn’t make a two out bases loaded over the shoulder catch on a Don Kelly line drive then Burnett would likely have been pulled right then with the Yankees down 3-0 and the entire city of New York bemoaning the fact that the club was forced to start the insecure and erratic Burnett. Yankee fans would have blamed God for the weather that pressed Burnett into service.
NBA diminishing return on Hornets in a misguided attempt to create optimum sale value
This has been an embarrassing week for the NBA.
At no time in the history of the league, and likely in the history of professional sports, has a league’s commissioner taken complete control over a particular team’s basketball operations. But that is what has taken place in New Orleans as David Stern has effectively castrated Dell Demps, the Hornets actual GM, and is in the process of devaluing a franchise that the league needs to sell.
The league took control of the Hornets last December, buying out previous owners George Shinn and Gary Chouest for $300 million. Their desire is now to seek out a new ownership group eager to keep the team in New Orleans and it is more than likely that there have been nibbles by various groups. The league realized, and rightly so, that with the lockout the chances or selling the team beforehand was remote, as well some of the issues contained in the new CBA with the players were being negotiated in part to protect the value of the team so it made financial sense to sell the team once the lockout ended. However, once the agreement was signed Chris Paul, the team’s primary player—and it’s lone superstar—publicly indicated his desire to leave the team and said that he would do so at the end of the year as a free agent if he was not moved.
Unwilling to fall into the same trap that befell the Cleveland Cavaliers, with Lebron James, and the Toronto Raptors, with Chris Bosh, and lose their franchise player for nothing the Hornets management team sought out trade possibilities. They believed that they had acquired fair compensation in the three team trade with the Houston Rockets and the LA Lakers, but the league, as the team’s owner, needed to sign off on the deal before it could be finalized. Several owners complained to Stern that the trade was an example of the kind of deal they had gone through the lockout to avoid—having a star player to dictate when he wanted to leave a team and where he wanted to go. Paul wanted to leave the small market Hornets for the large market Lakers. Stern followed the instructions of the dissenting owners and voided the deal.