Hot Stove Baseball

It’s been a disastrous off-season so far.  Shohei Ohtani went to the Angels.  Derek Jeter, still working for the Yankees, traded Giancarlo Stanton to them (or alternately, sabotaged them with a high-priced/injury prone player).  At least the Giants picked up Evan Longoria from the Rays for some spare parts.  This was a great deal . . . two years ago.  At this point in Evan’s career with five years left on his contract, I’m not entirely sure.  The change of scenery should boost his numbers for at least next season.  We’re still waiting to see where the free agent Royals will end up.  The Pirates may be about to disband.  Thank goodness.  After all, the Yankees still have some positions they need all-stars at.  I’ve had a great run with World Series winners for the last decade.  I’m afraid that may be coming to an end for the next.   

So, I’m listening to ESPN Radio in the morning during my vacation.  (I know what you’re thinking, “Why?”  Because I needed something to listen to while I’m exercising.)  There are these two idiots on in the morning.  (Who cares what their names are.  Everyone on ESPN Radio is basically just a mouthpiece for the people running the network.)  Monday, one of them started crying on the air as he read the resignation letter of the head of ESPN because of declining revenue . . . err . . . pill popping.  I’m sure this guy hasn’t been doing drugs all along, but as long as the network was making money, it was okay.  The crying host made sure to mention that this guy did so much for minorities.  Actually that was the only accomplishment he mentioned.  I’m sure minorities are ever so grateful for his support, which wasn’t detailed in any way.   It’s almost like it was just words, and I’m sure this wasn’t just virtue signaling to promote the Crier’s career.     

Two days later, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred was announced as the guest later in the show.  “Oh, good,” I thought, “Some offseason baseball talk.”  Ominously, the Crier said he was going to go after Manfred because of what’s been going on with the Marlins this winter (and to somehow bolster his flagging manhood).  Sure enough, the Crier started off the interview by calling Manfred a liar.  It just got more contentious from there.  The main problem with the questions was that he was asking the wrong person.  If you dummies had Derek Jeter on, he would have deserved the hard questions about blowing up the current franchise.  (Which has happened for the fourth time in the Marlins’ fairly short existence.)  Manfred doesn’t run the Marlins.  Yelling at him doesn’t do any good. 

The MLB is somehow complicit for allowing this ownership group to buy the team and thus allowing this to happen?  Given that the franchise is apparently pretty deep in debt, dumping salary is the smart move to right the ship economically.  Yes, the guys who own the team are rich, but they didn’t get rich pouring money into money-losing businesses.  Not every new ownership group is going to waste millions upon millions of dollars in bad player deals like the Dodgers’ owners did right after they bought the team.  Getting rid of the star players will probably decrease attendance, but the stars weren’t exactly packing them anyway.  Cutting expenses may help the bottom line more than worrying about revenue. 

Why should anybody in Miami support the team under these conditions, namely a betraying loser in a new taxpayer funded stadium?  They probably shouldn’t.  Actually, except for playoff runs, they haven’t been doing that for franchise’s entire existence.  It’s a bit of a vicious cycle in South Florida: put together a winner or the fans don’t show up, but then the team can’t afford to keep them together, because the fan support isn’t there for the rest of the season regardless.  Finally, Manfred had to take control of the conversation and basically say that this is what teams in small baseball markets have to do to compete, teardown and build up with prospects.  It’s worked for the Royals and the Astros recently; it’s a legitimate, winning strategy.     

The ESPN hosts were proud of themselves after the interview and were pretty sure that the MLB Commissioner wouldn’t be appearing on their show again.  Would these guys treat the NFL or NBA commissioners like this in an interview?  (Only if they wanted to get fired immediately.)  What hard-hitting question would they ask the NFL commissioner anyway?  “Why aren’t you forcing every player to take a knee!”  If Jeter had condescended to go on your little show, you wouldn’t have acted like this.  You couldn’t have asked the hard questions while kissing his ass at the same time.  Apparently the Marlins Man, who is a Marlins fan in spite of all the other teams’ games he goes to, did actually go after Jeter at a press conference.  The ESPN dimwits went after the Marlins Man for wasting Jeter’s precious time.  I don’t object to the misdirected questions (they were legit, but at the wrong person), but the confrontational manner of questioning was unacceptable, because you wouldn’t have done it this way to anyone else in sports.  It’s just the usual agenda of hating baseball taken to its logical conclusion at the four-letter network. 

These jokers didn’t even discuss possible rules changes with Manfred.  They mentioned that horrid “bonus batter” concept before the interview.  (Don’t do it.  Just don’t.)  Then the next ESPN Radio host came on and announced he was quitting.  What a network!  I did have one little, honest question that came up during the interview.  The Crier said that ESPN had bought Fox, and he said it twice, so I don’t think he was misspeaking.  I thought Fox didn’t sell their news and sports divisions to Disney.  Did the regional Fox Sports networks get sold to ESPN?  I don’t know.  This could be a poor development.  ESPN will run them right into the ground.