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This off-season has already seen the three biggest free agents switch teams for the lure of a nine-figure contract, and two of the biggest names in the game traded to title contenders.
As more and more free agents agree to terms, we begin to see a clearer picture of what to expect next season.
Pitchers and catchers will begin reporting in less than two months and opening day is just over three months away.
With next season rapidly approaching, let’s take a moment to stare into my crystal ball and examine 50 bold predictions for the upcoming year.
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Around 12:30 this morning, my phone buzzed with an e-mail alert, one I was not ready for or expecting.
According to T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com, Cliff Lee has just agreed to sign a five-year deal for about $115 million with the Philadelphia Phillies.
The deal, according to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick, has a vesting option for a sixth year in Philadelphia.
Lee turned down offers from both the Texas Rangers, who had offered five-year and six-year deals to stay with the 2010 American League champions, and the New York Yankees, who had offered a seven-year deal worth about $155 million.
First, let me admit, I got it all wrong with Lee. Really wrong.
I was convinced that Lee was going to come to the Bronx this winter because of the desperate need the Yankees had for starting pitching and because of the Yankees offering the most money.
Usually, the New York Yankees don’t get turned down very often when they offer the most money, like the case two years ago when the Yankees offered seven years and $161 million to get CC Sabathia.
But if you want to look really hard at it, Lee turned down two guaranteed years and $40 million more to go back to Philadelphia. Why?
Does the Game 3 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium stick in the minds of Lee and his wife Kristen, when she and along with other wives of the Rangers had beer and spit thrown into their direction while sitting in the visiting players’ seats?
Lee said that the incidents of that night would not play into his decision. I beg to differ here, because if he wanted to come to New York, he should have done so, say…Thursday?
Read more at bleacherreport.com
Ranking the top 100 baseball players of all-time is no easy task. It’s hard to juggle players from the dead-ball era, the middle 20th century and modern times.
Even more complicated is how to rank players at different positions. Where do you place the game’s dominant closers? How about starting pitchers? No matter how lights-out they may be, they still sat on the bench for most of their teams’ games.
Then, of course, comes the prickly situation of cheating, whether proven, admitted or alleged. Should ballplayers be penalized for the use of performance-enhancing drugs? Corked bats? How about the spitball?
It all adds up to a lively debate that we encourage you to join as Bleacher Report presents The Top 100 Baseball Players of All Time.
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Nick Swisher, the New York Yankees outfielder, will be off the market this weekend when he marries actress Joanna Garcia on Saturday at the Breakers Hotel & Resort in Palm Beach.
“She is my princess. I just could not be more happy,” Swisher told Page Six last month. “It’s just so great to have your best friend with you throughout everything good and everything bad.”
Get to know more about the beautiful Joanna right here.
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It begins already.
As soon as the Boston Red Sox signed Carl Crawford to an absurd seven-year, $142 million contract, ESPN delegated the team as a “bunch of grinders.”
Grinders don’t make $142 million.
Grinders don’t make $68 million like Josh Beckett or $82.5 million like John Lackey, $70 million like J.D. Drew, $62.5 million like David Ortiz, $41.1 million like Kevin Youkilis, $52 million like Daisuke Matsuzaka or $40.5 million like Dustin Pedroia.
A team of grinders is not worth $165 million.
Stop trying to paint the Boston Red Sox as some sort of winning with a small market team like the Tampa Bay Rays, the Minnesota Twins or the Oakland Athletics, so that fans of the other 29 teams won’t hate them as much.
They are not.
Granted, I will give Theo Epstein the benefit that he spends money on the right players with a mixture of home-grown players and trades for prospects far more than the New York Yankees, who simply overpay the biggest name on free agency, no matter who it is or what their history.
Or in this year’s case, the Yankees overpay old way past their prime guys rather than focus on what’s good for the team.
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One of the most often said phrases is “Keeping up with the Joneses,” a catchphrase referring to the comparison to one’s neighbor as a benchmark for social status or the accumulation of material goods. To fail to “keep up with the Joneses” is perceived as demonstrating socio-economic or cultural inferiority.
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan built up the Star Wars defense initiative and the Soviet Union tried to keep up but went bankrupt. Not until the Russians privatized their state industries did the Russian Mafia become the wealthy capitalists they are now.
In the case of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, it would be baseball inferiority, with the Yankees leading the way and Red Sox trying to keep up. Yanks get Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett, the Red Sox get scared and re-sign Josh Beckett and go out and sign John Lackey.
So when the Boston Red Sox did not advance past the first round of the playoffs in 2009, getting swept by the Los Angeles Angels, and then FAILED to make the post season last year, they have to do something else now, right?
The Red Sox must be thinking, “We can’t let the Evil Empire go out and get Cliff Lee. And now they are talking about getting Carl Crawford?”
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