I/O: Much rejoicing that Cliff Lee did not join Texas or the New York Yankees.
CRUNCH: Dr. D nearly gave up baseball the day that Mike Mussina signed with the Yankees. Well, maybe not, but it was definitely the day he came closest...
I've got no use for fans arguing that payroll differences don't matter. Ask them if they want to play in a $260 roto 5x5 league, where they get to spend $100 to my $260? (Actually, Inside Pitch offered to take me up on this in an Ultra league, where farm systems matter...)
Mercifully, the Yankees have failed to clamp a Manchester United-style hammerlock on American baseball, and it's taken some mammoth incompetence on their part to do so. Anyway, the bottom line is: I've never been happier to see a free agent not sign with somebody, than to see Cliff Lee not sign with the New York Yankees.
.........
We remember the Yankees signing Jason Giambi, back when Giambi was a LH Manny Ramirez plus 10%. Remember that? Giambi was coming off two 200-OPS+ seasons.
George Steinbrenner had the complete and utter gall to gloat, "Jason is our kind of player. He is a great fit for our philosophy of baseball." Gag me with a spoon, Valerie. Yeah, that's why you have a great lineup: you find the right style of player, George. Not just the 187-OPS+ guys who want seven years at market-busting salaries.
Seeing Giambi go to the Yankees was almost as weep-inducing as Mussina, but fortunately Epstein allowed Giambi to bring his urine sample in an ice chest, and Giambi wasn't quite as nuclear in NY as they hoped.
..........
Watching Cliff Lee throw those joyous, 10-seconds-between-pitches, three-hitters for New York would have been a 20-hit-point cut out of my 100 hit points' worth of love for the game of baseball.
It didn't happen. And as far as I can see, Lee never intended for it to happen.
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=== Schachmaty v. USSR Dept. ===
In chess there's a simple reflex that whatever is 1,074 points good for your opponent is exactly 1,074 points bad for you, and vice versa. Odd that in baseball, we're not quite so reflexive about ths fact.
Geoff Baker points out that a Texas signing might have locked the Mariners out of the postseason until 2020, or until Bud expands the playoffs to 50% of the teams, whichever comes first...
It still wouldn't have bothered me near as much as a Yankee signing. But I've got to admit, the simple fact that Lee didn't sign with Texas, that's about as hard a gust of wind in the M's sails as if the M's themselves landed Justin Upton.
One of Capt. Jack's best days. The Seattle Mariners have baseball's best RHP on a statue-some-day franchise arc. The Texas Rangers do not have baseball's best LHP. That's important.
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=== Throwback, Dept. ===
Never saw a rental player visit a city with as much resonance as Cliff Lee did, when he visited Seattle. Pick your favorite factoid:
- He looks like the ballplayers on the tobacco cards
- His career arc was lousy to okay to pretty good to "better than Greg Maddux" (get the 350 W's first, guys)
- His tempo is that of a man playing a first-person-shooter video game
- His results are those of a man playing a first-person-shooter video game
- He smiled and told the press he wanted twenty billion dollars to stay in Seattle
- He smiled and told Capt Jack he'd play here for very reasonable money
- The angle of his pitching motion makes him look like something out of Manga
- He's got two first names
- Felix had a 2.27 ERA the year he was here
Now he's in Philly where we M's fans can relax and enjoy Cliff Lee as part of the baseball landscape. And they all lived happily ever after.
Nice bedtime story Jack,
Dr D