What a time for the Internet connection to go on the fritz. Really, unnamed Internet service provider, in the middle of the winter meetings? During the offseason, from Thanksgiving to Christmas is the equivalent of October in-season.
But in thinking about it, I am glad that I couldn’t log on for the last 24 hours. I needed that time to sit back and take it all in. Let it marinate, so to speak, and reflect upon what this means for the Monopoly money world that is Major League Baseball.
Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez both headed to the Fens to showcase their talents in Boston Red Sox uniforms. Just take a second here. It has been almost a full day and yet I still find myself not quite grasping the magnitude of what has transpired. My friend Murph, a die-hard Sox fan, immediately threw up a Facebook posting saying, “I give you the new, Evil Empire.”
When taking into account the shear magnitude of the cash involved in both of these deals, he may very well have a point. For the Red Sox this is like when C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira all signed with the Bronx Bombers. The end result was a championship ring tough, so can you blame any team for trying to better their club. As long as no salary cap exists then as an organization you’ve got to keep up with the Joneses.
So let’s assume that we do now have two “Evil Empires”. We will call one the “Original Evil Empire” and we will call the other the “New Kids on the Block” (only seems appropriate considering Jordan, Jonathan, Joey, Donny and Danny were assembled in Beantown).
Let us now talk a bit about these two superpowers. Is there any possible way that the Yankees can crawl out from under the surprising and indescribably large offseason shadow that the Red Sox have created? The Sox are like the Visitors from V. They are the mother ship that is just sitting over top of the Bronx right now blocking out the sun.
The Yankees are hoping that Cliff Lee can be the Marc Singer of their resistance (Yep, I took it all the way back to 1984. The original V the Final Battle television miniseries.) The problem for New York however is two-fold.
Number one is the fact that Mr. Lee has suitors from around the league. Texas, the Nationals and the Yankees are all gunning for the hurler, and with the Angels losing out on Carl Crawford they are throwing their halo into the mix as well.
And B) I don’t think Cliff Lee is big enough all by himself to counter the duo of Gonzalez and Crawford. If we are using the amount of money one garners as a judge to who is the best in their respective position, Crawford just received an obscene amount of money that would make him the highest paid outfielder in the league, while the Yankees latest offer to Lee wouldn’t even make him the highest paid pitcher on their team. Lee or no Lee, it seems to me that the Red Sox shadow remains.
So baseball fans get ready for the inevitable barrage of predictions sure to circulate for the next several months about how the Red Sox are now the favorites to win not only the AL East but also the World Series.
To that end, I suggest we not forget about a few other teams that might have something to say about such a prediction. Only one thing is for sure, Tampa Bay is not one of them. Poor Evan Longoria.
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