| The Best Column (#3) - Yankees Suck |
| It seems when I wrote the last The Best Column, I conveniently forget that no one reads Apropos Of Nothing. Now, one might wonder why I’d bother to come back and write anything at all for a site that has no discernable readership. I’ll tell you why, because Matt Solomon demands it. The one reader this website has, and the one man I refuse to deal with in fantasy baseball, needs to read my column. And who am I to deny the masses, however small they may be? |
| But it appears because Solomon was on vacation, or is just being a jerk, I didn’t receive a single, solitary e-mail concerning my proposed changes for the Major League Baseball interleague schedule. This means I can’t write a follow up column where I’d do very little writing, and just let my readers speak. Instead, I have something very special planned. I am going to bash the Yankees! |
| Really, I promise it will be good fun. Recently, the New York Yankees officially opened up the 2002 baseball trading season by going right for not-so-prominent slugger Raul Mondesi. They got the low-hitting Mondesi for next to nothing -- some pitching prospect who I am sure New York has overrated and who will become the next Hideki Irabu, or God forbid, Ricky Ledee. |
| Such is the way in Yankee land. What makes things worse for the Blue Jays is that Mr. Mondesi, who could never seem to get up for a game in his Toronto uniform, and was hitting a robust .230 at the time of the trade, is hitting around .350 since he moved to the Bronx. There is no silver lining for Blue Jays fans...just anger. But wait, there is more! |
| Yes, soon after the excitement was being dusted off of the Mondesi deal, the Yankees announced they had pulled a three team deal that, in essence, gave them Jeff Weaver, one of the most promising young pitchers in baseball, for Ted Lilly and two more New York prospects. |
| George Steinbrenner, the grand poobah of all things Yankees, has stated that "The deal we made for the right fielder, they could have made that deal. Same with [Weaver]. What he's going to make this year, next year, it's not a big money grab. This is just good trading." |
| This is a cute thought, but it is completely false. No one can just offer to throw away their reliable #5 starter and two top prospects for a pitcher who, at the end of a four year deal, will be making 9.5 million dollars per year. I’m no economics major, but with the game in a labor crisis, that seems like a little more than ‘good trading’ to me. |
| The one solace that fans of the Red Sox and other playoff serious teams can take in the trade for Weaver is that, quite frankly, the man is one of the least stable pitchers around. In the last two seasons he has been involved in two big-time basebrawls, and has repeatedly gone off on his fielders for making errors behind him. If he expects these kinds of tactics to play in the Big Apple, he has another thing coming entirely. Also fun to ponder about is whether Weaver’s irrational attitude can handle being the focal point of a big city trade to a contender. For the first time in his life, Weaver is playing for a team that actually has a chance to win some games. |
| Can he handle it? His only start to date has him surrendering six runs over seven innings in his Yankee debut. However, he still managed to win, as the Yankees scored ten runs of their own to beat Toronto. Oh well. Maybe a good ‘ol fashioned strike is just what the game ordered. |
| - Dan Kricke |
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