Players Are Scrambling

• What collusion couldn't do, the economy is doing:

Years ago, the owners tried to band together to keep player salaries down by lowballing stars or not even bidding on them. It worked for a couple of years as stars like Kirk Gibson and Tim Raines were unable to find even one team that was willing to try and sign them; of course the owners got sued; of course they lost; and of course it cost them a fortune in compensation. Now salaries are being stifled; players are forced to take one-year deals; and money is way down from what the same players would've gotten in more affluent times and teams are getting bargains because of it.
What would Bobby Abreu have gotten last year had he been a free agent? Manny Ramirez? Orlando Hudson? Francisco Rodriguez? With their resumes, they would've broken the bank. Even injury prone and slightly above average players like Joe Crede would've cashed in due to the desperation. Now we see Abreu taking an incentive-laden, one-year deal from the Angels; Manny's sitting out and seething; Hudson signed with the Dodgers for one-year; K-Rod took a three-year deal from the Mets for reasonable money after saving 62 games last year; and now Crede agrees to terms with the Twins.
Some teams, like the Yankees, are still spending wildly; and most of these owners could lose 90% of their fortunes and wouldn't even notice, but the situation has gotten to the point where the players are back on their heels and interested teams are secure in the knowledge that there aren't any options available for the players to be fussy. What collusion couldn't do, the econony is doing and knowing the owners, they'll still find a way to screw things up, but as of right now, it's a bliss for teams who always wanted to set a dollar value on players and come somewhere close to achieving it in reality and for 2009 at least, they're getting the bargains they've always wanted, but couldn't figure out how.

• Does this sound like a mentor?

Here's some quotes from Tom Glavine on his return to the Braves:

"I don't necessarily want to be the guy who has to pitch 220 innings and win every time he goes to the mound..."

"I’m looking forward to this stage of my career where I don’t have to deal with that kind of pressure and can be more of a complement to our rotation."

I'd hate to inconvenience Tom with the nuisance of having to win.
It's like he's doing the Braves a favor by gracing them with his presence as he finishes the yard work in his Atlanta home. For a guy who was an eloquent spokesman for the game most of his career, Glavine is not only hanging on too long with his pitching, he's hanging around too long with his mouth. His indifferent reaction to his non-competitive performance on the last day of the season for the Mets in 2007 as they completed their collapse was what angered fans more than anything else; it's one thing to get pounded; it's another to sound like you're just shrugging your shoulders about it as you pack up and head back to Atlanta.
I've always been an advocate of getting players to sign with clubs by convincing them that they can flourish in the venue; it's been necessary for New York teams to cajole certain personalities into coming into the fishbowl; but in recent years I've come to the conclusion that if a player is truly enthusiastic about playing in New York and getting with the program, he doesn't need to be begged. Another example of setting a standard is when the Rays got rid of Delmon Young and Elijah Dukes; my new philosophy for an organization would be, "if you don't want to be part of this, then we'll move you; if you don't want to be here, we wish you all the luck in the world and we'll get someone else." I don't care who the player is and what he can do; no one's irreplaceable; and if someone is acting like they're doing me a favor, then I don't need them that badly.
If anything should convince the Braves that it's time to move forward, it's these stupid comments. They've lost John Smoltz; no one wants to play there anymore; and they need to rebuild. If Glavine doesn't show anything more than he did last season in the spring, they should tell him he's not making the team and he should retire before they cut him. The major leagues isn't a retirement home and for all the ridicule the Braves used to heap on the Mets, they're looking an awful lot like those Mets of the late 90s and early 2000s; I can tell them first hand that's not the direction they want to take.

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Money Down The Tubes And ARod's Links

• Tom Glavine returns to the Braves for $1 million+incentives:

If Glavine can provide anything----leadership, a few innings, a win here or there----I suppose it's worth it, but the Braves have some young pitching that would undoubtedly deliver more on the field than Glavine can at this point. It's easy to look back and say he should've retired after that final game debacle for the Mets in 2007; and I probably wouldn't have wanted to go out on that note either; but he returned to the Braves, didn't pitch well and got hurt. Truth be told, he looks like he's got nothing left in the tank. The Braves have James Parr, Charlie Morton and Tommy Hanson off the top of my head who deserve the rotation spot more than Glavine does based on ability alone.
I only hope for Glavine's sake that he'll know when to quit if he pitches poorly and his body doesn't respond in spring training. It's obvious why the Braves are bringing him back: if he can pitch, he can be of some use; they're reeling from John Smoltz's stunning defection and recent comments about the organization; and they're being loyal to Glavine for his years of service. This, however, is a major part of the Braves current problems; they're clinging to the past and reluctant to do what needs to be done to rebuild the orgnanization properly; and part of that is cutting ties with the past and guys who can't do it anymore like Tom Glavine.

• Nothing more needs to be said about this:

This guy's in trouble. Read this link to the story about Alex Rodriguez: NY Daily News Story and I'm sure you'll agree.

The Mets Quantum Leap

Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped

into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.

How many times is anyone given the opportunity to correct a mistake? To be put into the

exact same position they were at an earlier time and right what once went wrong? And how many seize that opportunity and redeem themselves? Tomorrow, at 1:10 PM on the last regular season game ever to be played at Shea Stadium, the New York Mets will have that chance.
It was the last day of the regular season last September 30th that the New York Mets, beginning the day tied with the Philadelphia Phillies for first place in the National League East and with a chance to avoid the most monumental collapse in the history of baseball, took the

field to play the Florida Marlins. Before anyone had a chance to sit in their seats and settle in to watch the game, the raucous Shea Stadium crowd was silenced as Tom Glavine, in his last start as a member of the Mets, allowed seven runs in 1/3 of an inning. The Phillies, emboldened by the gift bestowed upon them by both Glavine and the Marlins, defeated the Nationals 6-1 to claim the NL East crown leaving the Mets to sit in stunned silence from that first inning onward, wondering how everything fell apart so completely that their season came down to this.
It was no consolation that the Phillies were swept out of the playoffs before their hangovers from the division clinching celebration had subsided; nor did it matter that the Mets went out and acquired the best pitcher in baseball specifically to avoid the fate that befell them in 2007. Until they're able to exorcise the ghosts from that collapse----new manager or not; new

players or not----it will always be there. Now, in the midst of another collapse, a small glimmer of light is shining for the Mets. Receiving the help they needed today in the form of a masterful, three-hit shutout by Santana on three days rest and a Cubs 7-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers, tomorrow morning when they head to the ballpark, the Mets will be tied for the Wild Card lead and hold destiny in their own hands.
Facing that same Marlins team provides the Mets with a unique shot at a do-over; a chance to let the world know that they're not going to close Shea Stadium with a second consecutive collapse. Glavine is gone; manager Willie Randolph is gone, but the ghosts still remain. The ghosts that haunt the remaining players from last year's roster can be exorcised tomorrow. Oliver Perez, in what is likely his last regular season start as a member of the Mets, will have a chance to go out in the way Glavine wanted to; in the way that his former teammates will remember him fondly and say, "that guy came up big when we needed

him," instead of inspiring the head shakes and sideways glances that Glavine received with his indifferent reaction as he dismissed the devastation felt by the Mets and their fans and hustled back to Atlanta to rejoin the Braves as quickly as possible, a place he never truly left.
Last year at this time, the Mets were breathing a sigh of relief having been given a gift by the Washington Nationals as they beat the Phillies on that Saturday; the Mets had angered the Marlins with their excessive celebrations and a bench clearing fight marred a dominating performance from John Maine in a 13-0 Mets win. Now the shoe is on the other foot. The Marlins are the ones who have succeeded in making the Mets look sympathetic with their relentless yapping in the newspapers about how sweet it's going to be to knock the Mets out of the playoffs again. The circumstances are identical; will the Mets rise to the occasion, or will they be struck by that lightning for a second year in a row and

allow the Marlins to walk all over them and gloat about it for another year?
2008 is a mirror image of 2007, but the Mets are a year wiser; a year tougher and they've been presented with that Quantum Leap moment; a chance to put right what once went wrong and exterminate those ghosts that would haunt the site of the demolished Shea Stadium forever and they can close the place right, without leaving any ghosts, by seizing this rare chance at redemption.

Yankees Demote Melky And Other Stories

• Yankees demote Cabrera, cut Sexson, then lose to the Royals:

For a player who was only a moderate prospect in the minors, through sheer hard work and winning attitude Melky Cabrera became an

everyday player on a team with designs on a championship year-after-year. Up until the brief time right before his recall in 2006, Cabrera's minor league numbers----minor league stats----never indicated that he'd be anything more than a defensively minded fourth outfielder who could run; but he made it to the big leagues and learned on the fly; he hustled, he played good defense, produced clutch hits.
Looking like the type of player who seized his opportunity and would develop into a 15-20 homer man as he matured and got stronger, the Yankees had no reason to believe that there would be this kind of a regression at the plate and in the field. After an excellent start, Cabrera has provided little since early May. It's possible that it wasn't his hitting that prompted Cabrera's demotion to

Triple A though; it may have been that he's playing as if he's in a fog. There have been the defensive lapses----the most egregious and youth-infused being that he misplayed a ball because he was waving to the fans in the bleachers as they did the Yankees lineup "roll call"----and other instances of his head not being where it should be that angered manager Joe Girardi and made the Yankees decide to send him down rather than bench him.
The easiest thing to do now is to say that he wasn't that talented a player to begin with, but it's not that hard to recover what it was that made Cabrera into an everyday player at the age of 22 if he gets his head on straight; this demotion might be a version of a wake-up call to shock him into getting back to what it was that made people believe he was going to develop into a solid 15 homer, 85 RBI, basestealing, opportunistic, defensively minded center fielder. He's still only 23 and can once again regain what it was that made the Yankees think they could play him as their regular center fielder in the first place.
The Richie Sexson signing was a low-cost gamble that didn't work. Sometimes a change

of scenery works with a veteran player and it was worth a shot to bring Sexson into a better situation than what was going on in Seattle to see if it would wake up his bat. Sexson wasn't awful, but he wasn't contributing much of anything either and it makes sense to cut him now.
After these moves, the Yankees then went out and lost to the Royals 4-3. For a staggering team trying to find some way to stay in contention and keep from falling out completely, the Yankees cannot have Mariano Rivera giving up the winning run on a wild pitch. To inject a little (more) urgency into their situation, it has to be noted that they're closer in the standings to the Blue Jays and Orioles than they are to the Red Sox and Rays. (Oh, and Joe Torre has won five in a row with the Dodgers, who are getting healthy and have some magic working.)

• Tom Glavine should retire:

While it's completely understandable that Tom Glavine: A) didn't want to end his career

with that embarrassing performance for the Mets on the last day of the regular season in 2007; B) wanted to pitch at home in Atlanta; and C) wouldn't want to end his Hall of Fame career due to injury, he should probably retire after this trip back to the DL.
For a pitcher of Glavine's stature, it's more palatable to retire having to be dragged off the mound with injuries than to skulk away having given a performance that a high school kid could have replicated in his last start for the Mets. He's always been a quiet bulldog type on the mound stemming from his days as a hockey player in high school and it's fitting for him to walk away because he physically can't perform rather than because he's not any good anymore.
He's got his 300 wins; he's won his World Series (including the MVP of that series); he's got two Cy Young Awards; he survived playing in New York; and in 2008, he's pretty much done the equivalent of a football player signing a one-day contract to retire with his preferred team. Does he really want to go through rehab and/or surgery for a rebuilding team that may not even want him back next year due to anything more than loyalty and a severance contract? It's up to him, but why go through all of that for no reason? He's got a big career in broadcasting ahead of him if he wants it and he should walk off the field now rather than hang on only to get hurt again.

• Mike Hargrove's pronouncement lends credence to the stories of the Ichiro-force out:

Former Mariners, Orioles and Indians manager Mike Hargrove, who resigned last season from the Mariners as the team was in the middle of an eight game win streak and had leapt

into surprising contention after years of mediocrity, has said he wants to manage in the big leagues again----ESPN Story. While all parties deny it, it's clear that there was something to the Ichiro contract situation and that he was less likely to return to the Mariners if Hargrove were still the manager. (That's worked out great for Ichiro's bank account; less so everywhere else.)
Hargrove may have mistaken "losing his passion" for the game for exhaustion at dealing with a prima donna like Ichiro and wanted a break or a different situation where the team wasn't going to hinge on the whims of one overrated player. Hargrove's silence or deflection of blame in the Mariners situation is indicative of his personality of the strong, silent, cowboy type who you probably don't want to mess around with. There have been managers and coaches who felt burned out and walked away from their respective games----Dick Vermeil, Hubie Brown----only to come back and have success; Hargrove is a competent manager and, in the right situation, deserves another opportunity without having the statement that he "lost his passion" haunt him.