Baseball In The Daytime: 7-9-08

It's my anniversary, so I'd like to tell my lovely wife who's not reading this that she rocks. If you have an unopened bottle of that Pinot Noir we gave out to our wedding party three years back, today's the day to crack that shit. It is not good wine, it was made in a jug by me, and it will not improve with age. Get it in your gut before it turns into sewage.

Speaking of big days, we've had a couple consecutive ones in the National League Central. After Milwaukee obtained the reigning AL CY Younger on Monday, Chicago nabbed a pretty nice compliment to Big Z yesterday. Rumor has it the Cardinals are furiously working a deal for the memory of Joaquin Andujar. Or at least Jeff Weaver--hey, it worked last time.

For the record, I dig the effort. Trades are fun, even if these blockbustery in-season deals for starting pitching almost never pan out. After the jump, a more exhaustive rundown of the trades, including bonus criticism and mocking of the Kansas City Royals for no reason at all. And of course we'll preview today's afternoon menu, which features a generous helping of AL East finger food.

First, Harden. This to me is a luxury deal. The Cubs already have an bona fide ace in Carlos Zambrano and an All-Star in Ryan Dempster. The rest of the rotation--Ted Lilly, Jason Marquis and Sean Marshall--is competent, and upgrading from Marshall to Harden is huge. Like trading in a pair of roller skates for a Ferrari.

If you've ever owned a Ferrari, though, you know they spend a lot of time in the shop. This may or may not be true, I actually just made it up. Ferraris may be extremely reliable. Check your J.D. Power surveys for long-term quality trends. What I'm trying to get at with this tortured metaphor is that Rich Harden has made Mark Prior look durable over the course of his career. So that shiny bauble may tarnish quickly, Cub fans.

I actually like the addition of Chad Gaudin to the already stout Chicago bullpen, and the losses are manageable: Matt Murton, Eric Patterson and some B-grade prospect. The reason this particular trade happened is Sean Gallagher, a nice young pitcher that will help the A's out immediately. Billy Beane is, of course, the master at his craft. In dealing away Dan Haren last December, he added starters Dana Eveland and Greg Smith in addition to possible star outfielder Carlos Gonzalez. And Haren himself came over in the deal that gave the Cards Mark Mulder. Billy Beane almost always "wins" his trades, but they're never extremely one-sided because he's dealing away quality players like Harden.

As for the Brewers, I think it's a home run. And this is where the Royals come in. Four years ago, just four years, Kansas City posted a 58-104 record. That's lousy, but take a look at the same marks of some other longtime sad sacks: Arizona 51-111, Tampa 70-91, Cincinnati 76-86, Colorado 68-94, Milwaukee 67-94.

Now note the upswing that all of those other teams have made. The Rockies, even though they've regressed this season, won the NL pennant in '07. To grab that flag they beat the Diamondbacks, who are in first place this season. The Bay-Rays are merely leading both the Red Sox and Yankees in the toughest and most expensive division in baseball. The Reds and the Brewers, while lagging a bit in the standings, are set for years to come with top young players at the major league, Triple- and Double-A levels.

How? Intelligent drafting and player development. All of these organizations implemented a system that capitalized on the high draft picks they received. All traded away aging assets for prospects that have actually panned out. And all have recognized that for all of its financial disparity, baseball has actually implemented one of the most socialistically progressive agendas for crappy teams in all the major sports. Revenue sharing has put real money in the pockets of small-market clubs, and the compensatory-pick system has loaded the draft classes of teams that lose free agents.

Look at what the draft has become. Following the losing '04 season, these teams took future stars Justin Upton (Arizona), Jay Bruce (Cincinnati), Ryan Braun (Milwaukee) and Troy Tulowitzki (Colorado). KC nabbed Alex Gordon with the second pick in that draft, a huge departure from the typical Allard Baird whiff-job in which he tanked high picks because the team was so cheap with signing bonuses. And Gordon is good, no doubt. Some day he may even be great. But it is inexcusable that years of drafting in the top ten have yielded but one potential All-Star, especially when these other losers have become absolutely loaded with studs.

Going back to the Milwaukee trade for Sabathia, it's almost embarrassing. They gave up a promising slugger in Matt LaPorta, a former No. 7 overall pick, to essentially rent C.C. for a few months. They may re-sign him, sure, but that's beside the point. If he skates, the Brewers will receive the first-round pick of whichever team signs him (say the Yankees in the mid-20s) plus a compensatory sandwich pick between the first and second rounds. Add to that the probability of Ben Sheets going elsewhere as well--another No. 1 and another sandwich. So the Brew Crew could have five of the first 35 picks in the 2009 Draft.

On top of that, their farm system is already loaded. They have 3B Mat Gamel and SS Alcides Escobar ripping up Double-A and lots of promising pitchers at the A level. They could trade disgruntled 1B Prince Fielder in the offseason for immediate rotation help should the lose Sabathia and/or Sheets. But these are all long-term concerns. The key point is that the Milwaukee Brewers, written off as a hopeless, small-market, low-payroll, incompetent shitbag team just a few years ago, just pulled off a huge trade and stand poised as legitimate World Series contenders. Amazing.

So when I belittle the Royals, it's not just to tweak Chiefs fans. Well, that's not the only reason. I bag on the Royals because the old excuses for their lack of success simply do not apply any more. They should be better, much better than they are. By continually sucking, they add credence to the outdated notion that small-market teams can't comepete. That's simply not true anymore. There's more than one way to skin a cat, and there's more than one way to win at big league baseball. If you don't have the revenue streams the Yankees, Sox, Cubs, Dodgers and Angels do, baseball gives you money. If you don't sign the big free agents those teams do, baseball gives you draft picks to get your own players. It's like the teacher is giving you a cheat sheet before the test. All you have to do is take it.

OK, enough about these mighty orphans. Let's get to the soulless corporate powerhouses that ruin baseball:

Minnesota @ Boston, 11:05 Mountain It was a very, very strange situation I found myself in last night, actually pulling for the New York Yankees. I left my house with the Red Sox losing 3-1 and the Yanks up 2-0 on the first place Bay-Rays. I heard Manny's triumphant eighth inning homer on the radio, and then switched over to see if the Yanks could hold on and get Boston a game closer to first. Weird, weird stuff. Today the Twins send Livan Hernandez to the Fenway mound against Josh Beckett. Both these guys won World Series for the Florida Marlins, a fact that no Marlins fans will bring up. Because, you see, there are no Marlins fans, and...oh never mind.

Tampa @ NY Yankees, 11:05 Hey, let's hear it for my new favorite team! The Yanks try for the sweep of this little two-game set today at the Stadium, and they do so by sending Sir Sidney Ponson into battle. The Bay-Rays counter with Edwin Jackson and I just can't believe the Yankees and their $200 million payroll have Sidney Ponson on their roster. Wow. I mean, wow.

Florida @ San Diego, 1:35 Those nonexistent Marlins fans will not tune their imaginary TVs in this afternoon to a game at Petco Park. In that game they won't watch Scott Olsen pitch against Cha Seung Baek. They won't have a weird feeling about Baek, and they won't think "Hey, wasn't he on the Mariners?" And then they won't go to the Googles to not discover that Baek was in fact traded from Seattle to San Diego on May 29. So all of you zero Marlins fans, Don't Play Ball! The rest of you, you know what to do.