By Zach Rettig
So Much Money On Me It Won’t Even Fold
If you’ve been following the MLB, be it for a few years or for your entire life, you’ll have realized one thing. Grown men get paid absurd amounts of money to swing a stick at a ball. And with the off-season officially underway (allow me at this time to extend a congrats to the San Francisco Giants), the folks who run the front offices of the MLB have decided to prove this with zeal. Exhibit A:
Remember when this guy was named “Mike”?
After years of intermittently being cheap as shit, bleeding Miami County dry for their stadium, and selling just about everyone worth a damn, the Marlins have decided to pry open their wallets to lock up their best offensive player; Giancarlo Stanton. The details of his contract are staggering: 13 years, 325 million dollars (which’ll make taxes a bit painful for the foreseeable future), including 11, yes 11, guaranteed years in Miami. That is the richest contract in American sports history, and things are pretty well slanted towards the Marlins. There is an opt-out clause if things can’t get better (though the return of ace José Fernandez should help), but the deal comes fully equipped with a no-trade clause, so expect the rightfielder to be lighting up that God-forsaken statue in the outfield for years to come. But lest you think the Marlins are the only people opening up their vaults this month…
The California Gold Rush
Enter Boston. The Red Sox are coming off a very underwhelming 2014 campaign, and so decided to add a little pop and quite possibly find an heir to Big Papi’s throne. With this in mind, they’ve decided to raid the Golden State and sign two big stars: the Giants’ Pablo Sandoval and the Dodgers’ Hanley Ramirez.
Really, when given a choice between a picture of Hanley and a picture of Kung-Fu Panda, you go Panda every time.
The details are thus: for Sandoval, 5 years, 95 million with a 6th year club option. The jovial slugger has apparently already dubbed the Papi-Panda-Hanley trio The Three Amigos, and seems like he’ll be fitting in fairly well with his new surroundings. Ramirez’s deal is a bit less flashy by comparison; four years, 88 million with a club option in year five of the contract. The message sent by both deals is clear: the Red Sox want to establish that 2014 was a one year dip, and they’ve just purchased the firepower to do it.
Maybe God Really Does Hate Cleveland
We are officially one month into the Cavs grand experiment, and things are not pretty. Instead of destroying everybody, as expected, they’re 6-7, 3rd in the Central Division, and according to certain rumors, have already annoyed Kevin Love to the point he might opt out and flee to Los Angeles when the season is over. LeBron himself said that this’d be a long process, yes, but I don’t think he expected this. Direct quotes from LeBron at two different points this season: “We gotta cut! f***!” (in-game) and “This team is fragile.” (post-game) That sound like something you want your prodigal son superstar saying about your team, Cleveland fans?
I wonder what LeBron thinks of Coach Blatt.
Now granted, it is only a month into the season. There’s lots of time to make up ground, and hey, maybe a month is the adjustment period they need to get into the swing of things. But this is the most underwhelming opening to a season since the opening episodes of Survivor: San Juan Del Sur.
(Please note: I do not apologize for that reference. Those first few episodes were a train wreck and you can’t convince me otherwise.)
All In For Anywhere Else
Y’know, it’s starting to look more and more like St. Louis fleeced Washington all those years ago. The organization announced last night that one-time megastar Robert Griffin III was being benched for this Sunday’s game against Indianapolis for Colt McCoy. Jay Gruden, Washington’s first-year head coach, said earlier this week that he was running out of patience with RG3, and the benching this week sends a clear message that they’re willing to look elsewhere for their quarterback. You could do a lot worse than Colt McCoy (hold on, need to curse out Brandon Weeden again…), but still. That’s basically a vote of no confidence.
The sad thing is, had Mike Shanahan taken RG3 out of the playoffs three years ago when he first hurt his ankles, I wouldn’t be writing this segment right now. A healthy Robert Griffin probably would’ve led Washington to new heights, but one poor decision basically changed three destinies for the worse. Shanahan is fired, of course. The Washington organization shipped off an almost-unreasonable number of picks for somebody they’ve terribly mismanaged. And then there’s Griffin. RG3, who almost counts as a tragic figure at this point, was robbed of the explosiveness that made him a Heisman winner at Baylor. And it’s obvious in the way Griffin’s played: he’s in the bottom four of ESPN’s QBR metric, below such future Hall of Famers as Geno Smith and EJ Manuel.
So the facts are that Griffin’s more than likely gonna have to start over somewhere else. Maybe he’ll be shipped to the dumpster fire in Tampa Bay; maybe he’ll be sent elsewhere within the division and usurp The Sanchize in Philly (perhaps more easy said than done, given how he’s been playing); maybe, in an ironic twist, he’ll go to St. Louis and reinvigorate his career. But the bad news seems to be that the Robert Griffin who electrified the league in 2011 is gone forever.
The Two Minute Drill (All the news we don’t have room for)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, Alabama is number one. … Speaking of college football, Happy Rivalry Week! Please, hate responsibly. … Good luck with that, Georgia State. … Kevin Harvick won NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup. … And the 76ers are so bad, they’re forcing Papa John’s to change their policy.