Why Aren’t Players and Teams Hooking Up?
Baseball’s second season – the offseason – has been going for a couple months now and frankly, it’s left me quite frustrated. If you’ve got a few minutes, I’d like to have a little chat about it.
They call it the “hot stove” season, but this year that’s just been flat out false advertising. It’s mostly been a cold stove that occasionally gets to room temperature and once or twice spikes to lukewarm. But not “hot.” I don’t know maybe it’s just all this climate change stuff. Someone get Al Gore on the phone and see if he knows what the heck is going on here.
The baseball off-season used to be a simple thing. So simple in fact that I used to get really annoyed that Major League Baseball’s awards weren’t announced until well after the World Series was over. I felt like this was stupid and dumb and idiotic and lame.
As part of my maturation process, I have grown to not be annoyed by small things like this and save my annoyance energy for the real problems of the world, like the global economic collapse or widespread religious and racial discrimination.
So, we have to wait a couple weeks after the playoffs to see who gets the awards, and what happens is the awards become sort of a launching pad for the offseason. The awards tell us, “This season is over now and it’s time to get to work on the next year and, by the way, here’s some awards that probably don’t really mean anything in the big scheme of things and will most likely be forgotten within weeks despite people literally losing their minds beforehand.”
Yeah, it’s a long message to be sent, but it needs to be sent. The weeks after the Series give us all time to recover from the trials and tribulations of the season. We get to take a breather before the tempest of free agent signings begins. But what if the free agent signings never really get going?
This offseason in particular, teams seem to have made a somewhat severe shift in willingness to dole out fat contracts to free agent players – an almost, but not quite, collusive shift. So, it looks like you and I are going to have to figure this out for the rest of the league.
But how do you know which players are right for your team? In a way, finding the right new players is a lot like online dating. Or maybe online dating is like trying to find new players.
Getting Started
First, it all comes down to scouting.
When you’re trolling through a dating site, you want to see as much information as possible: pictures, age, children (if any), location, height, weight, hair color, eye color, etc. Music interests don’t matter because you can always tell them to wear headphones. But TV and movie interests are vital. Because you are going to have to watch a lot of TV and movies they like for a long time. And you don’t want to get stuck with the world’s biggest Big Bang Theory fan.
When it comes to new players, you want all the scouting info you can gather. You want to hear what the “new school” guys think and what the “old school” guys think – and not just to make them feel like they aren’t dinosaurs. Some of the “old school” methods are very useful. Baseball players aren’t exclusively the sum total of their statistical output. How they came to that statistical output is also very important. This is where the “old school” guys can really help – also with finding the best shuffleboard courts and early bird restaurant specials.
Second, it’s time for the introduction.
Time to send that cute gal or handsome bro a message that says, “Hey, I like the way you look and let’s see if we can get busy pushing our faces together.” And then you have to wait – minutes, hours, days or even weeks. Don’t they know you have decided they might be worthwhile? What is their problem?
The same goes for players. A call is made to an agent and the team says, “Hey, I like your skills and let’s see if we can get busy putting a contract together.”
And again there’s the waiting. The agent has to talk to the player to see if this is a team he’d want to play for. This all resembles passing notes in school, but is a necessary function because the owners lost the right to talk directly to players after decades of oppressive working conditions.
Third, after we’ve established mutual interest, it’s time for real talk.
You have to find out just how serious this cute gal or studly dude is. Or just how unserious this cute gal or studly dude is – depending on what kind of seriousness level you have. If you’re looking for a fling or for a long commitment, messing around with someone who wants more or less than you will create far more trouble than you might think and it’s best to nip that noise in the bud. (Mixed metaphors brought to you by Lack of Sleep™ – for all your cloudy-thinking needs.)
Does the player your team wants to sign want a long-term deal with big money or is he just looking for a rebound deal to prove he’s still got “it”? Most players are looking for longer commitments from teams than the teams are willing to give out, which kind of makes the players the girls in this whole analogy and since the teams are the ones paying I guess that fits.
Also, the teams are the ones most likely to end up stuck in a relationship that is suffocating them. It could all be alleviated easily if the player would just walk away from what is clearly a lost cause. But the player keeps hanging around claiming that it can all work and that things are going to be different, but really it’s all about the money and sucking all the energy out of me until I have lost the will to live.
Oops! Did I type that out loud? Whoa! Moving on …
You know what we need here? A hot stove season musical interlude sung to the tune of Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff.” Sorry in advance for ruining this song for you forever.
Lookin’ for some hot stove, baby, this evenin’
I need some hot stove, baby, tonight
Okay, that’s much better. We are back on track (or as back on track as I can ever be). There’s still some baseball stuff I want to talk about, and I appreciate you sticking with me.
What About Trades
Where free agency is like online dating, player trades are more like getting set up on a blind date. If it works out, great. If it fails, goodbye to the relationship with that girl or guy. And goodbye to your friend who was responsible for the mess that ensued. When I was single every so often a friend would say something completely insane like, “You know who you would really like and who is so pretty?”
I learned quick that the proper response was, “What depths of boredom has your life reached that you feel the need to risk our friendship on the off-chance that some broken female friend of yours might slow down her crazy for long enough to even deal with a real relationship that isn’t based on verbal abuse, lies and staggering disappointment?”
The same goes in baseball. I’m guessing the Red Sox won’t be making any trades with the Padres anytime soon after their trade that ended with the Red Sox getting a pitcher whose arm injury was only noted in San Diego’s secret medical reports.
Chances are things won’t work out with a person you meet on an online dating site. But it’s a numbers game and maybe the ninth person you meet is the one. Don’t be so quick to dive in on any of those first eight and risk missing out on number nine.
There’s no need to be the Rockies throwing around big contracts to any free agent relief pitcher like a recently divorced father of two scouring the online dating sites – and some of the “one night” dating sites as well. Slow down, Rockies. Once you sign these contracts, it’s not easy to get rid of them – like gonorrhea or crabs.
The Marlins signed that mega contract with Giancarlo Stanton and within three years they were desperately trying to dump him on some other team while also being restricted by where he wanted to go. So, they had to settle for a modest return from the Yankees, while still paying part of his contract. This is more commonly referred to as alimony.
When you’re searching online for your special someone, don’t ignore the red flags. No matter how desperate you feel, exercising some patience can help you find someone cool. Or at least find someone not so murdery.
Maybe that’s why baseball teams are being so patient this off-season. These contracts are for a lot of money. And they are contracts so they can be tough to walk away from. Of course, you can always just call up the Yankees and see if they’ll take them off your hands. Just tell him the player is cute and has a great personality.
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