The real-estate market has been down for a while. House prices have been collapsing and renting sounds more and more like a good idea these days. One rental that was a brilliant idea was the Brewers buying C.C. Sabathia at the trade deadline. The Brewers probably won't retain CC or Ben Sheets next season, but they achieved what they wanted to with that trade - make the playoffs after 26 years. Amazing that they made the playoffs even after firing their coach Ned Yost recently. You see these trade deadline rentals all the time, almost every year. Teams in contention go get somebody for the short-term from the "clearance sale" section of other teams. Oakland A's Billy Beane used to be the expert at this.
It's never obvious how good or bad these rentals work out. Even if the guy puts up good numbers, you can never conclusively say this is why the team made the playoffs and they would have missed it without him. Even with a super successful rental like Manny in LA this year, you can't really put a number on his impact. But there is no way the Brewers make the playoffs without CC - no way in hell ! Forget all the intangibles and the emotional lift he gave the team with his domination every 5-Th day, the raw numbers are just too good. He is 11-2 with a 1.7 ERA and 7 complete games in half a season. Brewers won 14 of his 17 starts - thats .823 baseball. Tell me who else could have done it for them? Even if the guy who CC replaced had been good and pitched .600 or .700 baseball (highly unlikely), the Brewers would have still missed the playoffs considering they beat the NY Mets by just 1 game for the Wild Card. I am not even talking about the fact that CC took the ball today in a must-win game on 3 days rest and pitched a complete game for a playoff-clinching win. CC has been an absolute stud this year and the best rental ever!
I am happy for the Brewers. This took them 26 years and thats way too long for a good fan base. As for the team they eliminated, the Mets shockingly choked away their division lead for the second consecutive season. The NY tabloids are killing them and they dont even care Brett Favre threw 6 TDs for the Jets today. The Mets went 4-6 in the last ten to lose the division to the Phillies. Now Phillies meet the Brewers. Should be a good series except for Network TV. Thats 2 small markets fighting it out. At least the other 2 NLDS features huge markets - LA Dodgers V Chicago Cubs. That should be fun with Manny and his .396 average being the major attraction. In the AL, the White-Sox have a make-up game tomorrow against the Detroit Tigers which will tell us if they need a one game playoff against the Twins for the right to play the DevilRays in the real playoffs. A little convoluted, but should be good drama.
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