Sad Strasmus

Stephen James Strasburg seem to have come and gone like a shooting star. He was a rookie one day, a super star the next, a hall of famer by day 3 and is now going under the knife for a tommy john surgery all in a matter of months. If it were the olden days, his career would be over. Fortunately for him, tommy john surgeries are as common as getting a haircut these days and most, if not all pitchers come back. And some of then even come back to be as dominant as they were before getting knifed. The chances of a full recovery is higher if you are younger and Strasburg has age on his side. With all that said and done, this is still such a bad news for him, the Nationals and MLB. He became an overnight sensation and to see his season end like that hurts. Plus he won't be back until deep into the 2011 season if not early 2012. But he will be back and he will be good. The question is, can he pump those fastballs in at 100 MPH anymore? May be, may be not. Time will tell. For now, lets all sympathize a little with the Nationals fan only because they have been so down-trodden for so long. Strasburg was the savior for a couple of months and just like that, he is gone. Life is harsh and unreal sometimes, but it is what it is and it must go on.

The other big news in baseball was about a bunch of teams opening their books and the fans getting surprised and in some cases, pissed at bad teams like the Pirates and the Marlins making a load of cash without spending any on baseball players. In the case of the Pirates, they have not had a winning season in 18 years and have still turned a cumulative profit of $34 million in the past 3 years. And some of these teams have ripped off their cities for new arenas and a lot of these cities are in bad financial state these days because of the recession. All of this adds up to a bunch of angry fans. These bad teams are supposedly making money because of revenue sharing and the big boys like the Yankees pushing them down some cash. So obviously, there are some murmurs about revenue sharing and how it breeds bad behavior and is not helping bad teams build winners. These teams would instead sit tight and just take in the money. Why not?

What's the point of Baltimore spending 20 million more and still having no shot against the 200 million dollar payroll of the Yankees and the RedSox in that division when they could just spend nothing and make money off of revenue sharing? Yes, revenue sharing does breed bad behavior, but that doesn't mean we remove revenue sharing and force a freer market on everybody. What it means is, the MLB system is messed up and they need a true salary cap to go with the luxury tax and revenue sharing for a more balanced league. Pure revenue sharing is not working. A salary cap is what's needed to give the Baltimores and the Pittsburghs of the World a chance. NBA and NFL have figured this out in different ways and MLB has to follow one of those systems. Unless there is a level playing field in baseball, these problems will continue. People always point to teams like this years Tampa Bay Rays and say how they are able to work so well within the system. But it's hard. These teams are the exceptions, not the norm and they can't be your blueprint for a typical team in your league. They are the role-models, not the average Joe.

The other good news in baseball is the indictment of Roger Clemens. Nothing is going to happen for 2 years and even after that, he has enough money to fight all this, but it still feels good to see a scum-bag like him get indicted. To his credit, he is still fighting it by pleading not guilty, though may be he shouldn't. Only Roger Cossack knows what all this means, but if Cossack is talking about you on ESPN sportscenter, it only means that things are not going well for you. The other roider Manny is now a whitesox. He has officially become a journeyman. Wasn't he worshipped like a God in LA just a couple of years back? Only in LA would people care less about their supposed sports super-heroes. It's an ultimate fair-weather, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately town. The Dodgers are going nowhere and hence Manny has been shipped out of town. It hurts me to say that both the NL West and the AL West are garbage. AL East on the other hand is just too good. They may end up with the best 3 records in the league with one of the teams, the Redsox, not even making the playoffs. That would be something. It would still not be what I have been waiting for - both the Yankees and the Redsox missing the playoffs. While we are dreaming, we might also ask for the Mets, Dodgers and the Cubs missing the playoffs the same season along with the Yankees and the RedSox.