Rant #2,040: Too Many Fish In the Sea

It is the middle of December, we had our first snow in New York this season this past Saturday, we are going to see weather in the teens later this week, and on top of all that, Hanukkah begins tomorrow night and Christmas is right around the corner.

Yet it is baseball season in New York.

Look, if you are into New York football, this has been an absolutely dreadful season, with the Jets and, in particular, the Giants really floundering.

If you are into basketball, the Knicks and Nets are showing some signs of life, but still have a ways to go before they can even be considered contenders for much of anything.

And if you are a hockey fan, there is more talk about where the Islanders are going to be playing in the future rather than on their current season, and the Rangers are, well, the Rangers in the most niche of the major sports.

But it is baseball season because the Yankees have made it so.

If everything comes to fruition, the Yankees will have Giancarlo Stanton in their fold, the reigning National League Most Valuable Player who hit 59 home runs last season for the lowly Florida Marlins, who are going through their every-couple-of-years housecleaning that they are so (in)famous for.

The Yankees gave up an excellent second baseman, Starlin Castro, and a couple of interesting minor league players to get Stanton, but they did not give up their crown jewels in this deal--namely Gleybar Torres, who now is their de facto second baseman--so what they got and what they gave up has to make the Yankees happy.

Stanton was originally supposed to go to the Cardinals or the Giants, but with a no-trade clause that he had in his Marlins contract, he was able to turn those teams down.

He submitted a list of teams he would be happy to move to, the Yankees were on the list, and like Yankees teams of yore--those teams during the George Steinbrenner era--the Yankees swooped down and snared this big fish.

They are the so-called "Evil Empire" again, and Yankees fans like me love it that the other teams are now so wary of the Bronx Bombers once again, who pose such an intimidating lineup now--remember Gary Sanchez, Didi Gregorious, Aaron Judge?--that adding Stanton to this mix assures that the best seat in Yankee Stadium this coming season will be an outfield seat, where more baseballs are sure to be deposited than ever ... if all of these players stay healthy.

And after reading story after story about this deal, I have to step aside being a Yankees fan and I have to question the commissioner of baseball, Rob Manfred, for allowing such a deal to happen in the first place.

He just approved a group, led by former Yankees great Derek Jeter, to purchase the Marlins, and now this team is going through their annual fire sale, dismantling what little they had on the team to begin with due to finances.

My questions are this: 1) if the Marlins have financial questions to resolve, don't you get in an owner who can resolve them without giving away the assets of the team? There is a precedent for this, and a recent one: look what happened a few years ago when a team led by Magic Johnson bought the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team going through major financial headaches due to the personal life of the then-owner? They had the funds, did not have to go through a fire sale, and are now one of the best teams in baseball.

2) Is the deal good for the integrity of the game? Probably not. The Marlins are basically giving away one of the best players in baseball, and the word is that they might flip Castro in another budget move. How can this be good for baseball? A generation ago, the Oakland A's owner, Charley Finley, tried to give away his best players, like Vida Blue and Joe Rudi, only to be blocked from doing this by then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn--and Kuhn was right in blocking these deals.

3) This all leads to the next question ... what does this do to the already non-existent Marlins fan base? When you bring in a new owner, you supposedly bring in new hopes, new ideas for the future. But when you bring in a new owner who is basically giving everything away, aren't you also giving away your fan base? The Marlins have a relatively new ballpark which really should never have been built, because their fan base is so small. Some believe the only reason to have seen them is to see Stanton play. Now that Stanton isn't there, why bother paying for a ticket to see a team that will be manned by minor league talent? And having Jeter at the helm, don't you think that this trade is kinda smarmy to begin with, with the Yankees legend helping to feather his former team's nest as if it were his going away present to them?

Whatever the case, pending physicals, this deal is done, and Stanton will be in the same lineup as Judge, the American League Rookie of the Year and another 50-homer hitter, along with one of the most exciting lineups in baseball today.

If everyone stays healthy, it boggles the mind how productive this lineup can be, and I cannot wait for the baseball season to begin.

I am not a fisherman, but the Marlins really gave away their bait, and the big-fish Yankees reeled it all in.

Football? What's that?

(P.S.: Congratulations to Alan Trammell and Jack Morris, best known for their years with the Detroit Tigers, for gaining entrance to baseball's Hall of Fame. A lot of people thought that they were borderline Hall of Famers, and I am sure the controversy will continue with their admittance, but they are in, and congrats to them.

Yes, it is truly baseball season in December, isn't it?)