The Blog of Revelation

Dan:

• GM's might be the professionals, but they also might not be any smarter than you. Case in point: The Milwaukee Brewers. Signing Eric Gagne to a $10 million contract was ridiculous -- a fact almost everyone pointed out at the time they signed him. Sure, some in Milwaukee may have had visions of him returning to form, just like Boston fans once had visions of Andre Dawson, Jose Canseco, Ricky Henderson, Jack Clark, Kevin Mitchell, and many, many more has-beens returning to form. Doesn't happen. And $10 million? Who were they bidding against? The Answer: Themselves. After Gagne's atrocious second-half last year, Milwaukee got played. Now Gagne has lost the closer's job (for now), and the Brewers have a washed-up middle reliever taking up 1/8 of their payroll. What was their GM thinking? Despite what Theo and other baseball people say about "the professionals," turns out they are often just as dumb as the rest of us . . . and quite often even more so.
• Joe Morgan should be fired, and networks don't care how bad broadcasters suck. Actually, this revelation is nothing new. It was just reinforced this week. At least Joe Morgan seems to like our young outfielder, Jacoby Ellswood. Does Joe Morgan even watch baseball?
• We are stuck with Julio Lugo. This weekend, I heard some ESPN knucklehead saying the Sox defense was very good, making his case with this statement: "Take away Julio Lugo, and the Red Sox only have 10 errors." Oh, how we wish we could take away Julio Lugo. (Theo, see the above section on GMs.) No matter, how much we bellyache about it, Lugo is our shortstop this season. He has a terrible contract no one wants, and forget about replacing him with an unproven rookie. Ain't gonna happen. Now, I've heard some people saying, well, we won a Series with him last year. I would like to amend that statement and say: We won a Series last year in spite of him. Although Lugo is a headache, if that is our biggest problem, I'll take it. We can still win it all . . . in spite of him.
• Lowry is our shortstop next season. No, he won't supplant Lugo this year. But expect Lowry to take over next season, ala Ellsbury-Coco. Lugo is just too bad to be at short through 2010. Sox brass would be reluctant to go to a young rookie like Lowry now, so they are looking to ease him in over this season, much like they did with Ellsbury. But look for them to dump Lugo in the offseason rather than bring him back as a disgruntled backup infielder next year. They'll eat much of his contract, like Renteria and Offerman, and pay him to play elsewhere. But watch him play now and then tell me it won't be worth it.
• The Celtics are not a championship team. Watching this team in the playoffs has so far been the ultimate exercise in frustration. And, after watching them drop two in Cleveland, I've sworn off watching the rest of this series. I loved watching Kevin Garnett this season. But, for all his pre-game hollering and chest-thumping passion, he has no fire when it gets to crunch time. In fact, it seems nobody does. This season has gone from "what a great collection of unselfish players" to "where is a leader on this team? Would somebody please step up!" Great teams almost always have a leader who steps up, demands the ball, and looks to shoot, challenging the opposition to stop him. Bird, Magic, Jordan, Olajawon, Duncan, all could take over a game when it got to crunch time. Instead of that, we get stuck with Garnett who gets the ball in the paint, and instead of looking to shoot, kicks it out to the likes of James Posey. Against the Hawks, and now the Cavs, Garnett has disappeared in close games down the stretch. Of course, no one else has stepped up either - Pierce? Allen? When games get close now, the Celtics look timid and full of doubt. And, if they were going to step it up, they would have by now. This team is done.