The other day, I mentioned that the Tampa Bay Rays have decided to join their local baseball brothers in suckage, but they’ve notched it up. Now they’ve traded Steven Souza, Jr. to the Gritty Snakes. What they got in return is irrelevant. In the course of a few months, they’ve gotten rid of the Actual Face of the Franchise, their number two pitcher, and three of their most successful offensive players. The only people left are Kevin Keirmeier (the owner of the prettiest eyes in the American League) and Chris Archer. And how long will these fellows be ballin’ in Florida?
As far as the Feesh go, they too have garnered some attention as well when Nationals star Bryce Harper (or Royce Harpler, your choice) rightly had an opinion (one that many of us – myself included – agree with) and then Don Mattingly – skipper of the Feesh – went HAM.
For the record, here’s what Bryce said:
And then Mattingly went off the rails, basically telling Bryce to keep his team’s name outcha filthy mouf.
I don’t know, you guys. This is pretty messed up. The entire state of Florida is on notice, I guess. Baseball is being stripped away, piece by piece, until all you’ll have left are some under-15 kids’ teams.
Fan Interference 
I’m just embarrassed. Leave me out of this.
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OG, none of y’all deserve this. It’s sad.
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I am not sure that the Rays are actually doing anything that breaks from the norm of how the franchise has always been run, prof. Sure, the optics aren’t so hot, but they have always been about competition on a minimum budget. They probably just aren’t as good at it as they were when Andrew Friedman was there. I started out pretty much going with the HBT “disgrace” line, but I’m not sure that is deserved. I don’t know if their budget constraints are truly as limited as they make them out to be (I do agree that actual stadium attendance is a smaller piece of the pie than it used to be), but this is pretty much in line with how i have seen them operating for years. We will see if they are still any good at it.
The Marlins? That’s different. Just a typical leveraged buyout situation. New owner short on cash from borrowing all that money. So gut the operation. Pretty disgusting in that case. But modern American capitalism in action.
I just wonder if the Astros will swoop in and pick up Realmuto, as the rumors were suggesting last week. I imagine they are trying to lowball the Marlins right now with some AAA depth. Best guess – McCann sits pretty with the Astros for one more year.
Sorry for changing the subject to my own rooting interest.
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It’s frankly gross to expect taxpayers to build a brand new stadium and whatnot when you are trading every single reason to come to the park. It might be the norm, but the norm is effed up, and some of these moves save so little money that it makes them look incompetent and miserly.
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No feces, Inspector Imanishi. Let the Tampa area residents take a good look at the flimflam that got Macondo Banana Massacre Field sprouted like a neurofibroma on the Macondo body politic.
A little bit of good news: turns out that under Macondo’s contract with Red Grooms, the artist who blessed us with Tommy, the home run feature cannot be moved from Macondo banana Massacre Field without his permission.
And he just said no.
I suspect to get Beep Beep to change Grooms’ mind would take the equivalent of eight years’ worth of salary for a star outfield.
Nyuknyuknyuknyuk…..
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I concur with you, Prof, on the whole idea of taxpayer-funded stadiums. The owner is making plenty of money. No way.
But Yay Tommy! I love the perversity of the thing. Glad it is staying.
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Now if they could only program it to play the Looney Tunes theme, complete with a Roadrunner-esque “Beep! Beep!”, every time a home run is hit, it would warm the cockles of my Jeter-hatin’ heart.
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Fortunately for Red, Jeter now has that money to blow on something frivolous like this. But I say “Save the…er…art piece!”
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Just had an epiphany. Maybe South Florida is planning on joining up with Puerto Rico and applying to be the next “administrative territory of the US?” Marco Rubio could be the Emperor. That would explain the malaise creeping south from Orlando…..and I don’t mean Burmese Pythons.
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