As we mentioned last night, the Giants are in full ass-covering mode after missing out on their third prime free agent. They whiffed on Aaron Judge, couldn’t get over Carlos Correa’s ankle and then Shohei Ohtani figured out life is pretty easy when you don’t have to move and you can still get $700 million. While Giants fans are probably frustrated, deep down they probably get it. The Dodgers are just ahead of them in every way, even with Ohtani they’d still have things to do to make the Giants a consistent contender, etc.
But as a final kick to the yambag, their most beloved player in the past 20 years wants Giants fans to know that it’s kind of their fault they can’t sign big-time free agents.
You know it’s real trouble that if you search for “Buster Posey” on Twitter the first result comes from Outkick. Always a group you want to be your bullhorn.
Apparently, LA is some crime-free paradise. Isn’t that strange for those of us who grew up in the 1990s and heard so frequently referenced as the epicenter of everything that was wrong with American, and also that “Escape From L.A.” was actually a documentary.
It’s hard to know where to start to highlight this as the totalhorses–t that it is. Had Ohtani signed in San Francisco, it’s highly unlikely that in the contract it would be stated that he would have to live downtown, or even in the city at all, and would have to park his sports car in the Tenderloin. What metropolitan area is it that’s totally free of the problems that America has instituted upon itself? Oh, right, the hermetically sealed Truist Park in suburban Atlanta, right?
When the Giants lost out on Judge, was it because New York had suddenly become Eden?
And if Posey is so concerned with what has happened to central San Francisco, and there are many reasons the city has problems now, it would be prudent to point out that Posey made $150 million during his playing career and who knows what else through endorsements and sponsorships. Wanna help out?
In fact, if Posey really were interested in taking a look at the depth of the issue, which he most certainly isn’t, the structure of Ohtani’s deal — and one the Giants have said they were willing to match — is another huge indicator of how we all got here. Because $680 million of Ohtani’s deal will be paid after he’s most likely done playing, and probably buggered off to another locale, California and probably even the US isn’t going to get any of the taxes that would come from that salary. If Posey is so concerned about crime and drugs and the state of San Francisco’s downtown, a good starting point is how millionaires like him and billionaires like Ohtani, one day down the line, don’t have to pay their fair share so that we might actually be able to do something about the root causes of poverty, addiction and crime. But you can bet your ass that if it were even suggested that we get to a proper tax rate for the rich that every other developed nation has found, Posey would probably be one of the first to fill his pants about it.
But no. Posey just wants everyone to know it’s not the Giants’ inability to produce a star through the system in 10 years other than Logan Webb, or his own retirement, or years of a lack of clear plan to build a foundation that has kept free agents away from Oracle Park. It’s what Giants fans let San Francisco become, in his eyes. Way to go, jerks.
Speaking of dopes with nothing meaningful to say . . .
Good day for obtuse loudmouths apparently, as Carli Lloyd couldn’t resist the chance to show her ass on the same day it was revealed just how much abuse the USWNT received during the World Cup:
It is apparently Lloyd’s quest to become the leader of the “Back in my day…” gang to glorify her accomplishments, which are many, but which the USWNT has already shown weren’t totally required for them to be great (they won the World Cup in 2019 with her barely contributing, which she’s still indirectly bitching about).
Lloyd hated Megan Rapinoe’s kneeling. She hated the team fighting for equal pay. She’s hated players talking about anything other than how to break down a low block. Apparently, the abuse is OK as long as you use it for fuel on the field, which is all that matters to Lloyd instead of an insidious part of sports that needs to be rooted out. But that’s how it works when you’re such a performative try-hard that Lloyd was, even along with being one of the best players of her generation.
MLB with another cynical, thinly-veiled shell game
Swinging back to baseball, MLB announced a new feature of spring training for next year and beyond, where teams will bottle up their best prospects into a squad to play another’s squad of best products, to be a double-header with a normal spring training game.
It’s almost certainly a sign of my increasing paranoia and cynicism, but I always raise an eyebrow when MLB is doing yet something more to highlight the minor leagues, an organization they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to even pay fairly only within the past year and are still fighting every way they can.
Any excitement that MLB can generate amongst fans about its own teams’ prospects is pressure they can lessen for them to sign free agents or swing big trades for stars. Fanbases can be mollified, to an extent, about the cheap labor that might be coming and turn against paying premium for established pros, with enough hype, which is exactly the way MLB wants it. You don’t have to look too hard to find teams doing that right now, like the Orioles or Reds or Cubs or Red Sox, who hype what might be coming tomorrow to excuse not paying for what’s on offer today. MLB even rigged the system to penalize teams for signing free agents by harming what they can access for the future, i.e. draft position (boy, if only there was a union to fight such things).
Teams’ best prospects already get into spring training A-games and create highlights we see on the socials. Maybe it’s a stretch, but this seems like an indirect way of MLB throwing a smoke bomb to get more fans to look at what’s cheaper for them to pay to distract them from getting upset about teams not paying for what’s more expensive and more exciting.
Follow Sam on Twitter @Felsgate and on Bluesky @Felsgate.bsky.social
Original source here
#open #invitation #Buster #Posey #screw
