In baseball, if you aren’t moving you are standing still, and when your second-biggest free agency acquisition is a 40-year-old middle reliever, then you’re just not cutting it in a division shared with the Yankees and Red Sox. Not to mention their second-biggest overall move – a trade of 14-game-winner Edwin Jackson to Detroit for a guy with 92 career major league games under his belt – just might not pay off.

1. What else did we need to sign after adding a DH?
2. Ugh. People really need to stop valuing pitcher wins.

He picked the Red Sox to win because of some mystical evidence he has that shows it will take the Yankees ‘time to gel’. Because the Jays didn’t replace AJ Burnett, they suddenly went from one of the premier pitching staffs to hopelessly weak. The Orioles finish last, and his reason why is roughly equivelent to ‘because I said so.’ His article is a waste of time.

as much as a general baseball blogger. The comment about McPhail led me to believe he is a Cubs fan.

If you don’t spend spend spend, then you’re not going to win?

The Rays have the best young talent in baseball. With young talent comes constant improvement. I wouldn’t doubt if half of the team has a better year than last year, and there is also now Price and Burrell.

Meanwhile, teams like the Yankees and Red Sox have aging injury-riddled bodies like Ortiz and Jeter, who while great names on paper are going to be getting worse. Just because they spent a lot of money, doesn’t mean they’re going to improve.

Also, what bugs me about his point is that you can’t make the argument that Matt Joyce is replacing Jackson. Instead, it has to be the pitcher that is replacing Jackson, and chances are, that pitcher will be just as good if not better than Jackson. This way, even if Joyce is a but, it’s not a huge loss. And it doesn’t look like Joyce will be a complete bust, either.