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You know what the legacy of the Tigers' magical run to the World Series will be? Gil Meche's $55 million contract. That's right, Gilly my boy, send Detroit GM Dave Dombrowski something from Edible Arrangements. Your riches are due in part to the fruits of his labor.
The Royals, a team so far removed from any realistic shot at the playoffs in 2007, said to hell with fiscal responsibility by rewarding a pitcher boasting a 4.65 career ERA with the franchise's most lucrative contract ever (it's tied with Mike Sweeney's). Why? Because if a magical run can happen in Detroit, there's no reason one couldn't happen in Kansas City. Gil, that's care of D squared, Comerica Park, 2100 Woodward Ave, Detroit ...
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| Hey Kenji, you hear the one about me getting $55 million from the Royals? (Getty Images) |
That's because the Tigers seemed to have come from nowhere. Scratch that, they seem to have come from a back alley in a town off an exit from the highway that runs through nowhere-ville. Their season was so off the radar that every team, even the feeble, AAA-quality Royals can't control their tail from wagging at the thought of making the postseason. This offseason's motto (with the help of the fine folks at ExxonMobil): Put a Tiger in your tank.
With the Tigers fresh on the minds of baseball fans, owners and hence general managers, it's a, uh, nice offseason to be a professional baseball player. There's so much money being tossed around, Bank of America's out of those giant checks teams use at news conferences. You spell your first name with two G's, right, Mr. Zaun?
Even backup catchers like Zaun in Toronto and Henry Blanco are cashing in. Teams used to give these guys Bed Bath & Beyond coupons (the "20 percent off a single item" ones) or Jelly of the Month Club memberships as bonuses. Now it's S500s and platinum knee pads.
All thanks to the Tigers. If there's one team that exemplifies parity, that oh-so-loaded word that baseball's strived so hard to achieve, it's Jimmy Leyland's club.
And look at the beautiful fallout of what the Tigers did. Meche's a millionaire. Gary Matthews the third, fourth, and fifth will never have to work a day in their lives and J.D. Drew was rewarded for being a clubhouse role model and baseball ironman all because of six letters, three syllables, one word.
But the beauty of the p-word is that it doesn't really exist. Not in the football way we've come to know it. Parity is an NFL reality. The sport has a hard salary cap teams can't exceed (signing bonuses aside), a relatively short season that makes avoiding injuries, scheduling and a few lucky breaks all of the utmost importance in setting the difference between 5-11 and 11-5.
No, baseball doesn't have that sort of parity. Yes, it has championship parity in the form of six different title teams in six seasons since the dawn of the new millennium. But that's not really what parity is. Parity is the idea that at the start of the season, each team has a legit shot at making the playoffs. Baseball did not have that.
Until the Tigers came along.
At the start of the football season, with the right set of talking points, you could have convinced me that the Houston Texans were a playoff team. But going into '07, there's no way in Peter Angelos' reserved bungalow in Hades you're getting me to believe the Orioles are playing in October. Even with the team's $40 million investment in middle relief.
But I'm stubborn. Because of what the Tigers did last season, there are people who legitimately think the O's could put it all together and make a wild-card push.
Their talking point No. 1: Year 2 of Mazzone-Cabrera. There are probably more talking points. Stuff like; it's Cal Ripken's Hall induction year, or Nick Markakis '07 will be greater than or equal to Brady Anderson '96 and Chris Hoiles, 'nuff said.
And that idea of parity is why the Red Sox invested so heavily in Drew. And why the Phillies paid dearly for fragile Adam Eaton. If the Tigers can put it together, every team should be able to make the playoffs.
But the reality is, over the course of a 162-game season there are two (oh, go make me a spreadsheet, you sabermetricians) main defining stats to fielding a playoff-caliber team. A low number in the batting average against (BAA) stat line and a high number in the on-base + slugging percentage (OPS) stat line. You dominate in one of those? You're likely playoff-bound. You rule in both? Keep the Krug on ice.
Sure, there's more to the pie. Things like momentum, not overworking pitchers, midseason acquisitions, injuries, rally monkeys and the occasional viewing of Tom Emanski's Defensive Drills videos. But the big thing is making those two stats paramount to the foundation of your franchise. You make a conscious effort to excel in those two categories and you're likely fielding a competitive ballclub year in and out.
The Tigers did that. But they didn't just adopt that concept the offseason before their run. Since the day Dombrowski stepped into the general manager position, he had his sights set on '06. Or, maybe '07. Point is, he was building up to a date down the road from his 2002 hiring. He was stockpiling arms, adding clutch bats and searching for an empowering manager. It all came together this season, much to the surprise of Detroit's few remaining citizens and the entire sleeping baseball community.
And because Detroit's jump to nightly showcasing on the opening credit sequence of Baseball Tonight was so out of the blue for most non-devout baseball observers, it got fans wanting that from their teams.
And so the Royals and Orioles get that sudden urge to impulse shop for ho-hum pitchers instead of devoting resources to their neglected farm systems with an eye for 2009.
Teams like the Cubs, Dodgers, Red Sox, Giants and Phillies grossly overpay for falling short on magic the season before.
And like Food Network personalities, players meddling in mediocrity are being rewarded with riches beyond comprehension faster than you can say "30-minute meals."
But who am I to complain? I just observe. Because after all, it's the dishing out of dough, regardless of the quality of talent, that makes the hot-stove season so delightfully delicious.
