Gio Gonzalez is on the trade block and, as if Billy Beane was divinely inspired by Brad Pitt’s performance in Moneyball, he’s trying to trade like it’s 1999 (or whenever that book came out, cue “Lazy Song” music).
And while anyone with eyes and a high school level grasp of statistics can tell you that Gonzalez’s career 4.4 BB/9 is an enormous red flag, teams are still begging Beane to take their top prospects in exchange for the 26-year old left-hander.
In true bizzaro-world fashion, the Washington National have stepped up as a possible suitor for Gio’s services. Here’s why trading Gonzalez to the NL East power(less)house would be a MLB fan’s dream.
It’s easy to start predicting great things for teams who have added big-name players and have a recent history of success. Even then, a team could disappoint you due to injuries or a simple failure to live up to the hype. This season the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox are the teams for which you could make such rosy predictions.
Money has a funny way of inspiring people to perform even better than expected. This is true in several career paths and certainly doesn’t exclude baseball. In baseball, the money up for grabs is anywhere from the league minimum of $400,000 to the $27.5 million Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees makes annually. Salaries are based on a combination of what a player has done and what is reasonable to expect he can do. Top performers in their mid- to late twenties and early thirties are those who can expect the big bucks. Players can either sign a contract extension with their current team or they can wait until their contract expires and they become a free agent. Both scenarios have pros and cons.
The Rookie of the Year award is as important to the player as well as the franchise for which he works. Having a different player from the same team challenge for the award year in and year out is a great sign for your organizational depth. In 2010, both leagues had great races for the award. The Detroit Tigers had two players—Austin Jackson and Brennan Boesch—seemingly poised to take the trophy at the start of the year, winning top rookie honours in April, May, and June. They eventually lost to Neftali Feliz of the Texas Rangers. In the National League, there was a two man race between Jason Heyward of the Atlanta Braves and Buster Posey of the San Francisco Giants, with Posey eventually winning out.
Last season’s Wild Card winning franchises are no strangers to success. The New York Yankees have failed to make the playoffs just once—in 2008—in the last 16 seasons. The Atlanta Braves returned to the playoffs, after missing five seasons in a row, but before that they had made the playoffs in 14 straight seasons. They differ in the amount of money they spend on their teams, with the Braves at a modest $86 million while the Yankees are paying their players a whopping $196 million. 
For reasons that haven’t made themselves clear yet I am unofficially marking today as the opening of Fantasy Season. Recently, last year’s booms and busts(yeah yeah, you got Cargo in the 14th. I’ll put it on your epitaph) have been discussed over cold beers and crisp, clean fantasy magazines with only the faintest beginnings of chicken-scratched notes. And because I spent more of Superbowl Sunday preparing for drafts that are still over a month away than I did watching football, I feel obligated to share findings, musings and other points of interest with the readers of this post. Both of you.
In 2010, the best teams in all of Major League Baseball came from the East Division in each league. Both divisions were home to the wild card winners, the Atlanta Braves and the New York Yankees. They were also home to baseball’s two best records, 97 by the Philadelphia Phillies and 96 by the Tampa Bay Rays. What fate awaits the monsters of last year’s regular season? Will these teams once again be playing in October?