Just when you thought teams had smartened up about giving ten year deals to guys on the other side of 30. The M's like the Yankees and Angels will find out why these deals are franchise killers.
This is baseball now. Stars dont hit FA until 30 as teams are buying out arbitration years with contracts that take guys through their 20s. And to get these 30 year old stars you need to pay them into their late 30s. That is why player development is more important than ever. Primes are no longer being extended by PEDs. Free agency cant build you a title now, it can just help you round it out. If you dont have a nucleus of 20somethings, you ARENT winning the WS.
Boston is following the formula that is proven successful of late, develop players and round out a roster with veterans on 2-4 year deals. We are the only team to win a WS lately without a strong young nucleus and that was 1/13 years of throwing hugh money against the wall and when we did win we were still getting production from farmhands from the 90s. All the shit on the back pages gets people talking, but the guys of this organization, the farm system, are rotten, and there is not enough money we can spend to fix the big league club until that starts churning out ML players instead of hype.
I do agree you have to develop players. It's really the only way. As for Cano that's what free agency is all about. If there's a team out there like Seattle willing to hand out an absurd contract you have to deal with it.
