Believe half of what you see in general and a quarter (at most) of what you see in the world of baseball rumors and innuendo.
Days ago, it was said that Brewers hitting coach (and former interim manager who ran the team in the 2008 playoffs) Dale Sveum would not receive a second interview to manage the Chicago Cubs; the natural inference would be that he’s not getting the job.
That’s what I thought.
But as it turns out, the Cubs didn’t give Sveum a second interview because he was their guy and is going to be the new manager.
It’s a good choice. Sveum handled a very difficult situation when he took over for Ned Yost in the last two weeks of the 2008 season as the Brewers were in the midst of a collapse; he cast a stoic and serious face and accepted that he wasn’t getting the full-time job after the season, went back to being the hitting coach under Ken Macha and Ron Roenicke and acted like a true professional.
The Cubs made a good choice.
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The Marlins offer to Albert Pujols is reported to be for 9-years and for fewer dollars than the Cardinals offer.
Ordinarily the obvious response would be, “why would he want to leave the world champion Cardinals to go to the dysfunctional Marlins for less money?”, but if the Marlins are making an offer that’s somewhere close to the Cardinals offer and the state of Florida is offering the benefit of no state income tax, then the deal might end up putting more money in Pujols’s bank account.
It’s not going to work, but it’s not as ridiculous a concept as it seems on the surface. It might be done with a pretense on the part of the Marlins to make it look like they’re doing something when they have no intention of signing Pujols, but there’s a viability to the offer…if it’s close to what the Cardinals offer was.
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PAULLEBOWITZ.COM 